Don't click that!

[DLP]

Most of the time I spend my 4th of July weekends shooting fireworks with my Dad (he's a pyrotechnician). So when I say shooting fireworks with my dad, I'm not talking about the small stuff, I'm talking about the big stuff :)

It's been a great few years but he's had to step down from doing it because of his health. So I'm at his house this year for the first time in about 6 years.

So I got to play with OTHER "fireworks".... his PC is infected, I believe with every virus, malware, ransomware, trojan, etc EVER.


I did manage to spend 2 hrs at the alley yesterday. At a small 16 lane place in a neighboring town. This place has been around since the mid-60s and is an absolutely pleasant little hole in the wall. It was great since there aren't many alleys left in central PA.

Cool thing is, found out my dad used to bowl leagues, so we ended up talking about that for awhile. It's interesting to understand how much the history of bowling has changed in the area, when there used to be several alleys in each town now there are a grand total of two in the central tri-county area .

Hope you all had a great July 4th!!!

[e-tank]

Sounds you you had some pretty epic 4th's in the past! My parents are the same way with theyre computers. They have all the pc protection that i do, and i even basically child lock their internet, but they never install updates and click on everything. My dad also used to bowl in leagues as well as tournaments. From the amount of trophies that he has, id say he was pretty good. In my community theyre building a condo complex that is going to have a new alley among other things so im pretty excited for that. In my entire city i believe there's around 10 alleys maybe more and as far as i know, only a few have closed down

[Tampabaybob]

Donna, sounds like an interesting conversation with your Dad. It's amazing how much you find out about your parents, what they did, etc, when they were younger. As far as the PC goes, I had a laptop, a hand-me-down from my daughter, because I bought her a new one when she went to college. Long story short, didn't take long before I ended up with a virus and it made it unusable. I'm not on an Apple laptop and with just the standard software it comes loaded with, in two + years, absolutely no problems. Next time you're trying to figure out what to get "Dear 'Ol Dad", think Apple !! The laptops are expensive but you can go to an IPad and it's reasonable and he'll have everything he needs with NO worries.

[DLP]

I'm a diehard Apple nut and have been since walking away from building and maintaining my own PCs in 2007. I use it as an excuse "Sorry, don't do Windows" for everyone BUT my dad and my step-mom. I did it originally because all I wanted was a system that turned on and worked. I got what I wanted :) ...what I didn't bargain for is how much of a fixture the Apple ecosystem would become in my life. iPod, iPhone, iPad, iThis, iThat.. I'm still holding out for the iBowlingBall. I do believe it is an excellent suggestion to move him to Apple. The biggest challenge I will have is both he and my step-mom are very big into all these little games (like Bejeweled, and seek and finds, etc) that up until only a few short years ago only RAN on Windows. Now that the popularity of the Apple OS has grown enough to support game developers creating for both sides of the fence, that limitation is quickly fading into non-existance.

As long as dad can check his internets and e-mails and mom can get on Facebook... I should be golden!

For not having to be a "Windows Cleaner" for quite a while - I was impressed it only took me two days considering how much I DIDNT know about what has changed. Regedit to the rescue :D

[J Anderson]

Donna, sounds like an interesting conversation with your Dad. It's amazing how much you find out about your parents, what they did, etc, when they were younger.


The biggest surprise for me was finding out the my mom, who spent much of my childhood encouraging me to eat all of my vegetables, would not eat carrots until she was an adult and paying for her own meals.

[Tampabaybob]

I'm a diehard Apple nut and have been since walking away from building and maintaining my own PCs in 2007. I use it as an excuse "Sorry, don't do Windows" for everyone BUT my dad and my step-mom. I did it originally because all I wanted was a system that turned on and worked. I got what I wanted :) ...what I didn't bargain for is how much of a fixture the Apple ecosystem would become in my life. iPod, iPhone, iPad, iThis, iThat.. I'm still holding out for the iBowlingBall. I do believe it is an excellent suggestion to move him to Apple. The biggest challenge I will have is both he and my step-mom are very big into all these little games (like Bejeweled, and seek and finds, etc) that up until only a few short years ago only RAN on Windows. Now that the popularity of the Apple OS has grown enough to support game developers creating for both sides of the fence, that limitation is quickly fading into non-existance.

As long as dad can check his internets and e-mails and mom can get on Facebook... I should be golden!

For not having to be a "Windows Cleaner" for quite a while - I was impressed it only took me two days considering how much I DIDNT know about what has changed. Regedit to the rescue :D

I'll never go back to a PC. Too much trouble. Anyone who has or has had a PC will always encounter those problems.

[e-tank]

I'll never go back to a PC. Too much trouble. Anyone who has or has had a PC will always encounter those problems.

I disagree. The only pc i had problems with was my first pc when i was 11 that i basically melted with viruses because i clicked and downloaded everything. Had 4-5 computers since then and not a single problem. All i use is free anti virus, firewall, and anti spyware/malware + smart interneting and im golden

[DLP]

I disagree. The only pc i had problems with was my first pc when i was 11 that i basically melted with viruses because i clicked and downloaded everything. Had 4-5 computers since then and not a single problem. All i use is free anti virus, firewall, and anti spyware/malware + smart interneting and im golden

The kids (I mean parents) are set up with a grand poobah collection of anti-virus, firewall, anti- spyware/malware/trojan/adware software. Somehow, they still manage to get infected. I believe it has to do with the "Dad, if something pops up from "this, this, or this" saying it wants to update, click OK. If it's anything else, DONT CLICK IT!" Even the best of the best of the best still needs human intervention.

[e-tank]

The kids (I mean parents) are set up with a grand poobah collection of anti-virus, firewall, anti- spyware/malware/trojan/adware software. Somehow, they still manage to get infected. I believe it has to do with the "Dad, if something pops up from "this, this, or this" saying it wants to update, click OK. If it's anything else, DONT CLICK IT!" Even the best of the best of the best still needs human intervention.

Haha agreed. As i posted earlier in the thread i seriously put child proofing on my parents computer and they still manage to get stuff and they dont update anything either. Although much harder, apple os can still get infected too

[JPbowl]

I'm in the ' IT ' field and i prefer pc's for their unmatched price to performance ratio and they are always at the top of the game in terms of new technology.
Apple's over priced hardware / proprietary software software is a combo id rather live without.

Yes you do have to be aware of people trying to viri you with 'click here' 'dl this' but its been 6 years since i ever had a issue.
Fixing peoples pc's is definitely my least favorite thing to do, no one wants to pay so that leaves the do it free for family business. ha
I'll give it 15 minutes and then i just back up files, wipe and re install.

Had a family friend call ' i can't get my internet explorer to print, and xxx wants 60/hr for phone support'.
So for a solution to her problem i just tell her to d/l chrome or firefox and print like that. of course that's not good enough.
There is a reason it costs so much for phone support, it is torture.

[DLP]

I'm in the IT field as well JP :) ... my work system used to be NT/FreeBSD/Solaris x86 box that I used for all my admin tasks. Hands down still one of my favorite challenges in my career to set up, get it work, etc. I used to dual boot linux and Windows at home. The progression to OS X for me was because I'm more of a command line monkey than anything. I used to script heavily in several languages for work and for pleasure. "I don't do windows" is the greatest excuse in the world because I always get the calls from friends (still) asking how to fix stuff.

You know, I've hidden the IE shortcut on their computer and given them a choice to go Chrome of Firefox. Somehow it always manages back up on their desktop.

And you are SO right, phone support IS torture. It is actually where I started my geeky gig... working as phone support at a local ISP in the mid-90s.

Hmm, maybe I should build a PC again just to see what I'm missing...

Naaaaaah....

[Hampe]

I'm in the ' IT ' field and i prefer pc's for their unmatched price to performance ratio and they are always at the top of the game in terms of new technology.
Apple's over priced hardware / proprietary software software is a combo id rather live without.Same here. And I also haven't had an issue with malware/viruses for about 5-6 years. Seriously....it's not that hard to not open obvious spam/phishing mails, and not just click "ok" when a popup shows up without reading what it says first. And if you can't control yourself, just invest 70$ in a good anti-virus program like Kaspersky Pure or something like that.

As for Mac vs. PC, I usually compare it to driving. If you love cars and you love to drive, you probably prefer to drive a stick-shift and have more control over the car. But if you just want to get from point A to point B without any hassle, you'll probably opt for an automatic. Although nowadays with windows 7 the analogy doesn't fit quite as well as it used to :).