Microsoft fix? You can't fix it if it isn't broke :) It's a feature. (kidding)
On to what you said. Obviously your friend is savvy enough and intelligent enough to know that he doesn't know enough. So he brings it to you. Sorta my point. When I say have more educated users, this is what I'm really talking about. I'm no expecting everyone to be an expert. There ARE, however certain things they can do on their own (windowsupdate, norton live update, those sort of things), that doesn't require much though process, or learning to be able to do. They also should know when they are getting in too deep. Or , as in your friends case, when their computer is obviously not acting like it used to and that's all they know , and they have neither time nor desire to go take a class - they should call or take it to someone that does. This goes back to the car analogy. My car starts making a noise that it didn't make before... I don't pop the dang hood and start yanking on cables and wires. I know at this point I'm in too deep. I read the manual and did the appropriate things (tune up, oil/tire change, checkup every few thousand) - but now it's making this noise. I take it to the nearest mechanic. I don't just say "oh well - don't have time to learn about that" and keep driving it. If I can't afford a mechanic, I'll call and ask friends if they know anyone. If they don't I'll ask people at work. That's the education I'm talking about. Know when to change the oil and tires (and how). And know that when it's making a funny noise it's time to visit the mechanic. Both go back to - user responsibility. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew Hunter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 11:38 AM Subject: Re: [SAtalk] [OT] - The current state spam. > On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 12:13:26PM -0500, Chris Santerre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I know tons of people with broadband connections that might be on only a few > > times a week. Some don't even notice their cpu is slower. I also know some > > pretty intelligent people that despite what they try, still end up with > > trojans and viruses from their kid's downloads. I say that your average > > middle class family will just never fully understand how to handle a > > computer on the net. They are busy scratching out a living. > > I've had to deal with this myself. Specifically, a friend of > mine has kids. This friend knows little about computers; his > kids know less (and think they know more). Despite being quite > handy with tools and similar, mechanical technology, my friend is > completely at the mercy of his kids with respect to his > computer. They do all kinds of things with/to it, and eventually > the accumulated porn/virus/spyware starts to make the whole thing > break. > > That's when he brings it to me and asks for help, and each time I > absolutely boggle at the amount of damage his kids manage to do. > > The fact is, educating him won't work; he doesn't have the basic > knowledge he needs to keep up with his kids (who obviously don't > have jobs -- and thus a lot more spare time), and he doesn't have > time to learn. Nor is he inclined to spend all his time chasing > after problems with his computer. He just wants the thing to > work. > > Certain operating systems make it very hard to lock down a > system. Others make it a bit easier. Blaming Average Joe > because he bought a computer using the dominant operating system > at the time won't do any good, and he doesn't even deserve the > blame because he's not making any claim to expertise in > computing; he just got what the salesman sold him, and (most > likely) wasn't offered a lot of choices. > > We can't expect everyone to be a computer expert. > > And if we want to convince people to bring their computer in for > "maintenance" occasionally we need to fight the Redmond marketing > engine that says they don't need to know anything about anything. > > The solution? I don't know. I don't like the idea of imposing > broad restrictions on consumer internet access, because I like > the idea of buying an "open pipe", and I don't want to see a > power shift from "peer-to-peer" internet towards "client-server" > internet, even if most consumers are already in the client-server > model. > > But nothing will be accomplished by berating the average > end-users for not knowing about computers. > > The most appropriate response would be to demand Microsoft fix > their software. > > -- > Matthew Hunter ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt > Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp > Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > The SF.Net email is sponsored by EclipseCon 2004 > Premiere Conference on Open Tools Development and Integration > See the breadth of Eclipse activity. February 3-5 in Anaheim, CA. > http://www.eclipsecon.org/osdn > _______________________________________________ > Spamassassin-talk mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by EclipseCon 2004 Premiere Conference on Open Tools Development and Integration See the breadth of Eclipse activity. February 3-5 in Anaheim, CA. http://www.eclipsecon.org/osdn _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
