l33t haxx0ring sk1llz (10% l33t, 90% imitation l33t made from reformed turkey)
A few years back when I lived in student digs, we occasionally got letters from our ISP saying our connection had been throttled because someone had gotten a virus on their PC and was connecting to half the email servers in West Africa. Each time this happened everyone ran their antivirus etc., we filled out a form and sent it back to the ISP saying it had been sorted out. After the 3rd letter it became clear someone was either guilty of serial nuggetry or just too incompetent to use an antivirus. Wireshark and a couple of other network snooping tools were downloaded and I set about identifying the infected PC flooding our connection so Mr Geoffrey Kwaze-MacBongdalds and co. could keep sending out their cheap cialis offers and emails from Nigerian bank officials.

It didn't take long to find whose computer was responsible, and the owner was appropriately chastened. Explanations were given as to how to use antivirus software and common sense tips on how to avoid her PC getting shafted like this again.

I found giving advice on avoiding ropey, insecure websites a little bit hard to do with a straight face. As having been snooping on the houses network traffic I'd seen bits and pieces of everyones internet usage and didn't really want to say outright that she ought to stop looking at dodgy websites involving black men putting their willies inside each other as these probably weren't just full of the gay, but also plenty of viruses.

Although I did rip hell out of the "indie music is my life" guy living with us as soon as I found out he was reading websites along the lines of how-to-have-controversial-opinions.com.
(danishbacon is haram yes?, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 0:16, 27 replies)

!!!
Black gay men are full of viruses?
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 9:04, closed)

Maybe. But the websites my housemate was visiting certainly had the virtual AIDs.
(danishbacon is haram yes?, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 10:39, closed)

Having had this problem with friends teenagers...
[I'm one of those guys who can fix stuff and has time on his hands, so I get a lot of similar calls]

I dont bother with the pep talk about internet safety as it doesnt generally work on anyone who knows what they want and how to find it. I just tell them I'll give them a new special version of Windows called Ubuntu, that might not work quite as well with normal applications but is very good at internet safety. I fit an XFCE based desktop customised to have a 'Start' menu with a windows icon on it and the most microsoft-ish window manager tweaks I can find and leave them to it
(Carpe Cyprinidae, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 11:19, closed)

So, basically you're a massive fanboy
who offers to fix peoples machines, but borks them instead with some bollocks linux distro that doesn't run any of the shit they want?

You sir are a helpdesk hero.
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 12:19, closed)

thats one way of looking at it
Another way of looking at it is that the computers I upgrade/downgrade/repair this way (delete as appropriate) are owned by the parents of said teens, who know exactly what I am doing and approve it

I report to the systems owner not the user ;-) - for a person who was the owner of their machine I would take a different approach.
(Carpe Cyprinidae, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 12:41, closed)

But muuuuum why can't I open my Word homework on this PC now?

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 19:35, closed)

Yes, because LibreOffice Writer really struggles with .docx files.
*I may be a massive fanboy*
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 19:58, closed)

^ what he said
Most people don't even notice the difference between LibreOffice and MS Office - once you've set it to default to microsoft file formats anyway

A surprising number of teenagers use Google Drive to do wordprocessing anyway because they tend to bounce between home and school/college PCs
(Carpe Cyprinidae, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 21:05, closed)

You'd have to be pretty unfamiliar with MSOffice to mistake LibreOffice for it.
That said, this would be irrelevant to most 13 year olds, and they'd be able to get done what they wanted without being bothered about which software suite they were using (and Google Drive is likely to be a popular option, for the reasons you've described).
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 23:52, closed)

also
Some of said teenagers have asked me to do the same work on their friends' PCs as they like it. Just adding that for the record.
(Carpe Cyprinidae, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 12:42, closed)

They probably know what you use for a root password. ;)
I've always assumed that kids would know more about computers that their parents, but am starting to suspect that this might not actually be the case for kids who have grown up with Facebook and all that.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 13:04, closed)

Fucking hell, you really are a shit neckbeardy tosser.

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 12:29, closed)

The internet died the day they allotted shit neckbeardy tossers to talk to real people.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 19:21, closed)

Yay!

( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 19:24, closed)

For the record, gay porn isn't any more likely to cause problems than many topics.
There have been many "legitimate" (I'm not sure why pornography wouldn't count but will pretend it doesn't) sites serving malware including those used by most of the UK's legal profession [I know, I turned NoScript off to catch it].
As to suggestions of *buntu -- all well and good as long as you tell me how to play The latest Call Of Duty and play these Silverlight videos whilst my Exel-formatted spreadsheets continue to collect their data via SharePoint.
Really, just don't! You're like a kid who bigs-up his (decent bloke) father so that he will always be humiliated.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 18:47, closed)

Pick the crumbs out yer neckbeard, Thorin.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 19:07, closed)

Oh no, this proprietary Microsoft software doesn't run on my non-Microsoft OS!
That's a pretty weak argument against using Linux. How many home users are on SharePoint, anyway?
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 7 Jan 2014, 23:57, closed)

What kind of witless Luddite runs anything important direct on the metal?
Get some VMs and join the 21st century.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Wed 8 Jan 2014, 9:19, closed)

It's not a weak argument it's real life.
It matters not whether the software is proprietary or not -- if you have to use it and you can't do on Linux then Linux is not an option.
Granted Sharepoint is stretching it a little for the home user but that doesn't stop it being unavailable on another OS.
I've been using Linux almost exclusively at home for at least 5 years now and there is no way I would recommend it to anyone without telling them about the huge possible downsides.
Anypne saying "just switch to Linux" as an answer is talking shit and disregards thar switching to Linux may cause as many issues as the malware and such they're trying to avoid.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 8 Jan 2014, 9:40, closed)

I don't disagree with any of this.
I'd love for switching to Linux to be a painless process, but until it gets the support of more software/hardware manufacturers, it's going to remain a geek toy. Not having MSOffice shouldn't be an issue for home use, though, and Valve's interest in the platform should sort out the "it doesn't have any games!" crowd.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 8 Jan 2014, 10:16, closed)

Valves entire business strategy requires that developers actually bother to support it.
Virtually all of the games currently on steam use DirectX, and only very few use Open GL. Also, the non standardization of the hardware somewhat obviates one of the main points of a console (easy to develop a game KNOWING that it will work on all target machines).

So one of the following must be the case:

1) they have to reach some kind of agreement with MS to licence DirectX technology for use with a competing operating system AND a competing hardware device (never gonna happen)

2) they have to convince a significant number of developers to target yet another non-standardized PC-like platform, for even less revenue than they would have got before (a difficult sell)

3) the steambox will be an expensive PC that does less than the PCs people already have, and doesn't play a number of the games that people already own, on an OS that most gamers are not familiar with, and which only has one selling point - it can fit under your TV - which most PCs can already do anyway.
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Wed 8 Jan 2014, 13:53, closed)

you bunch of nerds

( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Wed 8 Jan 2014, 14:12, closed)

1. Is OpenGL really so poorly supported? I thought it was quite well accepted (nothing to back this up, so won't argue the point).
2. I thought that the point of the SteamBox was that it would adhere to a set of standards, to ensure a minimum level of compatibility?
3. I expect it to be cheaper than competing consoles, with the bonus of having full PC functionality, if the user wants.

I'm not really in the market for a console, but I'd like to see Valve's project succeed.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 8 Jan 2014, 15:43, closed)

I do hope Steam takes off.
I've tried the application on Debian and it's not without problems but what works works well. I forgot to download the OS though so thanks for the reminder.
I was a little blunt in my post but I do hate the "just switch to Linux" brigade as it really is not that simple.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 8 Jan 2014, 18:40, closed)

This is no good!
We were having an argument, just then, and now we're agreeing with each other.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 8 Jan 2014, 20:41, closed)

No we're not

(Carpe Cyprinidae, Wed 8 Jan 2014, 21:35, closed)

Worse than Hitler, you are.

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 8 Jan 2014, 23:56, closed)