171–180 of 221 posts
So I started a free service http://www.littlecaution.org/ where I do talks and seminars about remaining safe online. Since it's just me on my personal time for now doing the workshops, growth and reach is slow. But I continue to work on it.
My belief is that using the right tools is of great importance but raising awareness is a bigger need. All the best tools are no match against human fallibility. So in these talks, the direction I take is about knowing the issues, being aware, and then followed by using the right tools.
Chromebooks cannot print. Everyone loves to recommend Chromebooks to older/less digitally literate people, and they're right to do so in most situations. However Chromebooks have one huge downside that makes them non-starters for some of that demographic: Printing is a no-go. And don't tell me about "Google Cloud Print." Cloud Printing requires a PC or Mac connected to the printer and a copy of the Chrome browser run…
>And don't tell me about "Google Cloud Print." Cloud Printing requires a PC or Mac connected to the printer and a copy of the Chrome browser running. In this scenario we're trying to replace a PC or Mac, not add to them, so Google Cloud Print is a non-starter. There are a huge number of affordable wifi-enabled printers that support Google Cloud Print. Replacing your existing printer isn't ideal, but it's not a total…
(Unfortunately we bought it well before she owned a Chromebook so returning is not an option.)
I second what some others here are saying - get your parents a Chromebook (or Chromebox if they want a desktop). I got a Dell Chromebook for my mother. It's nigh on unbreakable, and is great for non-tech parents. Each tab/app runs in its own sandbox, and it allows them to do the things they want (i.e. browsing). It automatically updates in the background (none of that Windows update rubbish), it has inbuilt malware b…
Those popups that hijack the back button and pop up an alert when you try to close them are enough to get them calling the phone number they see in the window and pulling out their credit card to "have their computer fixed".
> He has even clicked through on a "You have been chosen to win an iPhone 7" link recently - he saw no harm in at least seeing what might happen. Show him one of those videos with deep-sea fish that use a luminescent lure to eat smaller fish. The pop-up is the lure. The small fish is him. The Internet is like the deep sea, and it's full of lures like that. One simple criterion I give non-technical people: if it's uns…
I like that. It's simpler than what I was saying. Should be true vast majority of the time. Only modification I'd make is explaining updates, which ones to trust, and to ignore any of "updates/upgrades" that pop up in the web pages.
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> She asked how she could download wallpapers, we introduced her to torrents and file sharing But... why?
Ever been to those "super-awesome-hd-wallaper.com" websites? They are FILLED with ads, popups, etc. Instead, you can safely download one of the top wallpaper torrent package on Pirate Bay and get thousands of good quality wallpapers.
I made a really simple UI for youtube-dl in WPF a few weeks ago. It just has a text field for the youtube link, a "download" button and a checkbox for downloading audio only. If you like I can chuck the source and binaries on github.
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Or ya know... Google Images...
Is it that hard for you to accept that people use different tools to accomplish the same task?