Who To Trust?

[mikex]

Link

Can we say prey on the meek?

M

[marko_tomas13]

Link

Can we say prey on the meek?

M

Ya and thats not the only one out there....

Its bad really that people are so missinformed that they would buy a program that messes them up further instead of helping which an open source program is able to do.

All that can be done is spread the word and help people and try to teach them the basics.

[martymas]

yes bizness has become so competitive now these tactics are used all over the world .

look at dot.com- martha stewart -enron.

and it is aimed at us the not so well informed.

tho in my case i woke up many years ago.

not very often i down load any appli unless i know what im doing.

i have a friend who subscribed to a telephone service

from the internet and before he knew it some one had sent him a bill for this service .because he had signed for it.

the goverment of my country has banned this sort of scam since then.

and im on to bet he wasnt the only one.who got caught.

an other example.

a nigerian scam wanted people to sign up.

on how to double your money .

i was surprised at the amount of greedy people who fell for the scam.

366 alto gether .one person lost 8.000

not much is it but multiply that 366 tims it is a tidy nest egg.

for the reciever .

what can we do about it

. street wise im afraid .and beware. and get advice.these board are agood place to come to and get advice.

cut a part off their breeding apparatus

marty

[Matt]

yeah, they really suck. I don't understnad why anyone would pay for anti-spyware utilities anyway, with adaware, spybot, and spywareblaster, seems like there's no need to, I guess these people just don't know of the free (and good) options.

Matt

[jennie171]

In the beginning of my quest on why my computer had a mind of its own I found myself staring at a screen that told me I had 3 trojans, 2 worms, and a dialer or two amongst other things . I scanned with a bunch of other scans (it took me forever to but I did ) and I wound up buying NoAware only to find out about its deceptive false positives . After that I picked up my PC Mag and read of Spysweeper and its great write up so I wound up buying that to keep the crap at bay. Since then (and it has been a while) in doing some research and relying on many others smarter than me (like in this forum)I see how vast the world of spam and scum ware really is. I guess in a sense its my way of showing how vulnerable people are and how easy it is to panick wanting to rid yourself of the accumulating garbage that you never knew was there. Now I have so many scans free and bought that I feel at ease and safer surfing.

[martymas]

yes i jennie171 agree with you

when i was a new user. i fell into the same trap.

but if it wasent for the posters at techtv c.f.h

i would have struggled to learn.

so my thanks to chappie pete_c

and beluga who created this board .

there are many others to many to mention.

but your post is a reminder to new users .

to take care.

yes your post is a good one .

marty

[mikex]

Here is something that hit me yesterday.

The E in the Dell logo and the E for Enron???

Look similar. A plot to rule the world, oil and pc's

M

[hitest]

Link

Can we say prey on the meek?

M

Yep, buyer beware!

Just run Linux. Say goodbye to spyware

[tictoc5150]

heh, way to sneak that plug in there.

I think you could've gone with a blank post, your sig says it all

how do windows users find time to be productive between all the scans for spyware & viri + defragging etc. etc. etc.?...lol

[martymas]

or the time it takes to find drivers for linux hardware on dialup

linux is for the rich.

and tech minded.

not ordinary not so techminded people.

i know ive been there

marty

[hitest]

or the time it takes to find drivers for linux hardware on dialup

linux is for the rich.

and tech minded.

not ordinary not so techminded people.

i know ive been there

marty

You're right. Setting up a modem in Linux, sucks.

However, hardware detection in the new Linux distros is just as good as Windows, IMHO.

If you've got high speed internet modern distros will configure everything for you including your DHCP set-up to your router.

The penguin is coming........

[hitest]

heh, way to sneak that plug in there.

I think you could've gone with a blank post, your sig says it all

how do windows users find time to be productive between all the scans for spyware & viri + defragging etc. etc. etc.?...lol

LOL, well said, man!

The penguin rules. I couldn't resist the shameless plug for my OS of choice:-)

I agree keeping windows running properly is way too time consuming. I've been spending a few hours doing a little tune up on a friend's winders unit.

1. Running Ad aware, cleaning a hacked registry and tons of spyware.

2. Running NAV, scanning for viruses.

3. Running Scan Disk, Defrag.

How do Winders users have time to use their computers?

Linux really is the way to go.

[jcl]

However, hardware detection in the new Linux distros is just as good as Windows, IMHO.

Maybe better. I'm very impressed with the combination of hotplug and udev. Strange as it sounds, the problem I'm having now is the hardware detection being too good; hotplug is screaming at me about missing kernel modules that I haven't gotten around to building yet. I can't complain about a system that's better at detecting hardware than I am

[martymas]

yes it is bit harder on dial up.

mandrake couldnt detect my sound card and modem.

but if could go to the konsole and extract them from the cd.

but ididnt know the commands.i knew some of them.but some wasent goodenough .

so here i am with 4 linux operating sys.

mandrake 9.1 mandrake 10.

lycorus. ubuntu.

and i cant use them unless i get dsl or cable fast connect.

so in the long run tho linux is free.

no one is aware of the cost to run them.

i had mandrake on for a year and i liked it..

but only had a 4.58 hdd .

which wasent enough once you installed all the software and updates.

so i bought a 20geg hdd.

and i fell into the trap by not knowing how toget those hardware cards

configured.

some one posted and said no spyware no popups in linux that isant correct once i had mandrake installed i got these dirty emails and popups.

and at the time there wasnt a help board on the internet for linux except tss.

at techtv.

but it was prety basic.

yes i agree it is a good OS but dont get the idea it is free you have to pay to change the hardware.

and your internet connection. if you want fast connect.

that is why in a previous post i said it was for the better off

and tech minded .

not sure if any poster remember rhema at techtv c.f.h

he helped me a lot.

and i see a few posts at g4 from him

i might try and persuade him to come here if he has time.

he is expereinced with linux products.

marty

[hitest]

However, hardware detection in the new Linux distros is just as good as Windows, IMHO.

Maybe better. I'm very impressed with the combination of hotplug and udev. Strange as it sounds, the problem I'm having now is the hardware detection being too good; hotplug is screaming at me about missing kernel modules that I haven't gotten around to building yet. I can't complain about a system that's better at detecting hardware than I am

Well said, man. I've found that Fedora Core 3 with a 2.6 kernel is fantastic at finding hardware, especially on my old Plll 667 MHz IBM 300 PL. I was shocked at how well it found everything. In fact Fedora is even better at finding hardware than Mandrake on this unit.

I'll be running Fedora for a few more days on this unit then I'm going to put Slack or BSD on it.

Good to see you, jcl. I thought you quit the board, haven't seen you for a bit.

later,

hitest

Edited March 18, 2005 by hitest

[Codemuffin]

or the time it takes to find drivers for linux hardware on dialup

linux is for the rich.

and tech minded.

not ordinary not so techminded people.

i know ive been there

marty

I didn't originally wish to chime in on this post, as my biases come out too quickly. But, the more I think about it, a community can't agree all the time, so here I go, making more posts.

"Linux is for the rich"

How is Linux for the rich, when most of the support (in my experience, that is) can be found online for free? The distributions can be downloaded. There are also a lot of Linux User Groups all over the United States at least (I'm American, and I apologize for not recognizing some of LUGs in other countries), where I'm sure someone could easily give you a copy of the distribution (if you had a slow connection or something). I do not mean to make this sound accusatory, I just wish to know the basis of your statement.

"Linux is for the tech minded."

With extremely user-friendly distributions such as Fedora Core, Mandrake, Xandros, Lindows, and the wickedly-popular Ubuntu, I don't think this statement holds up anymore. With any operating system, there will always be 'bugs' , things that don't work quite the way the user expected, which means there will always be a need for support. After all, people tell me Windows is very user-friendly, yet there are support communities out there to fill in the gaps when problems arise, yes?

I suppose it's a difference in perspective. When I first started learning things about computers on my own, I noticed people around me looked at a computer, and expected it to *just work*. They expected nothing to happen to the machine, so they did not bother to check up on it, perform basic maintenance. Yet these same people would not dare do the same thing to a car, or a swimming pool (both above and in-ground types DO take maintenance, yanno), or anything else valuable. Why to a computer?

Flash-forward to 2005, and I still see this ugly pattern. Fortunately, it isn't as prevalent, but there still is this expectation that the tech minded are to take over everything, explain everything, and fix anything that breaks. As a "tech minded person", I have no problem with fixing things -- to an extent, so long as the user also understands they have certain expectations on them as well (scanning, not opening attachments, using a firewall, etc.)

Just my two cents, convert to the currency of your choice.

Codemuffin

[tictoc5150]

Well put, KJ

I realize not everyone has unlimited resources when it comes to the hardware they run. So, it can be somewhat of an obstacle to overcome when you have something that just won't work, or you don't feel like learning what it takes to make it work.

I'll admit that my first linux experiences were riddled with hardware issues that turned me off to it a bit and had me running back to windows but as it's been stated already, hardware issues are becoming less prevalent.

I decided to take another whack at it and while I've had a bug here or there Id easily trade MS cds for linux....(no, I haven't "rm -rf /windows" yet...maybe soon ...lol)

I think it's about perseverance .....If you wanna learn linux, learn linux....if you don't, then use windows but making comments about linux being for the rich and tech-minded, only indicates frustration and an unwillingness to learn and could influence others in thinking the same.

[jcl]

They expected nothing to happen to the machine, so they did not bother to check up on it, perform basic maintenance. Yet these same people would not dare do the same thing to a car, or a swimming pool (both above and in-ground types DO take maintenance, yanno), or anything else valuable. Why to a computer?

Most people don't know how to maintain a car. They have a (very) small library of scripted responses to certain events; when those scripts fail they turn immediately to experts. The same is probably true of pools.

Flash-forward to 2005, and I still see this ugly pattern.  Fortunately, it isn't as prevalent, but there still is this expectation that the tech minded are to take over everything, explain everything, and fix anything that breaks.

That's an entirely reasonable expectation. We know how to provide nearly maintenance-free computing services. It was the norm for decades and is still the norm away from the desktop. The egalitarian revolution that followed the introduction of personal computing is pure insanity. People should be able to use a computer without thinking about worms and spyware and DLL Hell. But they can't because the world has decided that it's essential to personal computing that every computer be sovereign and every user a system administrator.

[hitest]

Well put, KJ

I realize not everyone has unlimited resources when it comes to the hardware they run. So, it can be somewhat of an obstacle to overcome when you have something that just won't work, or you don't feel like learning what it takes to make it work.

I'll admit that my first linux experiences were riddled with hardware issues that turned me off to it a bit and had me running back to windows but as it's been stated already, hardware issues are becoming less prevalent.

I decided to take another whack at it and while I've had a bug here or there Id easily trade MS cds for linux....(no, I haven't "rm -rf /windows" yet...maybe soon ...lol)

I think it's about perseverance .....If you wanna learn linux, learn linux....if you don't, then use windows but making comments about linux being for the rich and tech-minded, only indicates frustration and an unwillingness to learn and could influence others in thinking the same.

Well put, tictoc5150,

Linux is about making mistakes sticking to it and trying new things.

If it doesn't work the first time try it again.

I just nuked my Fedora Core 3 install, got slackware 10 up and running today. But, I didn't get it right the first time I tried it, made mistakes.

Linux users are stubborn. I'll never go back to Windows. I'm not an engineer, just a hobbyist. Anyone can learn this stuff.

Linux is for everyone, not just the rich.

[tictoc5150]

But, I didn't get it right the first time I tried it, made mistakes.

heh, I spent the better part of my vacation last week seeing what kind of mistakes I could make with my old desktop...lol

all in all I didn't do too bad...installed Ubuntu (removed it), installed slack 10.1 (removed it), installed FC3 (removed it), Debian wouldn't play nice with my graphics and I borked a gentoo install (gonna take another whack at that )...seems that all the friendlier distros were a piece of cake...wasn't what I was looking for, wanted the challenge of something I hadn't done and have it actually work.

Was also wanting to see if there was another distro that I might like more than mandrake...haven't found one yet.

Considering that gentoo is no simple task for a newbie (IMO anyway), the idea of getting that running almost excites me...lol (thought it was a trip to see a web page rendered in a CLI...was a first for me)

don'tcha just love how linux folk can hijack a thread about windows spyware?

[Codemuffin]

Most people don't know how to maintain a car. They have a (very) small library of scripted responses to certain events; when those scripts fail they turn immediately to experts. The same is probably true of pools.

Indeed, and even then, there's car owners that complain when the mechanic has something to fix. "It's so expensive." A lot of car ownership also has to do with reading the lovely owner's manual and noting events. I do see your point - we have a capped limit of what can be handled by the owner, and what must be handled by an expert. Thank you, jcl.

Trying to reply to everything at once.

I agree with the idea that Linux is about making mistakes and learning from them. I also agree with the idea that computer users shouldn't have to deal with the spyware and viruses and what have you, but the cold reality is that they must, and this is no time for lack of information.

Believe me, I know it. I've lost my entire hard drive to cluelessness. I was on dialup, and I figured that 'it would never happen to me'. So I didn't bother with a virus scanner. And well, the ones I saw were too large to download (no patience for KJ). So I didn't bother. Well, I got hit. My system was so corrupted beyond belief, and I had no clue what to fix. I ended up paying an exorbitant amount of money for Windows 95 (which was the only OS this poor box could handle - and this was before my Linux days), which fixed the problem - 'cept I lost all my stuff because, well, on 512MB hard drives, I didn't really have any place to put anything. I couldn't burn it, no burner. And you tell me how many floppies that would have taken. Looking back, I am glad I did make the mistake, all said and done - it keeps me on edge, and makes me realize there's risks, and there's rewards to all this computer activity.

Should there be risks? 'Course not. We'd all like to have a lovely Internet and all that, but I don't see that coming anything soon.

Back to our little 'hijack', eh? I do think, as time progresses and HCL's become more refined (though that's far out of my range of interest, as my hardware works fine, but I can see why HCLs are necessary), I think we'll see less and less hardware conflicts. I sure hope so. The hardware is really what shuts a lot of would-be Linux users out.

and hitest, I just deleted my windows partition yesterday. I'm still excited. I just don't have any reason to boot into Windows anymore, so I figured it was just taking up space. I use the partition to store some more personal files.

I'm always trying to figure out the big questions when 'converting' people over to these parts:

1) What's stopping you from taking on Linux?

2) How can we (royal we, or community we) help?

3) What direction do we need to take in order to get more people into the community, and keep them there (it's one thing to install Linux for a day, get frustrated, and reinstall Windows, and it's another to keep it for "good", whatever that means. )

[Matt]

I've always (well not always) wanted to be part of the Linux Community. I've tried out Knoppix, and I just recently ordered copies of Ubuntu. In answer to your questions:

1) What's stopping you from taking on Linux?

Currently, my parents. I work on a family machine, and they're afraid that I'll screw something up and lose everything. I guess its reasonable. I've never installed more than 1 OS on a machine, and I've never partitioned before. I guess its just mostly fear. I intend on using Linux rather soon, I realise that it isn't that scary of a step.

2) How can we (royal we, or community we) help?

Like I said, I've never done something like this before. I guess what I would really like is just active help from people who have experience. I know I can get all that here. While a tutorial for the specific distro would be nice, it isn't required.

3) What direction do we need to take in order to get more people into the community, and keep them there (it's one thing to install Linux for a day, get frustrated, and reinstall Windows, and it's another to keep it for "good", whatever that means.)

I think that most people learned to know computers from Windows. They think that Linux will be so different, that they will lose the security they felt with Windows. They don't want to venture into strange territory. Most people would rather have both the OSes on their machine, so that they can retreit back to safety if need be. When using Knoppix, the only thing I discovered is that I didn't have the knowlege of where things were, and how they worked, as I do in Windows. A Linux distro closely resembling Windows might encourage people to make that step. I don't know if there already is one, but people may like that.

Matt

[hitest]

But, I didn't get it right the first time I tried it, made mistakes.

heh, I spent the better part of my vacation last week seeing what kind of mistakes I could make with my old desktop...lol

all in all I didn't do too bad...installed Ubuntu (removed it), installed slack 10.1 (removed it), installed FC3 (removed it), Debian wouldn't play nice with my graphics and I borked a gentoo install (gonna take another whack at that )...seems that all the friendlier distros were a piece of cake...wasn't what I was looking for, wanted the challenge of something I hadn't done and have it actually work.

Was also wanting to see if there was another distro that I might like more than mandrake...haven't found one yet.

Considering that gentoo is no simple task for a newbie (IMO anyway), the idea of getting that running almost excites me...lol (thought it was a trip to see a web page rendered in a CLI...was a first for me)

don'tcha just love how linux folk can hijack a thread about windows spyware?

Hi tictoc5150

Yep, I've borked a few Gentoo installs myself, LOL Yes, running a web page in a cli is pretty cool, Links rocks.

I've got Slack 10 working. It runs a heck of a lot faster than Fedora. I'm not sure I like it though. I might go back to Fedora or try BSD next.

I also really like Mandrake, it's my main distro. I haven't found a distro that I like better than Mandrake either.

Yes, we Linux folk just come in, hijack threads like crazy:-)

[mikex]

Attn all Linux folks....

If this thread hijacking continues you will receive a copy of WinME, and be force to use it as you OS.

Let this be your warning.

M

[hitest]

Attn all Linux folks....

If this thread hijacking continues you will receive a copy of WinME, and be force to use it as you OS.

Let this be your warning.

M

Eep........

I promise to be good from now on. Please don't make me run Win ME:-)