My car's average is 42. Its worst is about 34 (and that was with 4 people and about a week's worth of luggage tromping through the Pocono mountains). When my car's worst is better than your car's best, hmmmm.

Hi, how are you? Come here often?

When I went to college, I hauled about $2,500 worth of computer stuff with me to the dorm. Physical security was first on my mind. I locked it in my closet after every use. With roommates and their friends coming and going all the time without me there, I felt it more secure to be locked in my closet (individually keyed, separate from my roommate's key), and the doors were solid core with industrial locks.

Of course, this was back in the days of dial-up and PS/2s. The dorms didn't have networking cables and the computer lab was ruled by the Vax.

Still, the message is the same today. Lock it up.

I wondered the exact same thing, how those who bounce their legs regularly, sometimes called "bouncy legs", "restless legs" or "restless legs syndrome" for those who are bothered by it, figures into this?

If you are one to stay seated or sedentary a lot, but bounce your legs constantly, isn't that a kind of physical activity? I for one have never been bothered by my "bouncy legs", and I certainly don't consider it a syndrome. I tend to think of it more as a sign of a high metabolism (I sometimes tell people I have the metabolism of a hummingbird). My body knows it has a lot of calories to burn, and it habitually urges me to move my legs as a way of doing that. I wonder how many calories I burn by constantly (and sometimes rapidly) bouncing my legs, all day long.

...and in case you're wondering, I have a very high calorie diet, I stay seated just about all day due to my job and my lifestyle, I don't otherwise exercise, but I stay at a very consistent weight of 175 (I'm 6'2" tall). I haven't gained or lost more than 5 pounds in over 20 years. ...except one time I had a very nasty flu, and I dropped to 160 -- I called it the flu diet. I'm the type that tends to eat very large portions, like a whole box of mac & cheese (which is 4-5 servings), an entire soup bowl full of ice cream (I'm sure it's 5 servings at least), I eat the same size portion at dinner that my wife and 2 kids combined eat, and so on. But, I never gain weight.

What corner of the web will it go to? What forms will it auto-fill in for me? What charges will I find on my credit card at the end of the month?

The article in question specifically names Feit Electric bulbs.

My experience with that brand resulted in nearly an 80% failure rate within the first year of use, involving a pool of about 4 dozen bulbs, used in 4 different light fixtures, totaling 32 individual light sockets. At first, I took them up on their warranty, mailed back about half a dozen failed bulbs in exchange for new ones. However, I could see it would become cost prohibitive in the long run to continue paying for postage, if the same rate of failure continued (which it did). Other brands are far, far more reliable, and simply replacing the failed Feit bulbs makes more economic sense than continuing to pay postage for Feit warranty replacements.

I consider Feit bulbs to be the bottom of the barrel.

the story on Slashdot immediately preceding this one is The Science of Irrational Decisions?

Death Star? I'm looking out for cubes.

It's a moronic editor problem. Everyone should know that you can't cite a source that was published later than the work that you are editing. DUH!

I think we may have to update the old adage "cite your source" to "cite your prior source".

I've worked 2 kinds of jobs, proactive and reactive.

The reactive kind is stuff like help desk or sysadmin. Your presence is required for 8 hours (or more!), but during that time, you don't have constant work. You work when an issue flares up (which is why it's often compared to being a firefighter). Some dweebs look at you "not working" and think "what a waste" or "if you're bored, I have something for you to do", but in the end, those are distractions, since those jobs require one to be instantly available. Most of the time, they don't lay you off, because you're the only person who can do xyz. Good troubleshooting skills, having a specialty, and responsiveness are keys to surviving the layoff hammer in this type of job.

In a proactive job, the work is fairly continuous. My engineering jobs of late have been like this. When I run out of stuff to do automating the security needs of a large government 3-letter agency, I move into server upgrading/modernization, or building a cluster solution, figuring redundancy and fault tolerance into the overall design. In my architecture work, there are always opportunities to innovate new solutions and designs.

Whenever I've found myself in a reactive job, I try not to fall into the trap of complacency with the "free time". I try out new things, and I look for ways to automate the time-consuming, mundane tasks that I don't like. This is how I learned how to script in Unix/Linux, and eventually how that went on to be my specialty.

I don't have the option to tell my in-laws to re-install their OS. They bought the PC pre-installed with Windows, they're happy with the applications it came with, and they're content to leave it as is. If I suggest otherwise, I know I'll be turned down.

So, I choose to make the best of what there is. I use Cygwin to add Linux-like functionality to Windows, for my administrative purposes, I add security software to scan in the background and to aid me in troubleshooting, and I tweak the settings as best I know how to improve their overall experience, without sacrificing security or usability.

I think it's more productive to discuss how to use and secure Windows to stay on topic, rather than switching gears completely.

Unless they're visiting shady porn sites, installing loads of "freeware" or downloading from peer-to-peer networks, they're very unlikely to even encounter a virus.

...or so I've heard. ;-)

Commenting in general to several posters...
My in-laws have been using the PCs that I've configured for them since the 486 days, and I've never had to take away Admin, IE or Outlook from them. If anything, they're safer computer users with Admin than any of us are, because they don't exhibit any risky user behavior. They don't go around installing loads of apps and going to the dark corners of the web.

My in-laws are not good with PCs. My mother is. They're all in their mid to late 60s.

The difference is that my mother worked in an office environment for 2 decades, where developing PC skills were essential. My mother-in-law is a nurse and my father-in-law (now retired) was a book keeper. It's not that they're unintelligent, it's just that their jobs never had them develop those skills. Now, in their retirement years, my in-laws just don't have much interest in learning PC skills.

Still, they have picked up all of the basics--Word editing, web surfing, Outlook e-mail, and even Yahoo IM chatting.

I really think they could do everything on their own, but they have PC-savvy children and in-laws that they can pursuade to do it for them. I'd say that's intelligent.

Oh, I forgot to add the following...
- I forgot, I use TightVNC, not RealVNC. TightVNC is free and it works very well.
- Coach them on how to right-click and choose "sort by name" in the start menu programs list (I think this is automatic in Vista). My father-in-law had a hard time finding his icons until my wife showed him this. Also consider setting up Auto-arrange by Name for folders and the desktop.
- Right-click the Taskbar and choose Properties, then Start Menu & Customize.
Start turning off stuff they don't need, like Control Panel, Network & System administrative tools. Also, check Use large icons.
- Related to the above, turning on "Hide Inactive Icons" might be a good idea and turn off some system icons that might bother them.
- I always turn off the "recently opened files" and "recently opened programs" lists, but that's just me, I suppose.
- Right-click the Taskbar and choose Toolbars. Turn OFF that damned language toolbar.
- For the Start Menu, instead of displaying icons by popularity, consider turning that off. Find icons that should always be there, right-click on them and select "Pin to Start Menu".
- Go to Windows Explorer > Tools > View, and make sure of the following...

• [x] Display the full path in the title bar
  Hidden files and folders
  • [x] Do not show hidden files and folders

  [ ] Hide extensions for known file types
  [x] Hide protected operating system files

There's just too much to keep writing about, unless I start my own blog...

My in-laws are in their 60's now. Technically senior citizens, but on the low end of the age range. Still, they are complete PC novices. My own mother is 68 now, but she is moderately competent with PCs because she used to work in an office as an executive assistant; so, the most she ever asks me to do is hardware installations, mostly involving her TV or game console (yes, my mom has a Wii).

I've been maintaining their XP Home Edition PC for several years now. They run it so each of them has an account (2 parents, 3 children and my own account). 2 of their kids have since moved out and their accounts are idle, but one has managed to stick around well into her 30s. Ah, but that's another story. ;-)

Older people appreciate larger viewability. The best advice I ever gave them was to buy a larger monitor, NOT to increase the font or icon sizes and run at 640x480 resolution. They now have a 24" widescreen monitor, and it works well for them at 1152x720. At the higher resolution, they have enough space to use today's programs, and with the larger monitor, they can see it all better. BTW, running at a lower resolution can actually make things worse. For example, if they open up a document and want to view the whole width of it on screen, it will reduce the font into near nothingness to fit it all into the tiny area. Increasing Window's Font or Icon sizes are another tricky matter. Some programs don't know how to deal with larger system font sizes (because they make a bad assumption that the default font size is the only size) and the words will "spill out" of their boundaries, making it look horrible at least or make it so you can't click on something at worst. There's also the problem of dialog boxes that are too big to fit on a tiny resolution desktop. I've had incidents (too many to count) where a program's dialog box is larger than 640x480 and I can't click on its buttons or move it (i.e. I get trapped).

What concerns me most is both security and remote administration (I live 3 states away and visit only 2-3 times per year). The first thing I did was install AVG and set it up to auto-update and auto-scan at some late night hour. I also installed Spybot S&D, CCleaner (very nice for cleaning up Window's & IE's temporary folders), and TweakUI. I also have AdAware, Process Explorer, Trojan Remover, Security Task Manager, TuneXP and Tweak And Tune handy, just in case. I recently added a router to their setup, so now they have a hardware-based firewall (and it added the ability for me to connect my laptop when I visit).

If it were Vista (which I highly doubt that they'll ever get), I would heavily encourage TweakVI to make it bearable.

Now, onto remote administration. There are 3 main things I did for this. First & foremost, I installed Cygwin with OpenSSH (and many other tools). This allows me to ssh login or to do scp file copying. I also use rsync tunneled through ssh for data file backups (both directions--I use their PC to backup my files and vice versa). Most importantly, it allows me to use tunneling to open ports through ssh, so I don't have to poke many holes in their router's firewall. Second, I installed Real VNC to be able to remotely control their desktop from a distance. Lastly, I "tweaked" (a small hack) to get Remote Desktop working. I must say Remote Desktop is the best tool available for remote Windows administration. It's too bad I had to hack things to get it working. For VNC and RD both I use SSH Port Forwards to use them. The only port open through their router is 22 and everything I do is encrypted. One example, you setup local port 113389 to forward to their internal IP port 3389. Once I establish my SSH session, I can then use Remote Desktop client to connect to localhost:113389 and voila, I'm in. There are many things in Windows that require a GUI (running CCleaner, Spybot, etc; installing/updating apps, etc.). It's been essential for me to tunnel in and to get a GUI through VNC or RD.

Regarding security, I'm not the best guy to talk to. I think they're competent enough that they can use Admin without my presence. So far, the worst things I've had to clean up are a heavy accumulation of Window's and IE's temporary files (CCleaner), two trojans that got in because their daughters installed some "popular" software with questionable origins, and a missing IE icon, which I put back by logging in via ssh and re-creating the file in each of their desktop folders.

Most of my remote access time is spent doing rsync transfers. Most of my in-person time is spent updating their software, tweaking some settings to make it more efficient, or just using the thing to surf the net when I get bored there.

I would also setup some very good power saving options. I setup theirs to engage the screen saver after 5 minutes and to turn off the monitor after 15 minutes. They are notorious for leaving things like the monitor and printer on, even though I coach them to turn them off after use.

I am not a Windows admin, but I've had to use Windows my entire career, and I have 5 Windows systems at home, myself. When it comes to preference, I always cede control to them. When it comes to admin stuff, I always set it up the same way I do mine.

Some more goodies...
Internet Explorer (Note, some of these are for preference, not security; [?] indicates user preference; [ ] is unchecked; [x] is checked)
Tools > Internet Options...

• Privacy tab
  • Pop-up Blocker
    • Prevent most pop-up windows from appearing.
      [x] Block pop-ups

  Security tab

  • Highlight "Internet"
    • Click the "Custom Level..." button Downloads Automatic prompting for file downloads
      [?] Enable
      File download
      [?] Enable

  Programs tab

  • Internet programs
    • HTML editor: [ Notepad ]

  Advanced tab

  • Accessibility
    • [x] Always expand ALT text for images

  Browsing

  • [ ] Reuse windows for launching shortcuts
    Underline links
    (x) Always
    [ ] Use inline AutoComplete

  Multimedia

  • [x] Enable Automatic Image Resizing
    [x] Enable Image Toolbar (requires restart)
    [x] Show image download placeholders

  Search from the Address bar

  • When searching
    • (x) Just display the results in the main window

  Security

  • [x] Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed
    [?] Warn about invalid site certificates
    [?] Warn if changing between secure and not secure mode
    [?] Warn if forms submittal is being redirected