Depends on the level of hands off administration you want to do.

1) For geeks and mostly computer savvy folks an install of competent Anti-Virus, Firewall, and Anti-Malware Suite and about an hour of teaching them about safe computer usage practices will suffice. The percentage of people this applies to is still quite small.

2) For the non savvy user, the options are somewhat limited. The above will NOT work. It will only make you and them frustrated in the long run.
a) If you have the money and option, go with an iOS device - computer or tablet. This won't completely remove your IT duties for them, but it will drastically lessen them after they get over the initial learning curve.
b) In some cases, installing a distro of Linux will work. This is mainly for users who only want to do email and browser things and are not looking to do anything fancy such videos and social sites. It's not that the various flavors of Linux can't do that stuff, it just requires special attention to get it to work. But usually after it is setup it doesn't need to be messed with.
c) For the most typical case, ie the user who wants to use their existing computer, about the only option left is to quarantine them from the computer configuration. Couple ways to do this: either Virtual machine that restores the startup state on each restart, or a tool like Deep Freeze that effectively whitelists executables on the existing computer and blacklists any configuration/installation changes. For my ailing father, this was the only option, his mind was not up to doing anything else. He just wanted to look at pictures in the computer and a little bit of Internet stuff.

In all cases, a remote administration tool will help out when they have further questions. Team Viewer happens to be my particular poison in this area.

I simply don't understand where the hate is coming from. Here is a space where a group of like minded people can get together and share creative ideas and/or create their own stuff without having to own expensive equipment. Is it the old adage that people fear what they don't understand? Good on this place for doing the Sunday breakfast thing. A good non-threatening way to introduce the community to what you are all about.

This is a good salient point and should be followed when available. Problem is, manufacturers realize this and make their models that are dumb displays stupid in other regards. Such as no optical audio out, or no HDMI connections that support ARC or CEC. Or other features that are only available in the higher models, like Samsung Cinema Screen. That ultra slim bezel is very sexy and the TV practically doubles as a modern piece of minimalistic sculpture.

Personally, I avoided the entire game display manufacturers play with us and went with a projector. It was significantly more work on my part, but I got exactly what I wanted - a superior display without all the extras that I don't want, won't use, and refuse to own (such as built as a built in mic and camera).

This is plainly news for the people who don't care to learn about display technologies, which granted, is clearly the majority. Watching this interview through that lens the content makes sense. But news for nerds, oh hell no!. It is fucking laughable how bad it is.

The article said that Google services is on the average is 25% of NA traffic. During prime time hours for obvious reasons and the early morning hours where Netflix and Hulu update their cache servers, the majority of traffic is those 2 sites. That's very believable.

For a complete and positive gaming experience, your wish has been granted.

Joking aside, look closer at the account maintenance terms. There may be an option to completely reset or get rid of the account. Then you can at your option start with new login details. This time make a unique email alias just for UPlay and bogus, but plausible, user details that for all you care can be leaked or broken into. I've also gone as far as having a unique credit card just for online gaming service accounts that insist on credit card payments and storage. A different one for each service - limit of $100. True it's a pain in the ass to setup, but if it gets hacked I don't have enough into to even care what happens.

We won't see this tech for at least 20 years before it get's applied to consumer products, if at all.

OTOH, it is exciting to see the kinds of research being done that will advance computing beyond our wildest dreams.

I hope this is Blizzard learning from their own recent mistakes. The cynic in me thinks that they are cleaning out the old blood, the ones who knew how to design games and what made them re-playable, and replacing them with developers who know and love the McWoW formula.

Somebody better tell NewEgg and the other custom build parts online shops that they are going out of business soon. ;)

The PC market isn't dead or dying, that's just silly talk. It is completely saturated and the consumers are shifting focus to different computing devices. This is completely natural and shouldn't shock anybody. The technical people that make the programs and allow the computing market to work will always need the workhorse product of the industry - that will be the Personal Computer for a very long time.

Shareholder: What is this I heard about from my son that a pirated version of SimCity is available because of "debug mode"?
Other Shareholder(s): {blank stares}
Frank Gibeau: It's something for testing without the online requirement for the people who wrote the game.
Shareholder: {pounds desk} If it's something that allows these a**hole pirates think they can beat us, then let's remove this "debug mode".
Frank Gibeau: It shall be done.
Shareholder: And if I find out these people re-enable debug mode or uses it for future IPs we make, for whatever reason, I want them fired!
Frank Gibeau: It shall be done.

There may be other stated ancillary reasons: social gaming, cloud enabled, anti cheating, but the main advantage always online has is Digital Restriction Management. The big dev houses and publishers are all over this. Given the current state of gaming, there isn't anything we (the collective we) can do about it. The EA's of the world have all of us by the short hairs and they know it. There is no viable market reason they will change anytime in the future.

Reason? There are way too many gamers that will still buy the product. These gamers range from too young to care to gamers who buy the game while grumbling about always on restriction and gamers for everything inbetween. The only way to change this developing trend, is to hit them where it hurts. Don't buy their game at all. You could take the time to write them a dead letter about why you refuse to buy their product, but they will relegate those letters to the looney trash bin.

So enjoy the always on DRM. Maybe technology will catch up and nearly everybody will have gaming friendly Internet connections in the future. This is unlikely in the next couple decades. So there may be a chance where the new generation of gamers will discover why DRM is a bad thing for single player games. Thus adding to the percentage of those that refuse to buy the game. But even then, a new set of gamers that are completely unconcerned will come into the market. It's a losing battle.

I wish the prospects were better, but with the instant gratification gamers types are in general - the Publishers will keep a firm grip on the bit and we'll go where they tell us. And we'll like it dammit!

These days are all about information overload. You need to simplify.

Do the following for a month. And I mean really do it - don't do it half assed. Do it completely - commit to it.

Check email only 3 times a day: Once in the morning, once during lunch, and if you must once at the close of the day. All other times, turn off the notification that you even get email. Turn off your cell phone. Shutoff all IM clients. Tell your boss that you can't be interrupted unless it's a critical client problem. Exercise self control when looking things up on the Internet, keep it work based only. In short, setup your work environment so it allows you to concentrate and focus on the task at hand.

If that still doesn't work - seriously consider finding a new career, cause this on is boring the shit out of you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SxWMI9zg3s

Eh...jail is too good for them. Besides, with the number of corrupt people involved in this whole mess, you'd have to anex at least 10 federal prisons just to hold them all. Then there is the matter of the new corrupt people that would fill the void and the cycle would continue.

Sorry for the gratuitous pun.

Yeah it sucks that the government is getting their big hands into this. I am glad the issue is coming out though. Perhaps this will make businesses sit up and take notice of the ramifications of data being in the cloud. Another issue that has yet to come to the fore is the legal issues of where the cloud servers are versus the originating country where the data comes from and vice versa. Including the dynamic nature of multiple geographical locations being used for failover and load balancing issues.

Just last week, my boss asked me what the cloud could do for our business and what it would take to get one setup. The easiest being Amazon S3 cloud service. I explained the benefits and the potential caveats, which included the government angle. The boss hated the thought of that. I suggested we could setup a personal business cloud, but would be responsible for the 24/7 up time & maintenance. Fun fun fun, I get to look up and see what the options are for setting up a business cloud is. Given the alternative, I agree with him though.