New keyboard. New Problems.
I think it is a safe bet that the folks back home are running Windows and that is all their local dial-up ISP can reasonably be expected to support.
Local support is the only answer here.
Not the once-a-year parachute drop --- and not the trans-oceanic telephone call that has to be scheduled across five or six time zones, perhaps more. There is no joy in that even when it is IT Pro to IT Pro.
Some desktop environment that hides anything unrelated to connecting to the net and accessing their account (dial-up software, email client, web browser, exchanging files between their hard disk/email attachments and USB drives). By "hide", I just want the rest to be out of the way, but not entirely removed, so that if necessary, I can guide them over the phone.
I don't see enough thought being given here to how his parents use their computer besides sending and receiving their emails.
Technical support by telephone across multiple time zones does not appeal.
Use a SSH or VNC server, and also use a dynamic DNS client so you have a hostname instead of some random IP address, Then you can control the machine directly when it's online....
His parents live overseas and he visits them only once a year.
To me that suggests that they are living in time zones at least six to eight hours apart, perhaps more.
There are also thousands of artists today that equal the top handful of masters of old times, it simply isn't acknowledge because it is subjective, and appreciation is inherently relative
1 Make a bold, dramatic assertion.
2 and. in your next breath, argue that is useless to offer any proof.
Such a talent is wasted in tech, You really ought to go into politics.
Your right gas cars are total non-perishable and never wear-out or need replacement parts, and gasoline can be recycled as well.
I need to know what an electric car is going to cost me over its projected service life. I need to know the up-front cost of replacing a battery. I do not want to base my purchasing decision on "green" energy subsidies that may disappear after the next election.
I remember the Z80 and 6502 instruction sets just fine.
Do you remember how to program a smooth-as-silk side-scrolling platform game for an MSDOS PC with 16 bit EGA graphics but no dedicated hardware support for animation?
Well buddy you and any job you have can go fuck itself. If you're planning to hire me solely because I can shave and buy a suit then I have no desire to work for you.
Oh, and if you want someone who does what I do and is good at it...
I'll have no trouble at all finding a replacement who has all your skills and none of your attitude,
If you work in any field involving network infrastructure, software development, information services, or data management/warehousing and your salary is at all dependent upon your attire, I strongly suggest you inquire with competing firms.
Your salary is defined by your usefulness to your employer and your potential for promotion --- which implies that you know how to dress for the different roles you must play within the company and are being realistic about your age and appearance.
If I came over and starting just randomly putting books into your bookshelves that publishers paid me to do without asking you, wouldnt you rightfully be a bit upset about it?
U2 fits comfortably into the iTunes demographic.
I expect to see many more free --- targeted ----promotional distributions of AAA list titles through channels like iTunes, Steam and the Kindle.
Why is Netflix not available in Australia?
The population of Australia is 24 million. The population of metropolitan New York City, 20 to 24 million, depending on how you choose to define it. If you want a presence in the Asian-Pacific market, Australia doesn't loom large in your thinking.
PC vendors would have invested in alternative OS builds and support, obviating that issue. Had this been done years ago, we'd have a much more competitive OS market, rather than what we have now.
The vendors had no interest in alternatives.
What they wanted was a place in the lucrative market that had evolved around the IBM PC and PC clone.
In the eight bit era there were many competing operating systems in the home market. If you needed an office machine, CP/M was your first and most likely only choice.
The IBM PC was designed to make the transition to the 16 bit world as painless as possible for the both users and developers. Third party software support for the MSDOS and IBM PC was strong from Day 1 and evolved rapidly over the next two years.
--- and by decades end had eclipsed everything in sight.
The Mac doesn't make its appearance until 1984 --- with barely enough resources available to support the Mac GUI.
The MS-DOS carried on into Windows. Even if you wanted to run Linux, OS/2, or anything else, you still had to purchase the MS license, or colloquially, the M$ Tax.
The OEM MSDOS/Windows system install meant you had a marketable product that could be sold in the millions --- tens of millions --- hundreds of millions of units ---- at a mass market price.
Dell and the rest were crying all the way to the bank - any genuine interest they might have had in selling alternative operating systems in the home and SPHO markets could be measured with a teaspoon,
Linux in the nineties was simply not a mass market OS.
But the easily affordable commodity hardware built for the MSDOS and Windows ecosystem were god-sent to the geek who wanted to experiment with Linux.
A law that forbids selling hardware and software together would increase innovation. Installation procedures would become very easy very quickly due to market pressure.
This is the home system I purchased through TigerDirect and other sources a few years back now. There have been many changes since, including a replacement desktop, but nothing that would invalidate the point I am trying to make here.
HP PC Desktop Refurbished.
Not a high end Windows gaming machine but with very credible specs overall.
22" HP LCD HD Monitor.
Mid-Line HP Multifunction Printer Refurbished
APC UPS
Microsoft HD LifeCam.
Logitech Sound System
Logitech Joystick
Internal Expansion HDD (Retail)
External HP USB 1 TB HDD.
Cable Modem (Leased)
I had this beast up and running damn near as fast as I could unpack the boxes and connect the cables.
What does MS sell their OEM OS for anyway? Probably not that much. No one will likely bother.
Walmart --- with its enormous purchasing power --- spent about a decade trying to make a go of the OEM Linux desktop --- an ever-changing merry-go-round of obscure Linux distros running on no-name brand hardware with bottom feeder specs.
Your savings over a far more credible and competitively priced Windows product from the Acer, HP or Dell?
$25 to $50.
The system bundle from HP would likely include a style and performance matched monitor and printer.
Walmart never came within light years of solving the problem of selling plug-and-play peripherals to the newbie Linux user.
PC sales took off like a rocket with the introduction of the OEM system install at the wholesale price.
The balanced and tested configuration of hardware and software that worked out of the box. --- and was sold as a mass retail product under a single - unified - warranty.
Not the kit of parts that appealed only to the hobbyist or the IT pro.
If it worked, it worked. If it didn't, it went back to the store. The buyer wasn't obliged to diagnose hardware and software conflicts or borked system installs --- or pay for the privilege of having these problems solved for him
And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones
