God save me from young girls.....

[John Corn]

Argghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just installed a new videocard in a computer for my 12-year-old niece--she's only had the computer for about two months--and I can't believe how much crap she's built up already!

47 separate instances of spyware, five virii, three different instant messengers, 118 mb of temporary junk files, 23mb of pictures of Britney Spears, NSync etc..., Bonzai Buddy, Comet Cursor, 34 different wallpapers of cats, a folder I'm afraid to look in called "Secret stuff and love letters: keep out" (I won't look in it but it's 20mb in size!), and the most intensely ugly personal windows scheme (lots of lime green and pink status bras and italics fonts) I'v ever seen.


Argghhhhhh


Thank God I only have boys.....:lol:

[Maniacal1]

I tried, but I just can't resist:

To a 12-year-old, what's a "status bra"? :)

[invaliduser88]

I was wondering that myself. Microsoft trying to become a monopoly in the bra market now?

Hmmm...a bra that has to be rebooted at least once a day...

[gcutler]

I think that is probably 12 year olds in general with the collection of junk.

But to be sexist, I assume a Womans hard drive is like her purse, nothing ever gets thrown out :D A 12 year old Girl is just "In Training" :p

[Steve Mehs]

Welcome to my world John :D

At school, most of the computers in our higher end lab (Dell P3's running WIN98) are filled with bonzi buddy, save now, Gator and a bunch of other crap. Also AIM and YIM are on a lot of computers. Real effective internet filtering we have :rolleyes: I hate that garbage, no wonder why our computers are so frigged up all the time. Also the kids like to screw around with the display setting and schemes, create password protected screen savers and rename files. The kids that do that hardly ever get in trouble and I get yelled at for getting around the blocking s/w last year by installing Opera on one of the machines :mad:

While my PC at home has no changes made to the user interface, except for removing that ideotic 'log out' in the start menu and increasing my rez to 1152X864 from 600x800. Everything else is Win98 defaut including wallpaper.

[TopCat99]

The Microsft Bra, eh? What happens when it crashes, the straps break?

Lemme tell how a bit about my school. As most hardware is donated (this is a private school), there is very little uniformity from one machine to another. This makes even using Norton Ghost a PITA at times.

But the REAL fun is when ppl try to put IE 6 and Win98 on a P133 with 16 megs of RAM. "Why does this computer go so slow??"

[TopCat99]

ooh! Forgot one.
"I hit print a buncha times but nothing happened, so I did it again."
"How many times?"
"I dunno, at least 20"
"How big is the document?"
"18 pages"
<bites tongue EXTREMELY hard and walks away>

[gcutler]

I think that is what gave Dell and HP and Compaq a big boost. Once the low end machines price came down, Mom and Dad realized little Jimmy or Janey needed their own computers just to keep 45MB of Brintney Spears pictures from overwriting the family Quicken data files :D

[MarkA]

When I was in HS, our school had a mix. The science laptops were well-maintained and junk was kept off (they were mainly only used by Physics students, who are obviously some of the more intelligent). The purchaser wasn't that intelligent though - they all had Win98 and not W2K. But they were Gateway PIII laptops. Most of the teachers and library computers were PIII Dell's. Again, the sucky Win98 on them. 17" monitors. Computer Apps and web design had basically the same systems. Those had the MOST junk on them. iMacs in the english lab. A single New iMac in the library for video (I think they got more this year). The video/graphics/and net tech lab had the best variety:

3 PowerMac G3 towers (relatively new)
1 first generation G3 tower
1 G4 tower with a LaCie 22blue monitor (NICE!) and OSX
4 Athlon 650s
a bunch of old junk systems (these had a lot of stuff on them, but never junk. Some had 3 or more OSes for example...)

[Richard King]

When I was taking computer classes in college we used some kind of a Burroughs thing that took up about 4,000 square feet and had less power than my lowest end garbage 5 year old computer. No one could put any junk on it (pink status bras were certainly not allowed) because no one without proper authorization had access to the machine. It had a great firewall to protect it from viruses coming over the internet, but then, come to think of it, the internet didn't exist then. :D I had to submit all my work to be run on the computer in stacks of punch cards (with no hanging chads) then wait around for 30-45 minutes for my cards to reach the batch to be run. Computer time was rather expensive and time was "billed" to my class on a per second basis for the amount of time it took my program to run. One thing that was always a consideration in writing a program, no matter how small and trivial, was how much computer time would be required to run it. The only "windows" allowed near the computer were the ones you could look through to watch the big tape reels with the programs on them spinning away. They were double pane insulated windows so that the temperature could be properly maintained for the computer.

[gcutler]

Once the devices became relatively easy to use and inexpensive enough to have more than one in the house (maybe one for the parents, one for the kids, or more) it was inevitable that they become personalized with Junk. What is funny is that now with Firewire and USB 2.0, it won't take much to keep on expanding the drive space indefinately.

Here is a good one, a non-techie friend of mine has a nice Dell Dimension 8100 that came with a free CD-RW drive. This guy had never once archived data to his CD-RW. He mentioned a while ago that he was running out of space and was going to delete some of his "Belinda Carlisle" MP3s and MPGs. First I called him a "H**o" for having those MP3s in the first place :D, but then I asked him why not just move them over to CD-R or CD-RW. He had forgotten that he had the drive (I had given the purchase a once over so I knew he had one)

[CoriBright]

Last time my neighbors called me out to 'sort out' their PC it had all the spyware that John's neice's PC had..... and was decked out in the most horrible desktop I've ever had the misfortune to come across... all in Barbie pink!

Over 1gb in Temporary Internet Files cache... and they wondered why they couldn't save in jpg anymore!!! (And of course, AOHell everywhere!)

It was an eMachines (yuck!) owned by parents, by mainly operated by twin 12 year old girls. The twins had their birthdays October 30th, they both received new Dell PCs. I'm just wondering how long it is before I have to sort the Dells out!!!

Cari
www.coribright.com

[gcutler]

Originally posted by CoriBright
It was an eMachines (yuck!) owned by parents, by mainly operated by twin 12 year old girls.

12 Year olds IN STEREO?!?!?!?!? :crying: :p

[Steve Mehs]

Today during Advanced Web Design class, after logging into Novel, I was greeted by a lovely purple monkey, that said and I quote "Hello..You are a f'n homosexual, go eat sh*t and die!" (uncensored of coarse) Don't people have anything better to do then download bonzi buddy and don't programmers have anything better to do then create these idiotic programs :mad:

[lee635]

In the computer labs, we setup a mirror on a server that rewrites the hard drive each time the pc reboots. And the pc's generally get rebooted at the end of any class, at lunch, and at the end of the day. Of course, anytime someone accidentally deletes the wrong file or downloads a virus, it's easy to fix. ;)

With fast ethernet connectivity, the newer machines are just diskless workstations and each student is allocated space on the server's hard drive. The best part is these are some of the fastest machines on campus.

[gcutler]

But you also get the people who like to carve their names into the hardware (monitor case). I was teaching a totally Microsoft Certified, "NT 4.0 System Administration", $500/day class, fancy classrooms, state of the art PCs (350MHz that day) and some as*hole uses a swiss army knife to carve his name into the keyboard and the monitor case. I figured that a class full of business people would never have that happen.

Even more shocking one of my co-workers was teaching a class that required Internet access (before enterprise site limit sw was cheap and widely used). Most people would surf CNN or Yahoo in class, no big deal. But some guy in the front row decides to surf some German Porn sites, and there it is full screen for everyone to see (lucky no women were in the class) and the classroom door was closed. The Instructor asked him several times to stop. Student gave instructor a bad eval. My Boss wanted to call up the students boss and tell what happened, don't know if they ever did.

So even "mature" adults aren't always shining examples.

[Bogy]

Originally posted by gcutler
Here is a good one, a non-techie friend of mine has a nice Dell Dimension 8100 that came with a free CD-RW drive. This guy had never once archived data to his CD-RW. He mentioned a while ago that he was running out of space and was going to delete some of his "Belinda Carlisle" MP3s and MPGs. First I called him a "H**o" for having those MP3s in the first place :D, but then I asked him why not just move them over to CD-R or CD-RW. He had forgotten that he had the drive (I had given the purchase a once over so I knew he had one)
I am aware that I have a burner, and it's not like I'm really cramped for space, since I still have about 25 gigs open, but it is about time I transfer some music files to cd's. My son probably has about a gig of mp3's on the drive, but he also is fairly conscientious about pruning the stuff he doesn't want anymore. But I have over 2 gigs of Barbershop songs. Some are mp3, but a lot are wav files from tapes. I burn new cd's with different combinations.

But then again, its not just 12 year old girls. A 76 year old friend of mine asked me to come over and look at his computer because it was really slow and froze up all the time. He had a Gateway with a P200 running win95, 32 meg of memory, and a 3.2 gig hd that was partitioned with a 2.1 C drive and the remainder in D. Fair amount of space left in D, but the C drive had a whopping 150 meg left open. I cleaned off all I could, transferred some files to the D drive, and got him back up to about 250 meg open until we could put a bigger hd in. Time passed, we were both busy, and finally he gave me a key and I did it while they were gone for a few days. The drive was now down to about a 100 meg open. I put a 40 gig hd in for him. The only thing slowing him down now (besides the cpu) is that I need to find him some more memory. He needs edo dimms and the only place close I found that had the sticks wanted a ridiculous price for them. I have to order some more memory for my future son-in-law's computer, so I'll get it all at the same time on-line. And don't suggest my friend just buy a new computer. This guy should be retired and taking it easy (like he ever would), but he is still working close to full time as an accountant because he is helping to support a daughter with two autistic children who have a deadbeat dad. I'm just glad I can help him out, and try to do it as cheap as I can.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Bogy
The only thing slowing him down now (besides the cpu) is that I need to find him some more memory. He needs edo dimms and the only place close I found that had the sticks wanted a ridiculous price for them. I have to order some more memory for my future son-in-law's computer, so I'll get it all at the same time on-line. And don't suggest my friend just buy a new computer. This guy should be retired and taking it easy (like he ever would), but he is still working close to full time as an accountant because he is helping to support a daughter with two autistic children who have a deadbeat dad. I'm just glad I can help him out, and try to do it as cheap as I can.

I recommend www.crucial.com You can find memory that would work best based on the Gateway PC Model # (this way you don't end up buying memory that might not be optimal) And they are very inexpensive and often have free shipping. I've been using them to buy memory for my HPs, Gateways and Dells over the years and the memory works great. Sometimes if you go and get cheapo memory and you get a 50% failure rate out of the package, this is quality stuff.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Bogy
I am aware that I have a burner, and it's not like I'm really cramped for space, since I still have about 25 gigs open, but it is about time I transfer some music files to cd's. My son probably has about a gig of mp3's on the drive, but he also is fairly conscientious about pruning the stuff he doesn't want anymore. But I have over 2 gigs of Barbershop songs. Some are mp3, but a lot are wav files from tapes. I burn new cd's with different combinations.

Still an extravagance :hi: , but with DVD-RW Drives now as low as $250 (and the DVD-R media as low as $2.50 and DVD-RW around $5) You could archive ALL your Barbershop MP3s or WAVs over to 1 DVD. But then again, if you have 2 or more PCs, you would need at least A DVD-ROM player on the other machines to read the stuff.

[Nick]

Bogy said... "...I'm just glad I can help him out..."

Bogy, you and I haven't argued philosophy in quite a while but, for the good works you do, you are still my hero. :)

[Bogy]

Originally posted by gcutler
Still an extravagance :hi: , but with DVD-RW Drives now as low as $250 (and the DVD-R media as low as $2.50 and DVD-RW around $5) You could archive ALL your Barbershop MP3s or WAVs over to 1 DVD. But then again, if you have 2 or more PCs, you would need at least A DVD-ROM player on the other machines to read the stuff.
My wife has almost got me convinced to build a new box for each of us, and pass the old ones down to the kids. :D We've been discussing what we would want in them, including cd burners, dvd-roms, and/or at least one dvd-burner. It would happen sometime after the first of the year, which gives prices a little more time to come down, especially with Christmas promotions.

[gcutler]

Bogy, With the 3GHz coming out, that just makes it even less expensive for you to get a relatively fast machine (1.8 GHz is like the slowest you can buy new these days, ain't that a kick). Even going 5 levels down from state of the art quality wise on sound card, video card, CPU (down to a 2.0GHz P4), but going for a relatively new DVD-RW and or CD-RW (faster the better and noticable) and alot of memory and drive space would make a great system.

(Yes Zac, we know the video won't be super duper and the MP3s won't sound like Digital Dolby, but I think Bogy like most of us can get by with a very average video and sound card) :D

[Bogy]

Originally posted by gcutler
Bogy, With the 3GHz coming out, that just makes it even less expensive for you to get a relatively fast machine (1.8 GHz is like the slowest you can buy new these days, ain't that a kick). Even going 5 levels down from state of the art quality wise on sound card, video card, CPU (down to a 2.0GHz P4), but going for a relatively new DVD-RW and or CD-RW (faster the better and noticable) and alot of memory and drive space would make a great system.

(Yes Zac, we know the video won't be super duper and the MP3s won't sound like Digital Dolby, but I think Bogy like most of us can get by with a very average video and sound card) :D
Pretty much my thoughts. What I have proposed to my wife is possibly getting motherboards with video and audio onboard. My biggest problem these days is that our mb's are so far out of date that I have reached the limits of their ability to upgrade. For example, I got my wife a 19" monitor recently, and wanted to put in a faster video card, but since I am limited to PCI I can't even find a card locally. My first priority is getting the best motherboards, cpu's, and memory I can right now, with the ability to continue to add the other things I would like to have later. Between the choice of the same old out of date computers that cannot be upgraded & current computers that can be built into some really nice boxes, I'll take the latter. :D

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Bogy

Pretty much my thoughts. What I have proposed to my wife is possibly getting motherboards with video and audio onboard.

Sound and video onboard probably not much of a problem, but you might be happier with picking non-motherboard components for Video (and even possibly sound), see the price difference and the specs of the cards. Sometimes those on motherboard video cards can be pretty limiting. On my old Dell Celeron/700 it came with a on board video and sound and video only had 4MB Video Ram (when 32MB was considered good and 8-16MB considered average), I saved alot of money but it quickly became apparent that its performance was lacking. Check out the video specs (maybe throw them here) before jumping in. Even an inexpensive PCI sound card may only be a few dollars more than onboard sound. And upgrading is simpler when you are replacing cards than switching from onboard to PCI?

[Bogy]

Everything is on the table at this point. I've been using an Intel Endeavor MB for the past five years, with integrated sound. I'm sure it wouldn't meet Zac's standards, but it's done ok for what I needed. I'd probably be more likely to go with onboard sound again at least for now, and put in a video card, with plans to upgrade the cards later (still be better than what my wifes computer has now, when we team play first person shooters I try to be the nice guy and let my son use the computer with better graphics, but it kind of backfires when I keep shooting him because he looks like everything else that moves :D ).