Excuse the punny title but this post is supposed to be about reasons I pity the average computer user. Why? Well…
- They use Norton or McAfee. I can’t stand Norton, at all. I find AVG provides me with sufficient protection and doesn’t hog resources in the same way Norton or McAfee do. If I was to use a non-free anti-virus package I’d probably lean towards NOD32.
- They use Hotmail. Why oh why oh why?! Gmail is much better and every Hotmail users I’ve converted so far agrees
- They use Internet Explorer… sometimes even IE6. Why not use Firefox or another gecko-based browser which are generally considered more customisable and secure?
- They attend novice IT classes and read novice IT books. I learnt nearly all of my computing skills from trial-and-error. My relatives often attend courses or read books which generally just confuse them more as they learn how to do things in pieces of software they lack or different operating systems.
- New computers come with Windows Vista. I’d much rather use XP (or even better a Unix-based OS) and as much as the average Joe (and indeed myself) love eyecandy in their operating system, Windows Vista’s eye candy isn’t equal to its performance and I’d rather have the latter.
my mac is pretty good too.
I know to many people that fit into this “average Joe” category
.
And yes, I did buy a vista laptop. However I uninstalled it the next day, and installed XP instead.
rashbre: OS X is Unix-based
But OS X costs moolah!!!
Though, yes, it is much better then vista and maybe even XP.
yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. and you know what is really sad? this (and its equivalences) is as true as it was 5, 10, 20 years ago. people don’t learn very fast, do they?
Joe : Yup, my mac sure is Unix.
And, changing topics…are you coming over to collect your award from rashbre central, or what??
I can completely agree with you on the “IT For Beginners” comment.
Though I’d go further. Because you know what you know, and have gained it through testing, trial and error, everyone expects you to just fix/do whatever at the drop of a hat because “they don’t have time”. There’s an old saying that if you teach a man to fish you never he will eat for a lifetime. Seems fairly apt here.
Whohooo!!!! According to those five points, I am NOT an average Joe
I prefer Yahoo’s Mail to gmail. If my friends have the money a suggest a Mac if not Ubuntu. In almost all cases they are much happier than my friends on windows.
You sound like a major loser honestly.
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