Computer operating systems

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CitroJim
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by CitroJim »

Chris570 wrote:
Northern_Mike wrote:
Xac wrote:Not that it will make a difference to the man himself, but Alan Turing is due to be pardoned on the 24th.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Royal pardon my arse. It just stinks of the Royals trying to be a bit PC.
It beggars belief that Mr. Turing was treated in the way he was by a supposed compassionate country, especially after Nazism and the war - I mean, imprisonment and chemical castration? Not much better than some of Hitler's regime's "experiments". Bloody disgraceful.

I'm glad he's been pardoned, not that it helps him but whether being homosexual was a criminal act (a bizarre concept!) or not back then, no one should treat any other human being like that.

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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by CitroJim »

Did a bloody stupid thing today on my Windos laptop. This is a cautionary tale to show how easily even a savvy person can be a victim...

I needed Adobe Reader on my laptop as the built-in offering on Win8.1 does not quite cut the mustard when you need to look at a very big document with an index.

So, I fired up Firepox and popped 'Adobe Reader' in the google search box. Silly me looked at the returned results and didn't look carefully at the top one.I thought it was the main Adobe site.. It looked like it.

Was it buggery :twisted: I only realised when a load of Chinese spamware started coming down with Adobe Reader and then McAfee went ballistic with multiple reports of Trojans it had quarantined..

It took me an hour to sort out the mess. I had possibly ten Browser bars to get rid of, Firepox needed it's homepages resetting and some dodgy looking search providers removing..

What a bloody faff. Finally I uninstalled the Adobe Reader that had been installed with all the crap and installed a new one from the genuine Adobe site.

Interestingly the genuine one is V11.0.4 whereas the one that came with all the malware was V11.0.5..

It worries me. Between McAfee and I we spotted it and no harm was done but I was staggered at just how easy it is to get infected and how easy it is to not be aware. If I was just an ordinary user who was perhaps not so diligent with AV it might well have passed me by completely and left me with a badly compromised system.

I now understand the depth and extent of the problem and see why the Cryptolocker ransomware has now managed to claim so many victims..
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by Xaccers »

Time to get a proper security product Jim rather than dozy McWotsit.
Also install no script in Firefox.
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by CitroJim »

Xac wrote:Time to get a proper security product Jim rather than dozy McWotsit.
Also install no script in Firefox.
I thought McAfee was.. It did the job...
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by Northern_Mike »

CitroJim wrote:Did a bloody stupid thing today on my Windos laptop. This is a cautionary tale to show how easily even a savvy person can be a victim...

I needed Adobe Reader on my laptop as the built-in offering on Win8.1 does not quite cut the mustard when you need to look at a very big document with an index.

So, I fired up Firepox and popped 'Adobe Reader' in the google search box. Silly me looked at the returned results and didn't look carefully at the top one.I thought it was the main Adobe site.. It looked like it..
You have my sympathy Jim. I almost got caught out doing exactly the same thing last week, but I spotted that there was something iffy just before I ran the executable. I think it was the fact that it didn't pop up the run/save to disk box, or open the adobe download manager when the exe had finished downloading.
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by myglaren »

Firefox supposedly has it's own pdf reader now although I've never tried it, always use the Linux one.
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by Xaccers »

CitroJim wrote:
Xac wrote:Time to get a proper security product Jim rather than dozy McWotsit.
Also install no script in Firefox.
I thought McAfee was.. It did the job...
Doing the job would have been it preventing all the malicious activities and just showing you a pop up telling you so.
Not leaving you with an hour of work to undo the damage.

I've never been impressed with McCafee, from its days of clunky manual updates that were a pita to it merrily letting NTL's PCs get infected with Nimbda but only reporting it when a manual scan was run. Thank goodness someone in the office had a decent AV on their contractor laptop that alerted them when a PC tried to infect it over the network.
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by Xaccers »

Well I gave Ubuntu another go, with similar results as before ie it's an unfinished pile of pants.
Danielle's been complaining about her netbook, which is now 5 years old, and runs XP. I'm sure the real issue is she doesn't get on with Office 2010, but you know what getting a straight answer from some users is like ;)
Anyway, I thought what the heck, lets try her with Ubuntu. Well it installed OK, even managed to connect to the WIFI, but then I tried connecting to the printer upstairs, which is an old Epson SX200.
Found it attached to the PC using SAMBA, so far so good, no driver for it within Ubuntu so downloaded it from Epson's site and extracted the PPD. All cool bananas until I get a warning about CUPS not being installed. Well there's a CUPS folder in one of the many folders within the file I downloaded but of course this is Linux so nothing is straight forward.
Looking at the rest of it, I don't think she'd get on with it, I don't have the time to google the CUPS issue, and now I remember some of the shed loads of stuff that is needed to get email to talk to one of the most common email servers in business.
So I'll give her Windows 7 and Office 2003. At least it works and is easy to set up.
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by Northern_Mike »

Xac wrote:Well I gave Ubuntu another go, with similar results as before ie it's an unfinished pile of pants.
I have to say, I agree with you. I have it dual booting with Win 7-32 on my old Asus 1005 netbook. I much prefer Windows. I could go into a long list of reasons why, but Jim will just argue back, so I won't waste my keyboard membrane, but "unfinished pile of pants" just about sums it up.
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by CitroJim »

I really can't be arsed to argue any more about anything. Not worth the stress it causes. I find Ubuntu works for me and you find it doesn't. Fair do...
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by Northern_Mike »

CitroJim wrote:I really can't be arsed to argue any more about anything. Not worth the stress it causes. I find Ubuntu works for me and you find it doesn't. Fair do...

You're no fun any more :P
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by CitroJim »

Northern_Mike wrote:
CitroJim wrote:I really can't be arsed to argue any more about anything. Not worth the stress it causes. I find Ubuntu works for me and you find it doesn't. Fair do...

You're no fun any more :P
:rofl2:
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by myglaren »

I rescued a Toshiba laptop from the skip at work, along with a BT HomeHub2.
Put the router to work last week when one of mine started dropping out all the time (have three others here too :) )
Router works fine and yesterday discovered USB ports on it so may network a hard drive and printer (one day)

Set to to 'fix' the laptop - had no power supply but used the one from another Toshiba I have.
I previously tried to update it. It hasn't been updated ever and most of the programs haven't been used since 2006.
It is very posh but seriously under spec.
Was going to just bung Ubuntu on it but it doesn't load from the CD-ROM nor from the USB.
I've spent around 30 hours getting bits of updates and fixes onto it and it now has IE8, fully patched, around 300 security patches and MSE on it.
Automatic update now functioning.
MSE ran a 'quick check' that took half an hour and is now doing a thorough check, been running an hour and looks as though it has another 12 hours to go.

If only it would have accepted Ubuntu or Mint. Would have all been done in twenty minutes.

Been watching The Bridge on iPlayer - I'll watch anything Swedish :-D
Quite a few French cars on there - C4, C6 and 605 most prominently but also spotted that all their laptops were Asus - just like the one I'm using now :)
New series starting tomorrow.
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by myglaren »

Got it fully updated and security installed, although it reports MSE to be turned off.
CD-ROM also functioning now, installed Ubuntu 10.04 and it is much faster. Display was much better as standard but it's now installing the Nvidia drivers so should be even better - graphics in XP were dire.
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Re: Computer operating systems

Post by CitroJim »

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Tarty Toad or somesuch) is now out..

I've updated my desktop and laptop and all looks very good. For Ubuntu users it looks a good upgrade...

It's certainly an improvement on 13.04 which sadly was, in my eyes, Ubuntu's Vista...
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