[extropy-chat] PCs no longer aid efficiency

[BillK]

<http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/news/story.jsp?story=473113>

Meet the new cyber maids - women who do Windows as well as windows
By Paul Peachey        14 December 2003

The demand for maids who are able to clean up the fridge and the hard
drive has been driven by the surge in computer use and the numbers of
children now doing their homework on computer.

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So the maintenance and operation of home PCs is now so time-consuming
and complex that it makes sense for better-off people to hire a maid to 
look after it.

I agree! The maintenance of my PC is now a regular Sunday morning job -
and I know what I'm doing! Keeping my software up-to-date with patches,
releases, virus updates, etc., cleaning the week's garbage off the hard
disk, defragmenting, running backups and lots of minor tidying up tasks
is a significant effort.  Much can be automated, of course, but I'm not
surprised that the ordinary consumer finds it an impossible task.

That's why viruses and spam are spreading like wildfire. The ordinary PC
user hasn't a clue about all the maintenance and self-defense tasks that
are necessary nowadays.

And why should they have to? They just want to play a few games, send
some emails and Google for some info. Nobody warned them that all these
other time-wasting jobs would be inflicted on them because of todays
malicious environment.

We really do need to clean up our mess.


BillK