"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:49391861$1@news.povray.org...
> Heh. I needed a laugh... :-D

Well then try this on for size. I get a call from my sister-in-law .... 
don't know why but my computer is running real slow! OK .... going into town 
anyway so I stopped by. 78 Mahjong games running. I asked .... How did you 
manage that!!! Turns out she thought she WAS quitting the game when she was 
done. She was clicking on the (-) instead of the (x). Doesn't the (-) mean 
take away she asked. Lord help my aching head! Now my wife wants to get her 
a digital camera for Christmas.

Jim

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Warp wrote:

>   I'm pretty sure that to this day he is still convinced that "linux" is
> something which breaks your IE.

...still, in a way, I guess it does. You can't run IE under Linux, 
right? ;-)

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Jim Holsenback wrote:

> Well then try this on for size. I get a call from my sister-in-law .... 
> don't know why but my computer is running real slow! OK .... going into town 
> anyway so I stopped by. 78 Mahjong games running. I asked .... How did you 
> manage that!!! Turns out she thought she WAS quitting the game when she was 
> done. She was clicking on the (-) instead of the (x). Doesn't the (-) mean 
> take away she asked. Lord help my aching head! Now my wife wants to get her 
> a digital camera for Christmas.

1. Why would having unused programs running make the computer slow? 
Surely mahjong doesn't consume any CPU time if it isn't "doing" anything...?

2. Didn't notice the taskbar then? Heh. I've noticed more non-experts 
seem to think that the myriad of status indicators on the screen are 
"just decoration". They don't comprehend that these things *tell* you stuff.

3. Digital camera? Oh, enjoy supporting it... ;-)

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>  Given that linux is not something you simply "download and run" in 
> Windows,

With the new Ubuntu, it kind of is.  >:3

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:49392211$1@news.povray.org...
> 1. Why would having unused programs running make the computer slow? Surely 
> mahjong doesn't consume any CPU time if it isn't "doing" anything...?

consumes memory even if it's idle .... right?

> 2. Didn't notice the taskbar then? Heh. I've noticed more non-experts seem 
> to think that the myriad of status indicators on the screen are "just 
> decoration". They don't comprehend that these things *tell* you stuff.

Nope she didn't. I tried to give her the quick tour and gave up when I 
noticed she had that glazed over look in her eye's as I was trying to 
explain "auto hide"

> 3. Digital camera? Oh, enjoy supporting it... ;-)

haha .... i'm hoping my wife settles on the Fisher Price camera. It has the 
fewest buttons and settings!

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>> 1. Why would having unused programs running make the computer slow? Surely 
>> mahjong doesn't consume any CPU time if it isn't "doing" anything...?
> 
> consumes memory even if it's idle .... right?

Right. And the virtual memory system will swap that out to disk since it 
isn't being used. And, unless the program tries to "do" something, it 
will never be swapped back in again. Should have no impact on anything.

>> 2. Didn't notice the taskbar then? Heh. I've noticed more non-experts seem 
>> to think that the myriad of status indicators on the screen are "just 
>> decoration". They don't comprehend that these things *tell* you stuff.
> 
> Nope she didn't. I tried to give her the quick tour and gave up when I 
> noticed she had that glazed over look in her eye's as I was trying to 
> explain "auto hide"

...you have AUTO HIDE on???!? o_O

No wonder she's confused...

>> 3. Digital camera? Oh, enjoy supporting it... ;-)
> 
> haha .... i'm hoping my wife settles on the Fisher Price camera. It has the 
> fewest buttons and settings! 

Fewest buttons doesn't necessarily mean it's simple. ;-)

Fewest settings, though... that shouldn't be too bad.

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stbenge wrote:

> 
> My question is how does does this happen? And why does it happen to some 
> people more than others? How can a person be downloading and installing 
> software without even knowing it? All I can guess is that it must be 
> like what I experienced a few weeks back, when I accidentally clicked 
> "yes" to a pop-up dialog. (my one and only incident in over ten years of 
> computing [yes, I'm proud])
> 

This happened to me once. I downloaded an application that allowed my 
Razor phone to connect to the computer and manage files on the phone 
(seeing as I couldn't get pictures without paying for a special service) 
It was a bit fidgety, so I clicked the link in the program to check for 
updates. It was hardcoded to I.E., and the download site it was pointing 
to was hosting malicious "ad banners" Suddenly an installer popped up 
for an imitation anti-spyware program (Windows anti-spyware, it was 
similarly named to what Windows Defender used to be). I clicked cancel, 
and it proceeded to install itself, even though I clicked cancel.

The rest, as they say, was history. I managed to carefully pick apart 
the dozens of adware, spyware, junkware, and shovelware that installer 
forced onto my system and delete and/or uninstall it. Windows defender 
helped some. I thought I had cleaned it all up, but there were still 
remnants in my registry and filesystem, which were discovered by 
Defender when it got the latest updates. Norton Antivirus sat happily 
aside and watched the whole thing without uttering even a peep.

-- 
~Mike

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Invisible wrote:

> 
> Right. And the virtual memory system will swap that out to disk since it 
> isn't being used. And, unless the program tries to "do" something, it 
> will never be swapped back in again. Should have no impact on anything.
> 

Just because the application is minimized doesn't necessarily mean it's 
doing nothing. Every windows program has a window loop. Messages about 
system status and the like are broadcast to all windows in the system 
occasionally. So, even if the program is idle, it will still have some 
minimal working set that must be loaded into memory, get a few dozen of 
these running in the background, and you'll eventually bring a computer 
to its knees.



-- 
~Mike

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On Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:45:52 -0600, Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I clicked cancel, 
>and it proceeded to install itself, even though I clicked cancel.

I always do Ctrl + W or click the "close" X
Some popup have two install buttons called Install and Cancel :)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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>  I suppose that it wouldn't help to install a good firewall and resident
> malware scanners in their computers because they would nevertheless pay
> zero attention to what the software is telling them and allow everything.


I believe they are being sent out with Windows Defender and Symantec 
Antivirus. The firewall is activated when the machines go out, but if people 
are being indescriminate about the software they install then they are still 
going to have problems. I don't have those problems and I tend to use my 
work laptop for all manner of things that are not work related- I'm using it 
now in just such a manner.
In the office, we have a well-designed efficient network with Cisco 
firewalls and VPN. We haven't had any bandwidth problems since they sarted 
filtering certain types of traffic and all our french interns went back to 
school.

-- 

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