OneGuyFromBarlick

Sounds as though I was lucky, seventy years ago the temptation wasn't there and they didn't have to run the school like a prison! Mind you, they insisted we all had our fas masks with us at all times but you couldn't do anything interesting with them....

Those nice people at Canonical gave me 90mb of new OS this morning....
Reports that sales opf desktop computers dropped 10% last year triggering screams that the day of the tower is over. Not with this Kiddy! I like my machine to have room to breathe and not have a design constrained by size of components.

The day of the tower isn't just as long as it was, but its far from over. Most people who create 'content' rather than merely consume it will prefer a real screen and a real keyboard. The keyboards and screens on Laptops are second rate, and a tablet has a third rate screen combined with a next door to non-existent keyboard. Trying to type more than a dozens word on **shudder** a glass plate doesn't exactly get the creative juices going. My line of of work demands a real computer and whilst I need to commit to having space for it, buying a tablet is a waste of time and money. I have a small laptop I take out to jobs with me, which gets me out of holes and has something I consider indispensable which I have never seen on a phone/tablet/macbook air - an Ethernet jack....

I can't see Stanley transcribing the LTP on a touch screen....

PS I've built two desktop PCs "towers" for customers this week, both of them had either a laptop or tablet as well.

You'll remember that I asked about the sense of installing Ubuntu on Mrs Tiz's dad's Windows XP desktop...well once we got all his data and mail copied off it I installed 32-bit Ubuntu 12.04. The install went perfectly, it's slower than our own PCs of course but quite adequate, probably faster than when it was bogged down by Windows and antivirus software. It turned out useful as Mrs Tiz's machine started showing a warning saying `HDD failure imminent'. We got her backed up data and profile onto dad's newly Ubuntued PC so she had that while I played with her main PC. Fortunately that has 2 HDDs, so I disconnected the duff drive and reinstalled Ubuntu on the good one (which has been used for extra backups - we're definitely `belt & braces' with backups all over the place!). Then added her data and profile and now she has two Ubuntu PCs! Ubuntu seem to have got the installation really slick now compared with the old days when I first started using it and had to have several goes to get a successful install.

Back-ups. At this time of year I get a bit itchy because I back up my current year's work at the end of December (onto two external hard drives). Call me anal if you will but I can remember losing work! I'm interested in the fact that Ubuntu gave you a message about imminent failure of the HD. Is that standard on the systems?
If the systems Pluggy has built are anywhere near as good as the FM3 the clients will be happy bunnies!
I wonder how Kev is going on with the FM2?

Stanley wrote:I wonder how Kev is going on with the FM2?

It's still doing its job. Not used it much recently, the kitchen build is taking up a lot of my time.

Ubuntu has devalued the S.M.A.R.T system built into hard drives (which is where it got the warning from) possibly due to Google doing a lot of research suggesting not much can be gained into what the SMART system says. In the latest 13.10 it has been buried further down. In 12.04, you can view the SMART data from your hard drive by clicking on 'Dash Home' putting 'di' into the search and clicking on 'Disk Utility' and selecting the drive that interests you. I'd read more into an all clear 'Disk is healthy' than the numerous things that suggest otherwise. If your drive has bad sectors, make a note of the date and how many, and try the drive at later dates. If the number of bad sectors increases it can mean the drive is failing, but a drive can have a static number of bad sectors without much of a worry. Its pretty complex....

Massive (96mb) upgrade for 12.04 64bit this morning. Mainly Open Office and peripherals. Thanks lads!

The `imminent failure' warning was believable because Mrs Tiz's PC was suffering times when software wouldn't open when you clicked the icon, so you'd click several times and then 5 minutes later several instances of the same application would open. Infuriating! The warning was good too because it had a button to click to get all the info on the HDDs, the locations mount points, serial numbers etc. I noted the serial number of the bad disk from that and then disconnected it.

Now, then here's a question for the OG computer wizards. Mrs Tiz's parents have entered a nursing home. Dad has dementia and Parkinson's and in a way it's all the worse for him because he's been a clever and successful man with a wide interest in the world. He's almost completely confined to the home and his sole links with the outside world are the TV in his room and any newspapers or magazines. He's pressing us to give him a computer so that he can access the Internet for information and send emails. We're having to say no because he's now easily capable of succumbing to email scams or getting drawn into trouble via web sites.

Is there any way of providing him with access to web sites where he could get world news (BBC?), information on his interests (e.g. science, industrial archeaology, history, engineering) yet keep him safe from scams and from trying to pay for anything on the Net? I can't think of any way unless he could be confined only to `internal' linked pages on selected web sites but I don't know if even that is possible. Any ideas welcome! (I foresee a great need for this type of access in the future amd if someone came up with a foolproof mechanism they might make a lot of money out of the idea.)

It reminds me of that Tom Wrigglesworth episode where his dad was `downloading the Internet' so he could print it out!

Looks like you have double pasted a bit at the end in your post above Tiz.

In answer to your question, this puts a whole new slant on "Parental Control". You would need the equivalent but for the senior end of the ageing process. A similar problem for those needing filtering for the young not yet fully solved. I can't think of any easy way round this problem either, sorry. You have managed to wrestle driving the car off him, I'm afraid it's probably going to be a similar situation regarding driving a computer.

Tiz. Buy him a new touch screen windows 8.1 lap top. From my experience it will soon find its way into the bin. If he can sort it out please tell me. Seriously, windows 8 is a nightmare, try telling him that when they have sorted it out you'll get him one.

Thanks for the comments, Ian. I'm not surprised by your reply. Thanks also for pointing out the superfluous text.

Plaques, funny you should mention that - it's exactly what I told him. When he last used a PC he was having trouble and that was XP, so I told him about the latest `improvements' by MS and the joys of using Windows 8. He admitted it might be difficult for him to get the hang of it! The more I think of it, the more unlikely it seems that there can be a solution. I had a search on the Web for ways of controlling access in Ubuntu. It's all geared to controlling kids but looks like too much complication and I wouldn't be there to help him (150 miles between us).

You can fork out a bit more for a Windows 7 Professional Laptop which are still available although probably not from PC World. People were throwing up their hands in horror when Ubuntu dumped the Gnome desktop for Unity, it was of naught as to what Microsoft did with Windows 8.

Any small supplier will still be able to build you a Desktop with Windows 7 Home (I've done quite a few) or you could fork out for a copy of Windows 7 Home and install it over 8. Or you can get software to bastardise 8 to look like an earlier copy of windows, but it works like what it is - a bastardised system....

Must get round to downloading 8.1 to see how much it changes/improves Windows 8.

There are solutions for Tiz's problem but with the way the internet works today, it will probably be more pain than its worth. Do a google on walled garden and/or DNS. You cripple DNS so that only some websites can be accessed.

Yeeks, just wrestled the one machine I have with windows 8 back from the wife (Its dual boot with Ubuntu and is almost never used with Win 8). Windows 8.1 update is the size of the last 3 versions of Ubuntu put together, 2.81 GB, this is going to take time..........

OK, after a not too painful 2+ hours I've successfully upgraded to Windows 8.1. Huge improvement on Windows 8, with a bit of tweaking you can make the desktop the standard rather than the start screen and you're not continually having to fight the start screen to get stuff done. With a bit of thinking you can avoid the start screen altogether, but its not intrusive if you don't. All apps is now dead easy to find and you can add all the stuff you want to use to the desktop using the charms personalise thingy. Its not different enough to upset the (very) few who don't mind windows 8.0, its completely different to 7, but its at least usable to the XP/Vista/7 crowd now. If I was stuck using Windows, its a definite, but the wife's laptop will remain defaulting to Ubuntu....

I can now offer an informed opinion to Windows 8.0/8.1 to my customers.

If you don't have FAST broadband it might be a different story, 2.81 GB takes long enough at 17Mb/s, it would be extremely painful on some of what is passed off as broadband.

Tiz, what an interesting question. It looks like an insoluble problem but as we have seen so often, given the will to find an answer, one will be found. Question is, how to trigger developers off to make them realise that this is a niche market that might be a money-spinner.
I love the concept of you wanting parental control in reverse. What strikes me is whether there is actually a problem. Could it be that your apprehension is worse than what would be the case? What's worse case? You have taken ownership of any possible problem but is it actually yours? What would happen if you acceded to his request and let him loose on the web? There is of course the obvious question of whether you are right to try to control him.
I can understand the problem and it's a minefield, I'm glad I don't have to deal with it.
The only thing that I can think of is some method of you being able to access his web history so you can at least get some prior warning of trouble by what he is doing. The trolls seem to have spy-ware that can do this...
The nice thing is that you are aware of the problem and care about it. None of the above is opinion, just random thoughts round the question.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments and suggestions.

Pluggy wrote:There are solutions for Tiz's problem but with the way the internet works today, it will probably be more pain than its worth.

This is the conclusion we're coming to - the more we think about it, the more we realise how impractical it would be. I'm glad that your wife uses Ubuntu - Mrs Pluggy and Mrs Tiz must be the only women I know who use Linux!

Stanley, the developers - like marketing people - are probably stuck in that rut of thinking that the customer base for such software is dying out and failing to acknowledge that it's replenished all the time (and will be growing in the near future). But it's one of those `ticking time bomb' scenarios (caution: cliche alert!) that will be `suddenly discovered' by the politicians and then we end up with the developers running around like headless chickens trying to come up with a solution to a problem that's already caused lots of heartache for elderly folk and their carers/relatives/friends.

You asked about the worst case and whether we are right to try to control him. Good questions. Some days his mental ability is quite good, not what he used to be but good enough to cope with basic things. But other days, sadly, he loses it altogether, talks gibberish, doesn't recognise people and wouldn't be safe to be let out even if he was physically fit enough to walk. Short term memory is a problem too and he now finds relatively simple things difficult - using a TV remote control for example. I think the main problem with a computer would now be an inability to use it, even the old XP type set up. He has his old familiar radio/CD player but now can't remember how to use it from one day to the next, other than which button to press for on and off. Even if he could browse the web the computer would probably quickly end up overloaded and perhaps taken over as a zombie PC,

He wants lots of things, just like my own father has wanted his bicycle, credit cards etc. We are so used to this characteristic now we have a name for it - `aspirations'. When we get to that stage of life and in that condition we want such things even though we can't use them because it gives us the feelings that perhaps we really can use them, or that one day we'll be better and will be able to use them again. To some extent it's good to be allowed those aspirations but there are times when the danger is too great (e.g. the bicycle). Mrs Tiz's father wants his subscription to The Economist renewed but he hasn't been reading the issues because it's now too difficult to take in. When you talk to him about such things (on a good day) and draw him out on the subject he admits that it's not sensible.

Of course, while all this is going on I'm thinking what I'll be like in the future...

Don't transfer the problem to yourself! Time will tell and no amount of worrying will be of any use. Re 'gibberish days', how about a password so complicated that he'll only be able to access on a good day?
Listening to 'Something Understood' on BBC R4 this morning I heard Nelson Mandela referred to as being a person who had ubuntu and it reminded me where our favourite OS got it's name.... See this LINK. Nice connection. I like it!

It's worth extracting Archbishop Desmond Tutu's words (spoken in 2008) from that web page:
"One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity."

That interconnectedness spreads beyond human beings and even beyond living organisms and is what science knows as ecology. Ubuntu also embraces transformational leadership as distinct from transactional leadership. In the latter case we get people to do what we want by transactions such as paying a wage or threatening a punishment, whereas transformational leadership results in people doing what is wanted because they believe in it and feel greater self-esteem and dignity.

"doing what is wanted because they believe in it and feel greater self-esteem and dignity."
Exactly Tiz. I'm not comparing myself to Mandela but that is the reason I write for the local paper on local history. It is also why Ian was seen wandering round with a banana yesterday. His personal self-esteem and dignity will be stronger for it.

Good article by the Beeb :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25200338

Pluggy

I've just tried installing a software program on Stanley's machine and it failed when trying to call a library file called 'libgl1-messa-glx:I386' it appears that this is a part of the operating system that is missing. Any idea's because I'm clueless about Linux.

Regards Doc (Via Stanley's Logon)

How did you install it and what was it ?. I'f be suspicious of anything that didn't come from the Ubuntu repositories via apt-get or the Ubuntu software centre. I386 suggests 32 bit software and Stanley's box is 64 bit. The 64 bit version would likely be AMD64.

Pluggy, it's a mainstream programme and I want it on the FM3. Give me a ring (early in the morning of course!) and we'll arrange for you to come round when you have a slot. It's a problem we hit before but I don't remember how we solved it. Too complicated to explain here. I didn't use the AMD solution because I know I have Intel.... Give me a shout, usual terms.....

An accident of history, AMD were the first to market with a 64 bit processor, so the 64 bit versions have AMD in the title, both will run on either Intel or AMD processors (the 64 bit needs a 64 bit processor but its only old processors that are 32 bit now).

I've lost my voice and Stanley doesn't want the disease (can't blame him the way I was sounding on the phone), so its on hold until I get over it.