But teach, The Virus Ate My Paper - The new non-excuse.


[inspired to write this this morning by broadbandreports.com's article Secure Me, Please - Poor security tales of amazement ]
The majority of visitors to this site have usually been called on as tech support for family and friends. As such, our users often recount the horrors they find when going pro bono, be it 972 viruses on a single PC, or over 1,100 instances of spyware after a scan with Adaware (and that's actually a low total). Anti-virus definitions half a decade old, or absolutely zero protection of any kind are unfortunately all too common. It's these experiences that often makes our users laugh when a publication like the New Scientist claims one in twenty PC's "may be harbouring" unwanted spyware.

In class, as well as here, I try not to get too evangelical about flavours of operating systems. But last night I had students in 3 different classes with variations of 'the virus ate my homework.' Of course, these comments created the usual 'mumble-mumble' around the class of 'my computer doesn't work either.'

Unfortunately, my gut reaction was to say 'So, that's no excuse. A valid excuse for something like this is when things happen by accident or by means beyond one's control. You use windows, you clean up the mess.' As I was saying this I was internally shaking my head and thinking, why do people put up with this? I even had one student who said the it was his fault because he heard of the patch but decided to wait because he was doing other things. People, to use the car analogy, the problem isn't that you forgot to put gas in it, the problem is you're driving a lemon which obligates you to get out and tighten the screws every 50km.

'And what about 'the software I need?' I here some say. Well, the Mac comes with probably 90% of all the software you'll ever need. Hey. even Microsoft makes better software on the Mac. Here's a TIME reporter who recently commented that Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac is BETTER than the windows version.
[ New work-bundling software for Macs could make Windows users envious ]
And for students and teachers Office is like $150 US. Now you have 98%.

And so to those who are on the side of the road and getting out the screw drivers and wrenches to tighten up their ride I say, 'I guess it's OK,' as I turn on the windshield wipers to clean the bugs off, 'I'll wait for you in the big city.'


Posted: Tue - May 4, 2004 at 10:22 AM            

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