Dean Olson said: (quoted from post at 03:00:09 07/21/14) I've had multiple windows based laptops of all the major brands.
Multiple problems with all of them. ....
I should also have said I provide tech support for my rural area. I am the only person that does it in my area. The population density is around 3 people per square mile, town with stores is 30 miles away. Anybody within 10 miles, sometimes more is called "neighbor". I don't often get paid for my tech services, it's not my trade, I'm a cattle rancher. Sometimes I get a few bucks for gas, a meal, trade for borrowing something, or I get nothing. If someone calls I don't run over immediately, I do it when I have time, they understand that. I try to fix them so they don't break, so I don't have to go back. Not as a profit type deal where I generate income further down the line.
What you describe is not the norm by any means. I've got XP machines out that haven't been touched in years running just fine just following my setup and instructions. Issues with malware generally arise going to questionable websites while not using the tools I mentioned in the last post. Say a kid gets on there and starts looking up random stuff, or a website purposely uses a popular website's misspelled address to get people to go to it when they make errors. Also opening "fake" email attachments generated by malware on another person's machine/spam. Those are "generally" the main causes I see. Blocking Flash stuff from automatically loading, scripts from untrusted sites stops much of it. I have everyone on free antivirus, always have, not much reason to pay for it unless someone wants to, and if someone flat out wants a paid one, there is generally one with a rebate that makes it cheap, or even free. Malwarebytes is where the money is better spent, because paying money for that enables realtime protection. Most of the issues I see lately are more "Malware" than virus anyway. In addition to before, you can use a free (or paid) service such as opendns.com , it will intercept and block questionable websites from loading. And as far as hardware failure rates, some budget laptops do use budget parts, but as I said before, Macs use hardware manufactured by the same companies, their hardware is compatible with normal hardware. MacOS can run on a normal PC just fine if a person uses specific hardware that their os supports (they don't have drivers for different hardware of course). Just takes a little bit of tweaking. Replacing PCs often? I haven't seen that issue. I just did one a couple days ago that was 9 years old, working fine they just wanted faster. Years older than that, common.
Not saying Macs don't have their place, people just need to know what they are getting. For instance my neighbor wanted a $2500 17" Macbook, I picked it out for him, no problem. He teaches and that's what the school provides for the students, so he got one on his own. You also get better tech support with Macs because it's paid for, part of the reason regular PCs are cheaper (and often why I'd suggest going with PC business lines because some of them are built better and have better support, for a cost). But here, suggesting something that's more than double the stated budget is a bit much, unless it's what the OP wants. That's why I say Linux if someone wants a change to something relatively virus free and stable (system can run for years without issue). That's a free option to try BEFORE shelling out additional money, and Windows/familiarity is still available on the same machine. The latest release of Mint or Ubuntu are long term supported. Security updates only for 5 years, so security updates for that long, upgraded programs along the way, no need to do a free upgrade to the newest version in that time if you don't want for 5 years. And Linux may not work, but a person is out $0 for trying it out (and people that suggest it have nothing to gain). Learning curve and some hardware not compatible, sure. Same with Mac. But it's not that hard. Also, Macs can and do get viruses, rare, but there have been nasty ones, and they are vulnerable to some web exploits as well. And they do make antivirus software for Macs.
This post was edited by rview_ at 08:19:52 07/21/14 2 times.
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Today's Featured Article - Third Brush Generators - by Chris Pratt. While I love straightening sheet metal, cleaning, and painting old tractors, I use every excuse to avoid working on the on the electrics. I find the whole process sheer mystery. I have picked up and attempted to read every auto and farm electrics book with no improvement in the situation. They all seem to start with a chapter entitled "Theory of Electricity". After a few paragraphs I usually close the book and go back to banging out dents. A good friend and I were recently discussing our tractor electrical systems when he stated "I figure it all comes back to applying Ohms Law". At this point
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