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Looking for suggestions
bobo
(A monkey)
in Zocalo v2.0
My in-laws (in their late 60's) are asking me to help find a computer and get connected. They only need it for simple word processing, e-mail, surfing, and of course Solitaire. ;)
As much as it may be a travesty in some of your minds, I'm thinking a simple e-Machine from Best Buy with Windows XP Home edition. They're currently using a Windows 3.1 box with no network connection, so this is all new, scary territory for them.
They live five hours away, so I'd like to use the Remote Terminal Services (RTS) to connect when they have problems.
[list]
[*]Has anyone gone through this before? What advice can you give?
[*]Must you have a VPN to use RTS, and if so, how do you set up a PC to PC VPN?
[*]I'm currently using ZoneAlarm as my firewall, and considering the same for them. Any issues with that?
[/list]
Any (useful/relevant ;)) advice is appreciated.
As much as it may be a travesty in some of your minds, I'm thinking a simple e-Machine from Best Buy with Windows XP Home edition. They're currently using a Windows 3.1 box with no network connection, so this is all new, scary territory for them.
They live five hours away, so I'd like to use the Remote Terminal Services (RTS) to connect when they have problems.
[list]
[*]Has anyone gone through this before? What advice can you give?
[*]Must you have a VPN to use RTS, and if so, how do you set up a PC to PC VPN?
[*]I'm currently using ZoneAlarm as my firewall, and considering the same for them. Any issues with that?
[/list]
Any (useful/relevant ;)) advice is appreciated.
Comments
If its one thing that Mac has maintained, its the 'no brainer' ease of use.
You eliminate the worm and virus problem instantaneously.
All neat and tidy and quite capable of all you've mentioned. My parents are much the same, they run a Mac.
Outside of setting up and doing an intensive sort of training of said 'ancient mellows' you should be fine with a Mac mini.
[B]indeed...
If its one thing that Mac has maintained, its the 'no brainer' ease of use.
You eliminate the worm and virus problem instantaneously.
All neat and tidy and quite capable of all you've mentioned. My parents are much the same, they run a Mac.
Outside of setting up and doing an intensive sort of training of said 'ancient mellows' you should be fine with a Mac mini. [/B][/QUOTE]
I'm using a Mac Mini at work. No problems...though setting MySQL up on it wasn't as strait forward as I would have liked :). Overall, good system. It is basically a laptop without a monitor or keyboard in a stylized case. Runs about $500 as I recall.
--RC
[B]If you get a machine with win xp pro you can get the remote destop utility built in. the client doesn't haev to do anything, you just have to install the utility on your machine from the win xp pro CD. I've only used it once, in a test. it seemed pretty easy, though i'm not sure how to connect without being on the saem network. [/B][/QUOTE]
Well, I wouldn't recommend XP Home to anyone, but I also wouldn't recommend Remote Desktop unless they need it.
99% of the problems most people run into also disrupt the network, making any sort of remote desktop worthless.
If you really need it, install VNC on their system with very restricted access (say, only your IP, with password).
As a side note, all Mac systems come with a built in VNC-type clone, though I've found that the OS X 10.0.4 (Tiger) version doesn't work with Real VNC viewer on the PC - haven't tested other viewers...never had the chance. I do know that OS X 10.0.3 does work with Real VNC viewer. Strange.
My parents and brothers use Macs, but I'm a PC guy by trade. Not sure now much help I'd be if they went Mac, but then, maybe that's a good thing. ;)
RC, what's the problem with XP Home?
For the connectivity, one of the network admins at work recommended [URL=http://www.mywebexpc.com/index.php]MyWebExPc[/URL] . Looks promising.
[B]RC, what's the problem with XP Home?[/B][/QUOTE]
It sucks?
They took all the good bits of Pro out of it. Lack of decent file sharing, lack of decent network control, lack of proper range of user types, stuff like that. Not really stuff a 60 year old would notice, but it still sucks. :)
[url]http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx[/url]
Basically Home removes all but the most absolutely basic networking support and only supports single processor systems. Home is not adequate for anything more than a standalone computer that needs to do nothing more than connect to the web or a very basic home network.
[B]Don't forget the part where it has weird conflicts with drivers and software that'd normally work with XP Pro just fine! [/B][/QUOTE]So that's why I have never had problems with things like graphic card drivers while there seems to be so many others who complain about problems with "every other" driver version.
(or that last right working driver is year old)
[B]Differences between XP home and Pro:
[url]Basically Home ...only supports single processor systems. [/B][/QUOTE]
Yes, and I find it quite amusing that companies like Dell (Only one I have noticed, I haven't researched others yet) sell either HyperThreading/Transport or Duel Core proccessors with Home edition.
IIRC those also need multi-proccessor support to use more than one core or run multiple threads through the pipe at once.
[B]Yes, and I find it quite amusing that companies like Dell (Only one I have noticed, I haven't researched others yet) sell either HyperThreading/Transport or Duel Core proccessors with Home edition.
IIRC those also need multi-proccessor support to use more than one core or run multiple threads through the pipe at once. [/B][/QUOTE]
Yeah for all intents and purposes Windows sees HT as two physical CPU's so Home will not support it. But with most baseline CPU's now being HT as well they find themselves on lower end systems where the extra cost of XP Pro would be bad. Microsoft will need to take this into consideration in future operating systems now that dual core type CPU's are becoming mainstream.
I remember how much fun we had a few years ago at where I worked when we got some of the first HT enabled Xeon servers. A lot of corporate specific software such as Oracle are licensed by processor count. Managers almost had a heart attack when they though they would need to buy double licences for the software (tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars more). Even then a lot of those companies were unclear where they stood in the HT issue and if it should be charged as a second CPU or not. Thankfully most decided not to consider it the same as a second physical CPU even if Windows sees it that way. I had to run HT disabled in the BIOS for months until that was resolved. With the new real dual core CPU's from AMD and Intel though I don't think it will remain like that.