Open Letter to Sherman E. DeForest

"The trick is to educate them on what can be done so that they can decide what they want to do"

Dear Sherm,

Your articles are providing me with both inspiration and soul searching challenge.

I may not fall into the 'senior' category officially if you use a calendar, but I retired in 1990 and my first Windows and PC came in late 2000. My limited computer contact at work was on a UNIX trying to make sense of a data base tracking program with conflicting logic reflecting the design by pros with no appreciation for the work the model described or the users entering the data. (With grep and bat files I did manage to find and create most of the 'logically needed steps' that reality and the field user didn't need or document.) To say I understood computers would be exaggeration. What I did was examine the problem from both sides and find a way to get to the desired goal. A computer pro would have fixed the logical model -- I massaged the data.

When I began learning about my PC and Windows, I felt lost, but I was encouraged by the community of help that seemed to be everywhere online. That many were merely marketing something was a bit daunting. That many were actually sharing their expertise open-handedly made the process exciting. Much of what I read and found went over my head like a roof -- I still say I understand about 80% of what I read.

I stumbled into a chatroom while troubleshooting a problem and met a wild bunch of Senior Netizens. Some had had data entry experience before retiring, many had never met a keyboard before they got their PC. But all recognized this was a way to reach out and communicate. To fill the voids that time and health sometimes created in their lives. Quickly they became the dearest and closest friends I'd never met.

Even the Net changes, so we moved from that chatroom invading MSN Groups and spawning several dozen private, semi-public or public Groups. Some found message boards and custom pages; and others discovered graphic tools and blogs. Along the way I have tried to show the possibilities lending a hand when I can. Trying to find, fall into and learn the way out of most pitfalls.

The internet is what we make it.

Sincerely,

AsparaGus

AVG - The sky isn't falling

Earlier this week, news of Grisoft, discontinuing updating the free edition of AVG as of the end of this year, hit the eZines. As usual the sky is falling panic began, but with great timing Grisoft responded that they were preparing to soon roll out a newer version of their Free Personal Edition (7.0) and the new site is much more user friendly.

As I write I am doing the initial virus scan (as part of the installation.) Features I liked were the creation of Rescue Disks which would allow booting to a DOS driven virus scan and a bit more advanced email 'sandbox' configuration. You could accept the default setting for that sandbox, but taking the time to create the Rescue Disk set is well worth the peace of mind.

The Update process seems altered and the initial scan seems to be slower (but I am doing several other things and this is a very subjective judgement.) While it is too soon to say if the newer version is as good or better, the point is they have continued to be available as a reputable free alternative.

No one should be running without virus protection!