Spike ,'The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco'
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My Mom's computer is dying. I've backed up all her critical files - which took up about 30 megs (profile from her email and browser, plus some very small word processing files.) Basically she does e-mail, very light browsing and the very occasional light internet use.
So we need to get her something for comparatively modest needs. Price is important, so we don't want overkill - but we don't want slow as molasses either. Any thoughts?
Thanks
how much?
350 or under would be nice. We can live with more if we have to avoid getting garbage. But she doesn't need much power.
does she already have a monitor? or is this a laptop replacement?
There are prices on refurb Mac Mini's around that range through the online Apple store.
She has a monitor. And she's kind of used to her keyboard too. Hmm - she is used to the wintel world, and 83 new stuff is not always easy on her. On the other hand if we go wintel she will end up with XP; her current system use ME. Dunno if the MAC will be harder for her to get used to or not. I know it is a more user friendly system. But you have to understand that she has never passed to stage of "you press the following buttons in the following sequence" to get things to happen. I don't think she ever has gotten used to applying the whole desktop metaphor - file cabinets and such. Not sure if Mac would be the way for her to go.
This engadget bit says, amongst other things, that WEP encryption is a joke. How funny? What else should I be doing to make my network secure ... though I probably can't, and still keep my TiVo wireless, can I?
WEP can be cracked in a minute or two with a modern computer. You need to use WPA if at all possible.
What else should I be doing to make my network secure
MAC address filtering, don't broadcast the SSID, use long key lengths like 128, 152 or 256 bits. WEP plus those three items are not insurmountable, but they may be a good enough deterrant.
You might also look to see if you can upgrade the firmware on your access point so that it can provide WPA or WPA2.