[OT] MacDefender

[Judy Perry]

While I wouldn't say people deserve to get a virus, every day I show up 
for work amazes me with the stupid stuff students/consumers think and do 
with computers.

So, this term -- these are non-CS majors -- we talked about doing data 
backups.  Eyes rolled into the backs of their skulls.  We talked about 
numerous studies showing that the ordinary user considerably overrates 
his or her computer literacy.  Among the few that bothered to show up 
for class, a few were actually asleep or texting or had ear buds in their 
ears. (I had one today who actually TEXTED during his own group's 
presentation!!!)

Last week a student hands  me his paper to review.  It had ZERO citations 
despite the fact that 15% of his overall grade was the annotated 
bibliography he was supposed to have turned in weeks ago.  It also was 
mostly wrong in its conclusions/conclusions not really supported by 
available data.

I pointed out to him that he needed citations and so he asked me for his 
bibliography back.  I didn't have it with me so I told him to print out 
another.  He tells me he cannot print out another because he decided to 
reformat his harddrive.  Without doing a backup.

Then he defends his choice to go with zero citations because 'I'm an 
expert in this area and so I thought it would be okay to just give you my 
opinions.'

Ten minutes later, the same student, a Windows user, asked me for help 
because he didn't know how to burn a file to a disc.

Sorry -- touched a nerve here too.

Judy

On Thu, 19 May 2011, stephen barncard wrote:

> I was an involuntary mac computer tech support person for 13 years. My
> attitude after that experience was that people should just eventually learn
> how to cook or get out of the kitchen. Pleading ignorance in this day and
> age is no excuse for doing stupid stuff over and over. Look it up! "it" is
> all over the net, whatever "it" is..