Computer Support

Everyone has problems with their computers at some stage – they reach a certain age and become moody and uncommunicative, they refuse to tidy their drives and start crashing with little or no provocation. Shamini Bundell talks to one computer owner who took radical steps to solve their PC’s behavioural problems.

“He was always such a considerate and helpful computer” says Louisa Rix, owner of three year old laptop, ‘Dell-boy’. “Then suddenly it was like he was a different computer. He wouldn’t talk to me anymore, would just refuse to answer me if I called him.” Louisa hoped that it was just a stage, but the problems got worse.

“I found out he’d been staying up all night hacking into porn sites. He was in this online ‘gang’ called the ‘napsters’,” Louisa tells us. Gangs, or ‘networks’ like these install a sense of belonging and cultural identity in computers rebelling against their programming. “There was just too much peer-to-peer pressure.”

Specialist I.T. experts are used to dealing with problems such as these. “We get a lot of enquiries from worried owners” technician Joe Frost tells us, “a common concern being that these PCs are going to pick up something nasty out there on the Internet”.

Many computer owners resort to physical means of expressing their frustrations, often hitting or kicking their machines. Is this an effective solution? “We certainly wouldn’t recommend corporal punishment” says Joe, “that is not going to help your relationship and is going to be sending the wrong message to your computer.”

Louisa Rix was eventually driven to extreme measures – ‘Dell-boy’ now runs on Linux and Louisa reports dramatic improvements; however I.T. experts say that major reconfigurations should not be necessary.

“What these computers need is a firm hand and fair punishments,” says Joe. He has developed a special technique in which misbehaving computers are sent to the ‘naughty window’ and disconnected from the Internet. “It may seem harsh but it’s a lot better than just trying to wipe their hard-drives.”

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