On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 22:44:24 +0100, "Mark Spice"
wrote:


"Mark Spice" wrote in message
...
I know this is waaaaaaaay off topic but the guys here seem to be
reasonably
knowledgable about a load of weird stuff so here goes.

Has anyone had any experience with Mesh PC's? Aged parents want to get
their first PC and there is a Mesh one that looks good on paper but I
haven't had any dealings with Mesh so I'm not sure what their service etc
is
like. As I will probably be having to fix/identify any problems down the
phone from 300 miles away I want to minimise any potential cock-ups as
much
as possible.

Cheers for any input

Mark

I know it's bad form to reply to myself but it seems the easiest way.

Thanks to all who responded. I'm afraid I don't know enough Linux to make
that a sensible solution as the aged parents have almost got the hang of
Windows now and I think a total learning curve for both them and I would be
far too much stress.

I have to deal with the same issue, and on balance, for the
application, XP Professional was reluctantly my choice, although I
suppose one could use the home version. Five suggestions:

- Keep the basic installation simple and with as few applications as
possible.

- Use the user accounts to segregate what they do and also set those
up without any admin privileges.

- Set up remote access (e.g. remote desktop or VNC)

- Install a good quality commercial virus scanner and personal
firewall. I've found the Norton one to be good and reliable as well
as lockable.

- Implement a proper imaging and backup setup so that once the machine
is built, you have a disaster recovery DVD which can be reloaded
quickly, plus incremental backups of what they do. It is surprising
how much valuable work ends up going onto the machine. An external
hard drive would be another way to do this. Some come with a DR
arrangement.


That does maintain a setup that remains pretty stable and reasonable
for a period of weeks. It does get rebooted every few days because
it's shut down. It certainly won't run for months on end without
attention of some kind such as applying the myriad of security and
other updates that Microsoft issues to cover its incompetences or
generally tidying it up. Mostly this can be accomplished by remote
access, so overall the availability is pretty good.

I think that that's a workable approach, but now that the wrinklies
have become more computer literate, it will probably be switched to
Linux. I've been using Unix systems for more than 25 years, so it's
not that hard for me anyway, but to be honest, the distributions such
as SuSE are now extremely well packaged to the point that for setting
up a machine for this purpose it's an out of the box solution - i.e.
run the DVD and load. When all is installed, it will run reliably
for months or years on end, deals with network connections properly
and is easily manageable remotely.



The same goes for Macs as well with the addendum that
they are far too much money and I really don't see the point of them - I
have yet to find something that I need to do that a Mac can do that a
cheaper PC can't.

The main points are ease of use and especially reliability. Windows,
even XP is not robust. It still isn't an operating system in the
proper sense. It tolerates having lots of applications installed very
poorly and suffers from a creeping entropy of deterioration just in
normal use. Applications behave badly and leave temporary files and
crud around. In a mobile situation of being away from home with a
notebook, it simply can't be relied upon to remain solid.
If I loaded on a small set of applications it would just about be OK.
However, I need to have a lot of things installed and available and
it simply isn't up to it - even a powerful machine with 3GHz processor
and 1GB memory.

I also run Linux on my notebook and it is very effective and
functional. However, there are certain professional and commercially
supported applications that I need to run to exchange information with
others and these are not available under Linux.

The Mac provides me with a very stable underlying operating system
(Unix) which will run for weeks in and out of standby without
deterioration. I don't need to be able to dig into the operating
system to use it, but I can if I want to. I can get all of the
commercially supported applications that I need. Its use is well
thought out. Those things are worth the extra cost to me.




All in all I would probably get a Mesh if it was for me but having bought a
Dell previously myself I think the aged ones could do with the extra
hand-holding that is available

I have found their desktop machines (have bought several over the
years) are quite reasonable and well made. The notebooks are utter
garbage - never again on those.

They do attend for service quite well, but keep in mind that they will
not restore data, so a disaster recovery setup is important.





Cheers

Mark



--

..andy