the threat to your machine

it's cute and you love this menace

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the menace

One of the biggest threats to your computing is in your own household. It looks innocent enough, and, in fact, you consider this threat to be completely and perfectly innocent. You love this threat, and would die to protect this menace to your online business or local files.

The threat is your own child.

The most common lament from home users is, "Everything was fine until my son..." You can fill in the blank. Maybe he downloaded something, decided to "optimize" the system, or loaded a game. No matter the intent, your machine went casters-up mode, and you're stuck shelling out a couple of hundred dollars in help line calls to get the thing to boot again.

Children, especially pre-teens and teens, are naturally drawn to computing. It's the ultimate toy. Being able to whip around a desktop is necessary for peer ranking. The Internet is one big playpen, full of all sorts of interesting things. And, to the casual eye, children seem to really know about computing.

But stop to think about it. Would you let your sixteen year old start taking apart your car because he showed competency in driving? So your daughter's a good cook? Would you let her open up the inside of the microwave for a "tweak"?

Yet we unwittingly let our children do this to our workstations all the time. Part of the problem is the design of the workstation itself. It's not bulletproofed.

fragile machines

Bulletproofing is a programming term. You bulletproof a program to keep users from crashing it and from entering invalid data. Bulletproofing a simple program can be more work that writing the actual working part of the program.

Modern home computers, or more specifically, their operating systems, are hardly bulletproofed. A user has access to all sorts of files and interfaces that, when corrupted or changed, can render a computer useless. Think of driving a car. The interface to the car - the steering wheel, dashboard, pedals - bulletproof the car. Computers are analogous to a kind of car where you control it from under the hood. You're able to change vacuum, fuel flow, spark timing and oil temperature. Eventually you'll blow the engine.

The overconfidence of children kills machines. Kids only have the illusion of mastery of the operating system. Being able to change desktop backgrounds doesn't mean she understands the purpose of dll files. Being capable of opening a word processing program doesn't mean she understands design and publishing. Knowing how to pull up her favorite site on the Internet doesn't guarantee that she understands the nature of an HTTP call. Eventually your child will destroy your computer. It's that simple.

I've seen it all. Kids opening viruses, downloading quirky programs, filling the registry to its maximum, compressing the hard drive for no known reason, loading AOL fifteen or twenty times, losing shortcuts, loading programs on the root and on and on.

So do we kick them off the machine? You need reliable access to your computer. You have sites to manage, email to answer, and important files stored on the hard disk. You can't afford to let your kids screw your machine up, yet you can't afford to let them not learn how to operate a computer.

strategies

There are a couple of simple strategies for preventing your daughter or son from erasing your novel or banking files. Some are free, and some cost.

Back up important data files. Floppies are alright, but they are fragile and don't hold enough for many kinds of work. Some kind of large file disk is better, like a Zip Disk or SuperDisk. If your important files are small enough you can upload them to the webspace that your ISP probably has for you. Or you can use one of the online storage companies.

Create profiles. User profiles are one of the keenest and most overlooked features of Windows. Profiles are an easy way to create desktops and Internet Explorer personalities for each user. This cuts down on the chance you kids will erase important files or shortcuts. Profiles give a child her own workspace.

Give them their own machine. Sounds expensive, but if you think of what's at stake a second machine may be worth its weight in gold. If your current machine is a year or so old, it might make sense for you to upgrade to a newer model and let the children have the current box.

Get them computer training. A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. Your kids have learned enough to get started using a machine, so there's no reason they can't be formally taught its operation. The more they know, the less likely they will start corrupting the operating system.

Teach them the dangers. Kids will download viruses at the drop of a hat. There are plenty of places on the Web that teach safe computing. Visit these sites with them so they have a better understanding of the dos and don'ts of cyberspace.

Stick with a gaming system. The investment in Nintendo or Playstation will pay off handsomely. Keeping the kids from loading games on the system will prevent the problems associated with resource-hungry programs looking for direct access to hardware.

A little thought and the realistic expectation that your child will eventually crash any system she is regularly using should prevent you from losing your own access and important data.