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New Idiot 'genius-droids' at work:
So.. I let my friend pick up her iMac 21+ at store, alone -- after they transferred her beastware bookmarks, mail etc.
I thought ... by now they must be expert at covering the basics effectively, with gaggles of newbies and ...
as you don't want to teach a friend how to drive ... don't become a distraction.

I set it up at her house.
They had sent her home: as Admin (her first-name as ID of Admin!): with firewall OFF and [blank] as pw -- pure Beastware-think.
(And the iggerant low-pay kiddies apparently are unaware of 38 (last count) rootkits on the CLAM-AV list.)
Unclear now, if I/we should trust the tykes to undo, if this example of their mindsets is average for the course.

As I made no such conceptual errors in my newbie config, I'm not sure if I need to peruse 'MAN share' (properly), find a CL way to assign permissions for mail, browser to her User account only?
(which I created on seeing this horror / before berating a store droid)
-- or find some other way to transfer her mail and Safari data from Admin to new installs of both, within her new User account.
Similar problem re any other 'folders' from XP -- although she has 0 in pix and 'wtf is an iTune?'

Any suggestions? (Dare I leave this repair to the same crew? At least, one 'Buddy' there, acknowledges this was FUBAR.)
Can it be that the kiddies who sell this stuff still believe in the automagic invulnerability of OS-X,
even when configured WRONGLY and delivered to the perpetually un- mis- informed?

(And while she hasn't had her '1 on 1' session, she was as horrified as would be I
-- that her first intro to her machine was inside that madhouse mob-cacophony that Is 'the store'.)
She had to shout, then try to hear, missing lots -- as the demo droid was speaking as-if to an experienced multi-transistorized 20 yo, just not "quite up on new Mac". ie.
Spend $thousands and get no chance for peace/quiet, in order to grok what they are allegedly imparting.

Crazy shit..

PS: Anyone know of a site / book? designed to ease the minimalist user into OS X?
I mean: someone unlikely ever to go beyond a browser and e-mail, despite the cornucopia of possibilities. And a one not very curious about techno == must be KISS.
All her XP activities were, I'm sure memorized / rote. Her main interests are quite elsewhere, but she needs the communications
Gracias for any pregnant info.



oTpy, reform
Expand Edited by Ashton Jan. 15, 2011, 03:46:46 AM EST
New Bummer. :-(
I got Pogue's "Switching to the Mac - Snow Leopard Edition" - http://www.amazon.co...rd/dp/0596804253/ - to help make the transition. I haven't referred to it in detail, but it seems pretty comprehensive (though at a fairly superficial level). Check the index, example pages, etc.

Although I use the MacMini every day, I haven't actually "switched" to it yet. I haven't transferred any Winders stuff to it yet. I haven't fully groked file permissions and chmod and all that Unix-y stuff well enough to feel comfortable (but I haven't read enough about them either). The learning curve is going to be stretched out for me.

Since her machine is so new, the store should be willing to set it up correctly. Talk to a manager if necessary. If you and/or she don't want the headache of trying again with them, I would assume you'd have a Mac specialist fairly near by. Is there a "Mac Advantage" or something similar in Santa Rosa? This place has rave reviews, but their DNS entry seems to be dead: http://macrepairandservice.com

HTH a little. Good luck!

Cheers,
Scott.
New Thanks.. guess I have to bounce it back
to the script-kiddies, as I have no way of [quickly!] assessing if this admin/Group change is trivial in execution, or fraught with the usual Gotchas which iggerance produces. Let them re-do install + the entire xfer if that's the only script they've memorized.

(I have the L. Missing Manual version, natch): the sample text on Pogue's Snow-modded opus looks good ... as general ref. Thought I could augment the orig. Leopard tome with O'Reilly's Mac OS X Snow L. Pocket Guide (Chris Seibold)). But it's too minimalist for any problem solving -- and TMI for the non-tech.
{{Sigh}} another telephone directory, when what you Want is HAL-9000.

I also need to find out which Beastware-mode movie-player is the latest non-destructive add-in. And confirm that there's (still) no alternative to getting Adobe='mud-literally' installed. She will be watching videos.

There's a 'Dr. Mac' service around, at $90ish a pop. But this is a store FUBAR and they Shall do it right or she Will return it (and probably buy elsewhere or on-line.) Going back to Beast ... is not an option. This time I have to go along with her.. Oh well.

New Re: Bummer. :-(
I don't think I've twiddled with file permissions more than a couple of times in the seven or so years I've been a fully-fledged member of the beret brigade.

If Ash's friend is struggling with her new Mac, and there's an Apple Store within easy reach, it may be worth giving them a call and making an appointment at the Genius Bar if things aren't working right. Also, they do a thing called "one to one", which may be worth $99 for a year:

http://www.apple.com/retail/onetoone/

Ash: there are, for all practical purposes, no in-the-wild instances of OS X rootkits, and there's (I think) one trojan, and even that's a bit naff. I don't run any AV or the like, and never have, but my firewall on the router is locked right down.
New Thanks.. partial obtuseness here, too:
It seems that the correction is trivial; I had not grokked-to-fullness the fact that Admin privileges may be added or stripped from whatever 'User' and even multiple 'Admins' (!) can be created/destroyed by the mere click-a-box. Then, magically a huge litany of Permissions get redrawn. [One Hopes]
Am enroute shortly to employ this perspicuous insight to remedy her situation and 'reset'/erase the db in Time Machine to begin anew, unflummoxed by such basic changes in nomenclature of its Users.

ie WIll create a new Admin; add Safari and little else. Then rip off the epaulets for current admin-User, within whose sinecure resides the mentioned stuff loaded off Bestware, etc. That, renamed, shall be her Surfer. No need for wiping and serial-think, from scratch. Duh.
She will never ever login as Admin anyway; all will be via sudo, whereby she will drag out her Admin-Name and pw crib-card, for each Update and the like.

(But I shall have twitted someone's nose in the Edible-pome hierarchy -- about ever sending home again a evident Newbie, as Admin with pw [blank] and firewall turned OFF: in Any Store!
I SHALL Do This, or my name is not Walter Mitty..

Yeah, I don't intend to purchase Intego's NetBarrierX5 either, though it's er, granularity greatly exceeds the KISS of Apple's perfectly-adequate built-in.. (Which also saves forever the useless clutter of any HS connection ... gotta discover what the default is for clearing out that clutter; I only gots 320 GB.
Just happened to notice, when I ran the free CLAM AV (in SnowLeopardCacheCleaner) -- the list of known rootkits.
Yet, as we all know: as Apple's actual's %action rises, there will be Attacks, hmm, maybe even foreign?/domestic-Corporate-spawned, depending on the paranoia weather each day. I no worry, for the nonce.

And, for there being no plug n'play router Model I found to have the slightest chance of my configuring exactly right: I no router firewall, at all.
(All the specimen ones I researched, where any reviewer mentioned Apple, gave one or more horror stories of nonexistent support and indifference to OS X installation. Required (for me) heroic intervention and maybe even firmware hunts at Mfg website etc. Stupid, that. Apple's answer is their wi-fi-combined thingie; too $dear, and I want WIRED-only. Until a decent iSomething notebook drops from the sky into my lap some day.

Oh and -- the Santa Rosa CA 'Store' is a mere cave-type box-in-the-Mall: it is Certified to be Apple's smallest one!. She had already ordered One2One BUT: the cacophony is so huge in that echo-chamber ... it is unlikely to be bearable. She'll find out and decide whether to get back her fee.

Gracias,
A.
     Idiot 'genius-droids' at work: - (Ashton) - (4)
         Bummer. :-( - (Another Scott) - (3)
             Thanks.. guess I have to bounce it back - (Ashton)
             Re: Bummer. :-( - (pwhysall) - (1)
                 Thanks.. partial obtuseness here, too: - (Ashton)

And NO sprinkles! For every sprinkle I find, I will KILL you!
47 ms