Thanks for the comments PTB, those opinions are appreciated.

I was looking again yesterday at what is on offer, a problem running Chrome on my desktop popped up yesterday and I almost can't be d to fix it now so its concentrated the issue of whether to go for a dedicated Net-only player in the house.

As with all decisions I tend to focus on what is required and in this case its quite simple - something to browse the internet on, something that doesn't cost the earth, something that has no fripperies that aren't required.

Outside of my work stuff I rarely use software that isn't online now, photo editing is probably the only thing I do offline and the netbooks on the retail shelves now have plenty of disc space and probably enough memory for The Gimp which can be downloaded online, so the lack of a CD/DVD player isn't going to cause too many issues.

My two daughters have not been known to use a piece of HDD-based software, they just need online access but they have commented that they prefer a "real" keyboard, they both have touch screen smart phones and don't like the screen keys at all, that alone is pointing me towards a Netbook although of course you can buy "real" keyboards for tablets, which then makes it an expensive Netbook...

My wife needs to be online to check the bank accounts, keep in touch with her family etc but rarely uses HDD based software, again a "real" keyboard is important to her as is minimum delay in booting up.

We don't need gaming capabilities, sound repro has to be good but inbuilt speakers aren't so much of an issue as headphones will be used, video repro has to be good, and its a shame that none of the Netbooks I have looked at have HDMI output.

For around £200 I can satisfy all of our online needs from several Netbooks and there are a couple of smaller Android tablets that fall into the budget too but they are small (7" screen) and the safety of a Windows operating system can't be underestimated I'm afraid.

HELP!

I need to block World of Warcraft on my home network (that game is the spawn of the devil). Obviously the 'polite request' route didn't work initially.

From there I have gone into the router settings and set up the built-in firewall to block the relevant ports. I changed the default username/password for the router settings to stop anyone accessing and removing the exceptions...this worked for a couple of days however they then found (apparently after much trawling online which confirmed the source of the problem) the magical 'reset to factory settings' button on the Sky router which restored everything to default, including my password I had set. This allowed access with the default details printed on the router and they found, and removed, the exceptions.

Is there anything I can do from here, short of opening the router and sabotaging the 'reset to factory settings' button which probably isn't very wise? I had hoped for some sort of firewall software I can operate from my personal system that will stop all computers on the network accessing specific ports - that way they won't be able to access any of these settings. I presume there must be something I can do as (for example) our work router is in our office but the limiting of access appears to be managed centrally by our IT department in Manchester somehow.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Two quick point here, first tablet vs netbook:

My last post was only short and I didn't give a real reason to choose a netbook over a tablet; a physical keyboard, generally better spec (I agree that maybe sacrificing spec to conserve battery may be good in some situations but I suspect in context to the question this device won't be used much outside the house). But mostly it's the keyboard. Of course I would recommend a laptop over a netbook, the other relevant factor seems to be cost, of which a netbook certainly for fills that over a laptop, though you can get a decent laptop for under £300.

Oh but this quote; "the safety of a Windows operating system can't be underestimated I'm afraid." really did make me laugh, Android, any flavour of Linux and even the deplorable apple OS (as it's rooted in BSD/GNULinux) are more secure than windows.


Onto the other post about WoW. Sounds like you have an internal issue more than anything, like if this is a home network, and I assume these are children you're trying to stop plying the game? Why do you allow them to reset the router? Whose paying for the WoW accounts? And if any of that's out of your control (maybe they're not children?) why do yo dislike WoW so much? What harm is it causing you?

As for your actual question though, there are of course ways around it, you could put the router in a locked box

or more seriously you could set up a firewall on a dedicated box (like a server) and route all traffic through it, blocking the offending ports of course, this solution, obviously, doesn't have a reset button. I can only assume the IT dept in Manchester manage it by being the only people with access to their system; there router will still have a reset button though.

When McLaren_Field said "Safety" I believe they were referring to familiarity/comfort/ease of use, rather than security.

OS X is excellent, not deplorable. Whilst some users may not place any value in its areas of strength, that doesn't mean they are not important to some other users.

I don't understand what's wrong with having choices.

I did consider that that was the meaning; just felt it worth clarifying that Windows is not the most secure.

In what way is OS X excellent? I find it limiting.

There's nothing wrong with having a choice at all.

How do you find it limiting? I use both OSes everyday, there is nothing I can do on one that I can't do on the other. In fact some of the OSX software is the easiest to use once you get used to it.

I find when something goes wrong, there's no way to fix it. By something I mean such as uninstalling a piece of software for example. Plus I dislike everything being hidden.

That was my meaning actually, in that I've always used Windows (ever since Windows 3 came along to test my eternal patience, it was an option with the DOS floppy discs and like a fool I thought, ooh, wonder what this thing does...), my meaning being that I am very familiar with Windows and so are my kids, stick two products in front of me and them, one being a Windows OS and the other being an OS that we aren't familiar with and we'll go for the "safe" option, in that context.

Still haven't decided yet, think we'll probably wait until after xmas now and see what PC World decide to throw out.

Drag it to the trash.

If you want to be really sure, do the Library/Application Support directories dance, too.



What's hidden? I can see everything quite well here in the Terminal. I can't remember ever actually wanting to change something and not being able to.

OSX = my fave. Almost as fun as an Amiga was back in the day.

And I'm [ireally[/i starting to like OpenCL, now the major compute clusters I use are starting to provide the drivers and support.

Firstly I'm sure the fanboys will tell little goes wrong with OSX, me I can fix it when it does, never very hard and even if it needs nuking Time Capsule is a breeze to restore from.

Dunno what trouble you have with installing stuff, just trash it, you can't get any easier than that.

I dunno what is hidden, if you'd had any experience of the Windows registry you'd know what hidden means.

The Windows registry is the worst abortion of software development I have seen in 30 years in IT. Disgraceful. So bad that even Apple could do it far better.

I think the [iidea[/i of the registry is okay, and it does have some advantages in theory.