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MikePnKY
October 3rd, 2006, 11:18 AM
But I'm hoping that the end justifies the means...

I've been holding off on posting this until I found out if it was going to work or not, because if it didn't, I was in for a major guilt trip. My mother has embraced online banking, and bill paying, and shopping, and chatting and this, that and the other. I had been trying to get her to allow me to switch her from XP to Ubuntu for the security aspect of it. She was concerned about online security...but not enough to give up her windows.

So, I used printscrn to get a picture of her XP desktop....then used the picture as her desktop wallpaper, moved her taskbar to the top, and set it to "auto-hide". When she booted up her computer, NOTHING that she clicked on would work. After a couple of hours of reboots, she was so fed up that she was willing to try ubuntu.

That was 2 weeks ago, and she's loving it. She chats with her old AIM buddies on Gaim, has Thunderbird for her email and is just generally happy with the entire package.

If you wanna flame me for being a bad, manipulative son, go ahead...but I feel like shes lots safer online now.

The culprit "dead desktop" (http://shutter14.pictures.aol.com/data/pictures/02/002/66/DF/F1/B3/-BvQBOz6ZgTeAi7fAA0-zwd7igJApp7Y0300.jpg)
tribaal
October 3rd, 2006, 11:20 AM
Hehehe pretty funny :)

- trib'
_simon_
October 3rd, 2006, 11:23 AM
lol that's a great way to get people to switch. It actually made me laugh out loud! :)

Just don't let her read this thread! ;)
Titus A Duxass
October 3rd, 2006, 11:31 AM
Deviant!:-D
Kateikyoushi
October 3rd, 2006, 11:41 AM
I want to do that with my mum for long, but I am afraid she would kill me.
My sis switched without a hitch because her mp3 player and skype worked those were the most important for her.
henriquemaia
October 3rd, 2006, 12:00 PM
lol! Altough you cheated, it was in a very amusing way!
fuscia
October 3rd, 2006, 01:18 PM
that's great!=D>=D>=D>
skymt
October 3rd, 2006, 02:02 PM
I've always loved that prank. Another good one is to take a screenshot, and use GIMP or similar to make several dozen copies of some important desktop icon, and hide the real one somewhere in the middle.
Klaidas
October 3rd, 2006, 02:26 PM
You have to trick someone into using Ubuntu?.. Umm...:(
Ben Sprinkle
October 3rd, 2006, 02:29 PM
Wow, nice method of tricking. Me personally would of just keylogged her and shown her how easy it is to get passwords.
bigken
October 3rd, 2006, 02:31 PM
god i wish i had the balls to do that to my missus

very well done though =D>=D>=D>=D>=D>=D>
Chemroydal Tissue
October 3rd, 2006, 02:37 PM
Evil and effective? =D>
K.Mandla
October 3rd, 2006, 03:22 PM
You're a bad person. And you should get 100 extra beans for pulling that off. :biggrin:
Mihkal
October 3rd, 2006, 05:34 PM
It's better for her to switch now from a fake virus than later when her info gets stolen.

Or waiting for that to happen then purchasing mcaffee.

my mate's father does just that[-(

Either way, good job!:-D
Lord Illidan
October 3rd, 2006, 05:48 PM
You've just given me an idea for the school computers : :mrgreen:
Titan_Prometheus
October 3rd, 2006, 05:52 PM
Maybe This Is what ubuntu need, A way to move everything over from winXP to ubuntu without having to spend several days backing up and moving everything. Is there anyway we can make an XP program that will save, let's say, all the preferences from firefox, mozilla, IE, AIM/GAIM, and also prompt to backup the my documents folder?
bigken
October 3rd, 2006, 05:53 PM
You've just given me an idea for the school computers : :mrgreen:

I dare you
mips
October 3rd, 2006, 07:02 PM
Shame on you, your own mother :twisted:
You are going to be punished for this somewhere in life, karma all around.
MikePnKY
October 3rd, 2006, 07:06 PM
You have to trick someone into using Ubuntu?.. Umm...:(

Well......yeah ;)
henriquemaia
October 3rd, 2006, 10:02 PM
Shame on you, your own mother :twisted:
You are going to be punished for this somewhere in life, karma all around.

A very akward karma, indeed. ;)
rado_london
October 3rd, 2006, 10:33 PM
well done mate! I think this is great thing to do in order to get people to switch:)
Cyraxzz
October 3rd, 2006, 10:46 PM
Good work..
BOBSONATOR
October 4th, 2006, 02:09 AM
great idea, im going to do it tonight.
BOBSONATOR
October 4th, 2006, 02:25 AM
Muhahah, im going to do it tommorrow!~
Dr. C
October 4th, 2006, 02:27 AM
Shame on you, your own mother :twisted:
You are going to be punished for this somewhere in life, karma all around.

I agree, maybe an eternity running Windows ME for this twisted move...

Seriously Ubuntu is an excellent OS and one does need to use trickery and deceit to get people to use it.
szf
October 4th, 2006, 02:30 AM
This prank is a lot better when you read about someone pulling it on their "Technical Project Lead" at $work...

:) :) :)
Albi
October 4th, 2006, 02:32 AM
Did you dual boot or make her back up all her stuff too?
MikePnKY
October 4th, 2006, 02:59 AM
Did you dual boot or make her back up all her stuff too?

I took a USB external HDD with me, backed up all her stuff to the HDD and moved it to the new OS. She had Quicken 2004, which would still do exports of QIF files, so I was able to move everything to GNUCash. She didn't use many of Quicken's features, all she used it for was keeping track of the checkbook anyway, and she picked cash right up. :KS She's plenty savvy enough for ubuntu, she's just really resistant to change ](*,)