No Cooking Clue: The internet is a dangerous place.

My mother in law has no knowledge about computers nor did she ever own one. My father in law has one but use it only to do his banking, read his e-mail and plays spider solitaire or he listen to jazz music. He has a little knowledge of everything until it does not work and then he is stuck.

He still uses Windows XP and does not see the need to upgrade. His monthly balance sheet of his savings is still done in the early version of Pastel. The company, which was founded in 1989 in Johannesburg, is now a leading developer of accounting and business software.

There is no shame in not knowing about computers or just be able to help yourself. My parents in laws did not grow up with Computers, Cell phones, Bluetooth, Tablets, Ipads, Chromebooks, Smart phones or laptops. They are both over seventy years old. It becomes very difficult for older people to follow the trend frenzy and keep up with all the gadgets available. They build up an adversary against everything the younger generation so dearly need.

When my children showing of their new Black Berries or new games, they always say, “We did not have those things in our days, why do you need it now. It cannot be good for you to have all these fads because it can’t teach you anything”. “One day you don't even know how to write a decent letter”.

My father in law forbad one of my children to ever touch his computer because the next day when he wanted to do his finance, his youngest grandchild replaced all his desktop icons with different ones. He did not have a clue what was what. I had to change everything back to normal which took me the greater part of that morning.

My mother in law is a sweet lady and I love her dearly but she tends to have an opinion about any subject she really does not have a clue about. Like her husband’s computer is one of them. I am sure she does not even know how to switch it on.

One day when my Dad in law wanted to buy a much anticipated book on the internet and asked me to help him, she all of a sudden became the new Google CEO and pointed out all the dangers encountered by buying something on the internet and giving out your personal details, e-mail address and or your banking details.

She argued that if you give out that information, everybody in the whole wide world will know exactly how much money you have and will be able to steal all of it because they hack into it. They will spam you with emails you don't want. They will bother you on your phone with fishing sales. They infect you with viruses and creepers and they can make you sick as well.

She even mentioned that they put spiders in your computer and now she cleans and sprays it with bug spray to make sure nothing creeps out there. I asked her where she got that information and she replied proudly, “I read”

My father in law already switched of his computer while I tried to explain to her that what she said is true in a way, but that those things she mentioned, do occur but not in the way she thinks it happens. I explained that it is quite safe these days to buy on the internet and that they have secure payment options which are not visible to anyone because they are encrypted. She would not listen and said, she read the newspaper and those things were mentioned there.

My father in law also claimed that he came across such information and had to give his wife credit for her opinions. He asked me to have a look at his e-mail because the other day he received a notification that he had won $2500.000 in a lottery but he could not remember he ever played one. He also asked me, if I am looking at that, if I could maybe also have a look at some programs which appeared in his program file folder which looks very strange to him and he has the impression his computer is becoming very slow.

I sat down in front of the computer and first looked at his virus program which was as old as the computer itself. This program was never updated and by checking I found that automatic update was disabled. I decided to replace the whole program with Microsoft security essentials as this is free and updates automatically. While installing, it also scans your computer first. I could not believe my eyes; the program went mad by picking up viruses. There were so many it took more than 10 minutes to clean most of them. A few of them were put in quarantine for later deletions. Altogether there were 1200 viruses cleaned. I restarted the computer after these operations were completed and the program was installed. I found that the computer started up fine and no obvious problems occurred.

Next stop was control panel to have a look what programs were installed. I found the usual but old program versions and got most of them updated with the latest versions. This took me more than three hours. I also installed Glary Utilities to keep his computer clean. I was afraid to upgrade Pastel as I was not sure if it was possible to transfer all his investment data to the new version so I left that. There were a few unknown programs installed which looked suspicious to me and asked my father in law to come and see if he knew about them.

After looking at these programs, he could not make a decision which one’s he used and which one’s not. I made the conclusion to delete the ones I did not know about.

The next step was start-up programs and I deleted all unknown entries. After I was finally completed, I scanned the computer with Glary and several registry and short cut faults were found and let Glary repair and delete all of it. After restart everything looked fine.

The next step was his e-mail and found that he never deleted any messages, some of them dated back to 2004. I cleaned the e-mail inbox by sorting the same kind of message by date. I left the message of the last 12 months in his inbox. I emptied the deleted item box. The message about winning the unknown lottery was typical a phishing message and told my father in law to not even open this kind of messages and delete it straight away.

The much anticipated book was never bought on the internet. My mother in law still cleans my father in laws computer and disinfects it with bug spray. I now and then check his computer for problems. He is happy with the speed of his computer but do not want to upgrade. He still does his finance with the old Pastel version. They still think is better to talk to a person than text a person. My father in law now deletes every message he does not know from whom it is, which is anyway most of them. The internet is indeed a dangerous place especially for silver surfers.

To celebrate, that my mother in law is always right, I leave you this shooter

Jamaican Me Crazy.

½ ounce Myers Rum
½ ounce Captain Morgan’s
¼ ounce blue Curaçao
2 ounces pineapple juice
2 ounces orange juice
1 ounce Rose's’ Lime Juice
Splash coconut cream

Shake and pour into a collins glass.

To my Father in Law who loves jazz.

Amaretto Jazz.