Wednesday: of Computers, Sons, and Possible Security Risks

I got a surprise this morning, when I tried using the main computer.

It was running, of course, since it's the device I use to run my "outside" webcam.

It would have been, anyway, since our son gets up well before he needs to, and likes to use that computer. It's a great deal faster than his laptop.

When I sat down at the keyboard, the main computer was logged into our son's user and - more to the point - quite insistent about being given a particular DVD.

I finally convinced it that I wasn't putting the DVD in place, and tried to log out.

"Tried to log out." Twice. Each time, one of those little announcements went up that a DVD movie launcher wasn't shutting down.

I could have spent hours, trying to figure out exactly what caused the problem, or I could just cut power to the computer.

Simple choice: I cut off power, restarted the thing, and no more problem.

Some good came of the annoyance: I

• Got an opportunity to practice patience
• Had to look up potential security problems for this sort of situation
  • ...and as a result found something I could use for a post on another blog

I doubt that anything unpleasant has happened to the computer as a result of its use as a DVD player, but I'm going to have a chat with our son, when he comes home from school.