throwawaywxc

This sounds very useful - do you mind giving some more flavour? What exactly did you implement?

This is good advice in principle but my parents are from a different world they grew up in a world without fridges, TVs or electronics.

I am all for them learning and making their own mistakes but I know them well enough to know that this wouldn't really work in their case - I know them well enough that ultimately they want something that just works with minimal effort, the stakes are also high in that I don't want them bricking a PC (100s of $) or getting hit by identity fraud.

I'd go mac if my dad didn't hate it so much.

Should hardly ever need to - but I am rarely at home so would prefer not to be in a position where any time they need to do something I need to be present.

The only real software he would need at the moment is for photoediting

Not a bad idea.

What are your thoughts on file-syncing using DropBox? Solutions have to be easier than breathing - I used to take a regular image of the PC for backup purposes but then my dad would complain he couldn't actually view the files.

Thanks for the reply! This is not at all a bad suggestion - my mum is on an iPad and actually since this happened, I realised that actually she is nowhere near as big a vector as my dad despite the fact that she doesn't know what an app is nor what a browser is.

My dad is more dangerous because he has some some idea of what he has just enough of an idea to know what he is doing but not enough of an idea to actually protect himself. He also despises all Apple products alas...