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Ross provides his simple recommendations for the annual family tech support ritual otherwise known as the end of year holidays.

In summary:

1. Get 'em a Mac with OS X on it
2. Get 'em broadband: it's fast and nearly always on
3. Get 'em Firefox, 'cause IE is bad for your security
4. Get 'em a good start page like My Yahoo or Google
5. Get 'em on Web Mail like Yahoo Mail or GMail
6. Get 'em on Flickr if they want to share photos
7. Get 'em on Instant Messenger (I'd recommend AIM or Yahoo Messenger) and/or Skype
8. Don't get 'em a blog

I mostly agree. I know that #1 is tricky and just won't fly in a lot of situations, but everything else applies nicely to a Windows box as well.

With that said, I'm off to setup my Dad's Linux machines. (Knoppix makes this pretty easy.)

Jeremy Zawodny is the author of the popular Jeremy Zawodny's blog. Jeremy is part of the Yahoo search team and frequently posts in the Yahoo! Search blog as well.

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