Making articles to reduce computer illiteracy

[Simon <simon.xhz () gmail com>]

Hi there,
  there is an idea I've been thinking about for the past couple of 
years, is to reduce the amount of computer (and security) illeteracy for 
the normal residential ISP customers.  I work for an ISP and I am 
confronted with that kind of ignorance everyday, the worse I've seen is 
the attitude 99% of them have toward their ignorance: they show as if 
they were proud of it, making fun of it.

  I've been taking a lot of my own time on calls with customers to 
explain the very basics, like what is a virus, what do they do, are they 
good are they bad, how to prevent them, how to cure them, what happens 
when you get infected, etc, etc, etc...

  In total, I must have spent several Hundred hours speaking about the 
basics to illiterate people.  I was also able to feel somewhat of an 
understanding in the majority of these people (which is my reward, at 
least).  However, I can't go on and spend my call time and (my company's 
money) to just educate the clients that didn't do it themselves.  I'd 
rather redirect them to a website that can take care of them at their pace.

  I haven't encountered the kind of website I'd redirect those people 
to, either too technical (can't be read by illiterates) or too dumb 
(doesn't help in learning anything and just bores the reader) or filled 
with publicity and walls of text that forces the reader to 
"close-the-window-as-soon-as-possible".

  There is also the fact that the readers will be of many different 
levels of "literacy", some of them will know how to properly shutdown 
their computers (some will even know why!) and these people might still 
be seeking information on viruses.  These people must not be offended by 
lower levels of literacy (thinking this site is for "n00b" this is not 
my place, what am I doing here!).

  I was wondering if you guys could recommend websites you have found 
yourselves (as my searches on google were not fruitful).  This way I can 
examine them, I may choose one of them and send clients to it (and free 
my conciousness).  If I don't find the kind of website that I want, I am 
ready to create my own.  And as you have found, my english isn't really 
good for publications (I'm french from Canada) and I will probably need 
help in writting some articles on topics that are not touched (or not 
disccussed well for the target reader).

  Here are the topics that will be useful for the target reader that I 
deal with:  (other topics can certainly be added to cover a larger 
crowd, and in this list the word "etc" is not written but is there, 
everywhere!)

  -Computer maintenance (scandisk, system and software updates, etc...)

  -Introduction to Network Connections (what's a modem, what's an ISP, 
what's a NIC (drivers?), what is a network connection and of course, 
what is the internet, what does it looks like, what is a bottleneck)

  -Web browsing (what's port 80, what's "http://"; VS "https://"; and the 
others, what are the tools (browsers) available to surf, a browser's 
functionning (including topics on cache, scripting and vulnerabilities), 
what is spyware

  -Emailing (what's port 110,25, how does the email communication 
works, how secure is it, how public is it, email clients available, 
their workings, their vulnerabilities, what is spam, what viruses are 
sent through email and how to protect against...

  -Instant messaging (brief discussion on how they work, what else can 
we say?  it is an important topic as 90% of illiterate people still use 
MSN... we can at least use MSN to help them learn more on other topics!)

  -Network Gaming (what's ping/latency/transfer rate, what affects 
them, how can i improve the gaming experience, how do game 
communicates(brief))

  -File sharing (how does it work, why should I use it, what's my ISP's 
monthly transfer limit, how to control the speed of transfers or the 
quantity of transfers (avoid trespassing limits), types of file shared, 
legality on the sharing of these files, vulnerabilities the sharing can 
bring(trojans), discusses the use of P2P clients, samba filesharing, etc...

  -VoIP (what is it, how does it work, security, i don't know much on 
this topic and it's not very much popular among the illiterate crowd, 
but discussion on it should be done)

  -Sec threats: Viruses,Trojans,Worms,Malwarez,Phishing (what they are, 
how to protect against, etc)

Ok, I'm tired and you understood, so I'll finish with "And more!..."

Many of those topics have dependency, ie. an illiterate reader can't 
jump into the File sharing section if he doesn't understand what a 
network connection is and what creates it (router or ISP).  The website 
should thus take care of knowing its readers and push them into 
understanding the basics.  I'm thinking on making some sort of quiz that 
if you succeed will unlock a specific section, and if you fail, it shows 
you what article to read to succeed.

I'm a programmer so I will work on the web application that will do 
this, I will also work on making articles.  If you have any ideas to 
contribute, please tell, or if you are ready to contribute more than 
that, like by writting articles (or searching for some already written), 
or any other way, then please contact me by email.  Ideas can be sent 
here as I consider this an open project and I like when people can give 
ideas after reacting to the ideas of others.

Thanks for your time,
  Simon