The San Jose Mercury News says, "Get a Mac!"
Good Morning Silicon Valley: Sure, I could get a Mac, but the time I spend with my daughter removing spyware is very precious: Listening to Intel CEO Paul Otellini at the All Things Digital conference the other day, you'd think he was heading up Apple's marketing department. From today's Wall Street Journal:
Pressed about security by (a reporter), Mr. Otellini had a startling confession: He spends an hour a weekend removing spyware from his daughter's computer. And when further pressed about whether a mainstream computer user in search of immediate safety from security woes ought to buy Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh instead of a Wintel PC, he said, 'If you want to fix it tomorrow, maybe you should buy something else.'
Intel should pay Apple to port OSX to *tanium.
Posted by: Tom DC/VA | May 27, 2005 at 12:49 PM
Mac triumphalism can be really annoying, I know, and I try to keep it down. Also, I'm no power user, and I know that my little iBook is actually not terribly swift (especially nowadays with Tiger).
But I've noticed something recently: at three different talks or presentations, in three entirely different AV contexts, people were having trouble getting their Wintel laptop and some projector to work together. No picture, pictures with bizarre lines running throught them, blank screens, etc.
In each case, we were able to first e-mail the relevant presentation file to me (thank heavens for wireless networks!), plug in my iBook and click "start"...and all was fine.
I don't KNOW how this is done, and don't really care. But for it to happen three times in a month...does make you wonder what's going on on the Wintel end of the world. "Plug-and-play" is really really great...when it works!
Posted by: PQ | May 27, 2005 at 12:52 PM
It's a whole lot cheaper and a whole lot quicker to just..
DOWNLOAD LINUX!!!!!!
Posted by: lagarita | May 27, 2005 at 01:45 PM
One hour? How much time does she spend surfing for internet porn?
Posted by: watery, domestic | May 27, 2005 at 03:59 PM
An hour a week? Just switching from Internet Exploder to Firefox and avoiding the popups has gotten rid of my spyware problems.
Posted by: fasteddie | May 27, 2005 at 08:16 PM
Intel's in trouble as the recent rumor of Apple using Intel cpus shows. Innovation has hit a dead end. How much will Intel pay Apple to get closer to the little amount of buzz available in the tech world?
they do a great job of managing the stock price and savvy investors' expectations.
Posted by: chris | May 27, 2005 at 09:56 PM
In Internet Explorer - Delete History, Files, Cookies
Uninstall MS Outlook
Uninstall AOL AIM
Manually delete any folders related to these programs
Manually delete any download files using these programs
Download and Install Mozilla Firefox
Download and Install Opera as backup
Uninstall Internet Explorer ASAP after
Disable System Save
Check Disk
Defrag Disk
Download and Install XoftSpy Scanner
Freak out when you see the damage IE, MSO, AIM did
Register for XoftSpy using a landline, *not online*
Purge registers of adware, worms, bugs, virus, trojans
Download and Install F-Prot Shield and Register
Download and Install Autorun.exe (free)
XoftSpy is an unbeatable bug remover
F-Prot is a great shield and executable preventer
Autorun is a great way to see what Startup looks like
None of them will remove deeply embedded bugs but
they will block them, flag them, then you get to play RegEdit with the online chatrooms for your guides
Then Reboot and let your kid have the computer again
Warn them, NO DOWNLOADS! Wait one week.
Threaten to kill your kid if they install AOL one more time, Cool Web Site, or anything ending in .cc or .ru
Give up trying to police computer use
Quit using computer altogether
Lay on hammock
Read book
Snooze
Is it 1950 yet?
SOW, the Younger wants a list of 20 books for summer.
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Carl Sagan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Tim Severin, The Brendan Voyage
Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
Robert L Stevenson, Robinson Crusoe
Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey
Isaac Asimov, I Robot
Gary Snyder, Turtle Island
Carlos Castenada, Teachings of Don Juan
TE Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom
That's ten. Anybody got ten more for grade 8?
Posted by: tante aime | May 27, 2005 at 11:59 PM
Bush read and followed in his own way "A Seprate Reality."
Wow, people remember the rip rap of Gary Snyder.
Posted by: chris | May 28, 2005 at 12:16 AM
Aime if you were my tante I would urge you to follow Brad's advice. A couple of months ago I got paranoid about spyware and spent some money to downlaod a spyware cleanser for my iMac. Ran it and despite years of browsing websites and registering here and commenting there and stupidly leaving my e-mail address everywhere it came up with nothing. A couple of days ago a dialog box popped up asking for access to my Keychain (password lockbox) from a program I didn't recognize so I ran it again. Still nothing. I have a certain amount of firewall protection, but then again I leave my computer on and connected to the net 24/7.
A lot of people claim Macs are not targeted for viruses and spyware because we represent a minor share of the market. But (me aside) Mac users tend to be drawn from the upper end of that market, they pay more because they want more and can afford it. You would think it would pay to snoop on the kinds of professionals that use Macs (ad agencies, music producers etc). But somehow we remain bulletproof to spyware.
Couldn't be because Apple swallowed its pride, essentially left its landmark proprietary OS behind and embraced UNIX as the underpinning of its software platform going forward? Nah, couldn't be that, and it would not replace all that quality time with your kid if it were.
(And yes Mac users, even quiet ones, tend to be obnoxious assholes when riled. But then again I was being ridiculed in 1985 for such crimes as preferrring a GUI and Drop Down Menus to King Command Line and for using a Mouse when that meant (horrors!) removing your hand from the keyboard, as if remembering what Alt Ctrl Shift F12 meant for every damn program you owned was better than picking from a menu. For that matter early Mac users were taken to task for preferring a hard shell 3.5" floppy that you could safely stick in a pocket over an incredibly fragile 5.5" floppy that had to be treated like it was a Torah or Koran. What were we thinking? (And BTW what is a floppy?))
Posted by: Bruce Webb | May 28, 2005 at 07:18 AM
Xoftspy for spyware removal?!?!?!?
Look here before you decide:
http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?t=1154
http://netrn.net/spywareblog/archives/2004/04/29/xoftspy-dont-buy-heres-why/
http://www.adwarereport.com/mt/archives/000014.html
I personally would recommend Ad-Aware and Spybot both of which are free and have excellent reputations. Spybot also has a function which will alert you if an attempt is being made to change your registry and give you the option to accept or deny the change. RegProtect is a free product that does the same thing. I also recommend WinPatrol, another free product, which will alert you if an attempt is being made to add something to your system Startup program and give you the option to accept or deny the change. Both Spybot and WinPatrol have other protective functions which are of value.
Posted by: Dubblblind | May 28, 2005 at 08:56 AM
A correction: The product name is RegistryProt not RegProtect and is from DiamondCS.
Find it here:
http://www.diamondcs.com.au/index.php?page=regprot
You can find WinPatrol here:
http://www.winpatrol.com/
Posted by: Dubblblind | May 28, 2005 at 09:08 AM
"How much time does she spend surfing for internet porn?"
Non-porn teen oriented sites (games, girly stuff, pop music, etc) seem to be hives of adware and other villainy.
Posted by: Jon H | May 28, 2005 at 05:34 PM