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78 Comments

1. 

   Dick Hatch

   Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 1:42 am · Reply

   “Do you think Richard Hatch will win his next immunity challenge?”

   Mr. Hatch better batten down his hatch in short order or it will be ripped open promptly. Possibly he may not want to.

2. 

   Jooop

   Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 3:22 am · Reply

   I’m sure they’re running a lot more than six programs concurrently if you count all the viruses and spyware.

   Earthlink did a study of their userbase a couple years ago and concluded something like 99% of their users had some form of spyware running on their systems.

3. 

   huh?

   Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 5:55 am · Reply

   Well, I un-installed all my antivirus software on my old celeron-powered Thinkpad running Win2k over 3 years ago, and haven’t had a problem since. Originally, I did have a few problems when I ignored the MS patches, updates, and didn’t install the latest sevice packs, and did pick up 2 specific viruses (blaster and another one, don’t remember the name.) They were easily removed, but I finally just configured my laptop with the all the updates from MS, and buttoned down most of the unnecessary ‘services’ running in the background, since I wasn’t running on a network anyway. Since then, I’ve just been aware of what I’m doing, not downloading attachments that haven’t gone through my ISP’s own antivirus screening, or are from unknown sources. I also subscribe to quite a few online newsletters/alerts, keeping me aware of what’s the latest threat. I don’t run any Microsoft apps, other than IE or MS Word on those rare occasions when I need wither one (hardly ever.) The rest is all third party, non VCscript/active-X stuff. Firefox runs great, (my favorite browser, Mac or otherwise,) my various email accts are all web based, I run Photoshop 6, Fireworks MX2004, DreamweaverMX 2004, Flash MX 2004, Quicktime, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Picasa/Hello, iTunes, several Windows-only Real Estate training courses, Spanish language Flash based course, Swish and a number of other programs whenever I need them.

   On this ancient, yet bullet-proof Thinkpad, I run anything I want to simultaneously, running Win2K. I have it so solidly configured, there’s no way I’d ever upgrade to XP, or especially Vista, since I’m transitioning back to Mac as my future pathway, but just thought I should mention that my experience with Windows, after the learning curve, has been quite satisfactory. As I sit here, I’m downloading music from eMusic using their simple download manager while listening to an iTunes playlist, grabbing photos from my Canon digital camera via a PCMCIA card (using one of two slots) and posting them to my blog via Picasa/Hello – all very seamless. In the background I have QT, Acrobat Pro, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Notepad and a few minor accessories, and running 10 tabbed webpages. Do things ever bog down… yup. But it’s manageable, and I can work with it by quitting whatever I lazily like to keep running. Bottom line – this is a 2000 vintage Thinkpad, with a Celeron 550mhz processor and 392 MB ram. I can’t bring myself to retire it just yet. It’s rugged, has a great keyboard that I can just pound without it flexing or breaking, has been tossed around in my backpack since it was new, been to Mexico several times with it, is very flexible (removeable bay components, slide-out hard drive, two PCMCIA slots (gives me firewire, SCSI, wifi, external hardrive faster than USB, a minipc slot, two USB ports, even an old floppy which came in handy the other day for dumping some temporary data without having to burn a cd… anyway, it’s just a tool, folks. I’ve used Macs since my original Mac Plus all the way up through my B&W G3 running system 8.5. Win2k was much more stable than the old, non-multitasking OS 8/9, and was my first experience at a true multi-tasking OS. It opened my eyes after being so biased toward Macs all those years, but I agree that OS X NOW is where the future lies. Still, for a few years Windows served me well, and until my old trusty Thinkpad finally just gives up the ghost, I’m keeping it. I just wish the mac laptops included a Thinkpad style eraserhead pointer and two buttons. I hate taking my hands off the keyboard to move my mouse.

4. 

   yjs

   Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 8:07 am · Reply

   Let’s see what happens when MacOS gets majority market share! You MacHeads are the biggest idiots on the planets.

5. 

   Gill Bates

   Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 10:28 am · Reply

   It is interesting how ignorant windows users are. Most statistics show the between 60% and 90% of windows installations are infected with some form of malware (the variance is primarily due to how you define malware) Yet 99% of windows users sing the same old song ” I have been running windows for years and have never caught a single (or only a couple) virus or malware.
   Buy a clue! It is like the statistic that 89% percent of parents believe that their children have above average intelligence….

   The fact is that there are very few windows systems that are not infected and while you could be one of the lucky few, it is (much) more likely that you are just deluding yourself. The bulk of modern windows malware can’t be (reliably) detected or removed. if you are not wiping your disk every 6 month it is very likely that you are infected, whether you realize it or not.

   This is not a “mac head” this is the program manager of security systems at Microsoft.
   http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1945808,00.asp

6. 

   huh?

   Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 12:59 pm · Reply

   Gill Bates: I’ll not take that “igorant” comment personally, since I use both systems (OS X and Mac) regularly – can you say the same? I check my system for signs of infection and keep current on threats. I don’t use my machine just sitting there online all day like most people with broadband, and don’t aimlessly wander the net hitting suspect sites. I know what domains I’m landing on, and use something called “common sense.” If I am infected with something invisible, which I can’t tell is there and which isn’t doing anything damaging to my system (using resources, slowing it down, deleting files, corrupting files and applications, broadcasting itself to the rest of the world) then I don’t really give a sh*t if statistically you might think my machine is statistically “infected.” It still works, works well, and seems pretty damn immune to whatever virus you might think I’m harboring. I can tell you I did visit a site ( http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000760.html ) which displayed an image which crashed OS X, and which didn’t affect my Win2k running Firefox. These things happen, you just gotta know what the latest threats are, and not be “ignorant”, as you said. Ignorance is the biggest problem, including for Mac OS X. I just prefer my system lean and mean, and nimble, and not ignorantly expect someone else to look out for me with all their problematic antivirus programs residing onboard. I can do spot checks if I suspect anything, and definately run Adaware and other anti-malware programs to check and clean out parasite programs which can be on any website. But, most are easy to see coming, usually associated with installs of downloaded programs from free sites. Just don’t be ignorant, you should be fairly safe. Cheers.

7. 

   Gill Bates

   Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 2:51 pm · Reply

   You might be one of the lucky few with clean Windows system but it is more likely that you (like 90% of the windows users out there) are just unaware.

   I ran the web site on both Firefox and Safari without incident. I am willing to bet you any sum of money that it can not, nor never could crash OS X. It is possible that it could crash some earlier version of Safari but the OS? No you are just wrong (again)

   Given what appears to be a very low level of understanding of systems in general, I would strongly recommend that you format your hard disk at least every 6 months and reinstall windows.

   As for my computer experience I first learned to program on a VAX-11/780 (new at the time) likely several decades before you were born. I also owned (and coded on) the original IBM PC. I have 7 computers in my office, two are running windows. (and yes the windows boxes get wiped every 6 months)

8. 

   TheConfuzed1

   Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 9:02 pm · Reply

   Damn it MDN, it’s “Think different.”

   Uppercase ‘T,’ lowercase ‘d.’

   :p

   MW: Nothing. Nothing to see here, shows over, everyone go on about your business.

9. 

   huh?

   Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 11:04 pm · Reply

   Well Gill Bates, you’re right, it doesn’t crash OS X, but I think if you read all 200 plus comments you would see that it played a number with Safari, and other apps – and it was just a picture of a car on a website – nothing needed to be installed or permissions granted – which shows the dangers to any OS with exploitable vulnerabilities. My purpose isn’t to attack OS X, because I think it’s superior, especially below the surface, but just to prove that anyone should be careful and aware. I guess my old laptop with a 4 year old install of Win2K shouldn’t actually be working, but I guess I’m just ignorantly lucky. No need to wipe it on schedule every six months, and I have all my data backed up anyway, in case of hardware failure (HD) so I’m just not that paranoid. I’m careful, but not scared. I have most of the “holes” plugged, and haven’t noticed any lack of functionality or speed thus far. I’m still multi-tasking away like an ignorant fool, but a happy one. Perhaps you could lighten up on Windows users being ignorant, cause I’m sure there are plenty of Mac users who can’t fix a thing once it goes wrong. Sure, you’re a computer pro, but I’m referring to average users. At least I can repair my system if needed – been there, done that.

10. 

    MicroCoder

    Friday, May 19, 2006 - 12:52 am · Reply

    @Bill Gates
    </i>”As for my computer experience I first learned to program on a VAX-11/780 (new at the time) likely several decades before you were born. I also owned (and coded on) the original IBM PC. I have 7 computers in my office, two are running windows. (and yes the windows boxes get wiped every 6 months)”</i>

    Well, LA DE FRICKIN’ DA! Many Universities had VAX-11/780′s/50′s/30′s by the early 80′s – Likely designed by PhD’s who were several decades older than you. And my god, you had an original IBM PC? Well ain’t that a kicker – just like millions of other people at the time. Wow you were such a genius. If you’ve ever micro-coded before, give me a call, I’m sure we could spend all day talking in high and low voltages.

    http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/microcode.html

    Key line from definition: A single machine-language instruction typically translates into several microcode instructions.

    Microcode is one step lower than machine language and yet again one step lower than raw hex. It’s actually CREATING instructions using the high and low voltages in the transistors themselves (the notion of 1′s and 0′s is not quite dead on – it is actually high or low voltages that get stored in memory. A transistor is never “off” while it has power). This was the days before instruction sets came hard wired and could be burnt into an EPROM. Now microprocessors come with a “set” instruction set that is hard-wired and unchangeable.

    So let me see…..you have 7 computers and 2 of them are running Windows? So the other five are a Data General Nova, a DG Eclipse, a DEC PDP-1, The immensely popular PDP-11, and an IBM System/360? Your office must be HUGE!

11. 

    MicroCoder

    Friday, May 19, 2006 - 12:56 am · Reply

    ^^ that’s supposed to read EEPROM

12. 

    orly

    Friday, May 19, 2006 - 1:41 am · Reply

    So, everyone’s been telling me I need to switch to Mac… So I went to the Apple Store with the glass stairs and everything, and I couldn’t find that Solitaire game. What’s a computer good for without Solitaire?

13. 

    Gill Bates

    Friday, May 19, 2006 - 7:13 am · Reply

    It is becoming clear your hostility stems from you mis understanding the definition og the word ignorant. Ignorant doesn’t mean stupid it means unaware. So let me rephrase; If windows users think that they are safe on the internet they are unaware of the danger and the huge number of holes in windows. Modern windows malware is nearly impossible to detect and nearly impossible to remove (did you read the link I supplied ? It’s warning comes from a upper level manager in Microsoft)

    If you use your computer to store or communicate and private information or buy anything on the internet then the fact that you laptop is still running is not sufficient criteria to conclude that it is in fact free from malware. (as a matter of fact that (incorrect) assumption simply validates my original claim)

    And microcoder… don’t read a few facts on a subject in wikipedia and then claim to be an expert on it. It can make you appear really foolish to anyone with even casual knowledge of the subject.

14. 

    huh?

    Friday, May 19, 2006 - 7:22 pm · Reply

    Hey, Gill Bates: Excuse me…? What hostility did my last post exhibit? I haven’t attacked you, or Mac users (since I am also one.) Please get off your high horse, and consider your own ignorance of who I am. My first computer was a Commodore 64 by the way, which pre-dates your IBM PC jr just a bit. Also, I doubt seriously you were coding anything several decades before I was born, unless you were coding in the mid 1940s. And what does writing programs have to do with the issues I’ve been talking about? I also have written code, starting back in the mid 70s, with BASIC on an HP mainframe, and Visual Basic 6, Java and database design and implementation using both (IBM DB2.) That’s why I had to switch to Windows in the first place, reluctantly at first. I’ll bet that if there was some invisible, lurking virus on your machine, you’d probably be ‘ignorant’ as well, so how do you know you’re not? Just try to be a bit less negative toward those who also use Windows in their lives, because you are certainly one of them. And the only reason you have to wipe your hard drives every six months is because you obviously can’t protect yourself otherwise. Each to his own solution, I say, but quit acting so superior. It actually would turn me off Macs if I wasn’t already a Mac user from the first Mac Plus. I want to like Mac users, being much more inclined in that direction, but you risk turning people off with your attitude. Cheers, and have a nice day.

15. 

    huh?

    Friday, May 19, 2006 - 7:38 pm · Reply

    One more thing: Gill Bates,you said “So let me rephrase; If windows users think that they are safe on the internet they are unaware of the danger and the huge number of holes in windows.”

    I appreciate you making that distinction, but I am pretty clear on the meaning of ignorant, which you seemed to use to refer to Windows users, rather than users in general. That’s why I replied.

    My earlier post had this line, “I have most of the “holes” plugged, and haven’t noticed any lack of functionality or speed thus far” which I guess you didn’t read. I don’t use any MS script capable apps, except while offline, and then barely at all, because I am well “aware” of what all the default open holes are. Since I don’t use my laptop in any network, virtually all the components/services that would make Net admins jobs easier, are either disabled or uninstalled. My install of Win2k is very specific (there is a customable install option, and I don’t install anything unless I need it.) Like I said, lean and mean works best for me, and keeps my machine quite well isolated from 99% of all the copycat, teenager written worms and viruses. I also subscribe to tons of IT alerts, and find that most of the crap that goes on out there doesn’t affect my configuration. Just like a building, if you don’t want someone coming in unauthorized, just make sure to lock all the open doors and windows. And definately don’t invite a stranger in to use the phone… Now, can we all get along? Cheers!

16. 

    Gill Bates

    Friday, May 19, 2006 - 10:04 pm · Reply

    Sorry, based on your notion that you could lock down windows securely (you do know that W2K is less secure then XP even though both are NT5 based) and you throwing down a gauntlet with some web site that could (again according to you) crash OSX, I assumed that you were likely a student. (most adults don’t tend to act that silly)

    There is just no way you can secure a windows box not if you are going to actually use it (email, web surf, buy stuff, ect). Even experienced windows programers find it difficult or impossible to prevent, detect or even remove malware shielded by a rootkit, plus a lot of malware is self repairing (if you remove the active portion it just re installs itself). If you think you can (secure windows) you are just kidding yourself.

    BTW I said PC not the PC Jr. The C64 was released a year or two after the IBM PC and was really never much more than a toy. Sorry if that sounds elitist bit it is just the plain truth.

    And no, not even close to the 40′s (damm… I’m old but not that old…) I began coding assembly with some of the kit computers (Altair & SWTP) in high school but my first real programing was at the UofA on the VAX and the CDC Cyber in the late 70′s

17. 

    huh?

    Saturday, May 20, 2006 - 2:26 pm · Reply

    Okay, let’s just admit that we agree on a lot, and perhaps you just don’t quite understand what I’m trying to say here… Yes, Windows is very vulnerable. I know that. That’s why I’m safer than most, because I know that, and do something about it instead of just buy programs I don’t truly understand, and expect them to keep me safe. As I said somewhere earlier, if there was something on my laptop which was invisible, and not doing anything to my files or apps, and didn’t broadcast itself and didn’t take up any processing power, and basically just existed there for the sake of existing there, well I guess I can live with that (like all those little nasty mites that live in your eyebrows… but don’t actually do any harm.)

    Also, I’m not really interested in trying to convince anyone that my credentials are better than anyone else’s, just that I’ve been using various computers for awhile now. There are shortcomings in most of them…, so what?? As I said in my original post, I can multitask, running multiple apps on an old Thinkpad running win2K, and they’re productive apps. That was my whole point. So, at least we’ve cleared up the issue of Windows users being ignorant just because they use windows, and that I’m a bit older than you assumed. Personally, I think I wasn’t being “silly” when I gave you that link, rather was making a point with evidence to back it up. And, you did go to the link, so obviously you must have been interested in what was there. Hardly silly on my part, but that’s okay. I’ll let it go. I think we’re a lot more alike than not, and probably would have been friends if we had met back in high school… so, in that spirit I offer an open mind, and a willingness to engage in meaningful dialog anytime in the future. Cheers, and see you again I hope.

18. 

    Ken

    Sunday, May 21, 2006 - 5:15 pm · Reply

    I don’t get it…

    “antivirus, e-mail, firewall, spam protection, a pop-up blocker and spyware [protection/detection]”

    I can see that an antivirus tool and the spyware thing are separate programs that are running in the background. But isn’t “firewall” part of the OS. Isn’t “spam protection” part of the e-mail program or the service provider’s feature? Isn’t a “pop-up blocker” part of a browser program? And why isn’t “browser” not on the list.

    With the important exceptions of “antivirus” and “spyware,” I “run” the other things on the list on my Mac too. However, other than “e-mail,” I don’t consider them to be separate “applications.”

    What is AMD talking about here…

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