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They largely are. These offers of protection tend to download .EXE's since these fake antivirus companies don't waste time on anything that's non-Windows. In addition, a large majority of Mac users don't bother with Antivirus so they simply ignore these. Last but not least, they tend to be less gullible than Windows users.

http://www.daniweb.com/hardware-and-software/networking/news/218521

http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/10/microsoft-users-gullible-advertising/

Last but not least, these types of attacks tend to be fear driven and Windows users simply have more to fear from Viruses than Mac users at the moment. After years of sustained attacks, they are simply much to jumpy and easily frightened to pass up.

Try talking about how all cops are pigs and deserve to die when there are police around. Try talking about how you think it'd be justice for America's crimes in the middle east if a bomb blows up your plane at an airport. Try talking about how you think al qaeda are spot on in blowing up the twin towers in new york.

In fact, try talking about a gag order issued by the FBI and give details about it:

http://www.daniweb.com/news/story304255.html

Presumably with your assumption of freedom and believe that people shouldn't be able to say what they wish, you're against a ban of teaching creationism in science class? Surely a teacher with strong religious believes, no matter how invalid should have the right to speak to their class about those beliefs if free speech is to sit above all else?

Feel free to read from here down to the bottom of the article to get yourself plenty more examples that demonstrate that no, you don't always have free speech in the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States#Types_of_restraints_on_speech

No, your freedom of speech in the US is as much a fantasy as it is in Europe. Sure certain European nations ban things the US doesn't, but there are other things where it works both ways- public talk sympathetic to the Nazi's might be banned in some European countries for example, but those countries don't infringe civil liberties with things like warrantless wiretaps. You seem to be suggesting there's no situation in which limits on freedom of speech can improve society, but in the context of one specific case for example do you really believe the interest of society is better served by the Phelps group being allowed to spout the stuff they do publicly more so than it being banned so that people such as grieving parents of deceased soldiers don't have to face it on funeral day?

Ultimately the American viewpoint comes down to a deeply embedded paranoia of government, there's a fear that if they accept that some speech being banned does in fact improve society, there's a fear that it will lead to a slippery slope and be used negatively against legitimate speech, so the American solution is to simply pretend that you have and must keep free speech at all costs, all the whilst using less direct methods of stifling speech you don't like. In contrast, in Europe, we're just upfront about what is unwanted and unacceptable in a modern civilised society- but still just as cautious of the slippery slope problem, and it is precisely that caution that means despite having laws against hate speech in public and so forth, we're still not living in brutal dictatorships, and in many parts of Europe, are even more free than the average American citizen.

The problem with American viewpoints like yours, is that you basically believe America's own bullshit- land of the free, a global symbol of respect for civil liberties and all that. Yet this is the country that's performed torture, extraordinary rendition, the country that has bans on abortions, that's grossly homophobic even at the state level, that allowed warrantless wiretapping and so forth. It's like the couple that appear fine as if they are the perfect couple in public, but where the husband beats her when they're at home in private, the public face Americans feel they must put on, is quite different to the reality of US laws and actions. You can keep telling yourselves America is all well and good and that it's citizens are completely free, but that wont stop the rest of the world being able to see that that really just isn't the case. That is what Europeans find so bizzare about Americans.

Since Linus decided security holes and bugs are not any different then a bug that causes your screen to refresh a microsecond slower. They list everything as bug fixes and don't differentiate on the potential severity of the bug.

I'm sorry, you were saying...?

I'm sorry, you were saying something?

They could require the deployment of chipped banking cards.

And this is where most of the problem has been caused. The belief that if we put those RFID chips in our bank cards, they must become safer. The problem is, it's the chip that is the biggest security issue since its RFID it's 'always on' and more then willing to send it's information to whomever asks. The banks and credit card companies have invested millions, if not in the billions, of dollars into the technology and its a flop. A massive, expensive flop. And now they have 2 options. Fess up that it's a failed experiment and have very pissed off investors. Or, censor/intimidate anyone who wishes to publicly expose this as the failure it truly is.

The social networking might be more of a problem for him. If the chemicaldave that submitted this story is the same one that posted this question on daniweb, then he is not getting a job in this market. Period. http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post600287.html#post600287

Matters a lot how they get their "sample", honeypots, honeyclients, reputation systems and "advanced grid computing systems" (whatever it is). What is feeding information to that sample? Not old sites with rightful content sitting around since years ago, but in good part spammers, botnets, and people that want that your pc forms part of one. And mail is already known that is 95% spam. The sample is just too rigged to be at all related with what really is in internet or what you have some chance to see.

The problem is they were using the free upgrade as a means to sell hardware right before a new OS release. Most customers new the release was imminent, and would have waited. Although there is a cost to mail out the DVD's, I believe that was the cost to get the sale a month early, and therefore should not get passed onto the customer.

Apple is charging their customers in the same situation $10 for the Snow Leopard upgrade. I expected free, but paid the $10

Never again will we purchase new hardware that close to an OS update. I'm guessing we are not alone.

MS really needs to allow downloading of the latest and up to date OS ISO.

1. Why Windows Vista and Office 2007 are so Expensive  The Firefox ...
2. Is Windows getting more expensive? - CNET News
3. Windows 7 to be âoemore expensiveâ than Vista, XP
4. Writing on the Wall: Why Windows is so expensive
5. Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest ...
6. Omfg Vista Is So Expensive - Windows Vista and Windows 7

Top 6 results from Bing:

1. Why are Mac's So Expensive? - Yahoo! Answers

2. why so expensive?. - Games for Windows Live

3. Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest ...

4. Why are windows hosting providers so expensive? - Community Server

5. Why are Macbooks so expensive? - Yahoo! Answers

6. WikiAnswers - Why are Apple Macs so expensive

5 out of the top 6 at Google are directly related to what I actually wanted to know... articles about why Microsoft Windows is too expensive.

3 out of the 6 at Microsoft's Bing search engine return results for why their direct competitor, Apple, has such expensive computers. 1 more out of the remaining three appears to be somewhat related to my search by at least being about windows games, but no... look at the clip telling me why Bing thought this was relevant:

Official Games for Windows Forums ... why are macbooks so expensive i mean i saw a better windows pc laptop for half the price and double the specs and looks so why

Of the remaining 2 top 6 results, one is about vinyl windows just like Google's one stray result, and the other is about internet hosting companies charging more for windows based hosting... this is the only result that even remotely comes close to answering my question. So... 4 out of the top 6 listed look bad for a direct competitor and don't answer my question, 1 is irrelevant noise, and one is marginally relevant, but still noise. Bing sucks, and is certainly biased against anything negative being said about Microsoft.

Your link? Yeah, it's on the first page of the Google results, but it is the second to the last result, and is the only Apple related link, and even that link directly mentions Windows in the comments, and Windows 7 is linked all over the friggin place on this article's page!

1. Why Windows Vista and Office 2007 are so Expensive  The Firefox ...
2. Is Windows getting more expensive? - CNET News
3. Windows 7 to be âoemore expensiveâ than Vista, XP
4. Writing on the Wall: Why Windows is so expensive
5. Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest ...
6. Omfg Vista Is So Expensive - Windows Vista and Windows 7

Top 6 results from Bing:

1. Why are Mac's So Expensive? - Yahoo! Answers

2. why so expensive?. - Games for Windows Live

3. Why are vinyl windows so expensive? who provides them cheapest ...

4. Why are windows hosting providers so expensive? - Community Server

5. Why are Macbooks so expensive? - Yahoo! Answers

6. WikiAnswers - Why are Apple Macs so expensive

5 out of the top 6 at Google are directly related to what I actually wanted to know... articles about why Microsoft Windows is too expensive.

3 out of the 6 at Microsoft's Bing search engine return results for why their direct competitor, Apple, has such expensive computers. 1 more out of the remaining three appears to be somewhat related to my search by at least being about windows games, but no... look at the clip telling me why Bing thought this was relevant:

Official Games for Windows Forums ... why are macbooks so expensive i mean i saw a better windows pc laptop for half the price and double the specs and looks so why

Of the remaining 2 top 6 results, one is about vinyl windows just like Google's one stray result, and the other is about internet hosting companies charging more for windows based hosting... this is the only result that even remotely comes close to answering my question. So... 4 out of the top 6 listed look bad for a direct competitor and don't answer my question, 1 is irrelevant noise, and one is marginally relevant, but still noise. Bing sucks, and is certainly biased against anything negative being said about Microsoft.

Your link? Yeah, it's on the first page of the Google results, but it is the second to the last result, and is the only Apple related link, and even that link directly mentions Windows in the comments, and Windows 7 is linked all over the friggin place on this article's page!

"ANY corporate non-techie is going to see that if they have to boot Windows to get their big tasks done they obviously don't want Linux on their main system"

"heavier duty" computing like running Microsoft Office applications"

Would Portable Office (86.4MB) run on such a system?

iTunes != Unix. Are you saying that because iTunes runs on Windows OS X is not Unix?

even something like KDE sticks to more of the core tenants of unix than Mac os X.

Mind telling that to the KDE developers who ported KDE to OS X? Or Gnome? How can X11 apps be configured for Gnome?

Simply, as I said in my post you replied to I can install many Linux programs, I wont say all because I don't know if there are any that can't be installed, on my Mac. Just as Linux users can use Debian packagers apt-get and dpkg to install .deb software on Linux, I can use Fink to install those programs on my Mac. I can also install software using Redhat's RPM package manager on it using MacPorts.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/07/tsaconfiscating-lap.html

http://fanpotai.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/us-customs-confiscating-laptops/

http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry993.html

http://usefularts.us/2008/02/17/unreasonable-search-and-seizure-on-the-borders/

The Upside-Down-Ternet (*evil grin*)

There's been something fishy going on at nVidia for a while.

One is nVidia's policy that *they* don't support nVidia techology; the OEMs do. They tell you if you have problems to contact your OEM. Now Apple is a big company and could conceivably do this, but many nVidia cards are made by small OEMs who slap electronics on a board and sell it. Are they going to help you with a crashing nVidia driver. And when you follow the link on the nVidia to their OEM "support partners", this is what you get:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/partner_support.html "Page not found"

nVidia has gone so far to shut down the feedback page on their website: It says "This module is still under construction." You really believe nobody at nVidia knows how to make a web feedback page?

There's a long running bug in nVidia drivers known as the nv4_disp bug. You'll be typing away on your PC, then suddenly your monitor goes blank. A few seconds later, your PC power down. This was happening to me and I though it was some perculiarity with my PC. It turns out, this is affecting a lot of people, and it has been around for many years. nVidia know about it (they mention it in passing on one of their forums), but haven't fixed it. Windows BSOD diagnoses it as an infinite loop "device driver programming error." Independently some skilled owners worked out it was a timing problem with how nVidia writes to an I/O register. If you're lucky this bug will hit you only once a week. If you're unlucky, several times a day. THIS HAS BEEN AROUND FOR YEARS, yet nVidia won't fix this damned thing!

Want to see how widespread the problem is? Google for nv4_disp. The owner of this web page says he's amazed how many hits this page gets, and theorises a lot of people are affected:

http://s13.invisionfree.com/nv4_disp/index.php?sho wtopic=10
http://byronmiller.typepad.com/byronmiller/2005/10 /stupid_windows_.html
http://www.computing.net/drivers/wwwboard/forum/49 55.html
http://www.christopherjason.com/articles/nvidia-nv 4disp-problem/
http://www.ntcompatible.com/thread27150-1.html
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread18930. html

The most frustating thing is that nVidia do everything they can to put you off. A "under construcion" feedback page. The fob-off to their partners, with a support page that doesn't even exist. Ignored e-mail. Ignored forum questions.

One solution is of course to buy an ATI card, but if you're paid hundreds of bucks for an nVidia card, what do you do? Does anyone know how we can make nVidia fix this damned thing?

"Am I high?" No.

http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry360.html

Have a read. 256 is "ideal". 128 is "better" which would indicate that 64 is not out of the running as a minimum. the ati radeon 9600, a near univeral chip ships at 128 (in your beloved G5 no less LOL) and 256 . You can also get the 256 model for 75 bucks. What's the problem? If you had to ask apple what the "ideal" GPU requirements for the OS were, what do you think they would say? There is also no way of knowing how well it will perform until it's released. Nigel is the only source of information that we have on GPU requirements. But to put all of this squarely against your statement: Microsoft is requiring nothing of you as a user. You don't need to upgrade if you don't want to buy a new graphics card. Nor is there any indication that if you did upgrade you would be "required" to go out and buy a video card with 256 mb ram.

DaniWeb has a rather angry blog post about this as well. I watched some of the coverage on CNN myself. It was pretty entertaining. Nobody had any idea what they were talking about.

Also, cscgal looks kind of hot. Is she single ? Thanks.