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You make a valid point, but Safari seems to auto-open certain "safe" files in the case of this crimeware kit: http://www.securitynewsdaily.com/new-malware-goes-after-mac-users-0747/

However, a huge amount of malware doesn't propagate by someone running an executable - these days it frequently uses exploits in browsers, Flash, PDF readers, etc. Simply visiting an infected website or opening a malicious PDF is enough to execute the malware on your machine. Exploit kits make it easy to set up a website that will try many exploits against the visitor, based on the browser and plugins they are using.

This infection model affects Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. While there are security architecture differences between OSs, the main reason Macs haven't yet got a big malware problem is that they haven't been targetted that much.

From something I wrote earlier - short version is that using Firefox/Chrome and a commercial antivirus on Macs is a good idea:

Here''s a survey of security experts, giving a fairly balanced view: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10444561-245.html - they believe that the Mac is less attacked but less secure than Windows and that Safari is not very secure. Using Firefox or Chrome is probably a better bet on Mac. Chrome - http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/mac/?p=667 - probably more secure than Safari, and it now does have Adblocking, Flash blocking and NotScripts (like NoScript but a bit painful to install.)

See http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apple_quietly_updates_mac_anti-malware_feature.php for some comments - the OS X actually has malware detection built in, showing that Apple thinks there is something to protect against. Mostly Trojans at present. Here's a list of OS X malware: http://www.iantivirus.com/threats/

ClamXav may be OK, but Clamav, the underlying tool, is generally nowhere near as good as a commercial antivirus based on tests â" see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clam_AntiVirus#Effectiveness for a summary.

On Windows I generally recommend Kaspersky, who have good heuristic / proactive detection of zero days (the average signature AV only detects about 40-60% of in-the-wild threats). They do have a Mac version: http://www.kaspersky.co.uk/kav-mac-latest-versions

Mac reviews mention Intego as good: http://theappleblog.com/2010/02/04/antivirus-software-on-your-mac-yes-or-no/ and http://www.macworld.com/article/51438/2006/06/antivirussw.html (old review but includes ClamXav). Sophos is a reputable tool on Windows, which has a free Mac version: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/11/02/anti-virus-mac-free/

Due to the blended threats that attack first a PC and then your website, and increasing popularity of Macs particularly for web design, it's only a matter of time before a blended threat attacks Mac+websites.

I am not sure why people keep quoting that article when it comes to OS share. Apple sells more iPod touches and iPads than iPhones. Android barely squeaks past just iPhone and only in the US market. I do expect that one day Android will dominate the market, but it has a long way to go.

[Citation needed]

I got my numbers from Apple themselves, in the investor conference call on Tuesday, and the precise number is 33% increase in sales year-over-year from the same quarter last year. You can listen to the call yourself on Apple's website, or here is a summary of some of the biggest stuff. Apple's numbers are more accurate than Gartner's, unless you think Apple is outright lying about their numbers and foresee jailtime for their executives in the near future. Also of note is that sales in Asia are up 71%, and sales in Europe are up 46%; although that's not as impressive as it sounds because they had a smaller marketshare to begin with in Asia, it is still a number not many vendors would complain about.

mac sales != market share.

Have you heard of churn? Quicker turnover of the exisiting base? I'm sure you can find other sources besides this one - some will be about the same, some will be higher but the reality is OSX is quite in line with the historical market share of Apple products (low).

And I still maintain, even after being marked troll by some fanboys, that MOST OSX users will NOT want to muck about with linux or BSD desktops if they revolt over iAds. Remember - Apple has forever claimed their OS 'just works' so that you can be creative (or insert some other verb). What % of their base are willing to get messy, as is inevitable with linux and bsd (I think I speak from some experience having used various linux distros and bsd since 1990). and deal with difficulties in getting hardware to work or finding suitable open source software alternatives? There will be only one direction for those to go and its (back) to Win XXX.

If you look at Apple sales you'll see that iPhones only sell double Mac sales, and cost less than half on average. iPods have maxed out at 50Million a year, and cost far less than 1/5 of the average Mac. So from a revenue standpoint, Macs are still very relevant. Also from a pure numbers and sales standpoint, macs are relevant and bugging MS

Android phones now outsell iPhone OS phones

That statement doesn't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Apple sells more iPod touches than iPhones, and iPad sales have been phenomenal.

I think Android is a great platform with a bright future, but it isn't anywhere near catching up to iPhone OS numbers yet.

I'm not sure what iPhone sales have to do with how many iPod Touches and iPads are out there, especially given that iPod Touches now outsell the iPhone. And outselling during one quarter doesn't make a bigger market, especially when there were many more iPhones than Androids sold before that period that are still in use. Perhaps you're confusing the smartphone market with the app market? Few, if any, app devs are actually selling phones.

Apple never leaks hardware.

You, sir, are an idiot.

Ever.

A monumental idiot.

Thanks for the laugh, Captain Irony.

Apple never leaks hardware.

You, sir, are an idiot.

Ever.

A monumental idiot.

http://theappleblog.com/2009/01/13/kid-proofing-a-mac-with-parental-controls/

Buying a Mac is going to be way cheaper than dealing with viruses on Windows or trying to learn being a Sysadmin on Linux. Buy Mac Minis and cheap monitors/keyboards/mice or pick up a used MacBook or iMac. Look for something that has the extended warranty - hardware failures will be repaired for free. You could even consider getting them an iPad with a keyboard, and only installing the applications you want them to use.

Just keep a local account on each system with a password that they REALLY don't know, create their accounts with the instructions provided above, and you're done. For extra protection, have someone write a script for you that sends an e-mail every time the Administrator account logs in, so you can know if they have figured it out.

Also, don't bother with virus protection. Weekly backups and nightly syncing their documents is a much more realistic and effective option. Pick up a Time Capsule and their computers will backup automatically. Just make sure you restrict their hard drive quota so all of their information will fit.

Both Windows 7 and OSX have parental controls that enforce usage times in a per-account basis, which apps can be run from these accounts, which sites can be accessed, etc. I have been using these with OSX (a good write up at http://theappleblog.com/2009/01/13/kid-proofing-a-mac-with-parental-controls/) with my 11-year old autistic boy and they couldn't be any simpler. He can only log into the machine at certain times, and I have the option to set a maximum session time per day. He can only run apps that I approve, and can go to sites only if I explicitly allow them. The bad news is that, at least in OSX, Firefox doesn't respect the parental control settings (Safari does it fine).

I checked with Windows 7 and the parental controls seem to be pretty similar. More at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/parental-controls.aspx

My only real annoyance is that Youtube doesn't have real content rating, which makes it a pain to filter properly. My son loves to make balloon sculptures and is always checking for new video tutorials, the problems is that while looking for these, he runs into the videos of the balloon popping fetishists. One second I am hearing a video explaining how to twist balloons into a roadrunner, next I hear a 300-pound woman in a bathing suit giggling and sitting on balloons to pop them. Gross.

By that accord iTunes Genie (Or what its called) is a valid DJ. It's called Genius.

Maybe Linux, but not Mac. Mac has it's own malware, while small it's still there and growing as Mac is growing. Mac even has it's own botnet ( http://theappleblog.com/2009/04/24/mac-botnet-how-to-ensure-you-are-not-part-of-the-problem/ )

Umm I do not have an iPhone but at least 13 MILLION people do. They expect to sell another 15 million or so this year and I would bet on it if the 4G is released.

You may not like the "lock in" from Apple or the "lame" AT&T service but it is FAR from "crap" or "stupid". The iPhone DOMINATES the worldwide smartphone market. http://theappleblog.com/2010/01/22/iphone-dominating-worldwide-smartphone-usage-report/

The N900 has it own limitations the biggest being having to use AT&T or T-Mobile and large upfront cost.

WinMo held less than 15% of the smartphone market last year. That's not "extremely popular". In tech-savvy Japan iPhone share has reached almost half. WiMo has negative growth. In fact one Gartner (we can trust Microsoft's friend Gartner not to skew the numbers away from Redmond, right?) analyst has WiMo share at a meek 7.9% in 3Q 2009, off 28% from a year before.

"From one side, the market is going open source," Cozza said. "We expect that, by 2012, around 62 percent of the whole smart phone market will be open source with Symbian, Android and other Linux flavours. On the other side, they have more closed environments like Apple and RIM. Microsoft is caught in the middle. They have to think hard what they can do."

"All their licensees - HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson - are developing on Android," Cozza said, adding that previous licensees Palm and Motorola have both abandoned Windows Mobile.

I'll agree about the ringtones thing, though - they're idiots. The thing is, there are a lot of idiots. Ringtones made up $500M in sales last year. It's shrinking fast, but to most people half a billion dollars is still a lot of money.

An important thing to note is that two or three year contracts are the norm in cell phones, so if you lose 28% of customers year over year, that's essentially everybody who could ditch your product for free. I'll say it again: that's not popular.

Now show me how I can't back my shit up.

Unlocking is SIM-unlocking, its purpose is so that an unauthorized SIM card (in the US that means non-AT&T) works on the iPhone. If you're using an AT&T card, you don't need to unlock, but you can still jailbreak. You need to run a software not authorized by Apple to do the unlock, so to unlock you *need* to jailbreak.

No, you don't "*need*" to jailbreak..

and it has taken an astounding share of that usage compared to it's market share

Citation needed?

iPhones account for 50% of USA smartphone data traffic in 2009 (Note that the second table lists share of data traffic, not market share).

iPhone market share (as % of all smartphones) is 19%

If you think there are 0% Linux and Mac botnets and malware in the wild, you are seriously uninformed.

http://theappleblog.com/2009/04/24/mac-botnet-how-to-ensure-you-are-not-part-of-the-problem/
http://blog.trendmicro.com/more-mac-malware-in-the-wild/
http://lwn.net/Articles/222153/ - Linux botnets
http://blogs.computerworld.com/14723/no_more_linux_security_bragging_botnet_discovery_worry

This is just a small sample. Let's all take security seriously, and leave religion to the gods. (and to head of the claim that it doesn't count if the user has to install something, like a pirated malware-infected Photoshop for OSX, that is the most common Win vector these days as well. Malware is the problem, not viruses.)

Not according to recent hardware reliability studies. Apple notebooks ranked 4th in reliability, after Asus, Toshiba, and Sony. That fact doesn't seem to support your hyperbole.

http://theappleblog.com/2009/11/17/apple-ranks-a-lackluster-fourth-in-notebook-reliability-study/

yep, ms should abandon it's OS and chase that 5% http://theappleblog.com/2009/08/03/os-x-market-share-jumps-iphone-bumped-safari-4-trumps-in-july/
err

Yes.

http://theappleblog.com/2005/09/20/redmond-start-your-photocopiers/

Of course, Slashdot is a dime short and days late on the real news.

JavaScript 3-10x Faster On iPhone OS 3.0

Well, for a better, no BS news aggregator, try The Hacker News. Then after seeing it there for a few days, come to slashdot to see a regurgitated discussion.

* Landscape mode for Calendar. Make it activate week-at-a-glance mode.

I am going to be so jealous of Daylite Touch users, if that's ever released.

Yep, I did that using the instructions here: Making your own iPhone ringtones

Yes, but for very high values of those digits.

If you think 1% is high.

http://theappleblog.com/2009/01/30/apple-achieves-11-percent-market-share-what-next/

you're missing the point. these non-inventions should never have been granted in the first place. that is what needs to be reformed about the current system.

things like file previews are currently patentable, and it's within the patent holder's rights to sue. whether you think it's contrary to the intent of the system or not, it's how the system works. right now the USPTO is wasting millions of dollars of tax payers' money each year by granting patents on trivial/obvious software features, which inevitably leads to frivolous lawsuits by patent trolls--who often win.

just look at the case between Creative and Apple regarding file menus. the only thing that's different this time is that the defendants have much more legal muscle than the claimant (which is a separate problem with the legal system). so even if Cygnus loses this suit, that doesn't mean that when a corporate juggernaut like Apple/Microsoft file similar claims of patent infringement that they will lose.

A netbook should have the following characteristics:

1. Small (10" or less screen)
2. Long Battery Life (4 hrs +)
3. Light weight (under 2 kg)
4. Cheap (under $500 US).

Apple can do 1 and 2, and 3 but 4, I don't think so.

No, but they can convince people that netbooks are an unsustainable business model

http://theappleblog.com/2008/12/15/netbooks-the-race-to-the-bottom-has-begun/

Apple have started sucking already: the newest Macbooks block you from playing back movies you own on a non-Hollywood-approved display, and there is no way to turn off this 'feature'.

Apart from updating Quicktime.

I' quite sure they mean websites like this

Top 10 iPhone Optimized Websites or 20 Websites Optimized for the iPhone

While this is no rewriting/transformation it could be considered as some kind of "sister site".

I'd still consider their claims "wobbly" and hope that they'll fail.

I've read a variety of posts about the problems with FireWire (see here and here from what I found on Google), and the big problem is that FireWire didn't become a de facto standard seven or eight years ago when it was really needed. These days, it seems like few computers other than Macs ship with FireWire standard, and I've never seen a laptop in the wild outside of Macs with a six-pin FireWire 400 port, let alone 800.

I've heard this is chiefly due to Apple's initial intransigence regarding licensing; they demanded $1 per computer to use the "FireWire" name, making other device makers really angry. Considering how slim hardware margins are, no one was going to go for it. FireWire 400 is still technically superior to USB 2.0 in many ways, even today, but it's never reached the market penetration it needs, and now USB 2.0 is "good enough" for most purposes.

I use a Mac and so do many family members, and I've long counseled them to get only FireWire drives for backups. When Leopard came out, some were shopping for drives, and I found that I could not find FW400/USB 2 drives for as little as plain USB 2.0 drives. In other words, the FireWire premium for HDs appears to be at least $30. Not a good sign for market penetration.

Now FW 3200 is being discussed when FW 800 already seems dead on arrival in consumer land, and only supported to the limited extent it is by Apple. Not making it backwards compatible with FW400 was an idiotic decision that ensured whatever chance it had in the market was gone. In the meantime, eSATA and the like have come along and perhaps obviated the need for many FireWire applications altogether.

I don't have an Intel mac, or the motivation to track one down, but according to this you can have Classic on Intel: http://theappleblog.com/2006/07/01/classic-on-inte l-macs-courtesy-of-sheepshaver/

It's not an isolated incident. There are blogs detailing how to open up the shitty powerbook power adapters and repair them yourself, rather than incur the $150 pricetag of a new one.

http://theappleblog.com/2005/08/13/powerbook-65w-a c-adaper-repair/

This guy is running Classic on an Intel Mac: http://theappleblog.com/2006/07/01/classic-on-inte l-macs-courtesy-of-sheepshaver/ TCP/IP works, though AppleTalk does not.

I read this earlier this month and thought it could have some merrit, but probably not.

After all, we are talking Apple rumors AND it is April Fools day.

Other Apple-April Fools links:

iGame - yeah, right.
New video iPod - possible?
iNote - nice pics ;)
Media Center - err... nevermind.

Well if nothing else, maybe we get some fun new photoshopped Apple toys to dream about.

I read this earlier this month and thought it could have some merrit, but probably not.

After all, we are talking Apple rumors AND it is April Fools day.

Other Apple-April Fools links:

iGame - yeah, right.
New video iPod - possible?
iNote - nice pics ;)
Media Center - err... nevermind.

Well if nothing else, maybe we get some fun new photoshopped Apple toys to dream about.

The Apple Blog has a parody of the Dvorak piece.

How about Apple's latest Java 1.5 update?

http://www.theappleblog.com/2005/11/15/apple-silen tly-starts-sending-out-universal-binaries

Make better use of our home broadband connectivity?. I'm seeing few people addressing the costs and practicality of hosting all this new content.

Commentary on the new releases today can also be found over here on The Apple Blog.

iqu :)

Commentary on the new releases today can also be found over here on The Apple Blog.

iqu :)

Do we know for certain that Apple's move to Intel is about DRM? You say it as though it were gospel but is this deepest of cynical views actually warranted? I don't think it necessarily is, although it could be useful in their wanting to ensure Mac OS X only runs on Macs, a policy which I thoroughly support (as I want Apple to stay in business).

Fact is that some form of DRM is an essential prerequisite for an information-based economy, regardless of what the 'information wants to be free' types spout over here. I don't particularly like it, and I understand the fundamental problem with it (the black and white nature of computers versus the grey world of legal interpretation), but I do accept that it is necessary.

And I'd certainly choose Apple's over Microsoft's any day, because I believe that Apple is less inclined to screw the consumer over. On that I can only hope I'm right.

As to ThinkSecret, I've outlined my views on it before for more.)

iqu :)

Do we know for certain that Apple's move to Intel is about DRM? You say it as though it were gospel but is this deepest of cynical views actually warranted? I don't think it necessarily is, although it could be useful in their wanting to ensure Mac OS X only runs on Macs, a policy which I thoroughly support (as I want Apple to stay in business).

Fact is that some form of DRM is an essential prerequisite for an information-based economy, regardless of what the 'information wants to be free' types spout over here. I don't particularly like it, and I understand the fundamental problem with it (the black and white nature of computers versus the grey world of legal interpretation), but I do accept that it is necessary.

And I'd certainly choose Apple's over Microsoft's any day, because I believe that Apple is less inclined to screw the consumer over. On that I can only hope I'm right.

As to ThinkSecret, I've outlined my views on it before, but if you really think that free speech trumps any and all other rights then you won't mind if I publish your name, address, phone number and any other information you might like to keep secret because, well, my right to free speech trumps yours of privacy, right? On the other hand, if you do want your right to privacy, why shouldn't companies be able to keep certain things under wraps? (Note that I'm not advocating Enron-style behaviour - that is a very different kind of thing, but let's not muddy the waters here by calling ThinkSecret an outlet for whistleblowers. It's not. Really. It's not.)

Incidentally, as regards the switch, just make it. Assuming you're on Windows at the moment, you've got nothing to hold you back - it's really quite staggering the difference it makes to day-to-day tasks, but often quite hard to quantify using actual words. If you knew the pain, the stress, most of all the frustration I feel when I use Windows now....

If on Linux, I suppose ideological constraints more than anything would keep someone on that platform. As to the 'experience', well, these days I find I have so much more time to do what I want to do, rather than forever tweaking Linux's innards. (See here for more.)

iqu :)

I'll second that - been using it on Mac OS X for a good few months now and I'm very happy with it. Sean and the dev team are very helpful - you can mail them via support, or bring something up in the mailing list, and you'll get a direct response: bit of a difference to Quicken's attitude! (They've completely withdrawn from the UK.) It's targeted at personal finance management and not really suitable for business accounts, though, for that I'd suggest GNUCash (via Fink if you're on OS X - compile from source, don't use the binary as it's old and somewhat buggy. Yes, the dependencies are huge unfortunately!)

There are some good finance apps for Linux as far as I'm aware, check out this (dated) review:
http://www.unixreview.com/documents/s=8217/ur0305l /ur0305l.html

MSMoney and Quicken are popular for a reason, though: they're actually fairly good, so don't be surprised if some of the features you're accustomed to don't behave the same or even aren't there at all. (For instance, MoneyDance doesn't do the equivalent of Quicken's Classes yet, though it will do very soon as it's near the top of the feature requests list.) Still, I think it's worth the short-term pain of switching to know that your software won't suddenly magically "expire", and that you're not locked into a platform because your accounts software only works on Windows. (Speaking of which, I'd *love* to see someone overcome GNUCash's evil dependencies and port it to Windows, it'd massively increase it's uptake & increase people's exposure to alternatives to the Big 2.)

GNUCashToQIF may come in handy for some (such as those testing out MoneyDance):
http://gnucashtoqif.sourceforge.net/

And there's a pretty comprehensive thread on Mac finance apps here:
http://www.timandkathy.co.uk/journal/2005/02/05/lo oking-for-mac-os-x-personal-finance-software/

As well as a decent comparative review of Mac apps here (with a good overview of MoneyDance, so as to not be too off-topic!):
http://www.theappleblog.com/2005/03/19/moneydance- get-your-groove-on/

Another clue...the iNote.

interesting idea posted on The Apple Blog http://www.theappleblog.com/2005/04/01/apple-plant ing-iseeds-with-kitty/ still unlikely, but cool.

I think Apple will always have the strongest security. http://www.theappleblog.com/2005/01/26/best-from-a pple-security/

i don't mean to troll but remind me how you get digital still cameras, DV camcorders, bluetooth mobile devices, bluetooth headsets to work in Linux? Assuming you do ... what do you do then? Where's the Linux device synchronization strategy, like, you know, iSync?

What does the digital music marketplace and music device market look like for Linux?

What's a decent document authoring tool in Linux? vi, emacs, and Open Office do not count.

the post author just might be interested in doing niftier things with his computer. you know, like when you have a girlfriend ... then a wife ... then kids ... and you like to take pictures and videos, and perhaps easily author DVDs

sure ... he could stick to Linux. Linux is nice. I've used it for a while. but today, why bother? OS X is hands-down a far superior operating system. And that's precisely because it not-only draws from the open-source community, but also adds a whole layer of innovations targeted at fulfilling the needs of, you know, mere mortals who don't spend their time compiling kernels all day long.

you've obviously got a lot of learning to do about OS X.

I love Linux, have used it quite a bit, set-up a few servers here and there, used it as a desktop a bit, on a PPC processor via LinuxPPC and also x86 with Debian. It's functional. It's nice. and It's free. Makes for insanely great bang for the buck on server platforms.

Furthermore, there is a largely symbiotic relationship between the Open-Source Community and Mac OS X. Innovations on each side are typically great benefits to the Community at large.

With all that said, Mac OS X still blows Linux out of the water, hands-down. I'd be happy to elaborate, but i don't think i need to. Feel free to ask me to. And I will, you better believe it.

Advocating SIP

Advocating a better connected lifestyle

Finally, my Xmas wish: The Ultimate Handheld device for, now, 2005.

We don't need numbers to get in real-time touch with one-another. We need smarter devices interconnected with address books, presenting users with actual contact information, and obscuring the means by which you're getting in real-time touch with each-other.

... this little rant of mine was also kinda directed at them.