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OSX uses 581MB Ram

Vista uses 594MB Ram

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/os-x-versus-vista-ram-division/573

I have windows 7 running on an old PC (Amd 3500+) and a new quadcore extreme...

I'm surprised it even runs on the 3500+ considering ATI dropped driver support for my old video card. It ran better than Vista ran on it.

Sure XP ran faster on the system, but XP didnt have built in desktop search, and XP had drivers for my Nforce 3 board. In all seriousness... It runs just fine on my old computer.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/windows-7s-default-uac-bypassed-by-8-out-of-10-malware-samples/4825 Now we are in Seven, and it's still useless...

And yet the Pwn2Own competitions keep showing that Macs aren't hard to hack...

Sorry if this is trollish, but Macs are IMO a WORSE security risk than Windows when dealing with spearphishing and other forms of targeted attacks. Security updates are rare. Even if the OS model is better than Microsoft's, it's not a good choice.

Macs are security risks.

Time Warner is in for $550 million according to this: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/wimax-saved-sprint-clearwire-form-joint-venture-google-intel-among-backers/8750

Bonus: for several years I have proudly demonstrated my nose hairs to a chosen few with Video VOIP using Microsoft Portrait on Windows Mobile (...)I hear that Apple's newest phone may finally have Video VOIP thus summer...

Windows Mobile, eh? The platform that Microsoft has discontinued due to failure and generally being awkward, and Skype dropped. You can't download Skype for Windows mobile anymore.

As for voice chat on cell phones, it was awkward (and thus completely unused, other than once for trying) on my Nokia N95 - and I doubt even Apple can get around the "holding your phone at arms length in front of you is awkward and stupid" issue. Apple certainly needs multitasking (which Microsoft won't have on their phones replacing the now discontinued and obsolete Windows Mobile), and things like FM radio would be really nice. Front facing camera, OTOH, is a waste.

I don't know if you (or anyone else) remember the "Global Link" handheld computers in the science fiction series "Earth: Final Conflict". It was a compact device that slid open to reveal what had to be a rolled up screen. Similar to the mockup on this page: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/google-and-sirius-xm-build-my-dream-handheld/9233 I've been waiting 13 years for them to build one.

You are working for VMWare.

VMWare's support redefines "non-responsive", and their products come out with bugs that makes you wonder if they've ever run them even once themselves. Their pricing is so ridiculous you can say without blushing "I'd rather have a mercedes". And it's yearly, so you can easily have a quite well-paid full-time engineer on staff instead of VMWare enterprise.

And this is just one example of a bug. If you look at the lists of bugs that prevented windows booting, caused extreme slowdowns or simply made the management unreacheable, there's no shortage of such bugs at all.

Of course you could argue that with all other products if you lock yourself out of the console you've done it yourself, but still. And of course KVM has no shortage of absurd slowdown bugs (having run it, I do wonder how anyone dares call this monster a triumph of kernel hackers).

Everyone screws up. But why don't I leave you with a bit of VMWare advice on running your server :

"Customers should not stop virtual machines. Keep virtual machines going until we release a patch," Niemar had said. "You can also move the clock backwards on the server."

My sentence was poorly written. You're right, instead of majority, I should have said "a lot".

Had you said a lot, I would have agreed :-)

So yes, you're correct, it is not a majority. But in this space...is there really a majority?

Yes. Looking strictly at smartphone sales, the majority is Nokia, with roughtly 44%. The closest to that would be RIM with their Blackberries, which holds 19.4%. After that is Apple, with 15.4. Here is the link again, if you want it.

Also, my question is...do the people who came up with these percentages consider the entire world to be the "global cell phone market"? Because I'd say that there is a huge chunk of this world where ANY cell phone is a pipe dream for the majority who live there.

They only count countries that actually have cell phone service, although I don't see how that is relevant...since these numbers are divided by company and not country, if a country didn't have any cell access, then by default it wouldn't be included in the numbers because their sales contribution would be zero anyway...

I'm in the anti-M$ camp, but it really sickens me to see a bunch of zealots that can't even be honest or fair; it makes our side seem whiny. It would be like a Microsoftie uttering some hyperbole like "no successful company is running Linux." See how stupid and detached from reality that sounds?

Hey, look! I put the words "Linux innovations" into some search engines...
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1017183/linux-innovation-missing
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/paytonbyrd/linux-lacks-innovation-13721
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/murphy/is-linux-innovative/972

See, no innovation --these results prove it! Wow, it sure is easy to have a ridiculous opinion. Maybe we could try to appear just a little fair-minded and actually put 10 seconds of real effort into our assertion the M$ has never innovated?

Yeah, but this isn't a security flaw due to an oversight or simple mistake. This is a massive downright idiotic flaw! How the HELL did this make it into a product?

Because the claims that Microsoft has good, or even competent, programmers, engineers and managers is at best a myth. That myth has been put to rest many, many years ago, but the marketing, astroturfing, and lobbying firms keep bringing it up again and again. Anyone repeating that is probably on the payroll of one of those firms or so dumb that they should be bitchslapped into next week for opening their mouth.

Seriously, these problems are synonymous with Microsoft and the passivity that allows them to promote bad engineering as acceptable has to stop.

Yet they trust the MPEG-LA promise that after 2015, they'll continue to allow H.264 for non-commercial use for free. Suuuuuuuuuure.

I would say the same about MPEG LA: don't trust vague promises. However, concerning future increases of royalty fees, they've made a very clear statement concerning the maximum level of increase, which is discussed in this article.

Apart from that, the risk if MPEG LA started to charge for non-commercial use of H.264 after 2015 is that one has to pay or has to cease using it for such purposes, while the WebM/VP8 patent problem could affect every adopter of that technology anytime now and have some really nasty consequences (cease-and-desist, injunctions, damages/backroyalties, future royalties).

It would be just as buggy and crash-prone as it is right now on the Mac. Unless you believe the demo was one that "shouldn't have been shown", and that seeing a U-tube video made behind closed-doors with as many takes as it needs to get right is in any way comparable to running it on nearly every darn page on the web. For adverts.

When I looked at that video, at about the 5 minute mark they start to show how I'd be using Flash most of the time, ie: as a part of the web-page rather than just Flash on its own. To me, it didn't look as though it was running at all well. Having Flash on the web-page caused the page-update to be slow-as-molasses, and scrolling to be about 2 fps.

And this is the best they could do, under controlled circumstances, cherry-picking the sites to use ? Give me a break!

Simon

• It would be just as buggy and crash-prone as it is right now on the Mac. Unless you believe the demo was one that "shouldn't have been shown", and that seeing a U-tube video made behind closed-doors with as many takes as it needs to get right is in any way comparable to running it on nearly every darn page on the web. For adverts.
• Because it's on every darn page on the web - for adverts - it'd be running almost constantly as the user uses Safari; so the other down-side comes into play - it's a huge battery hog. Suddenly Apple's quotes of 10 hours battery life on the iPad are reduced to 5 hours (or whatever). Uninformed users (you know, the 99% majority out there) say Apple is lying about it's battery times. Now every manufacturer lies about it's battery times, right ? Oh, wait, no they don't. Apple's battery-life figures stand alone (as far as I can tell) as a reasonable guide to how long you'll get out of your machine. That's worth a lot, to Apple.

I'm not going to pretend there aren't advantages to Apple in requiring people to use Apple's API to code on Apple's hardware (yeah, yeah, I know you bought it, I know it's *yours*, but you know what I mean). Of course there are. That doesn't invalidate the concerns above. I'm sure 'the Steve' sees it as a bonus.

Knowing people who work at Apple, they're a focussed bunch. They care passionately about making things easy to use, and frankly about making the very best (whatever) possible. There's very little of the jaded cynicism I've found in other companies over the years - they're more willing to "++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start." than anywhere else I've ever seen, and I (personally) can easily see the above being sufficient reason to abandon Flash as a platform if they think it's beyond saving.

Simon

In regards to #3. HTML5 does not specify a video standard: http://www.zdnet.com/news/html-5-drops-open-source-video-codec/318208

If you are truly into open source you want to use Theora, but support there is not full, so maybe you have to work with h.264, which has a myriad of licensing issues, I fail to see how this is truly superior to the issues faced with Flash currently. It to me feels like an "out of the pot and into the fire" scenario. Both have their pitfalls and neither are clearly better solutions until we get the HTML5 issue more clearly resolved.

That's less space to display stuff, DPI is only a measure of how smooth a line would be.

No, it's not. Anything you can fit on your iPad screen, I can fit on my netbook with 352 x 768 pixels to spare. By your logic, a 52" bigscreen TV with 160 x 90 resolution would be better than a small computer monitor with 1080i. I have some oceanfront property in Arizona I'd like to sell you...

As opposed to the iPad's 256MB?. I'm sorry, 256 is bigger than 1 does not work in this case.

Actually it does. Because all iPad apps are developed against that base target memory size, and the OS and frameworks are all built around the fact the memory is reduced.

That's also why browsing on an iPad is a LOT faster than on the system you brought up, because the software is optimized for the system. With a netbook you are going to be running a lot of software targeting a desktop that will indeed run, but not run that great, on a more constrained system.

Ever heard of "Ubuntu Netbook Remix"? Runs amazingly on this netbook, and it WAS build specifically for netbooks. So sure, you have an app that was developed against 256MB, but an equivalent application for the desktop that was built around 1GB of memory or so will be able to run more quickly, because it can cache more data. The ONLY advantage the iPad has memory wise is that it's permanent memory is Flash.

for some keyboard (like a number pad) the keys will be far larger.

So? Why the hell does that matter? If you've learned touch typing on a number pad, having huge keys is a hindrance not a help. Sorry, I'm no grandpa.

And if I really need to I can use an external Bluetooth keyboard.

So can I. And I can also use a USB one without having to by additional, overpriced, apple accessories, so I have more options than you.

I can just as easily say that I am dubious about Apple's battery claims

Actually

you

can't.

Pogue said he was able to use the device for 12 hours before it needed a charge, while Mossberg said iPad withstood 11 hours and 28 minutes of continuous use.

One thing Apple does, is give a realistic figure for battery life for all its products.

And as I said, I have used my laptop and found that HP's estimates are pretty accurate as well. You have only served to prove my point:

You

can't

either!

But still has 768 pixels! What's your point? I see that you failed to mention that it is LARGER in the other direction

Only in terms of pixels - diagonally it's almost the same size screen as the iPad, which means it's physically about as wide, but not as tall (holding the screen as you would a laptop).

That's less space to display stuff, DPI is only a measure of how smooth a line would be.

Yes, you got me on the IPS display, but that's just one factor.

But an important one for shared viewing, and also long term reading.

As opposed to the iPad's 256MB?. I'm sorry, 256 is bigger than 1 does not work in this case.

Actually it does. Because all iPad apps are developed against that base target memory size, and the OS and frameworks are all built around the fact the memory is reduced.

That's also why browsing on an iPad is a LOT faster than on the system you brought up, because the software is optimized for the system. With a netbook you are going to be running a lot of software targeting a desktop that will indeed run, but not run that great, on a more constrained system.

The largest keyboard you could fit on an iPad is 7.76 inches long.

Yes, but for some keyboard (like a number pad) the keys will be far larger. And if I really need to I can use an external Bluetooth keyboard.

But basically the customizability of the keyboard for the task makes it more useful than a cramped physical keyboard.

I can just as easily say that I am dubious about Apple's battery claims

Actually

you

can't.

Pogue said he was able to use the device for 12 hours before it needed a charge, while Mossberg said iPad withstood 11 hours and 28 minutes of continuous use.

One thing Apple does, is give a realistic figure for battery life for all its products.

Apple has a habit of forcing any connector or standard (formal or de-facto) that they don't control out the door.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/ipads-lack-of-flashusbbluetooth-is-all-about-lock-in-updated/5922

The plan is to include a copper wire along with the optical wire for powering devices.

It is sorta mentioned here: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-346181.html

I thought for sure they were going to name it "Masturbating Monkey"!

But that was all ready taken by OpenBSD (or given to them by Torvalds, to be more precise):

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-211239.html

Coming onto ODF and OOXML, we can start with the fact that there was one clear standard, ODF, that everybody had agreed on. Instead of joining an open process and ensuring that it's own needs were included, Microsoft "broke away from the standards process". Having done that, first Microsoft "broke the standards organisations " by ensuring that committes which had previously mainly consisted of technical experts were overloaded with Microsoft's commercial cronies. Then Microsoft "broke the standards it was trying to have implemented " by ensuring that the standards were at the same time incomplete ("do this as MS Word 2000"), inconsistent and unimplementable. Next Microsoft "broke the interoperability you would expect the standard to deliver" for ODF when Microsoft implemented ODF. Just recently, Microsoft has completed the circle by delivering an OOXML implementation which "broke the rules of the standard" by not following it. Microsoft has promised to to deliver a standards conforming implementation in 2015. The only question is, will Microsoft "break with it's standard practices" or will it "break it's promise to follow the standard? Did you have another meaning of "break the standard" in mind?

For a portable device like this tablet if you start with an Intel Atom and add Windows 7 then performance will be poor, costs will be high, battery life will be short. The customer experience will be unsatisfactory because W7 isn't designed for tablet use and Microsoft won't let HP customize it sufficiently to make it useful.

So no, HP didn't screw this up - it was a dumb idea from the start. Its failure was built-in. But they had to show something to try and head off the iPad.

It looks like Dell started on the right foot.

Sneakernet to your family, tribe, gang, cult, freedom fighters, friends, new friends or fellow travellers.
TOR was so hacked from day 0 via clusters of high-traffic colluding Tor routers ect.
If your connecting on a telco system hardwired into the NSA all TOR does is make you glow.
The NSA can tap all of the US and the US friendly telcos that offering TOR friendly bandwidth so entry and exit points could be traced back if needed.
Then you have efforts like "Hacker builds tracking system to nab Tor pedophiles".
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=114
"inject a little extra HTML code into the response going back to the Web browser. This HTML code would connect to my decloaking engine."

You need a citation? How about, the purloined emails themselves.

And yes, sometimes they decided to stay within the law, and other times they didn't. Frankly, they should have always kept a big bold line between the work and personal.

AFAIK, Microsoft never really announced anything. They even went as far as calling it a rumor and at best some "sources" called it an incubation project.

Announced product examples are Windows Phone 7 and Natal.

It's also on track to break a million units this month, and they just had to push the international ship date back a month to allow for demand in the states. Cognitive Dissonance is a powerful thing. At this point the people screaming about how the ipad is lame and doesn't fill a need and no-one will buy it, are so invested in spreading hate and shitting on the iPad, that it would be more difficult to admit a mistake than to just stick to their position regardless of how ridiculous it's become.

The iPad may have shipped a lot of unit in a short amount of time, but what about all the iPads being returned?

"Even now, a lot of people only use like 30gb worth of disk space. Sure, they have more, but they don't use it."

Your source? A single game now days takes over 10gb. Grand Theft Auto IV, which was released for PC in 2008, requires 16gb, Red Alert 3, also released in 2008, required 6 to 12 gb, Assassin's Creed, released 2008, required 12gb.

Even if you're not playing games, with 12+ MP images and HD video cameras common now days you're going to burn through 30gb in no time, with blu-ray HD being 40mbps.

So while it might be true your grandma only needs 30gb, anyone that has installed a game made in the last 2 years or takes the occasional picture or video is going to need a bit more.

It would be nice if you actually knew what you were talking about, that was the first result for "Opera browser rejected."
Also I'm tired of the fucking fan boys kissing Apple's ass, The App Store is a horrible implementation of an otherwise good idea. Why do they reject applications for using the official API just because it does the same thing as Safari. They want to lock-in their own apps, it's the only explanation.

LOL, not in China! There is a company called Teso making a tablet that is basically an Iphone scaled about 3x in each dimension, and it runs windows 7 (and actually has decent specs for a netbook). See this link: http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=12752&tag=trunk;content They have to be seen to be believed, but believe me they are real.

Great, so when this update goes live I get to look forward to titles like 'iPhone can now multi-task, competitors scrambles to do the same.' just like I do with the iPad and reading how companies are now 'just making' tablet PC's, to compete against Apples iPad tablet even though computer makers have been making them for years...

That's an awfully broad statement. There's evidence, though it's mostly based on circumstance. I don't think I need to be linking articles about the China Cyber Attack stuff, or North Korea, as that's all fresh.

But I'm happy to offer other links from the recent and not so recent past that are relevant.

Somewhat recent -

Russian Cyber Attacks on Georgia
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1670

PowerGrid Vulnerability of the US
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1891562,00.html

In a Galaxy Far Far Away... 1998, a brief description of L0pht testifying before congress.Excerpt included.
http://hsgac.senate.gov/l0pht.htm

""We have become so dependent on communications links and electronic microprocessors that a determined adversary or terrorist could shut down federal operations or damage the economy simply by hacking into our computers. The two General Accounting office reports which will be released at our hearing--one on the State Department and one on the Federal Aviation Administration- -raise serious concerns about the risks to the public because of information security weaknesses.""

Many sites Straight Cheat..

You don't have a very good grasp as to how online poker works. And yes there is a reason for an online casino to cheat their customers you cock gobbling retard.

You know who he sounds like? Someone with a brain in their head. So Mr. online poker shill, you continue wasting your money in cheaterville while the rest of us laugh at you.

Well What apps do you "need" actually almost all phone apps are wants and not needs but there are a few people that do need some phone apps.
The simple answer is Google it.
Pandora for Android http://www.pandora.com/android
A pod catcher http://blogs.zdnet.com/cell-phones/?p=1905
Really it just isn't that hard.
And I didn't trip over that mole hill. I have an Android phone and have all the apps I want.

Sorta, Google call them shards.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-141569.html

Shards can be located by different masters and different masters are located in different locations according to the data type.

So I think Japan (That's where they just dropped their Asia - US cable after all, so it makes sense) has a "complete" replication of all Google data. Some data is also replicated to containers (YouTube etc) for hosting at major ISPs. So all email data would be replicated in non-realtime. If you request something that isn't in that DC it's located in the US or wherever is closest (I guess).

There are multiple "complete" copies on the east and west coast as well as European hub sites or directly connected to European hub sites.

If you ask for a citation, I can dig something up for you....

There's no warning at all. It just runs.

Why doesn't the same principle apply here?

The only principal that ever applies is that rich, litigious people and institutions get whatever they want.

In a democratic society, they couch their whims into bite sized "causes" with simple-seeming resolutions that the populace can get behind to reduce the effort the upper class has to put into getting their way, such as "copyright infringement starving all the poor artists" or "carbon emissions destroying the environment" or "Lack of Christian Values (and influence) in our schools leading to bedlam". Then they just sit back, nudge where they feel they need to, and drive popular opinion towards their destinations.

This is why when the rich are hoist by their own petard: be it homophobic GOP senators and leaders of the church buying meth from their male prostitutes, or music studios caught mass-infringing their own artists' copyright, or (alleged) copyright holders perjuring DMCA provisions by issuing fraudulent takedown notices (be it for IP address confusion, or just as often for scattershot pissing in the pool) you never hear more than a "gotcha" headline about the matter, and then nothing after that ever changes. The power of these "causes" are always directly proportional to wealthy, influential people orchestrating them to suit their particular needs.

IP's being poor relation to individuals (or IP's listed at tracker being poor relation to actually participating clients) mean nothing to the powers that seek to waylay citizens with the cultural blunt trauma of Intellectual Property. They don't have to explain themselves, they don't have to make sense, they just have to have more resources than you and occasionally convince a cadre of crazies Glenn Beck style that they are in the right in order to keep their own hands clean while you are beaten.

Follow The Money Mike Anderer March 2004
An e-mail from consultant Mike Anderer to SCO's Chris Sontag revealing Microsoft's channeling of US$ 86 million to SCO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Halloween_documents_leak

On Monday, court documents from the ongoing court case between IBM and SCO claimed Microsoft had encouraged financial firm BayStar to invest in SCO. The claim was made by BayStar founder Larry Goldfarb, who said Microsoft's vice president of corporate development and strategy, Richard Emerson, had offered to underwrite BayStar's own investment in SCO.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/more-microsoft-sco-links-emerge-339271604.htm

Has Microsoft's money been a significant resource for the financially ailing SCO?
Without a doubt. In early 2003, Microsoft started paying SCO what eventually grew to $16.6 million for a Unix license, according to regulatory filings. Only longtime Unix fan Sun Microsystems previously paid close to that, with a $9.3 million license deal.

Microsoft provided a second, though indirect, boost in August or September of 2003, when it referred SCO to BayStar Capital, a fund that arranged a $50 million investment.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-139743.html

There is a lot more evidence, but I will leave further research up to you.

BTW, I'm referring to shady link-baiting stories like these:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=32470
http://gizmodo.com/5505682/how-adobe-and-google-are-making-sure-flash-will-never-die
http://www.fool.com/investing/high-growth/2010/03/30/is-this-googles-sneak-attack-on-apple.aspx
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/30/chrome-os-flash/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/30/google_integrates_flash_with_chrome/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20001429-264.html

You can actually by Wi-Fi blocking paint and window film. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=45. It's not cheap for a whole house, but that's his problem due to an imaginary ailment.

So in fact it seems Miguel was right all along - right about the need, right about the solution, right that Microsoft would not attempt to "destroy Linux" by leveraging patents. Instead they specifically promised in writing not to do that. Why? Probably because they don't care about Linux anymore. The world has moved on, what once seemed like a threat to their business no longer is.

Right, it's not a threat to their business, and they've been insightful enough to realize that. Which is why they haven't leveraged their patents against Linux in any way. Have you been living in a cave for the last 5 years?

On the other hand, there's no evidence from all of the above saber-rattling that Linux is infringing upon any of their patents. If they really have a credible infringement case, why haven't they sued Canonical, Red Hat, Mandriva, or any other company that hasn't agreed to "build bridges" with them? One also could wonder why they haven't publicly stated which patents are infringed, but the answer is of course that with or without a credible case, publicly stating which patents are infringed upon would allow the FOSS community to fight back with workarounds or invalidations of those patents.

While it boots fast otherwise:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=12443&tag=nl.e589

Anything of yours can be subpoenaed in a lawsuit. Northwest Airlines subpoenaed the *personal* computers of their employees when they suspected their employees were getting too uppity^H^H^H^H^H^H, I mean, striking by calling in sick.

It hardly matters if you use encryption, etc... the legal discovery process can violate whatever privacy you thought you had. It only takes a credible allegation of wrongdoing - not even "beyond a reasonable doubt" - to discover all of your personal files, etc... and, because only money is involved, the plaintiff needs only show guilt by a "preponderance of the evidence", or more succinctly, that it is likely that you did it. If you think you can get smart by encrypting your files, it's likely you'll be held in contempt of court, and have a summary judgment entered against you.

The only thing paying for the hardware means is that you'll eventually get it back, usually.

Anytime you need litigation or potty-mouth chair-throwing, Microsoft will be there for you.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-02/ff_killgoogle
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-139743.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/05/chair_chucking/

Hmm, I must be confused, since I can't find it now that I've tried to look. All I see is the same story you link to.

That said, do read the interview with the guy who hacked Vista in that context. The security flaw he used was actually in Flash (a stack overflow), and he says that it is cross-platform in a sense that you can exploit it with the same results on all platforms where Flash plugin is installed (though you'd have to write different code, for obvious reasons). He went with Vista because he was more familiar with its internals, and not comfortable with gdb; and, by rules of the contest, a single (conceptual) exploit can only be used against a single OS.

So in this case Ubuntu kinda got lucky, and it could just as easily have gone the other way - vulnerability was present in both OSes, it was only a matter of which one would be exploited.

I wonder if the guy happened to be a Windows developer because Windows is more popular - if so, it would, in fact, validate my original point (that Windows security story is worse because it's targeted more often, which is because it's more widespread).

Hmm, I must be confused, since I can't find it now that I've tried to look. All I see is the same story you link to.

That said, do read the interview with the guy who hacked Vista in that context. The security flaw he used was actually in Flash (a stack overflow), and he says that it is cross-platform in a sense that you can exploit it with the same results on all platforms where Flash plugin is installed (though you'd have to write different code, for obvious reasons). He went with Vista because he was more familiar with its internals, and not comfortable with gdb; and, by rules of the contest, a single (conceptual) exploit can only be used against a single OS.

So in this case Ubuntu kinda got lucky, and it could just as easily have gone the other way - vulnerability was present in both OSes, it was only a matter of which one would be exploited.

I wonder if the guy happened to be a Windows developer because Windows is more popular - if so, it would, in fact, validate my original point (that Windows security story is worse because it's targeted more often, which is because it's more widespread).

Not only are these steps not adding any additional security, they force *you* to jump through more hoops in order to protect this fake security. The added convenience of wifi has been removed, you may as well just use a wire, which will be infinitely more secure. See http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=454

Just be aware, that Sharepoint is a trojan horse and Microsoft will suck you dry at some point for choosing it. If you are fine with that (likely because you intend to have a new job by then), go for it.

So in other words, you're saying preinstalled Windows is free only if your time is worth nothing. Where have I heard that one before?

From everyone, because it's true. That's exactly why I moved away from Windows for all things computing. Life is too short and brutal as it is.

Viruses exist for all operating systems.

Dinasaurs exist too! Because there were some around, once. Of course there are not any now but according to your warning I should treat equally the threat of a T-Rex coming through my window as I would a coyote, because after all even if one system has no viruses in the wild and the other system has tens of thousands, they are obviously equal because you say they are!

If Linux had majority desktop market share, it would have the same virus problem as Windows.

This "fact" was debunked long ago by OS X virus count related to market share. Or if you prefer, the dearth of viruses for any popular mobile platform.

Windows has RTM through Service Pack 3; Ubuntu has Hardy Heron through Karmic Koala.

You are trying to make Linux look bad but honestly to the average person the left and right side of that equation are just gibberish.

What operating system doesn't need to reboot for a kernel update?

The question is not rebooting for kernel updates, it's how much is in the kernel (after all the more that is there the more updates will require a restart) and how frequently (in real life) you need to reboot.

That said, there have been a number of OS'es that do not require reboots for kernel updates - not even Linux if that is what you care about.

Apparently they actually had. http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=7572

Another great thing about Android is developers can get a free phone.