The schoolteachers know more than most that the education system is not about teaching kids. The budget for education has been removed. It's daycare only. NCLB was education sabotage in a wrapper to make it seem like it wasn't direct sabotage, and it wasn't the first, or last.
The teachers want it to be about teaching, but there are violent felons in their classes, and they are constrained from taking any reasonable actions to control unruly students.
There are studies that show what "causes" good outcomes in education, and the public schools are not well aligned to those. They are often expensive and emphasize excellence, when the schools are aimed at mediocrity at best.
I have a nephew in public school. He was diagnosed as "learning disabled". That would have required expensive accommodations, so the tests were discarded. My sister paid for tutoring out of her own pocket to try to address the disability. When the school say his work improve sufficiently, he was tested and that test showed he wasn't sufficiently troubled to warrant extra effort, so that report was saved and made permanent. So my sister stopped the tutoring she could not afford. His performance dropped enough that he was tested (by a non-district person) be be below the threshold again. The district doesn't recognize independent testers, and refused to retest because there was a "pass" on file so the "expensive" re-test wasn't warranted. The district would not re-test because it would likely find that the district was responsible for accommodating his abilities. The solution was for my sister to pull her children out of public school and put them in private. It wasn't the teacher's fault, but the district itself, the bureaucracy and funding around it is designed to *not* help children. When you look at in-room spending per child, public education is almost always cheaper than private schools. Private schools are just so often associated with churches and such that they have free buildings and volunteer administrators. But the schools have been saddled with a government bureaucracy imposed by the government and condemned by the people.
I blame the voters. I wouldn't put my children in the public schools in the US, unless I had no other choice.
I can verify this 1000% it is the administrators who can help teachers or cause them to quit or work in a better school district. Take 1 school I was just shadoing with another teacher with. Inner city and scary with a cop on site. The principal wont allow students to go to the office!! WTF! Her numbers/Metric of showing less office visits give her a payraise at the expense of everyone else. So a student called this teacher A FUCKING BITCH and there is nothing she can do back but yell back! How is she supposed to teach in that environment.
Thankfully after the teachings had a riot she put in a seperate classroom (costing tax payers anotehr $80k a year for salary + benefits) another teacher to send disruptive ones. So the student knows he can get away with anything but at least we can teach and not have that a**hat interfering from doing our job.
Some public schools say screw the metrics and will allow student suspensions and back teachers up. As a parent you need to find such schools as superintendents like having low office visits thinking it means no discipline problems.... see folks metrics fuck up more than the private sector.
I am in favor of NCLB as I have seen it work wonders. Kids today are 2 grade levers higher in every subject area before NCLB. There are lazy teachers too and they piss me off. Just like anyone lazy would make you angry if you work hard and love your profession and work harder just to earn the same pay as someone who is late and grades things once a month. Today in inner city Tampa there are students who are not easy to work with but in 6th grade know that 4x=4200 means you divide both sides by 4. These kids are only 11 or 12. Before NCLB they would not know this until highscho
Who is going to fix those potholes and work for the government for less money than the private sector then? True you could find a few mexicans to do it, but how about the engineers to analize the bridges and roads to find out who needs pothole work? What about teachers, policemen, and firemen? Think they will come to work with a smile and risk their lives (firemen) for minimium wage no benefits etc? They will go work in the private sector.
If you heard a CEO say pensions do not fix things nor do decent salaries you would be in an uproar. Or perhaps the CEO of your employer did just that so everyone else has to suffer your fate because you didn't want to switch jobs?
Economics 101. In many southern states where they are privitizing all these jobs they can't find qualified teachers. A teacher starts at $14,000 a year and requires a bachelors plus 2 years of student teaching or a masters degree. Gee... hmm I can't image why they can't find anyone?!
Taxpayers that are struggling to feed their families and find jobs for themselves and maintain their workforces shouldn't have to pay for cushy retirements.
Then they should have voted for politicians better at negotiating contracts, and got what they deserved. The taxpayers are only paying for what was promised by their elected representatives. If there's a problem, the taxpayers need to reexamine their choices for representation.
Also expect to pay me a shitload more money if you take away my pensions. As a teacher I gave up jobs that would pay $60,000 a year for a job that pays $40,000 a year. Besides a change the only other reason why I would voluntarily do so is because of retirement being taken care of. If you bitch and whine how it is so unfair that I get that and you don't keep in mind your IT jobs pay A LOT MORE so you can afford to save more.
I will quit and go back into IT as well as many other teachers if you take our pensions away. That was the deal you made upon we agreed to work for less. Who in their right mind would sign up for $70,000 to $100,000 of debt to train for a job that pays $35,000 a year with no pension otherwise? You simply wont find any qualified teachers or any other public servants otherwise.
Go to an airport or college campus? Real people and business travelers are switching. The office is very outdated an authoritarian and is conservative. THey are always last to adopt and even they are changing slowly with BYOD and netbooks for the sales team and executives.
However what is diferent is many of these users were running Windows 7 6 months or more before release as Microsoft made a deal where the RC users could purchase a permanent key and Windows Update will turn it into an OEM. BUt still no one bothered to do that with Windows 8.
There are more computers today in 2012 than 2009 as China and Eastern Europe are still buying 1st time computers compared to west where slashdotters have had them for awhile. THis also shows just how slow WIndows 8 is and how great Windows 7 was.
Why are you installing 11 year old operating systems that are insecure and about to loose support? Most people I know may prefer XP familiarity as it is what they know, but also are aware of its age and do not want to invest all this money in a new shiny box only to cripple it by living in the past.
Perhaps those who think like this already left XP a long time ago??
Unless they have some ancient software or need IE 6 compatibility there is no reason in 2012 and you are doing them a great diservice. I used to work part time in a computer shop in 2010 and we were all XP because we dealt with older systems and people would go big box retailer for a newer system so we dealt with re-imaged hand me downs for kids or a 2nd computer or poor folks.
Windows 7, like XP has the advantage of being mature and super stable. Windows 7 has been around since Vista and is not as experimental. Yes, there are still some issues in networking that XP does better with AD and com port access, but Windows 8 has been known to freeze up or exhibit some issues because of its newness.
On my 2007 laptop it only runs in 1024 x 768 as the perfectly fine aero drivers for Windows 7 are not 8 compatible. On my newer phenomII desktop I am typing this in I experienced some glitches with GPU acceleration in Firefox and IE 10. There as a bug in SWTOR but I do not remember what that an update fixed.
Users report it can reboot endlessly too. For corps who like stability Windows 7 is a winner and so is for professionals. Windows blue/9 next year if rumor is true with an annual update will mature it more.
But 2009 was in the worst recession since the 1930s and many people were terrified the financial market would still freeze still. IN that case keeping older PCs make more sense so there is alot of factors. Still it sold as many like myself were looking to dump Vista and felt XP to be too obsolete and old to use at that time unless you really had too.
Windows 7 was popular and already registered for like 2 months before launch as people were on the RCs and passing along eval copies. So these users did not buy all at once which was why Windows 8 had a higher spike, but Windows 7 had more users overall who just purchased a key for the RC copies and Windows update turned them into the full versions.
Keyboard and mouse all the way. Now to prove I am not a middle aged man who hates change I an open to touch on a tiny device that is ultra portable like an IPAD or a Surface. Nothing more than 10 inches max. THe length of the keyboard gets in the way otherwise.
If touch is so awesome why doesn't the Surface Pro include touch support? That is right it has a pen/stylus. No touch. Why is that? Probably because it is bigger than the regular surface and with a keyboard it would mean you would need to stretch forward.
What is needed is a pairkey system. THe first seed could be the serial number of the CPU. This way a piece of malware can't sign itself and each set of keys would be different for each PC.
You simply through a EFI utility connect to the internet to a keysigning service and another key is generated to sign the boot image. Easy. Perhaps put a special locked master key that only Intel knows for this process.
Linux, FreeBSD or any other OS can interact with the EFI to upload the key and sign itself in a standard way. Who the hell at Intel thought it was a good idea for WIndows 8 to get the key? Guess what?
If the key is just a string of binary code. It wont take long for someone to find it and then use that string of code to sign their own malware as legit and prevent AV software from deleting it. Just stupid to have one master MS key that anyone can see.
In actuality I like the idea of a signed Windows 7 kernel on my PC if it can reduce malware. Just not having MS do it.
Gadaffi tried the same thing and the rebels in the eastern half the country reconnected them from the pipes from Egypt and even re-enabled cell phone usage. The northern half of Syria is largely under rebel control with a few bases here and there that are rapidly falling. I am sure in a big city like Allepo there are pipes that flow into Turkey, Iraq, and Lebannon.
But it has the advantage that if you don't like it you're free to write your own graphics drivers and make it look as nice as you want, and then you can give it away for free and get a nice warm feeling.
--man, I think I'd better check that "anonymous coward" box here...
It is so pleasing to know that Windows and Mac apps do not have problems retina too. It must be that hippie OS
I hadn't heard of that, and when I looked into it, the truth appeared to be different from what you claimed. It looks like you had to click on the picture, and then click to download and then install the malware. One of the sites had malware pretending to be a VLC update, the others were peddling fake anti-virus software.
Then again considering the source... Bill Gates lying about Google? Why am I not surprised?
You mean
I hadn't heard of that, and when I looked into it, the truth appeared to be different from what you claimed. It looks like you had to click on the picture, and then click to download and then install the malware. One of the sites had malware pretending to be a VLC update, the others were peddling fake anti-virus software.
Then again considering the source... Bill Gates lying about Google? Why am I not surprised?
These programs are malware and spyware and use the same methods to stay on as virii. The difference is they are legit so AV programs do not flag them. It could hide in the boot record as a trojan or hide in a restore point and be later re-installed when a user uses it. My guess is the IT team at the school simple uses restore as a quick and efficient way to wipe it before the student received it.
I am no lawyer so perhaps one could feel free to reply.
Here is what I understand?
First, if you had no real expectation of privacy whatsoever we would not have click-thru agreements and signed paperwork by HR giving our rights away as a condition of employment.
Second, judges throw out such claims in court all the time. The evidence should not have been permisable as the agent should be the one in trouble here for interfering with school property. If any evidence was obtained illegally then it needs to be thrown out.
Third, how do you know the FBI agent wasn't an agent? There are overtime lawsuits going on where doing paperwork at home or just checking email constitutes as work and the lawyers are drooling at this with overtime lawsuits. You can't prove otherwise.
There was a scandal last year when OBL was killed and hackers found a way to infect your system just by doing a search OBL dead pics. You did not even have to click on anything. THe code ran through Google redirected through clever javascript hacks. So if your daughter does a search for puppy pictures she is instantly infected!
I am surprised it was mentioned only midly on slashdot as it took a few weeks to fix this and infected tens to hundreds of millions of pcs.
I read an older post of yours last year and switched to AVAST as a result of frustrations with MSE. I never went back. I never tried Comodo though as I am more familiar with AVAST at this point and I love the gaming mode. I highly recommend AVAST.
Also did you know Comodo secure DNS service is free and you can google it to get the DNS IP addresses? That blocks malware right there even if you use another AV product. I still use www.livejournal.com which is owned by a shadowy marketing company that occasionally places malware ladden ads through its afliates. (Not often as I would not keep using it). After switching to Comodo DNS I notice the 404 error messages every blue moon and smirk in the ads. I did use Norton DNS which also blocks malware but it is slugish like their AV product. OpenDNS is good too if you pay for it as only subscribers get malware protection.
I would advise to do a fresh wipe on any infected box. I know it is cheaper at your shop probably becuase they can take awhile to backup the my documents and reinstall everything (the non free ninite MS office, autocad, etc), but for personal use you never know if another hole is there or if it didn't hide in a restore point? Damaged Windows systems are slow too and you simply can not trust your computer anymore without it.
Funny you mention the font. That is how Stuxnet got in and why it took awhile for MS to patch this without breaking Windows and every app under the sun that used it.
Considering one was trying to run java from an ad on slashdot... very unusual I say that one was malware. The other one was blocked but a UAC did prompt asking for permission to run to part of the hard drive that was a no no. So I say they were both trojans. It could be possible the other one could have got through and installed if I were stupid enough to not run as standard user and not administrator:-)
I keep preaching this to Windows Users to add passwords but the default user is always admin which is frustrating.
The new ones do not ruin performance that much at all. Even Norton which is 3rd or 4th place on that site was re-engineered.
The older ones would blow through 6 to 12 gigs a day scanning and encapsulating the Windows i/O subsystems. The newer ones just do a simple crc check from the last time a scan was done and if the file has not changed it proceeds to the next without scanning or looking for behaviors. I even ran HD TUNE on my PC and saw less than a 5% drop in performance. In 2012 there is no reason not to use it unless you run a Linux box.
AVAST has blocked 2 pieces of malware for me over the years. It stopped it cold before it could be installed or ran. Good ones that are modern do a great job with high success rates.
Slashdot Mirror
The schoolteachers know more than most that the education system is not about teaching kids. The budget for education has been removed. It's daycare only. NCLB was education sabotage in a wrapper to make it seem like it wasn't direct sabotage, and it wasn't the first, or last.
The teachers want it to be about teaching, but there are violent felons in their classes, and they are constrained from taking any reasonable actions to control unruly students.
There are studies that show what "causes" good outcomes in education, and the public schools are not well aligned to those. They are often expensive and emphasize excellence, when the schools are aimed at mediocrity at best.
I have a nephew in public school. He was diagnosed as "learning disabled". That would have required expensive accommodations, so the tests were discarded. My sister paid for tutoring out of her own pocket to try to address the disability. When the school say his work improve sufficiently, he was tested and that test showed he wasn't sufficiently troubled to warrant extra effort, so that report was saved and made permanent. So my sister stopped the tutoring she could not afford. His performance dropped enough that he was tested (by a non-district person) be be below the threshold again. The district doesn't recognize independent testers, and refused to retest because there was a "pass" on file so the "expensive" re-test wasn't warranted. The district would not re-test because it would likely find that the district was responsible for accommodating his abilities. The solution was for my sister to pull her children out of public school and put them in private. It wasn't the teacher's fault, but the district itself, the bureaucracy and funding around it is designed to *not* help children. When you look at in-room spending per child, public education is almost always cheaper than private schools. Private schools are just so often associated with churches and such that they have free buildings and volunteer administrators. But the schools have been saddled with a government bureaucracy imposed by the government and condemned by the people.
I blame the voters. I wouldn't put my children in the public schools in the US, unless I had no other choice.
I can verify this 1000% it is the administrators who can help teachers or cause them to quit or work in a better school district. Take 1 school I was just shadoing with another teacher with. Inner city and scary with a cop on site. The principal wont allow students to go to the office!! WTF! Her numbers/Metric of showing less office visits give her a payraise at the expense of everyone else. So a student called this teacher A FUCKING BITCH and there is nothing she can do back but yell back! How is she supposed to teach in that environment.
Thankfully after the teachings had a riot she put in a seperate classroom (costing tax payers anotehr $80k a year for salary + benefits) another teacher to send disruptive ones. So the student knows he can get away with anything but at least we can teach and not have that a**hat interfering from doing our job.
Some public schools say screw the metrics and will allow student suspensions and back teachers up. As a parent you need to find such schools as superintendents like having low office visits thinking it means no discipline problems. ... see folks metrics fuck up more than the private sector.
I am in favor of NCLB as I have seen it work wonders. Kids today are 2 grade levers higher in every subject area before NCLB. There are lazy teachers too and they piss me off. Just like anyone lazy would make you angry if you work hard and love your profession and work harder just to earn the same pay as someone who is late and grades things once a month. Today in inner city Tampa there are students who are not easy to work with but in 6th grade know that 4x=4200 means you divide both sides by 4. These kids are only 11 or 12. Before NCLB they would not know this until highscho
A temperature like that is more like crematory than an oven. Does even a blow torch get 1400 F?
Who is going to fix those potholes and work for the government for less money than the private sector then? True you could find a few mexicans to do it, but how about the engineers to analize the bridges and roads to find out who needs pothole work? What about teachers, policemen, and firemen? Think they will come to work with a smile and risk their lives (firemen) for minimium wage no benefits etc? They will go work in the private sector.
If you heard a CEO say pensions do not fix things nor do decent salaries you would be in an uproar. Or perhaps the CEO of your employer did just that so everyone else has to suffer your fate because you didn't want to switch jobs?
Economics 101. In many southern states where they are privitizing all these jobs they can't find qualified teachers. A teacher starts at $14,000 a year and requires a bachelors plus 2 years of student teaching or a masters degree. Gee ... hmm I can't image why they can't find anyone?!
Taxpayers that are struggling to feed their families and find jobs for themselves and maintain their workforces shouldn't have to pay for cushy retirements.
Then they should have voted for politicians better at negotiating contracts, and got what they deserved. The taxpayers are only paying for what was promised by their elected representatives. If there's a problem, the taxpayers need to reexamine their choices for representation.
Also expect to pay me a shitload more money if you take away my pensions. As a teacher I gave up jobs that would pay $60,000 a year for a job that pays $40,000 a year. Besides a change the only other reason why I would voluntarily do so is because of retirement being taken care of. If you bitch and whine how it is so unfair that I get that and you don't keep in mind your IT jobs pay A LOT MORE so you can afford to save more.
I will quit and go back into IT as well as many other teachers if you take our pensions away. That was the deal you made upon we agreed to work for less. Who in their right mind would sign up for $70,000 to $100,000 of debt to train for a job that pays $35,000 a year with no pension otherwise? You simply wont find any qualified teachers or any other public servants otherwise.
Go to an airport or college campus? Real people and business travelers are switching. The office is very outdated an authoritarian and is conservative. THey are always last to adopt and even they are changing slowly with BYOD and netbooks for the sales team and executives.
More data that shows now vs 2009 from statcounter.
However what is diferent is many of these users were running Windows 7 6 months or more before release as Microsoft made a deal where the RC users could purchase a permanent key and Windows Update will turn it into an OEM. BUt still no one bothered to do that with Windows 8.
There are more computers today in 2012 than 2009 as China and Eastern Europe are still buying 1st time computers compared to west where slashdotters have had them for awhile. THis also shows just how slow WIndows 8 is and how great Windows 7 was.
Why are you installing 11 year old operating systems that are insecure and about to loose support? Most people I know may prefer XP familiarity as it is what they know, but also are aware of its age and do not want to invest all this money in a new shiny box only to cripple it by living in the past.
Perhaps those who think like this already left XP a long time ago??
Unless they have some ancient software or need IE 6 compatibility there is no reason in 2012 and you are doing them a great diservice. I used to work part time in a computer shop in 2010 and we were all XP because we dealt with older systems and people would go big box retailer for a newer system so we dealt with re-imaged hand me downs for kids or a 2nd computer or poor folks.
Windows 7 can not take care of all of that.
Windows 7, like XP has the advantage of being mature and super stable. Windows 7 has been around since Vista and is not as experimental. Yes, there are still some issues in networking that XP does better with AD and com port access, but Windows 8 has been known to freeze up or exhibit some issues because of its newness.
On my 2007 laptop it only runs in 1024 x 768 as the perfectly fine aero drivers for Windows 7 are not 8 compatible. On my newer phenomII desktop I am typing this in I experienced some glitches with GPU acceleration in Firefox and IE 10. There as a bug in SWTOR but I do not remember what that an update fixed.
Users report it can reboot endlessly too. For corps who like stability Windows 7 is a winner and so is for professionals. Windows blue/9 next year if rumor is true with an annual update will mature it more.
Netmarketshare shows similiar data without iOS too.
But 2009 was in the worst recession since the 1930s and many people were terrified the financial market would still freeze still. IN that case keeping older PCs make more sense so there is alot of factors. Still it sold as many like myself were looking to dump Vista and felt XP to be too obsolete and old to use at that time unless you really had too.
Actual usage statistics from statcounter did a comparison with this year and 3 years ago. Now tell me how Windows 8 is the best selling OS ever!
Windows 7 was popular and already registered for like 2 months before launch as people were on the RCs and passing along eval copies. So these users did not buy all at once which was why Windows 8 had a higher spike, but Windows 7 had more users overall who just purchased a key for the RC copies and Windows update turned them into the full versions.
Keyboard and mouse all the way. Now to prove I am not a middle aged man who hates change I an open to touch on a tiny device that is ultra portable like an IPAD or a Surface. Nothing more than 10 inches max. THe length of the keyboard gets in the way otherwise.
If touch is so awesome why doesn't the Surface Pro include touch support? That is right it has a pen/stylus. No touch. Why is that? Probably because it is bigger than the regular surface and with a keyboard it would mean you would need to stretch forward.
If you refuse to do business with Microsoft you wont be in business very long
What is needed is a pairkey system. THe first seed could be the serial number of the CPU. This way a piece of malware can't sign itself and each set of keys would be different for each PC.
You simply through a EFI utility connect to the internet to a keysigning service and another key is generated to sign the boot image. Easy. Perhaps put a special locked master key that only Intel knows for this process.
Linux, FreeBSD or any other OS can interact with the EFI to upload the key and sign itself in a standard way. Who the hell at Intel thought it was a good idea for WIndows 8 to get the key? Guess what?
If the key is just a string of binary code. It wont take long for someone to find it and then use that string of code to sign their own malware as legit and prevent AV software from deleting it. Just stupid to have one master MS key that anyone can see.
In actuality I like the idea of a signed Windows 7 kernel on my PC if it can reduce malware. Just not having MS do it.
Gadaffi tried the same thing and the rebels in the eastern half the country reconnected them from the pipes from Egypt and even re-enabled cell phone usage. The northern half of Syria is largely under rebel control with a few bases here and there that are rapidly falling. I am sure in a big city like Allepo there are pipes that flow into Turkey, Iraq, and Lebannon.
Basically, Linux sucks.
But it has the advantage that if you don't like it you're free to write your own graphics drivers and make it look as nice as you want, and then you can give it away for free and get a nice warm feeling.
--man, I think I'd better check that "anonymous coward" box here...
It is so pleasing to know that Windows and Mac apps do not have problems retina too. It must be that hippie OS
These programs are malware and spyware and use the same methods to stay on as virii. .
"Viruses." Moron.
Think think again!
I hadn't heard of that, and when I looked into it, the truth appeared to be different from what you claimed. It looks like you had to click on the picture, and then click to download and then install the malware. One of the sites had malware pretending to be a VLC update, the others were peddling fake anti-virus software.
Then again considering the source... Bill Gates lying about Google? Why am I not surprised?
You mean
I hadn't heard of that, and when I looked into it, the truth appeared to be different from what you claimed. It looks like you had to click on the picture, and then click to download and then install the malware. One of the sites had malware pretending to be a VLC update, the others were peddling fake anti-virus software.
Then again considering the source... Bill Gates lying about Google? Why am I not surprised?
Here you go">
These programs are malware and spyware and use the same methods to stay on as virii. The difference is they are legit so AV programs do not flag them. It could hide in the boot record as a trojan or hide in a restore point and be later re-installed when a user uses it. My guess is the IT team at the school simple uses restore as a quick and efficient way to wipe it before the student received it.
I am no lawyer so perhaps one could feel free to reply.
Here is what I understand?
First, if you had no real expectation of privacy whatsoever we would not have click-thru agreements and signed paperwork by HR giving our rights away as a condition of employment.
Second, judges throw out such claims in court all the time. The evidence should not have been permisable as the agent should be the one in trouble here for interfering with school property. If any evidence was obtained illegally then it needs to be thrown out.
Third, how do you know the FBI agent wasn't an agent? There are overtime lawsuits going on where doing paperwork at home or just checking email constitutes as work and the lawyers are drooling at this with overtime lawsuits. You can't prove otherwise.
There was a scandal last year when OBL was killed and hackers found a way to infect your system just by doing a search OBL dead pics. You did not even have to click on anything. THe code ran through Google redirected through clever javascript hacks. So if your daughter does a search for puppy pictures she is instantly infected!
I am surprised it was mentioned only midly on slashdot as it took a few weeks to fix this and infected tens to hundreds of millions of pcs.
I read an older post of yours last year and switched to AVAST as a result of frustrations with MSE. I never went back. I never tried Comodo though as I am more familiar with AVAST at this point and I love the gaming mode. I highly recommend AVAST.
Also did you know Comodo secure DNS service is free and you can google it to get the DNS IP addresses? That blocks malware right there even if you use another AV product. I still use www.livejournal.com which is owned by a shadowy marketing company that occasionally places malware ladden ads through its afliates. (Not often as I would not keep using it). After switching to Comodo DNS I notice the 404 error messages every blue moon and smirk in the ads. I did use Norton DNS which also blocks malware but it is slugish like their AV product. OpenDNS is good too if you pay for it as only subscribers get malware protection.
I would advise to do a fresh wipe on any infected box. I know it is cheaper at your shop probably becuase they can take awhile to backup the my documents and reinstall everything (the non free ninite MS office, autocad, etc), but for personal use you never know if another hole is there or if it didn't hide in a restore point? Damaged Windows systems are slow too and you simply can not trust your computer anymore without it.
Funny you mention the font. That is how Stuxnet got in and why it took awhile for MS to patch this without breaking Windows and every app under the sun that used it.
Considering one was trying to run java from an ad on slashdot ... very unusual I say that one was malware. The other one was blocked but a UAC did prompt asking for permission to run to part of the hard drive that was a no no. So I say they were both trojans. It could be possible the other one could have got through and installed if I were stupid enough to not run as standard user and not administrator :-)
I keep preaching this to Windows Users to add passwords but the default user is always admin which is frustrating.
The new ones do not ruin performance that much at all. Even Norton which is 3rd or 4th place on that site was re-engineered.
The older ones would blow through 6 to 12 gigs a day scanning and encapsulating the Windows i/O subsystems. The newer ones just do a simple crc check from the last time a scan was done and if the file has not changed it proceeds to the next without scanning or looking for behaviors. I even ran HD TUNE on my PC and saw less than a 5% drop in performance. In 2012 there is no reason not to use it unless you run a Linux box.
AVAST has blocked 2 pieces of malware for me over the years. It stopped it cold before it could be installed or ran. Good ones that are modern do a great job with high success rates.