The Mac is not immune to viruses or spyware, it's just that they aren't that prevalent yet. I would say that OSX is resistant to malware simply by design.
The really big benefit to OSX (over Windows) is that if a user executes malware it does not infect the entire system by default. Sure, things can be done to destroy data or spy on the unfortunate user but the rest of the users on the system are spared of the issue and any potential tracking malware or botnet application is not running after the problematic user is logged off.
This is why I have no issue about letting my non security consious friends have an account on my systems. There is little that they can do to cause me problems. Should one of them get infected with a hypothetical malware then I can just recreate their account. No big deal.
True, social engineering will always break any software security model but it does no good if they are not administrators.
I wouldn't even consider letting them do the same thing with Windows even under a limited account on a completely patched system. There are just too many holes.
Yeah, feel free to suggest Guild Wars. I'm sure it's the best thing since sliced toast but until they have a Mac client, I can't play the game. I even inquired about it when it launched asking if I purchased the Windows version and if a Mac version came out, would I be entitled to download it. The result was a rather insulting form letter.
WoW is supported on Windows, PPC Mac, and now x86 Mac. Can you guess why WoW has a huge Mac following and GW does not?
I'll give you a moment to think about your answer.
The original SMB had lots of bugs. You could walk through walls, glitch the warp pipe to take you to world " -1", pass through the left side of the screen to the right using a vine, get trapped and not be able to move on a vine, trick the game into thinking that you were shrunk by getting hit and touching the axe at the same time, using the previous glitch to become little fire Mario, beating the castle and dying at the same time, sliding around by firing and jumping at the same time, and locking up the game by getting more than 255 extra lives.
You're right, new games have some bugs but SMB had quite a few of its own.
Why the heck would you grant administrator rights to a person that doesn't know how to admin the machine? I allow all of my friends to ride in my car but only people that can drive are allowed to operate it.
If I configure a Windows system for someone I don't make them an admin unless they can actually handle the responsibility. Sadly, it doesn't stop all of the malware that can take down the whole system, not just things that the user has access to.
This is why I recommend people go with MacOS or Linux or BSD. Yes, you can't run everything on other platforms but when the user just wants to browse the web, check email, and play movies/music, Windows is definately not the best choice.
...and a USB lighter next to the cigarette dispenser.
What next? A USB space heater? USB was not designed to power your little trinkets especially not one that's primary purpose is to convert power straight to heat. This will just drive you to more drinking and smoking after your USB port melts down.
The replacement for the missing S-Video port is the Apple Video Adapter that has been shipping since the Powermac G5 systems and works with the Mini. It would make sense for it to work with the MacBook Pro.
PCI bus = check Newer Macs don't use PCI, they use PCIe. Then again, newer PCs use PCIe as well. It seems that everyone went and dropped their older AGP, NuBus, VLB, ISA, EISA, MCA, etc. for a newer standard.
ATA or SATA hard drive = check As opposed to using SCSI which was a commodity PC component?
ATA CD/DVD/ROM/R drive = check See above. Actually, it was Apple that was using SCSI optical drives while the PC was using a mixture of SCSI/Matsushita/Sony/Mitsumi interfaces; SCSI evolved and is still in use while the other three are long gone.
Standard PC style graphics card or chip = check This point baffles me. Are you trying to point out that everyone is using the same video hardware manufacturers? I'll agree with that then.
USB = check (while Apple was one company in the standards body, so were Microsoft and Intel among many others) The USB standard was a collaborative effort. The fact that it's in wide use today was due to Apple.
DVI connector for monitor = check It's good that Apple dumped that ADC interface but while I still see new OEM PCs shipping with VGA I can hardly call this a commodity PC component. Plus it's likely that Apple will be using UDI soon with PCs to follow.
Standard Ethernet using TCP/IP = check I've got an old Mac sitting here that shipped with Ethernet on board in 1992. That would've been around the time that PCs were using a mixture of Ethernet, Token Ring, and ARCnet. By the way, TCP/IP is hardly a component.
And coming soon... Intel x86 CPU You got that one. I'm not so sure that this is a good thing though.
You also missed that new PCs have been dropping legacy components such as Serial/Parallel/Game ports as well as Floppy drives whereas Apple did that a while ago. Maybe both computer lines are just nearing each other?
I'd also like to point out that there has been no official word that Firewire is going to be removed from Macs. There is only rumors that the FW400 ports may be removed in favor of a single FW800 port. This would allow all Macs to have higher speed FW and only needing one port on the systems. People can still use their much-needed-for-video FW400 devices with a cheap adapter.
Re:My prediction for a multibutton Mac laptop
on
The Odds at Macworld
·
· Score: 1
Yea, I've played WoW with the mighty mouse... the "important feature" allows you to move forward and I just have to rely on using the "W" key. No big loss. I do very rarely use both mouse buttons for forward movement (on a Logitech mouse) but it's just when I'm switching things around and get mobbed.
I've also played more than a few hours of WoW on the PB one button trackpad and I don't think that I'd really mind if they made it impossible to press more than one button at the same time.
If Blizzard wants to make it so that mighty mouse users can use this "important feature", make it so that middle clicking does something... perhaps moving forward maybe?
Here is Apple's page that lists dual link DVI as how their 30" displays work.
Be warned that not all 128MB VRAM powerbooks support DL-DVI. Most do but there was a build-to-order option on the late 2004 systems that would give it 128MB of VRAM but not DL-DVI.
I'm 32 and I have friends in their thirties that own DS's. One even purchased a Gamecube for GC animal crossing after playing the DS one.
Re:My prediction for a multibutton Mac laptop
on
The Odds at Macworld
·
· Score: 1
New iBooks and PowerBooks will continue to have a single button with a twist.
The new button will be capacitance sensing and be able to determine where your finger/thumb is clicking it. By default, it will function as a single button, but you can easliy set it to two or possibly three button mode via system preferences.
Sounds like you would be fine with a PPC Mini. My advice would be to wait until the Macworld announcement when you might be able to get one for a drastically reduced price.
BTW, if you have 68000 classic apps, you may want to check out Basilisk II for OSX. This will probably become more popular in the near future. Remember that this won't help with PPC classic apps.
Maybe they will actually do something with the gameplay.
I wanted to like the first Kingdom Hearts; I really wanted to. The problem was that not only wasn't it fun but it was tedious and annoying to play. Graphically it was beautiful. Aurally it was superb. The setting was engrossing but in the end, this is a video game and if it doesn't have at least some sort of passable gameplay then it won't be worth even trying to play.
Tetsuya Nomura has shown us that with KH and with FF:CC (another game that I really wanted to like) that he can give us wonderful worlds in which to flounder loosely around. I really want to like KH2 but I'm not holding my breath.
Look at the three Whedon television shows (Serenity included) and you will see one glaring detail.
If there is one thing that Joss loves to do, it's to get people really engrossed in the characters and then kill them off. Both Buffy and Angel have each died twice and many other side characters have bit the big one in many ways; some very touching and others just pointless.
Joss even teased us with Mal's death in the movie back in June 2004.
Without advance spoilers, I watched the movie knowing full well that some of the beloved crew would not be coming out alive. The deaths in the movie could be used to convey a sense of realism; the idea that everyone dies, even loved ones. They could also just be included because Joss is a sadist and never got to kill anyone when the show was on TV.
it's good storytelling. You can't tease viewers with life or death situations if your main characters are invulnerable. Wash's death was gut wrenching to fans but it also set up the final part of the movie where you really had no clue if they were going to make it. That, my friend, is why they died.
Fox had the rights to the TV show and would not allow it to be made. Universal optioned the rights to a movie but couldn't use the name Firefly which is why they used the name "Serenity".
It would've been wonderful for more episodes of the show but the moguls wouldn't have it.
Ah well, it was a great show and it was fun while it lasted. I've got no regrets for supporting the show as much as I had.
The song is originally from a musical called Avenue Q. It is a good WoW video though.
On a side note, and although it will fall on deaf ears, I make this plea to any author of videos: Please do not put your video out in WMV format. Use DivX, Xvid, OGM, or even MOV; anything but WMV3 which cannot be read on anything but Windows.
All of the Spock in the univerrse can't stop that thing from being creepy.
For those that haven't heard of it, allow me to summarize. You have to infect a mollusk with eggs that hatch and cause it to writhe with pain until it dies and expels the Seamen that eventually kill each other until there is one remaining. The last one then constantly probes you with personal questions and carries on disturbing conversations with you until it eventually dies.
Apparently the designers of this virtual "pet" tried to ease your loss when it dies by making you realize that you never really liked it.
Leonard Nimoy gives you advice every time you check your tank. I wouldn't say theat he's exactly on your side though as he never warns you of the horrors that will befall you after playing.
I'm tired of the networks complaining about loss of ad revenue due to fast forwarding through their ads. I've had a TiVo for going on 5 years now and I have to say that I watch more ads now than I did before.
Seriously, I don't watch that much TV but what I do watch, I watch multiple times, usually because I'm multitasking doing something else (like posting to/.) and not paying too much attention; the TV is just on in the background and I glance up now and then to view it.
When the comemercial break comes on though, I'll grab the remote and fast forward through the ads. Since TiVo doesn't auto-skip, I watch the whole commercial break, albiet at quadruple speed. I'll even stop it on ads that grab my interest. Once the show comes back on, I resume playback and go back to whatever I was doing.
So really, some company that airs ads in shows that I watch are getting more than their money's worth.
Slashdot Mirror
Hooray! We have now entered the nerd porn phase of the Apple Product Cycle.
Sigh... if only the cached site wasn't so slow.
The Mac is not immune to viruses or spyware, it's just that they aren't that prevalent yet. I would say that OSX is resistant to malware simply by design.
The really big benefit to OSX (over Windows) is that if a user executes malware it does not infect the entire system by default. Sure, things can be done to destroy data or spy on the unfortunate user but the rest of the users on the system are spared of the issue and any potential tracking malware or botnet application is not running after the problematic user is logged off.
This is why I have no issue about letting my non security consious friends have an account on my systems. There is little that they can do to cause me problems. Should one of them get infected with a hypothetical malware then I can just recreate their account. No big deal.
True, social engineering will always break any software security model but it does no good if they are not administrators.
I wouldn't even consider letting them do the same thing with Windows even under a limited account on a completely patched system. There are just too many holes.
Yeah, feel free to suggest Guild Wars. I'm sure it's the best thing since sliced toast but until they have a Mac client, I can't play the game. I even inquired about it when it launched asking if I purchased the Windows version and if a Mac version came out, would I be entitled to download it. The result was a rather insulting form letter.
WoW is supported on Windows, PPC Mac, and now x86 Mac. Can you guess why WoW has a huge Mac following and GW does not?
I'll give you a moment to think about your answer.
The original SMB had lots of bugs. You could walk through walls, glitch the warp pipe to take you to world " -1", pass through the left side of the screen to the right using a vine, get trapped and not be able to move on a vine, trick the game into thinking that you were shrunk by getting hit and touching the axe at the same time, using the previous glitch to become little fire Mario, beating the castle and dying at the same time, sliding around by firing and jumping at the same time, and locking up the game by getting more than 255 extra lives.
You're right, new games have some bugs but SMB had quite a few of its own.
Oh and don't forget she gets to be admin too.
/sarcasm
What? Make her run Linspire?
Why the heck would you grant administrator rights to a person that doesn't know how to admin the machine? I allow all of my friends to ride in my car but only people that can drive are allowed to operate it.
If I configure a Windows system for someone I don't make them an admin unless they can actually handle the responsibility. Sadly, it doesn't stop all of the malware that can take down the whole system, not just things that the user has access to.
This is why I recommend people go with MacOS or Linux or BSD. Yes, you can't run everything on other platforms but when the user just wants to browse the web, check email, and play movies/music, Windows is definately not the best choice.
...and a USB lighter next to the cigarette dispenser.
What next? A USB space heater? USB was not designed to power your little trinkets especially not one that's primary purpose is to convert power straight to heat. This will just drive you to more drinking and smoking after your USB port melts down.
The Killer Instinct and Crusin USA boards weren't even remotely like each other let alone like the Nintendo 64.
...and that's just the CPUs! The rest of the hardware is just as different. The KI board used a HDD!
Killer Instinct:
50MHz SDT79 R4600-100MS
Crusin USA:
50MHz TMS32031
N64:
93.75MHz R4300i
I'm not saying that Sony and Microsoft haven't lied, I'm just saying that you shouldn't beileve everything that a game manufacturer tells you.
Yep.
That didn't manage to make the front page though.
No apple product has ever had a CD Key or anything similar.
Well, none did until the release of iWork '05. I can verify that it requires the use of a CD Key type validation after installation to work.
The replacement for the missing S-Video port is the Apple Video Adapter that has been shipping since the Powermac G5 systems and works with the Mini. It would make sense for it to work with the MacBook Pro.
PCI bus = check
Newer Macs don't use PCI, they use PCIe. Then again, newer PCs use PCIe as well. It seems that everyone went and dropped their older AGP, NuBus, VLB, ISA, EISA, MCA, etc. for a newer standard.
ATA or SATA hard drive = check
As opposed to using SCSI which was a commodity PC component?
ATA CD/DVD/ROM/R drive = check
See above. Actually, it was Apple that was using SCSI optical drives while the PC was using a mixture of SCSI/Matsushita/Sony/Mitsumi interfaces; SCSI evolved and is still in use while the other three are long gone.
Standard PC style graphics card or chip = check
This point baffles me. Are you trying to point out that everyone is using the same video hardware manufacturers? I'll agree with that then.
USB = check (while Apple was one company in the standards body, so were Microsoft and Intel among many others)
The USB standard was a collaborative effort. The fact that it's in wide use today was due to Apple.
DVI connector for monitor = check
It's good that Apple dumped that ADC interface but while I still see new OEM PCs shipping with VGA I can hardly call this a commodity PC component. Plus it's likely that Apple will be using UDI soon with PCs to follow.
Standard Ethernet using TCP/IP = check
I've got an old Mac sitting here that shipped with Ethernet on board in 1992. That would've been around the time that PCs were using a mixture of Ethernet, Token Ring, and ARCnet. By the way, TCP/IP is hardly a component.
And coming soon... Intel x86 CPU
You got that one. I'm not so sure that this is a good thing though.
You also missed that new PCs have been dropping legacy components such as Serial/Parallel/Game ports as well as Floppy drives whereas Apple did that a while ago. Maybe both computer lines are just nearing each other?
I'd also like to point out that there has been no official word that Firewire is going to be removed from Macs. There is only rumors that the FW400 ports may be removed in favor of a single FW800 port. This would allow all Macs to have higher speed FW and only needing one port on the systems. People can still use their much-needed-for-video FW400 devices with a cheap adapter.
Yea, I've played WoW with the mighty mouse... the "important feature" allows you to move forward and I just have to rely on using the "W" key. No big loss. I do very rarely use both mouse buttons for forward movement (on a Logitech mouse) but it's just when I'm switching things around and get mobbed.
I've also played more than a few hours of WoW on the PB one button trackpad and I don't think that I'd really mind if they made it impossible to press more than one button at the same time.
If Blizzard wants to make it so that mighty mouse users can use this "important feature", make it so that middle clicking does something... perhaps moving forward maybe?
Yes. This should technically work.
Here is Apple's page that lists dual link DVI as how their 30" displays work.
Be warned that not all 128MB VRAM powerbooks support DL-DVI. Most do but there was a build-to-order option on the late 2004 systems that would give it 128MB of VRAM but not DL-DVI.
I'm 32 and I have friends in their thirties that own DS's. One even purchased a Gamecube for GC animal crossing after playing the DS one.
New iBooks and PowerBooks will continue to have a single button with a twist.
The new button will be capacitance sensing and be able to determine where your finger/thumb is clicking it. By default, it will function as a single button, but you can easliy set it to two or possibly three button mode via system preferences.
Remember, you heard it here first.
Sounds like you would be fine with a PPC Mini. My advice would be to wait until the Macworld announcement when you might be able to get one for a drastically reduced price.
BTW, if you have 68000 classic apps, you may want to check out Basilisk II for OSX. This will probably become more popular in the near future. Remember that this won't help with PPC classic apps.
Maybe they will actually do something with the gameplay.
I wanted to like the first Kingdom Hearts; I really wanted to. The problem was that not only wasn't it fun but it was tedious and annoying to play. Graphically it was beautiful. Aurally it was superb. The setting was engrossing but in the end, this is a video game and if it doesn't have at least some sort of passable gameplay then it won't be worth even trying to play.
Tetsuya Nomura has shown us that with KH and with FF:CC (another game that I really wanted to like) that he can give us wonderful worlds in which to flounder loosely around. I really want to like KH2 but I'm not holding my breath.
Look at the three Whedon television shows (Serenity included) and you will see one glaring detail.
If there is one thing that Joss loves to do, it's to get people really engrossed in the characters and then kill them off. Both Buffy and Angel have each died twice and many other side characters have bit the big one in many ways; some very touching and others just pointless.
Joss even teased us with Mal's death in the movie back in June 2004.
Without advance spoilers, I watched the movie knowing full well that some of the beloved crew would not be coming out alive. The deaths in the movie could be used to convey a sense of realism; the idea that everyone dies, even loved ones. They could also just be included because Joss is a sadist and never got to kill anyone when the show was on TV.
it's good storytelling. You can't tease viewers with life or death situations if your main characters are invulnerable. Wash's death was gut wrenching to fans but it also set up the final part of the movie where you really had no clue if they were going to make it. That, my friend, is why they died.
Fox had the rights to the TV show and would not allow it to be made. Universal optioned the rights to a movie but couldn't use the name Firefly which is why they used the name "Serenity".
It would've been wonderful for more episodes of the show but the moguls wouldn't have it.
Ah well, it was a great show and it was fun while it lasted. I've got no regrets for supporting the show as much as I had.
You can't take the sky from me.
I always questioned the decision to cancel Futurama, it just seemed so...neutral.
What makes a TV Network Execubot turn nuetral anyway?
The song is originally from a musical called Avenue Q. It is a good WoW video though.
On a side note, and although it will fall on deaf ears, I make this plea to any author of videos: Please do not put your video out in WMV format. Use DivX, Xvid, OGM, or even MOV; anything but WMV3 which cannot be read on anything but Windows.
Apparently you never played Seaman.
All of the Spock in the univerrse can't stop that thing from being creepy.
For those that haven't heard of it, allow me to summarize. You have to infect a mollusk with eggs that hatch and cause it to writhe with pain until it dies and expels the Seamen that eventually kill each other until there is one remaining. The last one then constantly probes you with personal questions and carries on disturbing conversations with you until it eventually dies.
Apparently the designers of this virtual "pet" tried to ease your loss when it dies by making you realize that you never really liked it.
Leonard Nimoy gives you advice every time you check your tank. I wouldn't say theat he's exactly on your side though as he never warns you of the horrors that will befall you after playing.
yawn
In the Conversational Norwegian short of Freakazoid, we learn that "narkval" is Norwegian for narwhale.
/. going to believe?
"Lykkkelig liten narkval" -> Happy little narwhale
Then again, the OED lists it as "narwhal"... but who is
I'm tired of the networks complaining about loss of ad revenue due to fast forwarding through their ads. I've had a TiVo for going on 5 years now and I have to say that I watch more ads now than I did before.
/.) and not paying too much attention; the TV is just on in the background and I glance up now and then to view it.
Seriously, I don't watch that much TV but what I do watch, I watch multiple times, usually because I'm multitasking doing something else (like posting to
When the comemercial break comes on though, I'll grab the remote and fast forward through the ads. Since TiVo doesn't auto-skip, I watch the whole commercial break, albiet at quadruple speed. I'll even stop it on ads that grab my interest. Once the show comes back on, I resume playback and go back to whatever I was doing.
So really, some company that airs ads in shows that I watch are getting more than their money's worth.