1. Virus authors like to pick on the most popular platform, hence Windows (currently, anyway). But you're clueless if you think that's the ONLY reason we don't see more problems with malware on the Mac. Attacking a Windows system has traditionally been like shooting fish in a barrel. All your users could be expected to be running with the equivalent of "root user privileges" at all times, and the design of the OS with a "system registry" made it incredibly easy to secretly run programs at startup. (How many places did they conclude you were able to tell Windows to run a program during bootup by way of registry entries? I believe someone said at least 14?)
2. I was simply writing about the experience from off the top of my head. Yes,.scr is the extension for a Windows screen-saver (often a malware vector though anyway, as they know people can't resist allowing the download of a file that promises to give you a cool new screen-saver of something or other that's pretty/shiny). However, it's ALSO the default for script files in AutoCAD if you have it installed, and it's used in several other ways as well. Substitute "download a script (.vbs extension)" if it pleases you... whatever. The point is, you'll see all sorts of lame attempts to send you filetypes which OS X won't even use when you surf "questionable" web pages.
3. Your "better idea" stinks, and sounds to me more like what I'd hear spouted off by some low-wage Geeksquad loser..... I'm asking people to try using a Mac to do things that typical Windows users do every day, causing them virus infections, so they can learn a little bit about what's going on out there and see for themselves if the Mac really handles itself any better in that scenario (and yes, it does). You're suggesting that for whatever reason, it would somehow be more "useful" for me to ask hackers from all over the world to target my specific IP address, trying to hack into my Mac sitting at that address. Whatever method(s) they'd eventually come up with to hack in, they'd have little to nothing to do with the reasons why it's safer to surf Internet web sites on a Mac than in a browser on a Windows platform! I probably wouldn't even get the opportunity to really see what they were doing either.
This isn't about saying it's IMPOSSIBLE to put a virus on a Mac (or hack into it, which wasn't even the topic of discussion). This is about current REALITY.... what your average user experience really will be if they take home a Mac running OS X and use it tonight to get on the Internet, vs. what it'll be for a Windows user doing the same thing. And yes, if they used a Linux machine to go online, they'd have pretty much an equally "virus/malware resistant" result. That's because BOTH Linux and OS X are versions of Unix.
Honestly, as another commenter already said, the Mac users like the ones your wife supports are by and large correct in that statement....
The truth is, your typical computer user who believes they're "aware of computer security issues" will tell you he/she takes steps to avoid getting virus infections. They'll tell you they do such things as "never opening emails when I don't know who they're from", and "not giving out my credit card over the Internet". Sometimes, they'll even brag about going to their favorite local computer store and asking someone what the "best antivirus software is" and buying / installing a copy of it.
Guess what? I get paid by the hour to clean nasty virus and malware problems off such peoples' Windows machines ALL the time!
On the flip-side? In the 5+ years I've had my business doing on-site computer service (not to mention years doing it for other people in the past), I've still NEVER had a SINGLE call from a Mac user needing such services! Not ONCE - despite clearly displaying the Apple logo on my business cards and mentioning in all of my advertising that I take care of both Mac and PC issues!
I'd go so far as to say that if you use a Mac, you should TRY to infect yourself sometime. Visit all the "bad" web sites you can think of to click on.... Follow the links on those sites that promise they'll locate the latest pirated software or key codes for you, or all the oddball porn sites you can locate... whatever. Watch how often something tries to send you a self-extracting.EXE file or download a script (.scr extension) file to your browser to run, or tries to give you some Active-X plug-in that's not compatible with your Mac's browser in the first place..... It's somewhat enlightening actually.
Seriously, the black boxes being issued by insurance companies are a HORRIBLE idea, and I think most of them realize that they'd go over like a lead balloon with most customers, so they've stayed away from them for the last 15 years.
Progressive has been doing this for a while now, as an OPTIONAL thing, yet most Progressive customers I know opt out of it, despite the promise it can "save them money". (I know one guy who tried it, and the box fried the electrical system in his car, costing him hundreds of dollars in repairs that Progressive refused to take responsibility for!)
It's quite simple, really. All most of us want is to be quoted a fair/reasonable rate for car insurance coverage. We're not worried about saving every possible dime, if it means giving the company all the tiny details of our driving habits! In reality, car insurers know FAR less than they think they do about their customers, already -- because most of their agents bend the rules when writing up policies! EG. I've always been asked "How many miles do you drive to work, on average, each day?" and most of my agents just blew the question off right after asking it, saying "Well.... let's just say you drive "less than 10 miles", so I can give you a little bit better quote." A friend of mine has the zip code his vehicle is "garaged in" as his work zip instead of his home zip for the same reason. An agent wrote it that way as a favor to save him a little money.
The whole thing is "fuzzy" anyway. Will you or won't you receive enough money if your car gets totaled in an accident to pay for an equivalent replacement? If you have medical expenses from one, will everything really be covered -- or will you wind up with long-term problems that aren't even possible to claim? Will the car or truck you buy wind up costing more or less than usual simply because of how popular it winds up being, or not being, as it keeps selling over the next few years?
Given all of that, I see NO reason they need to know exactly how fast I drove on a given afternoon, on a given road, or how quickly a stopped at a given stop sign.
I'd take issue with your first comment, actually. We don't own the roads or clean up the mess on them? Really? Then WHAT are all these taxes I keep paying going for? Gasoline tax in my state is 17 cents on every gallon purchased, for example. At least in a collective sense, we DO all own the roads we drive on. Government doesn't operate a business that turns a profit, in order to buy such things for itself as roads, or to buy services like road cleaning crews. It forcibly takes those funds from the people -- essentially "forcing/demanding we buy them in a group purchase".
But all of that aside? The black boxes sound a LOT to me like the red light cameras and speed cameras. They're yet another attempt to log/track someone's driving without a live human being being present to observe it first-hand. Invariably, it sounds good on paper, but lacks a lot in practice. (EG. A black box can record the fact that a driver, say, suddenly accelerated to a certain speed at a certain point in time before an impact, but it reveals NOTHING about why he or she might have done that. Only an eyewitness or the driver him/herself could provide any useful information on that.) Having incomplete information like that, in a machine-recorded format, can be a really dangerous thing -- because it's quite subject to incorrect interpretations that appear to be concrete facts.
Remember that even when dealing with commercial aircraft, their "black box" flight recorder is used in conjunction with recorded conversations they have between the control tower and the pilot. That provides a lot more context for the info that's recorded.
I can see this being the case in SOME instances out there, but I've never worked for a place where lack of details of a long-term "roadmap" or the company's secrecy about unreleased/unfinished products kept them from buying them!
If anything, Apple's use of Intel processors means you have more of a roadmap of their products than ever before! Intel *does* provide a roadmap for their CPUs.
Well, that's not quite true either.... Among other things, Sony did agree (finally) to give people a free year of credit protection with one of those paid services that monitors your report. They're paying something for that.
There's also the cost of hiring whatever outside security experts were hired to investigate the hack and advise on more secure alternatives to implement, moving forward.
Good! Only problem is, they should have sacked him a LOT sooner....
IMO, there's really NO excuse for spending money to change out a system that's proven to work efficiently for people in a company. This isn't about "Microsoft vs. Linux" or anything else. It's just simple math. If you spend money on your infrastructure, it should always be towards quantifiable improvements (often/usually involving upgrading an existing system that works, vs. ripping it out and starting over with something else).
I remember years ago.... a couple of my friends had jobs at Ralston Purina (long before their merger with Nestle Corp.). They were one of the firms in town that used OS/2 extensively, with Lotus Notes for email. The story I heard is, the C.E.O. wound up getting "wined and dined" by salespeople from Microsoft, including giving him a fancy titanium golf club/driver under his hotel room bed as a gift, to get him to switch the company to Microsoft Exchange.
Well, the switchover was hugely expensive, and they wound up with not only no new functionality for the end-users, but MORE problems than before in certain circumstances. (There were things the administrative assistants could do with their boss's calendars/schedules in Notes that weren't possible anymore as "delegates" in Outlook/Exchange, as I recall them saying.) Additionally, as Notes allowed more UI customization than Outlook/Exchange did, it caused them some issues with things they'd developed in-house for OS/2 and Notes in the past (like kiosks they had set up with very simplified screens with, say, 4 or 6 buttons displayed on them that could be tapped to do very specific things like viewing one calendar of events, or checking one public information type mailbox).
Ultimately, I suppose it worked out for the better for them in the long-run, only because IBM wound up pretty much dumping OS/2 support. But that wasn't a factor back when this changeover was done.
I agree with you, except I'd also point out that this level of support from Apple is well known and advertised in advance. If your workplace was caught by total surprise by this, then someone didn't do their research well enough before purchasing.
I've done corporate I.T. in places that standardized on Dell in the past, and found that truthfully, that "next day on-site support" is hit or miss, too. Sure, they may promise a human being appears at your door the next day or two to look at your problem machine, but as often as not, those "techs" were little more than parts replacers, armed with ONE specific part they thought/hoped would fix the issue. All too often, they'd swap a video card or a motherboard when it was a monitor or RAM that was bad. In other cases, they'd bring a completely incorrect part that didn't even fit the machine, only to inform us that the correct part was on back-order -- and then we sometimes waited 2+ months for a return visit.
There are also 3rd. party support options out there, like SquareTrade, which you could use on a new Mac mail-order purchase. Depending on what you get, some of those extended warranties give you quicker turn-around time and don't require you physically taking the equipment in to a specific location to be repaired.
I follow what you're saying to some extent. I don't think I'd claim the "worship of celebrities" and "lifestyle brands" has much to do with filling in something that's missing if one doesn't have religion, though. That's a pretty far stretch.... If that were true, one should be able to do some kind of survey or study and find that the vast majority of people taking an interest in, say, E-Television, or praising the qualities of Apple products were atheists. I *highly* doubt that'd be the case.
As a consumer who chose Apple products myself, I'm not even sure I'd say Apple has a great marketing machine. They're not BAD, but honestly, I've often been surprised at how little they've really attempted to advertise. The whole "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC" campaign was pretty pervasive, but that seemed like a real change from the Apple most of us were used to, and of course, they brought an end to that campaign -- with no real substitute in place running as many television spots to try to market the same things.
It almost seems like with the more expensive "pro" series of Apple products, they only do token advertising (one ad they put together and run randomly, a few times, so most people never even see it). For example, when the PowerMac G5 tower came out, I recall one silly ad with a theme about blowing the side off of the house when someone turned it on (because I guess we were to assume it was that powerful -- not that prone to blowing up?). Since then? I don't know if I ever saw an ad for the Mac Pro towers with Intel CPUs? Do they ever advertise applications like Final Cut Pro??
There is some irony about the perception of Apple as "counter-culture" while the board of directors is so mainstream. But on the flip-side, I think some of that is still legitimate. I mean, Apple does back social causes occasionally that are fairly controversial (like their donating to and getting behind the attempt to legalize gay marriage). And with a total market-share of computer sales that's consistently hovering around the 10% range, it's clear they've never been the mainstream, predominant choice for a personal computer.
Yeah.... One of the few situations I've still got where I can't just go with a digital cable instead of an analog is with my music gear. It's kind of frustrating, really, that electric guitars all still insist on using a 1/4" analog jack and cable. I don't know ANY guitarists who didn't have a big struggle with noise/hum due to a bad analog cable, at least one time or another.
And even with my Korg Triton Extreme synthesizer (that actually HAS an optical output on it), you can't make use of the little tube inside that adds "warmth" (or alternately, some tube distortion effects) to your sound patches unless you output the audio through the analog jacks.:(
Yeah... the lack of quality control is a huge problem in Chinese factory production today, but that's bound to improve. Japan used to have the exact same issue, and back then, Americans kept using that as the reason why "Japan won't be relevant!". Within less than 10 years though, they got their act together and started selling cars to us that were better than anything our U.S. factories could produce, quality-wise.
I can definitely see the value in continued training (on the company's time and dime) for developers. That's an area where everything changes/evolves and if you don't keep up, you're eventually ineffective compared to the people who know the newer/improved technologies.
But coming from more of the network administration side, I've not really seen any evidence that paid training was worthwhile. In the 20-some years I've been doing this, every time I went to a training class or seminar, it was honestly of really limited value. It generally worked ok as an overview of what was new in a given product, or as a "crash course" in what a certain application was capable of. But ultimately, far too much detailed information was crammed into peoples' heads in a 1-2 day session. Even if you tried your best to take notes, much of the stuff was never used again back at the workplace until possibly a full YEAR later, when they reached the point of actually purchasing said technology and getting it online. By then, you could barely remember why you wrote down what you did when you looked at it again! In cases where you were getting training on existing products? Some of the same issues applied. The classes have to try to cover all the different needs and requirements of everyone in attendance, so much of what you learn doesn't apply to the place you work. Some of the items that COULD apply don't always do so immediately, because your employer doesn't yet use whatever portion/module of the software you learned about and thought they SHOULD start using.
There used to be a lot of pressure from I.T. for employers to pay for certifications... but in most cases I saw? That, again, was really just self-serving. People didn't think (or care) that it might help them be a better employee where they worked currently. They just saw them as badges they could bring to the next job interview to negotiate for higher pay elsewhere.
First off, back when I first got back into using Apple products (around 1999-2000), I had some video display issues that turned out to be the fault of my ADC Cinema Display - but sure behaved like a failing video board (random green "snow" moving through the display, especially after things warmed up). I took my G4 tower in to the local Apple Store for service, and they tried to charge me a $75 diagnostic fee after they found nothing wrong (after keeping it for a whole week), despite the system still being in warranty. (I had already suggested to them that if they could just swap video cards, I could easily troubleshoot this at home, on my own. But they refused to do that, saying the whole machine had to be brought in.) A little later on, they did a "voluntary battery recall" on my Macbook Pro battery but my local store refused to so much as listen to why I was trying to bring it in unless I scheduled a "Genius Bar appointment" first. Earliest one I could schedule in was about 4 hours later that same day. So had to do that while I was there, and waste gas and time going back home, just to make a return trip later in the day to speak with them. When I got there? I was told, "Oh... all you want is a replacement battery pack? We're out of stock on those. Nope... no idea when more are coming in. You should probably just call Apple's 800# and get one that way." Argh!!!
So yeah - I've NEVER really thought a whole lot of their local store's competence with technical repairs or issues. Typically, they're friendly and try to be helpful, but Apple likes to hire employees who don't even have previous computer experience for those jobs. They're basically underpaid and overworked, and trained only on the things Apple deems useful for helping the majority of customers. The more obscure a problem you have, the less likely it is that anyone in the store has a clue -- because they just don't have lots of previous technical knowledge to have figured any of that stuff out on their own before they started working for Apple.
But saying it's changed in recent years? I don't see it, really. OS X as buggy as Windows now? Only if by that, you mean Microsoft finally got a LOT of bugs out of things with Windows 7 and has more parity with OS X. IMO, OS X Tiger was a perfectly good version of OS X -- but Snow Leopard is *far* from "going downhill", considering without that revision, you wouldn't have full support for modern hardware like multi-core Intel CPUs!
I don't see this move, at ALL, as indicative of Apple eventually closing down the Mac platform to ONLY allow installation of software obtained via the "App Store".
That would be such a bone-headed move on Apple's part, for numerous reasons. But primarily, because at that point, they've transitioned the product into another electronic device instead of a full-fledged computer. Let's face it... Nowdays, most of us own hundreds of "computers". Everything from your digital thermostat on the wall to your alarm clock to the ECU in your car, truck or SUV to your microwave oven and digital camera contain little computers running closed systems. (Heck, if you actually had a means to tie all of them together and parallel process - you'd probably have a pretty substantial amount of CPU power at your disposal right there!) The main reason people still spend the money for a "personal computer", despite all of this other stuff, is because it's a *flexible* platform that's not limited to only running a pre-defined program or set of programs!
Once you lock it down to only what's available from one integrated source, you blurred that distinction between it and something like Apple's iOS devices. You may as well just quit selling "Macs" and give everyone iPads with larger screen options and wireless bluetooth keyboards or something!
I would think that at best, Apple would fine their Mac Appe Store would wind up rather parallel to their iTunes music store. You might be able to get practically anything you wanted from it, but the creators of the content would ALSO be happy to sell the same things to you via other outlets. Like the music store, sure -- they might have a few random "App Store Exclusives!". But generally, no.... companies like Adobe wouldn't go for ONLY getting sales of Photoshop via the Mac App Store. They might, however, be happy to offer it there as ONE way to get it.
Ever since I first created my PSN account, I remember the site asking me if I'd like to have them save my credit card info for future use and I always said "no". (Really, how often do you actually buy something through PSN? I guess I'm not as hard-core of a gamer as some people, but I only bought a few games from it in the 3 years or so I've had my PS3. It's not that big a deal to re-enter my info with each purchase.)
Now, this hack just reinforces my belief in not giving info like that to companies to store for me. The extra bit of hassle getting out your credit card and entering the digits and expiration info is a lot less than the hassle of dealing with card fraud.
I have to agree.... Didn't even follow this story until now, but from everything I'm reading, it sounds like a sloppy job by the prosecution of trying to put this case together. Definitely possible the guy is guilty, but if they couldn't build a better case than this? They simply don't deserve to win this one.
It looks to me like they're just grasping at anything that could possibly work in their favor, throwing it out there in the courtroom, and seeing how well it sticks?
I disagree. Your friends aren't generally going to post "Hey! Here's my friend's home phone number, since he neglected to put it up on his own info page!" Neither are they going to provide more than a personal opinion/take on how YOU feel about any particular topic. It's all conjecture until you post your thoughts or opinions yourself.
Your friends do create sort of a "rough profile" of who you are, but you don't need a social networking web site to accomplish that. In the "good old days", this same info was culled by private detectives and investigators who simply went out and talked to people who knew you or about you. And in the case of Facebook, I'd even argue that your circle of friends is just as likely to lead someone astray as provide useful info about who you are and your interests. That's because so many people friend others on a whim, or simply because of a single, very old/outdated link in their past. (EG. A few of my FB "friends" are people I knew from grade-school, but never really considered friends even way back then. It was sort of a novelty that we ran across each other online and remembered who each other was so we figured, 'Hey, why not?" and made each other friends. But it was quickly clear that their lives and mine had practically nothing in common.)
We're STILL debating this "is Linux good enough for the common user" thing??
Look, I really like Linux and I use it wherever possible as a server to increase reliability and cut costs. But anecdotes about your Uncle Joe aside? It's really NOT suitable for the vast majority of home users, period. The Linux advocates have been trying to push it on people for well over a decade now (and for a while, I even included myself in that camp). But ultimately, there are just too many issues it never really addressed for people, and I suspect this late in the game, probably never will.
Most glaringly, yes, the point you already brought up (but promptly blew off as a minor issue); gaming! There's a HUGE market for using a PC as a gaming system! I'd say just as many home users expect to be able to do this with a given PC as ones who don't care about t. So that alone means roughly HALF of all home PC users will not find Linux a really suitable choice -- regardless of ANYTHING else. Don't forget that even in households where the adults don't care about gaming and the kids are too young to be interested in mainstream games, there's usually some interest in buying and loading a few "educational titles" for the kids. Last I checked, they still didn't offer Reader Rabbit and such in a Linux edition?
Additionally, the whole idea of pasting a Windows-like GUI over the top of Linux only works until something goes wrong beneath the surface. If the user gets advanced enough to try downloading additional packages on their own, they're likely to eventually break something due to missing needed libraries, or overwriting a configuration file someplace in the/etc directory, or ?? At this point, they're suddenly plunged into needing to understand a lot more about the real Linux underpinnings than was ever asked of them the whole time they interacted with the "Windows look-alike" UI on top of X. This is where a lot of the Linux fans tend to forget the extent of the problem, because when "Uncle Joe" runs into this problem - he's going to call them for help and they'll probably just go over and fix it for him, returning him to happy bliss. That's not an option for everyone else who simply went with Linux because it was advised to do so to "save money". They're likely to have to erase everything and start over with a fresh re-install to get things going again -- leaving them with a pretty negative experience.
Right now, the solution working the best for me is keeping one small file cabinet (2 drawers) with colored and labeled folders in it, where I keep anything I think I want the original paperwork for. (That includes a folder labeled "Advertising" where I stuff the latest coupons and sale flyers from the newspaper or mailbox. Every so often, I try to weed through that one and throw all the expired offers into the recycling can.) Other items I keep in there include random pieces of my kid's artwork or writing projects I think are worth saving, and instruction manuals that came with items I purchased. (If you've already got a paper copy they supplied, why throw it away just to potentially need to re-print a scanned copy of it later on?)
For everything else like receipts or monthly utility bills, I scan them in with a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner and use the Mariner Paperless software on my Mac as the document management system with it. This arrangement works pretty well, because the Paperless software lets you drag and drop in any PDF files you get in email as statements, instruction manuals, or whatever else, and they appear in the collection just like anything you scanned in from paper. The ScanSnap is capable of duplex scanning and auto selects an appropriate DPI resolution for each document you scan, based on its size. Other than the fact it's not the best at always feeding smaller receipt tape size paperwork through it on the first attempt, it's a really good arrangement.
The IRS says digitized copies of your receipts and supporting documentation is good enough for them, in the case of a tax audit -- so there are really very few cases where you have to keep an original paper document. A few of those exceptions include my vehicle titles and birth certificate -- documents best kept in a fireproof safe or bank safe deposit box anyway.
I'm pretty sure the AT&T U-Verse users in some areas are not ready to receive the AT&T capping treatment just yet, because they promised they'd only do that once a tool is made available for the users to check on their monthly bandwidth usage. Currently (at least, last I checked last week), AT&T didn't have such a thing in place on their web site. (They have a page that says it will give this information out, but appears to only do so for DSL users right now.) Attempts to visit the page, as a U-Verse user, resulted in a brief message saying the feature wasn't ready yet and not to worry about bandwidth usage until it was ready.
From an organization like the EFF's point of view? It's in their best interest to get a "critical mass" of individuals sharing their Internet connections via free, open wi-fi, because it weakens the case for law enforcement to hold people responsible for "not properly securing their connection" if something goes wrong. (If I had to come up with a quick analogy for this, I guess I might liken it to the police giving you a ticket or fine for not locking your doors or windows, after someone breaks in and they're called to the scene. It just seems a bit like punishing the victims.)
So from a "freedom" standpoint, it's perfectly understandable. Wouldn't you like to retain the right to share your Internet connection with your friends and neighbors, if you so choose? Or do you prefer an authoritarian society where despite you paying for your own connection and wireless router, government can dictate the way you actually use it?
On the other hand, you're probably opening yourself up to a lot of potential headaches and liabilities if you go this route. Even the hotels and restaurants I've visited that offer "free wi-fi" for their customers tend to make you click past some sort of opening "terms of service" agreement page before using it. At least then, they can claim they only offered said access subject to certain usage terms and conditions that you, the user, agreed to before using it.
IMHO, the best solution is to use one of the wi-fi routers that offers a "guest" network (makes sure the people using it are firewalled off from any of the hardware on your own local LAN), and place a good, strong WPA/WPA2 password on it. Then, give the password out to your neighbors and friends you trust to use your connection. No random strangers will be able to stumble onto it and use/abuse it that way, and if your neighbors or friends start abusing it? You can always change the password on them and lock them out until you determine who the culprit was. (Or change it and only give it out to 1 or 2 people for a while and see if things are ok. Keep adding one more user until you find out which person is hogging the bandwidth or what-not.)
Let's get real though..... Yes, it's a valid drug to treat a number of issues, but unlike most prescription drugs, it's ALSO a relatively safe drug to use recreationally. The only reason we see the concern over it being handled via dispensaries and requiring a prescription at all is because that's the easiest "baby step" to take towards total legalization. If you want to release the government's grip on it, it's not really effective to complain that "I can't go out and get stoned with my buddies!" Govt. doesn't really care. If you start having real medical doctors arguing that their patients are being deprived of potential solutions to their problems because they can't legally prescribe marijuana to them, THEN you have something a court will really consider.
But I don't have any illusions about any of this. The "dispensaries" are only a temporary construct, as we continue inching towards the eventual legalization of marijuana without ANY restrictions on growing it. It only makes sense because government stands to gain a LOT of money in taxes, once it can be legally sold on an open market, AND they're going to need some sort of replacement to placate the masses, as they head ever closer to making cigarettes completely illegal.
As well as the other replies you've already gotten, there's another factor here. When you're accused of a crime in a court of law, it has to be SPECIFIC. You're never issued a citation simply for "speeding", right? The officer puts down a specific speed. So the issue is; are you or aren't you guilty of the specific crime you're being accused of (which is driving X number of miles per hour in a Y speed limit zone).
It just so happens that when it comes to defining specific crimes involving theft, they're only concerned if the amount exceeds specific dollar limit thresholds or not. (EG. A crime involving theft of goods or money valued at under $500 might be a "misdemeanor" while anything over $500 is a "felony" offense. They'd never charge you with "Theft of a car stereo valued at $239.95." They'd charge you with "Theft of a car stereo valued at under $500.") So there, you'd only care if you felt they wrongfully pegged the price of your theft too high, and you'd have a perfectly valid reason to argue that in court if you had evidence that they did.
1. People still openly POST such info on sites like Facebook, or via Twitter accounts that anyone can subscribe to. 2. Can't imagine how this would prevent any stalking from happening, since stalkers have had great success at what they do, long before this technology was even available? That's like suggesting you could help prevent murder by taking steak knives away from people at restaurants. 3. That smear strategy would never really hold up to scrutiny, since the accused person could have lost their phone or given it to someone else to borrow, or even left it in a vehicle that they weren't driving at the time. Never mind the leap of logic to say they must have visited a certain building just because they pass by it on the way to another one they have reason to be in regularly. It'd be a lot more effective just to follow them around and take some pictures as evidence.
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1. Virus authors like to pick on the most popular platform, hence Windows (currently, anyway). But you're clueless if you think that's the ONLY reason we don't see more problems with malware on the Mac. Attacking a Windows system has traditionally been like shooting fish in a barrel. All your users could be expected to be running with the equivalent of "root user privileges" at all times, and the design of the OS with a "system registry" made it incredibly easy to secretly run programs at startup. (How many places did they conclude you were able to tell Windows to run a program during bootup by way of registry entries? I believe someone said at least 14?)
2. I was simply writing about the experience from off the top of my head. Yes, .scr is the extension for a Windows screen-saver (often a malware vector though anyway, as they know people can't resist allowing the download of a file that promises to give you a cool new screen-saver of something or other that's pretty/shiny). However, it's ALSO the default for script files in AutoCAD if you have it installed, and it's used in several other ways as well. Substitute "download a script (.vbs extension)" if it pleases you... whatever. The point is, you'll see all sorts of lame attempts to send you filetypes which OS X won't even use when you surf "questionable" web pages.
3. Your "better idea" stinks, and sounds to me more like what I'd hear spouted off by some low-wage Geeksquad loser..... I'm asking people to try using a Mac to do things that typical Windows users do every day, causing them virus infections, so they can learn a little bit about what's going on out there and see for themselves if the Mac really handles itself any better in that scenario (and yes, it does). You're suggesting that for whatever reason, it would somehow be more "useful" for me to ask hackers from all over the world to target my specific IP address, trying to hack into my Mac sitting at that address. Whatever method(s) they'd eventually come up with to hack in, they'd have little to nothing to do with the reasons why it's safer to surf Internet web sites on a Mac than in a browser on a Windows platform! I probably wouldn't even get the opportunity to really see what they were doing either.
This isn't about saying it's IMPOSSIBLE to put a virus on a Mac (or hack into it, which wasn't even the topic of discussion). This is about current REALITY.... what your average user experience really will be if they take home a Mac running OS X and use it tonight to get on the Internet, vs. what it'll be for a Windows user doing the same thing. And yes, if they used a Linux machine to go online, they'd have pretty much an equally "virus/malware resistant" result. That's because BOTH Linux and OS X are versions of Unix.
Honestly, as another commenter already said, the Mac users like the ones your wife supports are by and large correct in that statement....
The truth is, your typical computer user who believes they're "aware of computer security issues" will tell you he/she takes steps to avoid getting virus infections. They'll tell you they do such things as "never opening emails when I don't know who they're from", and "not giving out my credit card over the Internet". Sometimes, they'll even brag about going to their favorite local computer store and asking someone what the "best antivirus software is" and buying / installing a copy of it.
Guess what? I get paid by the hour to clean nasty virus and malware problems off such peoples' Windows machines ALL the time!
On the flip-side? In the 5+ years I've had my business doing on-site computer service (not to mention years doing it for other people in the past), I've still NEVER had a SINGLE call from a Mac user needing such services! Not ONCE - despite clearly displaying the Apple logo on my business cards and mentioning in all of my advertising that I take care of both Mac and PC issues!
I'd go so far as to say that if you use a Mac, you should TRY to infect yourself sometime. Visit all the "bad" web sites you can think of to click on.... Follow the links on those sites that promise they'll locate the latest pirated software or key codes for you, or all the oddball porn sites you can locate... whatever. Watch how often something tries to send you a self-extracting .EXE file or download a script (.scr extension) file to your browser to run, or tries to give you some Active-X plug-in that's not compatible with your Mac's browser in the first place..... It's somewhat enlightening actually.
You, sir, are the enemy!
Seriously, the black boxes being issued by insurance companies are a HORRIBLE idea, and I think most of them realize that they'd go over like a lead balloon with most customers, so they've stayed away from them for the last 15 years.
Progressive has been doing this for a while now, as an OPTIONAL thing, yet most Progressive customers I know opt out of it, despite the promise it can "save them money". (I know one guy who tried it, and the box fried the electrical system in his car, costing him hundreds of dollars in repairs that Progressive refused to take responsibility for!)
It's quite simple, really. All most of us want is to be quoted a fair/reasonable rate for car insurance coverage. We're not worried about saving every possible dime, if it means giving the company all the tiny details of our driving habits! In reality, car insurers know FAR less than they think they do about their customers, already -- because most of their agents bend the rules when writing up policies! EG. I've always been asked "How many miles do you drive to work, on average, each day?" and most of my agents just blew the question off right after asking it, saying "Well.... let's just say you drive "less than 10 miles", so I can give you a little bit better quote." A friend of mine has the zip code his vehicle is "garaged in" as his work zip instead of his home zip for the same reason. An agent wrote it that way as a favor to save him a little money.
The whole thing is "fuzzy" anyway. Will you or won't you receive enough money if your car gets totaled in an accident to pay for an equivalent replacement? If you have medical expenses from one, will everything really be covered -- or will you wind up with long-term problems that aren't even possible to claim? Will the car or truck you buy wind up costing more or less than usual simply because of how popular it winds up being, or not being, as it keeps selling over the next few years?
Given all of that, I see NO reason they need to know exactly how fast I drove on a given afternoon, on a given road, or how quickly a stopped at a given stop sign.
I'd take issue with your first comment, actually. We don't own the roads or clean up the mess on them? Really? Then WHAT are all these taxes I keep paying going for? Gasoline tax in my state is 17 cents on every gallon purchased, for example. At least in a collective sense, we DO all own the roads we drive on. Government doesn't operate a business that turns a profit, in order to buy such things for itself as roads, or to buy services like road cleaning crews. It forcibly takes those funds from the people -- essentially "forcing/demanding we buy them in a group purchase".
But all of that aside? The black boxes sound a LOT to me like the red light cameras and speed cameras. They're yet another attempt to log/track someone's driving without a live human being being present to observe it first-hand. Invariably, it sounds good on paper, but lacks a lot in practice. (EG. A black box can record the fact that a driver, say, suddenly accelerated to a certain speed at a certain point in time before an impact, but it reveals NOTHING about why he or she might have done that. Only an eyewitness or the driver him/herself could provide any useful information on that.) Having incomplete information like that, in a machine-recorded format, can be a really dangerous thing -- because it's quite subject to incorrect interpretations that appear to be concrete facts.
Remember that even when dealing with commercial aircraft, their "black box" flight recorder is used in conjunction with recorded conversations they have between the control tower and the pilot. That provides a lot more context for the info that's recorded.
Seriously?!
I can see this being the case in SOME instances out there, but I've never worked for a place where lack of details of a long-term "roadmap" or the company's secrecy about unreleased/unfinished products kept them from buying them!
If anything, Apple's use of Intel processors means you have more of a roadmap of their products than ever before! Intel *does* provide a roadmap for their CPUs.
Well, that's not quite true either.... Among other things, Sony did agree (finally) to give people a free year of credit protection with one of those paid services that monitors your report. They're paying something for that.
There's also the cost of hiring whatever outside security experts were hired to investigate the hack and advise on more secure alternatives to implement, moving forward.
Good! Only problem is, they should have sacked him a LOT sooner....
IMO, there's really NO excuse for spending money to change out a system that's proven to work efficiently for people in a company. This isn't about "Microsoft vs. Linux" or anything else. It's just simple math. If you spend money on your infrastructure, it should always be towards quantifiable improvements (often/usually involving upgrading an existing system that works, vs. ripping it out and starting over with something else).
I remember years ago.... a couple of my friends had jobs at Ralston Purina (long before their merger with Nestle Corp.). They were one of the firms in town that used OS/2 extensively, with Lotus Notes for email. The story I heard is, the C.E.O. wound up getting "wined and dined" by salespeople from Microsoft, including giving him a fancy titanium golf club/driver under his hotel room bed as a gift, to get him to switch the company to Microsoft Exchange.
Well, the switchover was hugely expensive, and they wound up with not only no new functionality for the end-users, but MORE problems than before in certain circumstances. (There were things the administrative assistants could do with their boss's calendars/schedules in Notes that weren't possible anymore as "delegates" in Outlook/Exchange, as I recall them saying.) Additionally, as Notes allowed more UI customization than Outlook/Exchange did, it caused them some issues with things they'd developed in-house for OS/2 and Notes in the past (like kiosks they had set up with very simplified screens with, say, 4 or 6 buttons displayed on them that could be tapped to do very specific things like viewing one calendar of events, or checking one public information type mailbox).
Ultimately, I suppose it worked out for the better for them in the long-run, only because IBM wound up pretty much dumping OS/2 support. But that wasn't a factor back when this changeover was done.
I agree with you, except I'd also point out that this level of support from Apple is well known and advertised in advance. If your workplace was caught by total surprise by this, then someone didn't do their research well enough before purchasing.
I've done corporate I.T. in places that standardized on Dell in the past, and found that truthfully, that "next day on-site support" is hit or miss, too. Sure, they may promise a human being appears at your door the next day or two to look at your problem machine, but as often as not, those "techs" were little more than parts replacers, armed with ONE specific part they thought/hoped would fix the issue. All too often, they'd swap a video card or a motherboard when it was a monitor or RAM that was bad. In other cases, they'd bring a completely incorrect part that didn't even fit the machine, only to inform us that the correct part was on back-order -- and then we sometimes waited 2+ months for a return visit.
There are also 3rd. party support options out there, like SquareTrade, which you could use on a new Mac mail-order purchase. Depending on what you get, some of those extended warranties give you quicker turn-around time and don't require you physically taking the equipment in to a specific location to be repaired.
I follow what you're saying to some extent. I don't think I'd claim the "worship of celebrities" and "lifestyle brands" has much to do with filling in something that's missing if one doesn't have religion, though. That's a pretty far stretch.... If that were true, one should be able to do some kind of survey or study and find that the vast majority of people taking an interest in, say, E-Television, or praising the qualities of Apple products were atheists. I *highly* doubt that'd be the case.
As a consumer who chose Apple products myself, I'm not even sure I'd say Apple has a great marketing machine. They're not BAD, but honestly, I've often been surprised at how little they've really attempted to advertise. The whole "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC" campaign was pretty pervasive, but that seemed like a real change from the Apple most of us were used to, and of course, they brought an end to that campaign -- with no real substitute in place running as many television spots to try to market the same things.
It almost seems like with the more expensive "pro" series of Apple products, they only do token advertising (one ad they put together and run randomly, a few times, so most people never even see it). For example, when the PowerMac G5 tower came out, I recall one silly ad with a theme about blowing the side off of the house when someone turned it on (because I guess we were to assume it was that powerful -- not that prone to blowing up?). Since then? I don't know if I ever saw an ad for the Mac Pro towers with Intel CPUs? Do they ever advertise applications like Final Cut Pro??
There is some irony about the perception of Apple as "counter-culture" while the board of directors is so mainstream. But on the flip-side, I think some of that is still legitimate. I mean, Apple does back social causes occasionally that are fairly controversial (like their donating to and getting behind the attempt to legalize gay marriage). And with a total market-share of computer sales that's consistently hovering around the 10% range, it's clear they've never been the mainstream, predominant choice for a personal computer.
Rabid Windows users hard to find? You must not read C-Net's blogs then!
Yeah.... One of the few situations I've still got where I can't just go with a digital cable instead of an analog is with my music gear. It's kind of frustrating, really, that electric guitars all still insist on using a 1/4" analog jack and cable. I don't know ANY guitarists who didn't have a big struggle with noise/hum due to a bad analog cable, at least one time or another.
And even with my Korg Triton Extreme synthesizer (that actually HAS an optical output on it), you can't make use of the little tube inside that adds "warmth" (or alternately, some tube distortion effects) to your sound patches unless you output the audio through the analog jacks. :(
Yeah... the lack of quality control is a huge problem in Chinese factory production today, but that's bound to improve. Japan used to have the exact same issue, and back then, Americans kept using that as the reason why "Japan won't be relevant!". Within less than 10 years though, they got their act together and started selling cars to us that were better than anything our U.S. factories could produce, quality-wise.
I can definitely see the value in continued training (on the company's time and dime) for developers. That's an area where everything changes/evolves and if you don't keep up, you're eventually ineffective compared to the people who know the newer/improved technologies.
But coming from more of the network administration side, I've not really seen any evidence that paid training was worthwhile. In the 20-some years I've been doing this, every time I went to a training class or seminar, it was honestly of really limited value. It generally worked ok as an overview of what was new in a given product, or as a "crash course" in what a certain application was capable of. But ultimately, far too much detailed information was crammed into peoples' heads in a 1-2 day session. Even if you tried your best to take notes, much of the stuff was never used again back at the workplace until possibly a full YEAR later, when they reached the point of actually purchasing said technology and getting it online. By then, you could barely remember why you wrote down what you did when you looked at it again! In cases where you were getting training on existing products? Some of the same issues applied. The classes have to try to cover all the different needs and requirements of everyone in attendance, so much of what you learn doesn't apply to the place you work. Some of the items that COULD apply don't always do so immediately, because your employer doesn't yet use whatever portion/module of the software you learned about and thought they SHOULD start using.
There used to be a lot of pressure from I.T. for employers to pay for certifications ... but in most cases I saw? That, again, was really just self-serving. People didn't think (or care) that it might help them be a better employee where they worked currently. They just saw them as badges they could bring to the next job interview to negotiate for higher pay elsewhere.
I can't say that I completely agree.
First off, back when I first got back into using Apple products (around 1999-2000), I had some video display issues that turned out to be the fault of my ADC Cinema Display - but sure behaved like a failing video board (random green "snow" moving through the display, especially after things warmed up). I took my G4 tower in to the local Apple Store for service, and they tried to charge me a $75 diagnostic fee after they found nothing wrong (after keeping it for a whole week), despite the system still being in warranty. (I had already suggested to them that if they could just swap video cards, I could easily troubleshoot this at home, on my own. But they refused to do that, saying the whole machine had to be brought in.) A little later on, they did a "voluntary battery recall" on my Macbook Pro battery but my local store refused to so much as listen to why I was trying to bring it in unless I scheduled a "Genius Bar appointment" first. Earliest one I could schedule in was about 4 hours later that same day. So had to do that while I was there, and waste gas and time going back home, just to make a return trip later in the day to speak with them. When I got there? I was told, "Oh... all you want is a replacement battery pack? We're out of stock on those. Nope... no idea when more are coming in. You should probably just call Apple's 800# and get one that way." Argh!!!
So yeah - I've NEVER really thought a whole lot of their local store's competence with technical repairs or issues. Typically, they're friendly and try to be helpful, but Apple likes to hire employees who don't even have previous computer experience for those jobs. They're basically underpaid and overworked, and trained only on the things Apple deems useful for helping the majority of customers. The more obscure a problem you have, the less likely it is that anyone in the store has a clue -- because they just don't have lots of previous technical knowledge to have figured any of that stuff out on their own before they started working for Apple.
But saying it's changed in recent years? I don't see it, really. OS X as buggy as Windows now? Only if by that, you mean Microsoft finally got a LOT of bugs out of things with Windows 7 and has more parity with OS X. IMO, OS X Tiger was a perfectly good version of OS X -- but Snow Leopard is *far* from "going downhill", considering without that revision, you wouldn't have full support for modern hardware like multi-core Intel CPUs!
I don't see this move, at ALL, as indicative of Apple eventually closing down the Mac platform to ONLY allow installation of software obtained via the "App Store".
That would be such a bone-headed move on Apple's part, for numerous reasons. But primarily, because at that point, they've transitioned the product into another electronic device instead of a full-fledged computer. Let's face it... Nowdays, most of us own hundreds of "computers". Everything from your digital thermostat on the wall to your alarm clock to the ECU in your car, truck or SUV to your microwave oven and digital camera contain little computers running closed systems. (Heck, if you actually had a means to tie all of them together and parallel process - you'd probably have a pretty substantial amount of CPU power at your disposal right there!) The main reason people still spend the money for a "personal computer", despite all of this other stuff, is because it's a *flexible* platform that's not limited to only running a pre-defined program or set of programs!
Once you lock it down to only what's available from one integrated source, you blurred that distinction between it and something like Apple's iOS devices. You may as well just quit selling "Macs" and give everyone iPads with larger screen options and wireless bluetooth keyboards or something!
I would think that at best, Apple would fine their Mac Appe Store would wind up rather parallel to their iTunes music store. You might be able to get practically anything you wanted from it, but the creators of the content would ALSO be happy to sell the same things to you via other outlets. Like the music store, sure -- they might have a few random "App Store Exclusives!". But generally, no.... companies like Adobe wouldn't go for ONLY getting sales of Photoshop via the Mac App Store. They might, however, be happy to offer it there as ONE way to get it.
Ever since I first created my PSN account, I remember the site asking me if I'd like to have them save my credit card info for future use and I always said "no". (Really, how often do you actually buy something through PSN? I guess I'm not as hard-core of a gamer as some people, but I only bought a few games from it in the 3 years or so I've had my PS3. It's not that big a deal to re-enter my info with each purchase.)
Now, this hack just reinforces my belief in not giving info like that to companies to store for me. The extra bit of hassle getting out your credit card and entering the digits and expiration info is a lot less than the hassle of dealing with card fraud.
I have to agree.... Didn't even follow this story until now, but from everything I'm reading, it sounds like a sloppy job by the prosecution of trying to put this case together. Definitely possible the guy is guilty, but if they couldn't build a better case than this? They simply don't deserve to win this one.
It looks to me like they're just grasping at anything that could possibly work in their favor, throwing it out there in the courtroom, and seeing how well it sticks?
I disagree. Your friends aren't generally going to post "Hey! Here's my friend's home phone number, since he neglected to put it up on his own info page!" Neither are they going to provide more than a personal opinion/take on how YOU feel about any particular topic. It's all conjecture until you post your thoughts or opinions yourself.
Your friends do create sort of a "rough profile" of who you are, but you don't need a social networking web site to accomplish that. In the "good old days", this same info was culled by private detectives and investigators who simply went out and talked to people who knew you or about you. And in the case of Facebook, I'd even argue that your circle of friends is just as likely to lead someone astray as provide useful info about who you are and your interests. That's because so many people friend others on a whim, or simply because of a single, very old/outdated link in their past. (EG. A few of my FB "friends" are people I knew from grade-school, but never really considered friends even way back then. It was sort of a novelty that we ran across each other online and remembered who each other was so we figured, 'Hey, why not?" and made each other friends. But it was quickly clear that their lives and mine had practically nothing in common.)
We're STILL debating this "is Linux good enough for the common user" thing??
Look, I really like Linux and I use it wherever possible as a server to increase reliability and cut costs. But anecdotes about your Uncle Joe aside? It's really NOT suitable for the vast majority of home users, period. The Linux advocates have been trying to push it on people for well over a decade now (and for a while, I even included myself in that camp). But ultimately, there are just too many issues it never really addressed for people, and I suspect this late in the game, probably never will.
Most glaringly, yes, the point you already brought up (but promptly blew off as a minor issue); gaming! There's a HUGE market for using a PC as a gaming system! I'd say just as many home users expect to be able to do this with a given PC as ones who don't care about t. So that alone means roughly HALF of all home PC users will not find Linux a really suitable choice -- regardless of ANYTHING else. Don't forget that even in households where the adults don't care about gaming and the kids are too young to be interested in mainstream games, there's usually some interest in buying and loading a few "educational titles" for the kids. Last I checked, they still didn't offer Reader Rabbit and such in a Linux edition?
Additionally, the whole idea of pasting a Windows-like GUI over the top of Linux only works until something goes wrong beneath the surface. If the user gets advanced enough to try downloading additional packages on their own, they're likely to eventually break something due to missing needed libraries, or overwriting a configuration file someplace in the /etc directory, or ?? At this point, they're suddenly plunged into needing to understand a lot more about the real Linux underpinnings than was ever asked of them the whole time they interacted with the "Windows look-alike" UI on top of X. This is where a lot of the Linux fans tend to forget the extent of the problem, because when "Uncle Joe" runs into this problem - he's going to call them for help and they'll probably just go over and fix it for him, returning him to happy bliss. That's not an option for everyone else who simply went with Linux because it was advised to do so to "save money". They're likely to have to erase everything and start over with a fresh re-install to get things going again -- leaving them with a pretty negative experience.
Right now, the solution working the best for me is keeping one small file cabinet (2 drawers) with colored and labeled folders in it, where I keep anything I think I want the original paperwork for. (That includes a folder labeled "Advertising" where I stuff the latest coupons and sale flyers from the newspaper or mailbox. Every so often, I try to weed through that one and throw all the expired offers into the recycling can.) Other items I keep in there include random pieces of my kid's artwork or writing projects I think are worth saving, and instruction manuals that came with items I purchased. (If you've already got a paper copy they supplied, why throw it away just to potentially need to re-print a scanned copy of it later on?)
For everything else like receipts or monthly utility bills, I scan them in with a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner and use the Mariner Paperless software on my Mac as the document management system with it. This arrangement works pretty well, because the Paperless software lets you drag and drop in any PDF files you get in email as statements, instruction manuals, or whatever else, and they appear in the collection just like anything you scanned in from paper. The ScanSnap is capable of duplex scanning and auto selects an appropriate DPI resolution for each document you scan, based on its size. Other than the fact it's not the best at always feeding smaller receipt tape size paperwork through it on the first attempt, it's a really good arrangement.
The IRS says digitized copies of your receipts and supporting documentation is good enough for them, in the case of a tax audit -- so there are really very few cases where you have to keep an original paper document. A few of those exceptions include my vehicle titles and birth certificate -- documents best kept in a fireproof safe or bank safe deposit box anyway.
I'm pretty sure the AT&T U-Verse users in some areas are not ready to receive the AT&T capping treatment just yet, because they promised they'd only do that once a tool is made available for the users to check on their monthly bandwidth usage. Currently (at least, last I checked last week), AT&T didn't have such a thing in place on their web site. (They have a page that says it will give this information out, but appears to only do so for DSL users right now.) Attempts to visit the page, as a U-Verse user, resulted in a brief message saying the feature wasn't ready yet and not to worry about bandwidth usage until it was ready.
As with most things, I can see both sides of it.
From an organization like the EFF's point of view? It's in their best interest to get a "critical mass" of individuals sharing their Internet connections via free, open wi-fi, because it weakens the case for law enforcement to hold people responsible for "not properly securing their connection" if something goes wrong. (If I had to come up with a quick analogy for this, I guess I might liken it to the police giving you a ticket or fine for not locking your doors or windows, after someone breaks in and they're called to the scene. It just seems a bit like punishing the victims.)
So from a "freedom" standpoint, it's perfectly understandable. Wouldn't you like to retain the right to share your Internet connection with your friends and neighbors, if you so choose? Or do you prefer an authoritarian society where despite you paying for your own connection and wireless router, government can dictate the way you actually use it?
On the other hand, you're probably opening yourself up to a lot of potential headaches and liabilities if you go this route. Even the hotels and restaurants I've visited that offer "free wi-fi" for their customers tend to make you click past some sort of opening "terms of service" agreement page before using it. At least then, they can claim they only offered said access subject to certain usage terms and conditions that you, the user, agreed to before using it.
IMHO, the best solution is to use one of the wi-fi routers that offers a "guest" network (makes sure the people using it are firewalled off from any of the hardware on your own local LAN), and place a good, strong WPA/WPA2 password on it. Then, give the password out to your neighbors and friends you trust to use your connection. No random strangers will be able to stumble onto it and use/abuse it that way, and if your neighbors or friends start abusing it? You can always change the password on them and lock them out until you determine who the culprit was. (Or change it and only give it out to 1 or 2 people for a while and see if things are ok. Keep adding one more user until you find out which person is hogging the bandwidth or what-not.)
Let's get real though..... Yes, it's a valid drug to treat a number of issues, but unlike most prescription drugs, it's ALSO a relatively safe drug to use recreationally. The only reason we see the concern over it being handled via dispensaries and requiring a prescription at all is because that's the easiest "baby step" to take towards total legalization. If you want to release the government's grip on it, it's not really effective to complain that "I can't go out and get stoned with my buddies!" Govt. doesn't really care. If you start having real medical doctors arguing that their patients are being deprived of potential solutions to their problems because they can't legally prescribe marijuana to them, THEN you have something a court will really consider.
But I don't have any illusions about any of this. The "dispensaries" are only a temporary construct, as we continue inching towards the eventual legalization of marijuana without ANY restrictions on growing it. It only makes sense because government stands to gain a LOT of money in taxes, once it can be legally sold on an open market, AND they're going to need some sort of replacement to placate the masses, as they head ever closer to making cigarettes completely illegal.
As well as the other replies you've already gotten, there's another factor here. When you're accused of a crime in a court of law, it has to be SPECIFIC. You're never issued a citation simply for "speeding", right? The officer puts down a specific speed. So the issue is; are you or aren't you guilty of the specific crime you're being accused of (which is driving X number of miles per hour in a Y speed limit zone).
It just so happens that when it comes to defining specific crimes involving theft, they're only concerned if the amount exceeds specific dollar limit thresholds or not. (EG. A crime involving theft of goods or money valued at under $500 might be a "misdemeanor" while anything over $500 is a "felony" offense. They'd never charge you with "Theft of a car stereo valued at $239.95." They'd charge you with "Theft of a car stereo valued at under $500.") So there, you'd only care if you felt they wrongfully pegged the price of your theft too high, and you'd have a perfectly valid reason to argue that in court if you had evidence that they did.
Will any of that work though?
1. People still openly POST such info on sites like Facebook, or via Twitter accounts that anyone can subscribe to.
2. Can't imagine how this would prevent any stalking from happening, since stalkers have had great success at what they do, long before this technology was even available? That's like suggesting you could help prevent murder by taking steak knives away from people at restaurants.
3. That smear strategy would never really hold up to scrutiny, since the accused person could have lost their phone or given it to someone else to borrow, or even left it in a vehicle that they weren't driving at the time. Never mind the leap of logic to say they must have visited a certain building just because they pass by it on the way to another one they have reason to be in regularly. It'd be a lot more effective just to follow them around and take some pictures as evidence.