 |
A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
| About Mark Hurst | Mark's Gel Conference | New York Times Story on This Is Broken | Newsletter: Subscribe | RSS Feed |
Search this site:
Categories:
- Advertising
- Current Affairs
- Customer Service
- Fixed
- Food and Drink
- Just for Fun
- Misc
- Not broken
- Place
- Product Design
- Signs
- Travel
- Web/Tech
Previous: Playground design | Main | Next: Gas pump
November 2, 2003 03:10 PM
Broken: Security in Microsoft Windows
Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's personal technology columnist, writes this in his October 23 column:
Windows is riddled with security flaws, and new ones turn up regularly. It is increasingly susceptible to all kinds of viruses, malicious Trojan horse programs and spyware. As a result, Windows users have been forced to spend more of their time and money supporting their computers.Mossberg suggests a simple fix:
...for consumers and small businesses, there's a simple way out of this endless morass: Buy an Apple Macintosh computer. There are no viruses on the Macintosh's excellent two-year-old operating system, called OS X. And the Mac is a terrific computer -- as good as, or better than, Windows for the typical computing tasks important to mainstream users.
"Oh, er, Security flaw in Jaguar to be fixed only through upgrading to Panther, anyone?"
Ah, yes. FUD. Don't keep up with the news, do you? Apple said *last week* that they were going to fix this in Jaguar, too.
Don't think there aren't viruses for OSX? Give any unix programmer 10 minutes and he'll make one for you. Mac viruses don't exist because nobody cares to write them. The second more users migrate to the Mac (or any platform), you'll see an increase in the number of viruses as well as an increase in the discovery of security flaws.
How many medium-size businesses have people (tons of people) who will cost a very large amount to re-train? Never mind that some people will never get it, especially older staff members who, goshdarnit, for some bizarre reason want to keep their DOS machine.
This is silly propagandistic 'logic'. Never mind the fact that Apple's got some discrimination issues that annoy me.
In my not-so-humble opinion, looking for security in Microsoft's products is like looking for the chocolate in a Fig Newton :)
Oh look, here's a remotable root exploit for OSX that gives any possible malware direct access to the entire computer:
http://www.carrel.org/dhcp-vuln.html
So, that's two thousand-odd pounds well spent, yeah?
Linux - good.
IBMPC - good.
MacOSX - OK.
Windows - Poor.
Macintosh computers - Terrible
The reason no one has a apple anything is because they are so bad (and expensive) The iPod is the perfect example:
I bought a Creative Labs 40gig MP3 player w/ eax + EQ + apparently some form of splash bmp you can put on it - all for under $200(usd). Sure - it's had its share of problems but at least you don't have to buy an entirely new one when the battery dies - the battery is a cell-phone battery sized replacable LiION. Even if you did, it would still cost $100 less then the $500 apple iPod equivilant.
IN OTHER WORDS...
The most used OS is always hacked and...
apple sux
[gamer view]
A lot of the negative comments conveniently ignore parts of themselves. For example, the security flaw pointed out... The very article it links to says that Apple has fixed the problem. No viruses because of a limited user base? Wrong. Virus writers stay clear because the Mac OS is truly harder to hack. I'm sure somebody would have tried by now, and no one has succeeded. And as far as training, another advantage of Macs is that they work well on any level. Beginners will be quite happy, but power users can go deeper and do what they want.
The end result is that Macs are better.
And one more thing (that I forgot)
iPod batteries ARE replaceable. It's like with the OS itself: beginners can stay away and pay for Apple to do it, those with more confidence can do it themselves.
www.ipodbatteryfaq.com
Linux is undoubtedly the most secure operating system.
Tied with UNIX. but since Linux is open source it makes that
much better. Windows took advantage of peoples eagerness for
userfriendliness. I can say with confidence that Linux is now just as
user friendly as the next windows OS. Just check out Lindows
now renamed Linspire because Microsoft(the big bully) couldnt take
a little competition from the open source world.
The future is open. Bill Gates is the Devil. Steve Wozniak an Angel.
Oh my gosh!! I'm so sick and tired of people arguing about which operating system is the best! Get over it! Sure, MS has too many security holes to find in one sitting, and Mac is somehow confusing to use. All you have to do is learn how to use it. You Windows fans out there think Mac is very confusing to use- thats because you are so accustomed to Windows- and vice-versa for all you Mac users. I grew up on both Mac and Windows, so I know how to use both of them. I didn't even know about Linux until two years ago, now I know alot more than I ever thought I would know. Now, i'm a Mac man myself, but I still use Windows on my two of my home computers, and I have a LINUX server running at home as well. Of course, I got as many updates as I could for Windows to make it secure as possible. My point is that there will never be a superior os, even thought Windows is by far the most popular OS out there.
if everybody used macs, script kids would write viruses for macs. it's simple. large numbers of unprotected computers, owned by people who can hardly operate them, are all running windows. mostly windows xp.
writing a script to screw up their computer will infect, say, 30000 people in one day.
try writing a script like that for linux. fat chance. it's not windows that's to blame, it's windows' popularity among inexeperienced computer users
Linux is inherently secure for example, your data is stored on a seaprate partition from your system files. Only root can access encrypted password files and system files. Getting root access is near impossible wihtout human stupidity.
mac rules!the reason for that is that it is actually very simple to use. it took me only 3 days to get the hang of osx. i think the only reason there is to have a windows is because of all the software available.but there are still hundreds upon hundreds of programs on the mac website. if you are on WINDOWS RIGHT NOW, GO TO APPLE.COM RiGhT NoW AND CLICK ON mac os x. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO SWITCH TO MAC!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NO WAIT, I AM TELLING YOU, DO IT NOW!!! BWAHAHAHAH
absolutely no good software for macs, besides the awesome media programs. and besides, since most people use windows, the board is tilted towards them in software.
get a wndows, just because everyone did.
yay mindless conformity.
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Playground design | Main | Next: Gas pump
Oh, er, Security flaw in Jaguar to be fixed only through upgrading to Panther, anyone?
Posted by: Skin at November 3, 2003 02:22 PM