I've stayed out of this so far, as I've always found these discussions ultimately pointless. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that the main difference between Mac and PC is that one is a closed system and the other is not (while Windows is an open system in one sense I realize it's NOT "open source"). It's much, much harder to keep an open system secure and to keep everything in sync when there are so many people writing software for the system. And as is often noted, people who are out to do harm would of course choose to attack the system used by the great majority of computer users. Of course that doesn't mean that there aren't advantages to Mac, but it does add perspective. Problem is there are also distinct benefits from the open source model. I simply don't believe that Microsoft is either mindlessly complacent or evil-minded and consider it silly to suggest they are. It must be an enormous task to align all the work done by so many in-house programmers and get it all to work like it came from a single integrated mind, especially when it has to interact with so many programs written elsewhere. Here's a link to a recent Salon article about why software is so hard to write. Maybe it will shed some light, maybe not: http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/02/03/leonard/ You might need to sign up for a "day pass" to access the article but you can do it if you try! eb -----Original Message----- From: owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2007 11:05 AM To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students Subject: Re: OT questions , was vista Emily L. Ferguson wrote: > At 8:47 AM +0000 2/4/07, Howard wrote: > >> microsoft has been Beta trialling a spyware program "Windows >> Defender" and it seems to work fairly well. I also has a combination >> set of programs from my ISP, ntlworld which seem very good. I did a >> complete scan yesterday using an independent malware scanner but >> nothing there. >> >> Howard > > > Imagine a world without this concern. Wouldn't it be nice? > > Asking Microsoft to provide a windows defender seems to me to be like > asking the fox to guard the hen house. Really all Microsoft has to do > to defend its software from all the spy/mal/bot ware is to write good > code and good specs for its non-OEM software. > > Any other solution is simply a revenue collecting device. Emily, You're noy supposed to know this! Bob -- ///// ( O O ) --------------------oOOO-----O----OOOo-----73 de w8imo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx I plan to live forever. So far so good...........
