Leopard Report Roundup

What a fascinating range of comments from my report on how Leopard on my PowerBook G4 running at 1 GHz with 1GB of RAM slowed things down (mostly networking) and my disappointment at Apple’s decision to block iMovie 08 from running on a G4 system. As usual when I say something about a Macintosh, the reports run the gamut of calling me an idiot (for lack of Mac appreciation) to agreeing with me (four comments). It didn’t help that I mistakenly called my PowerBook a MacBook, which dozens of people pointed out, some while calling me a double idiot.

“Marcusgee” pointed me to a Web site that shows

Leopard on G4 Blows

Seduced by the promises of considerably better features and performance, I bought the Leopard upgrade along with iWork 08 for my MacBook G4 running at 1 GHz with 1GB of RAM. Big mistake on my part. ** Update – it’s a PowerBook and iLife, not iWork – need more coffee before typing too many details.

Leopard Makes Users Happier Than Vista

ComputerWorld, originally a bastion of IBM centric enterprise computing technology, may become a fave read in the Apple world. This assumes MacFans don’t read too far past the headline.

This story reports on a survey done by ChangeWave asking

Sony Still Customer Hostile

Some people never learn, and many of those seem to work as executives at Sony. Once again, they perform a profoundly customer-hostile act. At least this one isn’t illegal, like their spyware rootkits that infected a half million computers

Sad Bits from Microsoft

Just about exactly a year after release, Vista gets a refresh with Service Pack 1. I said it would take a year to get SP1 out, and it did. I expected more improvement in SP1, but then I remembered the real improvements in XP came with SP2. So hold your breath for another 18 months or so for Vista to get a decent feature and performance upgrade.

Sad news about Microsoft Home Server.

Good News, Bad News for Linux PC Sales

Here are two stories that show the good news / bad news side of Linux sales for the desktop. First, Wal-Mart will no longer stock Linux PCs on their store shelves, according to this story in LinuxWorld. I don’t consider that terrible news for two reasons. First, I don’t like Wal-Mart anyway, and second, I don’t think Wal-Mart customers are intellectually curious enough to use and appreciate Linux on the desktop. I also don’t think Wal-Mart really made anyone aware of these desktop Linux PCs. They will continue to sell them online.

Linux people may get upset, but I don’t

Hackers Stay 90+ Days Ahead of Security Vendors

I had the pleasure of speaking to Rick Dakin, President and CEO of Coalfire Systems, Inc., the other day for a story about PCI (Payment Card Industry) audits and compliance. That story will be in my Network World Small Business Technology column in another week or so.

What really scared me were his comments

“Found” USB Drive Danger

My friend John reminded me of a security warning I’d seen last fall but had forgotten about. Hackers leave a few USB drives laying around, often in parking lots of large companies. Employees walking into the building find the USB drives and think, “cool, a free USB drive.”

Guess what really happens? The clueless user

120 Billion Spams per Day

IronPort just released their Internet Security Trends for 2008 white paper. I haven’t read it all, but the big headline in the summary says spammers send over 120 billion (with a b) messages per day. Yep, 20 spam messages for every living person on this planet.

Remember that IronPort sells spam control products,

People Are Biggest Security Risks

Ask a security expert, and they will always identify your biggest security problem as the component on the opposite side of the keyboard from the monitor. Yep, people cause far more security problems than computers.

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