A little bit of buzz has arisen after Apple has quietly suggested and recommended to Mac users that they should consider installing anti-virus software on their Macs. This has created somewhat of a stir since Apple has said several times that Macs are far less susceptible to viruses if they even get them at all. Personally I know that viruses can be written for any platform, Windows, Mac, and Linux alike. Windows just is the primary target since Windows holds the greatest market share...by a lot. Now imagine if the tables were turned and OS X held 90+% of the OS market, I'd bet that instead of Windows getting the majority of the threats, OS X would likely take the brunt of the attacks. Simply put, the evil-doers will go after whatever they can get the most out of.

I'm one of the people who has a Mac but doesn't have anti-virus software for it, which is probably not exactly the smartest move, but for the moment, I haven't needed it (or I've just gotten lucky). OS X doesn't have a lot of viruses in the wild that can affect the OS, but this however may very well come to an end soon enough with how popular the Mac line has gotten, and how OS X is rising which might make it a much more appealing target for virus writers. It might also be worth noting that Apple's switch to Intel CPUs a little while back probably makes it a little bit easier for the writers as well since they're so used to that for Windows machines.

In the end, I do understand where Apple is coming from, despite what they want to say, they have to acknowledge that OS X is not immune to viruses, no OS is (not even Linux). So putting anti-virus software on a Mac is by no means a bad idea, we'll just have to see how Mac users react. Will they snub their noses to the thought or will they think about it and agree that its probably a better idea to be safe, rather than sorry later should their Mac get infected.

One last thing for everyone to consider: Apple has been consistently growing, sales are up and more and more people are bringing Macs into their homes. With this growing popularity, comes a greater target. The number of threats are only going to go up, stay vigilant and be careful what you download, what you install, and what sites you visit. OS X may be a "small" target today, but given the growth, I don't know how long it will stay out of the virus spotlight.

Tags: apple, mac, antivirus, operatingsystem, os

Web design and development can take several forms, each with their loyal following, I stick with more of a basic text editor, while others prefer a more "drag and drop" approach.

Adobe Dreamweaver is a pretty popular tool amongst developers for getting their sites developed. Dreamweaver is similar to Microsoft Frontpage but in my opinion, significantly better. Dreamweaver and Frontpage are both "What You See is What You Get" editors (WYSIWYG). They're pretty much designed so that you can pretty much lay out a website much like you would set up a document in Word. The software takes what you lay out and creates the HTML and Stylings behind the scene. Some people would call this easier than handwriting it, and while I can see why they do, I must respectfully disagree.

I do all of my web development work from scratch using nothing more than a simple text editor much like notepad for Windows. I feel that by doing it by hand, not only do you have a lot more control over the layout of the code, but you also gain a better understanding of why things work the way they do, and where everything you need to know in the code is. WYSIWYG editors aren't perfect and sometimes require manual code adjustments to set things where you want them to be set. I feel that it's simply easier to find the "problem" areas in code that you wrote yourself than it is to find the spot in code that was literally written by a piece of software. I personally like to have full control over the code of my sites and just feel that I lose a lot of that control if I move over to a WYSIWYG editor.

I would recommend using notepad to anyone who is just getting into web design for one simple reason. I believe you learn more by writing the code yourself. You'll learn better code styling and layout, as well as how the language works, and why it works the way it does. If after that you would rather use something like Dreamweaver, you'll be better off since you'll know the basics and at that point are more just using Dreamweaver to potentially speed things up.

Now I tend to refuse to use Notepad for my development, especially since a lot of it is done on my Macbook Pro, but there are a schloo of great text editors out there that will trump Notepad any day of the week, so I'll close this out by listing a few that you can go about and try.

Notepad++ (Windows)

Notepad++ is a free open-source app that does everything that Notepad can do, plus more. It contains syntax highlighting, control over the text layout, tabs, and the ability to install and manage plugins to extend its base functionality.

jEdit (Windows, Mac, Linux)

jEdit is similar to Notepad++ but is built with Java so it is compatible and useable on all 3 major platforms (Windows, Mac, & Linux). It features many of the same capabilities as Notepad++ including plugins, syntax highligting and tabs.

TextWrangler (Mac)

TextWrangler is a text editor for OS X that features syntax highlighting and a list view (similar to tabs but lists the files on the side). It's lightweight but lacks some of the more advanced features that jEdit and Notepad++ support.

TextMate (Mac)

TextMate is similar to TextWrangler but is significantly more powerful with an advanced feature set. It supports what almost seems like the standard syntax highlighting, ability to pair brackets, svn support, regular expression (grep) support, and many others. The one downside is that TextMate is not free, it costs around $50 for a license, but depending on your use, it might be worth it to you. It does come with a 30 day trial.

Coda (Mac)

This is my editor of choice. It has an extensive list of features and my favorite being built in FTP and SSH / SFTP support which makes uploading to your web server quick, easy, and painless. Among its other features are tabs, syntax highlighting, code support (will show you the function arguments to help you on your way) as well as smart editing (will finish lines with quotation marks, etc as needed). This, like TextMate is not free, Coda costs $99, but its a great piece of software and helps make managing the code between my Mac and the web server easier. It also supports help with css keywords and styles for those who might need some help with CSS.

So, what do you use when doing web development? Something like Dreamweaver, or a more hands-on approach with a basic text editor?

Tags: webdevelopment, programming, code

Many already know that I've been a Linux fan for some time now, primarily using the Ubuntu distribution on both my server and my desktop. Well I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10 and I noticed a noticeable slow-down on performance. I've been noticing a bit of sluggishness from Ubuntu over the last several versions, but nothing really noticeable. Well that changed for me with the install of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ipex. System performance was sluggish, and I realized that there was a little bit too much bloat than I cared for, not as bad as Vista, but still more than I feel a Linux desktop should have. I decided I'd move to a different distro.

My first choice was Debian 4.0. Ubuntu is Debian-based so I figured going back to Ubuntu's base might be a good place to start since I am most familiar with the Debian system. The install went smoothly and within an hour I had the Gnome desktop in front of me. The thing that impressed me most was its bootup speed, loading speed, and responsiveness. It put Ubuntu to shame in all of these cases as it was incredibly fast. The only thing that I didn't like was that it seemed to be behind on a lot of key software and updates. Iceweasel, its browser (a port of Firefox 2.0) was the browser installed and me of course wanted Firefox 3.0. I download it, try to run it and it says I need to have GTK+ v2.10 or higher. Apparently the Debian repositories are somewhat out of date with some key software versions as the latest version in Debian's repositories for GTK was 2.08 and when I tried to manually compile and install GTK+ 2.14, its dependencies were all libraries with versions greater than the Debian repository had. Now I realize that I could try harder to find some good 3rd party repos or work through the massive dependencies, but at the same time I'm looking for a distribution that does not require massive amounts of configuration. It might also be worthy to note that a lot of the key applications that I use on a regular day basis were not installed nor were they available for download from the repositories. I liked Debian, but it was missing too much to become a working Linux desktop distro for me. Now server wise, Debian would be great for its speed and stability, and maybe one day if I feel adventurous, I may very well switch over from Ubuntu 8.04 Server to Debian, but as it stands now, as good a distro as Debian is to many people, it just didn't match what I wanted in a desktop distribution.

My next choice was CentOS 5.2 which I'm currently installing. It'll be a change from Ubuntu since its most definitely Red Hat based and not Debian, but a co-worker sings its praises and since its an offshoot of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I figure I'll give it a try and see how it goes. I'll let you all know later.

Tags: ubuntu, debian, linux, opensource

Why are so many people constantly trying to claim Gnome is better than KDE or KDE is better than Gnome? If you ask me I'd say they're about equal and personal preference is where it all lies. Some people prefer Gnome and others KDE, I'm one who prefers Gnome but has no problem using KDE either if I need to.

For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, Linux has the ability to use multiple desktop environments which is pretty much the UI of your operating system where you can browse for files, run applications, etc. There are many different environments with the two big ones being Gnome and KDE. There is often the talk of which one is "better" but I almost seem to be the odd one out who really doesn't seem to see either as "better" than the other.

I mean if you look at it from a different view, both Gnome and KDE are both completely open, the source code is available and you can develop for either one relatively easily. Both can be installed on any distribution albeit some distros don't come with the choice to install one or both making it a bit more difficult to do especially for the novice user, but at the same time, it can be done.

The only argument I can see for this argument is to set more of a standard for Linux desktop environments, but at the same time, the customization for me is one of Linux's greatest selling points, the ability to use whatever desktop environment and software you want. If you look at both OS X and Windows, while there are some alternatives to many applications, for some apps there are no alternatives and outside theming, you're stuck with one desktop. So while one desktop environment as "standard" for Linux would provide a base, you'd lose a fair amount in the process.

While personally I have nothing against any of the desktop environments, I think it all comes down to personal preference and the "desktop environment war" is kinda silly. In the end I think the "war" would be better fought bettering Linux and open source software. Just a thought.

Tags: linux, kde, gnome, opensource

Is Mixx out of Beta? Look at their logo today. Not only are they celebrating 1 year...but the beta text is removed from the logo.

Tags: mixx, socialmedia