I'm hoping this lives up to its hype because after all...they're the Ghostbusters

Tags: Array

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

     VS   

By now, I'm sure you're all aware that Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest operating system is taking the world with a lot of criticism, and with Windows XP's end of life fast approaching at the end of June, many people may very well be in a dilemma on what to do.

First things first, Windows XP's end of life is June 30, 2008, less than 2 months away. What this means is that vendors are no longer supposed to sell Windows XP either standalone versions, or bundled OEM versions. Although there are a few exceptions to this, namely the budget laptops, but for all intents and purposes, the June 30^th date holds. Windows XP, compared to Vista requires far less system requirements to run so older computers normally will have no problem running the XP operating system. This in itself is what leads to the dilemma. People with older machines may want to upgrade their computer and may not want to spend the extra money for a computer that can truly handle the lofty Vista requirements. This can be particularly problematic for the current high school seniors who are heading out to college in August and September who will be buying new computers. Do you buy the computer now so you can get XP with it, do you suck it up and just deal with Vista on a computer that may not be truly able to handle it, or do you buy a standalone copy of XP and just wipe the Vista install on the new computer. None of the options are incredibly pretty. A lot of computer companies have deals late July and early August for the "going away to college" crowd which can save a fair amount of money, but this would be after the June 30th cut-off. Buying the computer now, should still allow for the purchasing of a computer with XP, but the price savings wouldn't be there. And of course buying XP now and installing it later on the new computer bundled with Vista would probably negate most of the savings since you'd pretty much be buying 2 operating systems and only using the one.

Despite all my criticisms of Vista, I have since installed it on my desktop and I don't hate it as much as I used to, especially after turning off the damned UAC. Vista for me has been running smoothly, some of the new UI features are actually pretty nice, but my desktop computer is for all intents and purposes, different from the norm. My desktop is not the run-of the-mill basic computer, it is relatively powerful and rates a 5.6 on Vista's hardware rating. Most basic laptops and desktops you would buy from companies like Dell are not specced nearly has high as my Desktop so they wouldn't be able to run Vista nearly as well as I can. And this is where my criticism of Vista really is rooted. Vista's system requirements are too high for an operating system. XP has a relatively good balance between minimum requirements and the computers capable of running it (at least as far as Windows goes). And it's because of this that consumers might find it tricky to figure out what they want to do about future desktop purchases and if they want to give Vista a shot or not.

A few things to note are that Windows XP SP3 support continues til 2014 so software updates will still be available to you after June 30, 2008. Another note is that Dell has mentioned that they plan to continue to sell XP even after the end of life date passes. Whether this means that Microsoft may again extend the June 30 cut-off or if Microsoft will put a stop to Dell's plans remains uncertain.

Of course Windows XP and Vista are not the only choices people have for new computers. Apple computers are growing in popularity and rightfully so. Macs have become solid machines of late and their OS X operating system is definitely a good alternative to Windows, and something I would personally reccommend. Another choice of course is Linux, particularly Ubuntu which in my opinion is a friendly Linux Distribution for someone new. In fact, Dell actually sells machines pre-installed with Ubuntu. You can check out these hints if you're trying to get someone to switch over to Linux.

Tags: microsoft, windows, vista, xp

Well so far, I have been unsuccessful in retrieving anything off my dead drive, but I still have a few more tricks up my sleeve. But sadly, the tricks are slowly running out so I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of losing everything. Keeping hope though.

I've pretty much decided what I'm doing in the aftermath of my hard drive failure. Without my 400GB drive, my server is almost at its storage limit so I'll need to get a replacement. I plan on picking up a 1TB SATA hard drive and dumping that into my server. I'll be doing some moving of data around to allow for better room alotments, and since Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04) comes out in a couple days, I'll reformat the root partition and bring my server back online.

Anyway, wish me luck

Tags: server, harddrive, dataloss

I write this in hopes that anyone who reads this learns from my shortsightedness. Saturday I went and started up iTunes on my desktop to listen to some music. Well, my network share was unavailable. I figured that samba on my server just needed to be restarted. I restarted Samba, no luck. I look at the uptime, 91 days...I figure maybe my server just needs the rare restart. To make a long story short, the 400GB hard drive that stores my server uploads, music, and documents just went to shit. Bad sector somewhere and I couldn't read anything off the hard drive. Immediately I went out and got a 500GB external hard drive to use for backup. I thought great, now I can backup my music and other important stuff, as well as use it for Time Machine on my Macbook Pro. I manage to get into the hard drive, but am still unable to successfully do much more than that. I now have the hard drive in an enclosure connected to my Mac in hopes of repairing it with fsck but so far it's been unsuccessful.

I'm hoping and praying that I can get it working just long enough to transfer the data, but so far it looks bleak. If this is unsuccessful, I might try the freezer trick, but we shall see. I'm crossing my fingers.

On a side note, I like Time Machine, I just have one comment on it. Time Machine will back up everything on your drive except that which you choose to exclude. Personally, I don't care if Time Machine backs up my system files as I can always just reformat in the rare situation that I have to reformat. What I wish it did was only back up the folders you set it to, rather than backup everything that you don't exclude. Oh well though, seems to be a nice tool either way.

So my final point that I want to make is just this. If you value your data, find a way to back it up. Be it the periodic burn to DVD/CD or whether it be to an external hard drive. Whatever your method or choice of methods, just do it, you'll thank yourself later.

Tags: sucks, dataloss, server