Is it OK to switch to a Mac? Will I die?

Y'know, I'd think more people would die if they had to switch from Mac to Wintel, come to think about it.
 
Last night, I spent a few hours at a neighbor's house patching yet another Windows security hole, This one had her system crashing every few minutes when someone tried to take advantage of the RPC buffer-overflow vulnerability.

This is the 2nd time in the three weeks she's owned the computer that such a patch was necessary.

I went back home, fell on my knees before my G4, and kissed it.

bear
 
Originally posted by arden
I live in the middle of Bush-loving God's country. Getting people in Modesto to switch to Mac, if they don't already use it, is like getting cows to write essays. There are probably more cows here than Macs.
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I'd just like to remind the board that:
Democrat does not equal Mac User and
Republican does not equal PC User.

Sorry, Arden.
 
bear: wow. That sounds like classic Win 98. I don't think that my Dad has had to install a patch for his XP installation for awhile.
 
Not that I'm endorsing XP or anything... it's not a BAD OS, actually. My Dad might pay me to set up an XP server for him soon, with PHP and MySQL, etc. If he can't figure it out, of course :)
 
Originally posted by j79
You guys are referring to a new worm that's affecting microsoft machines.

:D

http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=Tech&cat=Computer_Viruses

1.JPG


Thank you Microsoft, for reminding me why Mac OS X rules!!

edit - oh, btw, the link i posted has instructions for removing/protecting yourself from the worm.
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It is possible to write a "virus" to affect Macs. I think that Apple is not as big a political target as MS is, thus MS is a virus magnet. There's probably more mindshare in MS viruses than in MacOSX.

In the past, Unix servers have fallen to DoS attacks, and other worms. There's nothing to say this couldn't happen in the future, but MacOSX is much more secure that Windows, so the chances are small.
 
dlloyd tell your father to buy a XServe instead... :D

If he will insist on buying a Wintel/Amd Server tell him to buy a G5... :)
 
I don't think people should forget gaming as an option on a macintosh.

Since the iMac FP, Graphic cards have been given a higher priority.

There are shareware and commercial games that rival the thousand+ pc games out there.

Even pc game ports are available quicker than previously. Some we didn't expect to come to the mac.
 
MD, I wasn't insinuating any such thing; I was just saying that people have their opinions out here and they stick with them. My friend is Jewish and he hates Bush, but that doesn't mean I can easily get him to switch.
 
Here's a new one for you all. Have you ever heard of a piece of software, or an ISP, or a hacker, or something like that randomly shutting your computer down? Well, that's what happened on my friend's new Dull today. I was trying to get online (to register for classes, something important), and twice I got a box saying that in a minute the computer would be shut down for whatever the hell reason it was. (He has Softcom dial-up. That may be the source.) I think it's an external signal, because it seemed to indicate that some Authority was accessing his computer, but it was really weird. He said it's been happening a lot both on that computer and his old one, which his brother now uses.
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Congratulation 'cause of MS new security flaw your friend's computer catched a virus known as "LoveSan" or "MSBlaster". Blaster is fairly unusual in that it does not spread specifically via e-mail as it can travel through a normal Internet connection.
The worm contains two messages in its code. The first apparently is a "greet"--a message of greeting or recognition to a friend or peer--while the second takes aim at Microsoft: "billy gates why do you make this possible?" the second part of the message says. "Stop making money and fix your software!!"

Starting with a random Internet address, the worm sequentially scans for computers with the vulnerability.

MSBlast installs the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) server, and runs the program to download its program code to the compromised server. It will also add a registry key to insure that the worm is restarted when the host computer is rebooted.

The worm attacks Windows computers via a hole in the operating system, an issue Microsoft on July 16 had warned about.
The flaw is in a component of the OS that lets other computers request that the Windows system perform an action or service. The component, known as the remote procedure call (RPC) process, facilitates activities such as sharing files and allowing others to use the computer's printer. By sending too much data to the RPC process, an attacker can cause the system to grant full access to the system.
 
Ifrit, you're a little late on the draw... this is everywhere, and my friend patched his computer. But thanks anyway.

I wonder if maybe Lovesan takes advantage of any Trusted Computing protocols Microsoft has built into Windows. This would be one argument against TCPA, if so.
 
Indeed, it could be the doing of the MSblast virus. I mean it behaves like one of these trojans, it makes your computer vulnerable for 'attacks from the outside'.
The restart box counting down to zero, is one result. If you patch after you caugh this thing, its the same like letting the Alligator in your house and trying to lock the door.

Otherwise windows XP systems always had strange restart problems, ranging from plugging USB and firewire devices > resulting in a restart, visiting certain Internet pages with IE > resulting in a restart, deleting certain drivers manually > resulting in a restart. (I think you got the point :D )

One thing you should check out:

Control Panel > System > Advanced > "Restart, System Errors and Information to problem solving" > Settings > System Error > uncheck "execute automatical restart"

(sorry I translated this text from the German version of the Windows XP OS so some things should be different for you)

I believe you are a experienced PC user so I think you've already done that.
 
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