"Mad as Hell" III - Month 1 Review

Security Awareness for Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless ^ | 5/31/2005 | Winn Schwartau

[Swordmaker]

It’s May 31 and I’ve had my Mac for one month. This is my report.

I HAVE:

1. Upgraded OS X from 10.3 to 10.4. I slept thru it.

a. Done no OS X configuration other than screen saver and wallpaper. Moved the ‘Dock’ or task bar.

b. No security add ons.

c. Upgraded to 10.4.1. Seamless. Painless. But, yes, it does require a reboot.

2. Installed a "legal copy" of MS Office for Mac.

a. Macros in Office apps. From everything I have seen and heard from my new 108,745 close personal friends, OS X viri in the wild are simply not a concern. But MS Word macro viri are real, although there is some debate about how much damage they can do in the OS X environment. The MS app default is to advise me on opening docs with macros. I guess I have opened and received more than a thousand docs this month. No alerts. I double checked my settings and gave myself an infected Word doc just to check it was working. All is good.

3. Even though I don’t need to, my stomach wouldn’t rest until I added anti-virus for Mac. www.ClamXAV.Com. Paranoid habit.

4. I prefer Firefox to Mac’s Safari, but that’s religion. Camino is the Mozilla.Org OS X specific browser. IMHO, it's not ready for Prime Time. My Intranet displays like crap. Cool features I will watch.

5. I use the native Mail client.

6. That’s it.

7. Application-wise I have:

a. Editted client movies.

b. Made our company switch to free online audio conferencing. (One button. No install. No new software.)

c. Switched our company to free video teleconferencing. (One button. No install. No new software.)

d. Published PDF. It’s integrated.

e. Editted and worked on photos. It’s integrated.

f. Screen shot clips and cropping, etc. It’s integrated.

g. Imported 40GB of real Office XP data files.

h. Moved Favorites and Address Books (yada yada) in minutes.

I HAVE NOT

Gotten over my security paranoia.

I openly admit I am still nervous. Being a paranoid security type, I tend to STOP and think through many actions I might take or Clicks to Click. I still am, and I notice it on the Mac. “Should I do this?” Oh, that’s OK. “What about the security on this?” No worries.

It’s a very strange feeling: growing confidence in the security of your platform (equals less fear, less tension, less Xanax). For those of you who think that none of this has to do with security, Part IV willl educate you.

T’any rate: I HAVE NOT

1. Added any security applications like pop-up blocker, spyware blockers, anti-spam blockers.

a. Saves RAM.

b. Less possibility for conflict with apps and OS.

c. Less processes.

d. Better performance. (None of that slowing down crap, which is a violation of C-I-Availability.)

e. Cleaner desktop.

2. Added any other applications, but my measurable productivity is higher.

a. Same syntax and spell checker across ALL apps, not just Office. (Availability is the security view of Productivity.)

i. 1 Hr. downtime for a broken computer is the same loss to a business as is 1 Hr less productivity due to lack of homogeneity in the computing environment.

ii. FACT (or, my opinion…The MS Office for Mac is FAR superior to Office XP+++. Things work so much more intuitively once your fingers learn what codes you need.

3. Had any OS X crashes.

a. None.

b. Nada.

c. Rien!

d. The bloody thing works as advertised and I am tough on these things.

4. Had an app drive my Mac crazy. You gotta love protected RAM. My browser snafu’d, I Force Quit (roughly equal to CTRL-ALT-DEL End Process) and it’s all good again.

5. Had to install printer drivers or tell it where on the network our printers are. Smart bugger.

6. Had to perform any whiney networking tricks to make things work as they should. For Ma&Pa this is priceless. (Someone… do a priceless ad for us, please?)

7. Had to spend any additional money on software, utilities, security, upgrades, management or anything else.

WHAT I DON’T LIKE

1. That cheap power cord into the side of my laptop. Apple added a little service loop strap which sucks. This puppy is gonna break. I’ve broken ‘em all. Gotta get a backup.

2. Where the hell is the native FTP?

3. Still haven’t conquered the mind set of why things become drives or not-drives, and how they appear from time to time of their own volition.

4. The screen on my 17” laptop is not NEARLY as good as my Sony Vaio. There is debate on this, as to the reasons for the ‘softer’ look on the Mac. My eyes are older than yours, and I really like the 1920X1200 incredibly hi-res on my Vaio. I use the Vaio for some apps… but that will all come out in future Mad As Hell pieces.

5. I DO NOT LIKE having to spend 10 minutes to learn how to do something that is completely intuitive and ingrained in WinTel. But, that is the price. I’ll get over it.

OH: The keyboard lights up at night. Just too cool and solves a major problem for me and my wife when I ‘pute in bed.

GRADE: ‘A-’: For managing to create a much safer and more secure computing environment that is more productive than any WinTel solution I have seen since DOS 5.0. (DOSTEL).

Think: In the WinTel world, could you do this? Or maybe you should ask, “Do I really want all of that paranoia to go away? Do I really want to spend more time enjoying whatever the hell I do on my ‘puter, or maybe I should continue wasting hours every week on security crap that shouldn’t be a problem in the first place?”

Hey. It’s just a question?

Part IV: Some security basics for Ma&Pa who really need it, and for those of you who need a refresher.

Winn Schwartau

[Swordmaker]

Mad as Hell III -- Month 1 Review

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[N3WBI3]

Nice to see it going well for him. He is right about the powerchord, My wife had to replace heres after a fwe months..

[jalisco555]

He is right about the powerchord, My wife had to replace heres after a fwe months..

Same here. The one and only thing I dislike in my Powerbook.

[Question_Assumptions]

Where the hell is the native FTP?

Open Terminal in the Utilities folder under Applications. Type "ftp". Heck, you can do full-blown Unix shell scripting, ssh, grep, etc.

[AZLiberty]

Where the hell is the native FTP?

In the Finder, use Connect to Server under the Go menu, or just type Cmd-K. Enter an ftp server name (e.g., ftp://ftp.foo.com) and click Connect.

[Question_Assumptions]

I killed the power cord on my older iBook and the one on my newer iBook is going. I have a Kensington travel power cord that has adapters for either one that I use on the road. But, yeah, this could use some improvement from Apple.

[Question_Assumptions]

Call me "old school" but I do my FTPing in a terminal window. Of course I also do my FTPing under Windows XP in a DOS shell. I still don't really like the idea of a remote server appearing as a folder on my desktop.

[anonymous_user]

2. Where the hell is the native FTP?

Apple-k, ftp://theservername.com/
ftp://theservername.com in Safari

Am I missing something?

[rockrr]

OH: The keyboard lights up at night. Just too cool and solves a major problem for me and my wife when I ‘pute in bed.

Funny. I suggested to a hardware Project Manager at Microsoft in '98 that they offer a keyboard that uses the same kind of phosphorescence in the plastic that TV remotes have been using (for years!).

He said it was a great idea (and then I never heard from him again).

Glad to see that someone has some smarts!

[general_re]

7. Application-wise I have:

a. Editted client movies

b. Not figured out the spell-checker.

;)

[TheOtherOne]

I have made it months with no crash, etc. A fun program...

http://www.jeb.com.fr/en/laststart.shtml

[daviddennis]

For terminal fans, typing uptime does the same thing:

David-H-Denniss-Computer:~] david% uname -a
Darwin David-H-Denniss-Computer.local 8.1.0 Darwin Kernel Version 8.1.0: 
  Tue May 10 18:16:08 PDT 2005; 
  root:xnu-792.1.5.obj~4/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc
[David-H-Denniss-Computer:~] david% uptime
15:52  up 1 day, 21:52, 5 users, load averages: 0.87 0.81 0.85
[David-H-Denniss-Computer:~] david% 

Sadly, my uptime's nothing to brag about right now, but that's because I recently installed 10.4.1.

D

[TheOtherOne]

Thanks.

this is my laptop...the G4 desktop has been running for months!

12:57 up 1 day, 4:39, 2 users, load averages: 0.46 0.39 0.29

[Swordmaker]

Open Terminal in the Utilities folder under Applications. Type "ftp". Heck, you can do full-blown Unix shell scripting, ssh, grep, etc.

Winn was overwhelmed by the number of users who told him that on his Blog... hehehehe.