Re: {OT:} The Dumbing Of America

"witfal" <nospam@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:fpcunl$tlr$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 2008-02-18 13:26:35 -0800, "JoeSpareBedroom" <dishborealis@xxxxxxxxx>
said:

I'm all ears. What's your preventative medicine? I'm sure I know what
you're going to say, but am still curious.



This computer generates my income, so:

- A router, for security and also because there's no other way to connect
to
my company's VPN.

- ZoneAlarm Pro, as a redundant measure for incoming nasties, as well as
a
way to monitor anything that attempts to send outbound without my
knowledge.
ZA's settings are password protected. All software is given permission to
do
what it needs to do, and nothing more. If my son's working in his user
account and a program causes ZA to send up an alert, he can't grant
permissions without my entering the password and taking a look at what
the
program is asking for. Stuff like Adobe Reader & Flash player aren't even
allowed to check for their updates. I do that manually from time to time.

- Antivirus software, although other measures have meant I haven't seen a
virus on any of my computers since 2001.

- No new software is ever installed on this machine unless it's first
been
tested on a spare computer, sometimes for several weeks.

- MS updates are completely shut off. I follow two reliable sources for
information about updates, and wait an average of two months before
installing them.

- Incremental backups are done daily, and full ones weekly. A weekly copy
of
each full backup lives in my bank safe deposit box 5 minutes away.

- The spare computer is set up as a mirror image of this one, in terms of
installed software.

Nice. Almost perfect, and far better than 99% of users. Stay away from
porn sites, and you're gold. ;-) I'm impressed with your precautions,
particularly the off-site backup.

Now consider that all would be unnecessary, save the router and some
auto-updates, if you ran a Mac. This assumes that your company has no
software incompatibility issues. Incremental backups are now automatic
with the newest version of OS X, and can be adjusted to be from hourly to
every 12 hours with a free sofware addition. The backups, via Time
Machine, use a bit of UNIX magic called "hard links" which prevents
multiple copies of previously backed-up files from being continually
duplicated. This very effectively controls the use of disk space on your
external drive.



Sounds like you believe the fairy tale about how there are no viruses
written for the Mac OS. Less? Of course. None? Of course not.

Backups: I double click an icon and go get a beer. That's automated enough
for me.

Software: Because it's wickedly fast and manages its memory in ingenious
ways, I use a DOS version of Paradox (database) for churning data in various
ways. Even if there was a way to run it on a Mac, who cares? It's not even
worth the time to do the research into a new OS.

I used to have fun with the Mac users at a previous job. They used to hang
over the wall of my cubicle and tell me how much happier I'd be if I could
use a mouse instead of keystroke commands. 99% of what I used my DOS machine
for was typing letters. These flakes could never explain how a mouse would
help me type faster or better, except one lady who said the mouse was the
best way to click the print button or some such nonsense. I've been typing
100 wpm since high school. It's got nothing to do with a mouse.


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