Re: PC antivirus software question

David Nebenzahl <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

On 8/13/2008 1:36 PM Dan Espen spake thus:

David Nebenzahl <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

I happen to agree with you here. However, don't let's
forget that Mac's OS X, which is on a significantly larger number of
desktops than any of the *nixes, is also Unix, but with an elegant
front end that doesn't require any command like geek knowledge.
Nothing wrong with AAPL except the proprietary interfaces.
If you go for slick front ends, OSX and Linux have Vista beat.

Probably true, but what about XP? (Please don't mistake me for a
Micro$oft partisan, but so far as I'm concerned, XP is plenty good
enough for most of us.) By the way, does "AAPL" mean "the NYSE symbol
for Apple"? That's an abbrev. I'm not familiar w/.

Yes, AAPL is the stock symbol.

OSX and Linux have XP beat too (if what you want is a slick
interface).

There are a million of these on youtube, here's one chosen at
random:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w

Personally, I want my computer to work the way I want it to.
I want to be in control of every aspect of the interface.
There, Linux is king.

Sure, but again, that's sometimes the wrong argument for the wrong
audience. Like how all the open-source geeks are always raving about
how superior things like Firefox and Thunderbird are (both of which I
use, by the way) for just that very reason: that the user has full
control over lots of aspects of the program's behavior.

Actually, for real geeks, the level of control goes much deeper
than what you see with Firefox of Thunderbird.

Problem is, a vanishingly small proportion of the population is 1)
able to and 2) wants to control their software at this level.

Can't agree, just about anyone can install and configure Firefox.

To most
folks, dealing with Firefox and Thunderbird's hundreds of cryptic
configuration variables (with no good comprehensive documentation to
boot, unless you root around the web and happen to come upon some
guy's partial compilation by accident) is just a gigantic headache and
a pain in the ass that's just not worth the trouble. But I guess we
should blame *them* for not being computer-literate enough, right?

Not sure what you mean here.
I don't use Windows myself, but from what I've seen, Firefox and
Thunderbird are configured exactly the same way as IE and Outlook, thru
the menu dialogs.

If you really want something unusual you go
into "about:config". The same as IE and Outlook, except
for them it's the registry.

The docs for about:config aren't too hard to find either:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config
.

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