Vista Vexes Vendors
Microsoft offered an olive branch to its newfound security competitors by promising
more information about APIs and such, making it easier to disable Vista's security
dashboard to let McAfee or Symantec act as the anti-virus default. But are these
competitors grateful? Nah.
They're
still spittin' mad! (And I'm still confused as to why security is still a
Vista add-on. I say either build it in for free, or leave it to the third parties.)
These vendors also claim they still can't get good info about the 64-bit version
of Vista -- but if it's as buggy as 64-bit XP, then I wouldn't worry.
My Favorite E-Mail Done Died
My favorite bits of software are all old. Deluxe Paint for the Amiga was wild,
and word processor XyWrite -- despite its sometimes bizarre use of keystroke combos
(alt-F9 for help? Who's the ad whiz that came up with that?) -- was also pretty
cool. Now my favorite e-mail client, Eudora, got
86-ed by its owner Qualcomm. Future versions of the client will key off of
Mozilla's Thunderbird (what's the word?).
The whole thing is pretty puzzling. Apparently, consumers are increasingly
unwilling to give Qualcomm $20 bucks a year when they can get e-mail software
for free. Go figure.
Jobs' Virus Is Bill's Fault
Recently, many thousand iPods shipped with a computer virus, but do you think
the folks from Cupertino admitted their fault the way Redmond does each and
every Patch Tuesday (and often in-between)? As Denis Leary might say, "I
DON'T THINK SO!"
Instead, Apple
blamed Windows. It seems that one of the iPod manufacturers had a Windows
box, and that's how the RavMonE.exe virus got installed on so many of the tiny
Apple music players. Of course, the iPod itself is fine, but because the machine
is an external drive, your PC could get infected. Maybe iPods should come with
McAfee or Microsoft OneCare!
About the Author
Doug Barney is editor in chief of Redmond magazine and the VP, editorial director of Redmond Media Group.