AridzonaShooter: Ramblings

First, go read what Dave has to say about desktop O/Ss here.  (Note: either right-click and open a new tab, or click the link to open a new browser window, which you can close to come right back here.

Now, Dave's a pro at this geek stuff.  I'm not, and don't (usually) pretend to be.  But I can attest to everything he says. 

Some background: until we moved out of the sticks'n'bricks house last year, we ran two desktops and a laptop, all WIntel boxes.  One XP, one dual-boot 98SE and Xandros Linux, and the laptop was a 98 machine.  We were on a cable modem with the computers on a wired network.  While I didn't run the exact same suite of anti-malware that Dave describes, I did run some the same and some functional equivalents.   I also ran PC Tools Registry Mechanic.

Robert Bruce Thompson's answer to the problem is Linux.  Specifically Xandros.  The Linux product worked pretty well, except there were things I wanted and needed to do that were either difficult, impossible, or I didn't want to take the time to learn.   As an aside, I will be installing Xandros on this laptop, but haven't gotten a tuit.  Soon.  Real Soon Now.  Probably.

But I'm sorry, penguin folk, Linux ain't ready for Aunt Minnie.  Almost, but not quite.

So what we had was a situation where I was constantly updating the anti-virus, firewall, o/s and anti-spy ware products.  And then running scans for each one.  On three machines.

The good news is that we never experienced an attack.  But the cost of that protection was hours of time that I could have used doing more interesting stuff, even if it was watching TV or sleeping...

Life did get a bit easier on the road, when we only had the one (now new, XP) laptop, but having an intermittent connection to the Internet only meant that maintenance was done in a more hit-or-miss fashion.   When AridzonaQuilter did finally decide that she needed her very own machine, after looking around a bit at the available options, she ended up with a Mac.

Now, Macs have always left me pretty well baffled and confuzled.  But she's been using Apple products for many years as a teacher.  And, Dang! if the silly thing doesn't Just Plain Work.  No hoo-hoo about malware attacks, all the software Just Plain Works, and the couple of minor issues she's had were immediately and courteously attended to.  By English-speaking persons...

The other striking difference between her Mac and my WIntel box is how they respond to wifi hotspots.  Living on the road, not yet having made the decision to go satellite internet, we rely mostly on wifi.  In some locations if I don't hold my lips just right, or if the moon is in the wrong phase my laptop will dance around the edges of wifi connectivity, hers has nowhere near the difficulty.

Cowboy R, who gave up a promising but (he says) boring career as a computer geek -- and who's danced with some pretty hairy hard and software -- is also a confirmed Mac person. 

No, I probably won't ever go over to the Mac side, but I can sure see the appeal.