Once again it is time for the perodic scare story that ‘Macs are the target of malware and viruses’. This sort of story seems to appear about every 6 months or so, claiming that Macs are now vulnerable to such threats.

While, I am not at all suggesting that Macs are invulnerable to malware and viruses, I would rather wait till I see a major exploit in the wild before claiming that the sky is falling. I would like to remind readers to these pages the following:

1) Macs now represent over 8% of the desktop sales in the US. It would seem that this is a pretty significant justification for malware writers to catch those obnoxious mac users off-guard, and spread some nasty little chunk of code. But we still haven’t seen any widespread exploit....Why?

2) The UK’s Times-online article quotes Graham Cluley, a senior technolgy consultant from Shophos. Now don’t you think it odd that provider of anti-virus solutions would be announcing impending doom for Mac-users. Don’t you think this might be seen as a tad self-serving? Perhaps the Times would be better served to at least attempt to locate an academic type rather than a security consultant with a vested intrest.

3) While it may well be true that we will see a rise in security threats for Macs, I believe increasingly malware coders are targeting social networking platforms to spread their pollution. I would like to see Apple provide anti-phishing capabilites for Safari.

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The frantic game of rumors prior to each anticipated Apple conference is somewhat comical abeit generally harmless. While it is often possible to gleam what might be possible or likely based on these rumors, I don’t place much faith in any particular rumor at the time. My crystal ball fails me quite often however this weekend’s rumor that Apple will not only be adding a user facing video camera for use in video ichat, but will also be releasing a Window’s version ichat strikes me as a good idea!

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Since Maureen came down with one, it seems like I hear of GBMs all the time now. When I heard that Ted Kennedy had an unexpected seizure the other day, this was my immediate fear. It’s Too bad for Ted. He’s the last of this tragic generation of Kennedys.

I hope he can get though this with dignity.

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An excellent with an only slightly facetious title by David Heinemeier Hansson of 37 Signals.

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Due to the recent purloining of 4.2 milion debit and credit card numbers from Hannaford Supermarkets, I decided today to request a new debit card. Although I have suffered no loss todate, I figure it is best to be prudent in such matters. The generous folks at Key bank are waiving their normal $5.00 charge for new debit cards due to the circumstances and it got me figuring to what degree the banks are taking it on the chin for the Hannaford’s screw-up.

If even 10,000 Key customers request a new debit card, it would cost Key Bank $50,000 to process these new cards.
or if just 2% of those 4.2 million debit/credit cards are re-issued at $5.00 each, it would cost the financial institutions $420,000

Also…

So far there have been 1800 (I expect this number to grow this week) reported cases of fraud attributed to the stolen cards. If you guesstimate $300 worth of fraud per card, it comes to an additional $540,000!

Yikes! Someone (Customers, Hanniford, or Banks) will take this on the chin as well.

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Me Thinks, Gruber has it right.
The SDK is too complete and comprehensive to have been rushed to the development community as many had pre-supposed. Apple has been laying ground-work for this for some time.

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No great revelation here, but reinforcing my belief: The overwhelming interest in the iphone/ipod touch SDK convinces me that we are witnessing the formative stage of a major new computing platform, not just one or two new devices from Apple. I expect that 6 months from now we will see a huge number of 3rd party applications which will popularize these and many new devices which for the lack of an official name I will call the touch platform. Expect to see:

• a touch based pad
• a touch based gaming platform
• possibly a touch based personal video device (video playback, as well as capture and editing??)
• and obviously new generations of the ipod and iphone

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“Must see V”...

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Donating through this website is simple, fast and totally secure. Just use the widget you see below. It is also the most efficient way to support my fundraising efforts with Maine Handicapped Skiing.

MHS is a fantastic organization which helps children, adults and veterans enjoy various outdoor activities throughout the year including skiing, cycling, kayaking and golf.

On March 29th, I will be participating again in the Annual Ski-A-Thon which last year enabled MHS to raise over $348,000 to support these activities. Any amount you wish to contibute will be greatly appreciated.

For a little viral marketing be sure to forward this to anyone who you think might want to donate too!

For more information or visit the MHS web page at: http://www.skimhs.org or
http://www.firstgiving.com/donaldpotter

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The Financial Times:

Google on Wednesday said it had seen 50 times more searches on Apple’s iPhone than any other mobile handset, adding weight to the group’s confidence at being able to generate significant revenues from the mobile internet.

“We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again,” Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations told the Financial Times at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

OH YEAH....Google loves the iPhone. Lets see what Starbucks thinks of the iPhone, when ATT rolls out its new WiFi service at it’s 7000+ coffee houses.

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I have taken the plunge and started my self-guided exploration of Ruby and the Rails framework. 
I was happy to discover that Ruby, Rails2.0, Mongrel, sqlite3, and subversion is already integrated into Leopard. Then I discovered that all of the published tutorials are based around Rails 1.2! There is virtually no tutorial information out there on Rails 2.0 aside from a few screen-casts going over some of the new features. Consequently, I downloaded and installed Locomotive for a rails 1.2 stack for me to learn on before moving on to rails2.0.
I also loaded MySQL on leopard by using the Tiger version. And yes, the problem with the non-functioning preference panel has been fixed. A new preference panel can be downloaded separately, until an official leopard version of MySQL is released.

So, far I am still getting the hang of migrations & scaffolding: the sexy part of rails. So far, I am very impressed!

I’ll be making progress reports as I go along.

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While I will never be privy to it, I would be very interested in understanding the terms of the Apple-ATT agreement. No doubt, Apple agreed to prevent the addition of a SIP/VoIP client to the iphone. The addition of such a sanctioned or unsanctioned application would tear a gaping hole in the revenue model of ATT and to a lesser degree Apple, as they most certainly have some form of revenue sharing on cellular contracts.

But as certain as the sun will rise, Apple surely realizes that VoIP will ultimately transform the cellular industry as we understand it. The Apple-ATT exclusive agreement has a life of 5 years. I suspect that Apple could not and would not agree to limit the adoption of VoIP technology on it’s platforms for that entire period; it simply would have been too limiting.
The question then is when will we see the doors open on a SIP client? Apple has stated that it will release a developer SDK in February of ‘08. Will Apple allow developers to release a SIP client.. unlikely. But we will see what will happen on the 1 year anniversary of the iphone. What I expect is that we will see not a “iphone” with SIP capability, but rather some other form of touch-based communicator.

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I’ve never been a huge fan of Led Zepplin, so the news of their reunion this week has been a non-starter. But the release of the first album in 25+ years by Levon Helm, the original drummer and vocalist on the “The Band”, is outstanding.  Levon demonstrates once again again his ability to combine American Roots music with a modern rhythm.
Check it out...

And for the NPR/Fresh Air interview...

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First off, Before I get a bunch of hate mail, “No I don’t really believe that the mac is dead”.

But, I do think we have begun to see a sea change in Apple’s product line. The first such change was the transition from the Apple II to the original Mac and it’s revolutionary user interface. More recently, the Mac underwent a major transition to OSX, but ultimately it was still a Macintosh. Initially, the Mac was promoted as “A computer for the rest of us”, which suggested not only elitism, but the goal of freeing the user from the technical complexities of computers and thereby enable real work. Over the years this has been more or less true compared to other computing platforms.

But even the most ardent mac user will agree that the personal computer is still a long way from being a truly personal computer for the casual user. By casual user I mean your grandmother and Joe 6-pack both of whom still struggle to find that letter they saved somewhere on their disc last week, and who couldn’t tell you the difference between dhcp, WEP, WAP or any other number of other acronyms that the digirati take for granted.

Enter the iPhone, iPod touch and what I expect will be the new paradigm for Apple in other such multi-touch devices. While the Mac will continue as a distinct product line in the years to come, it is the multi-touch devices which will fulfill the needs of a whole new class of user (consumers).  The original iPod showed the way for Steve Jobs...That there was another world beyond the classic Windows vs Mac wars of the ‘80 & 90’s.

While we may not see a tablet device from Apple in January, I believe we will see such a device with in the next 6 months. Imagine a device perhaps twice the size of the iPhone featuring the same functionality (sans cellular). With additional storage (ie: 32gb), N-wireless, microphone, speaker and a slew of newly released 3rd part apps the device will have great appeal at say a $600 price point. The addition of a single HDMI port and front-row would also provide an entry level iTV like device.

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