as I live a few more questions

SiteAdvisor

Here's something to investigate further (found this via this BBC article).

  It works as a plug-in to your web browser.

SiteAdvisor: Protection from Spyware, Spam, Viruses and Online Scams.

Well, here's a novel way to install a virus on your computer...

A novel way to install a virus
Originally uploaded by Quip.

And of course, once you click on the attached list of questions, you get infected with a nasty computer virus.

Preying on people's paranoia *sigh*

Moving to Ubuntu

Yesterday was a VERY busy day for the campus network administrators, as they tracked down and stamped out another new and quickly-spreading virus. A quote from one of them on the network-admins mailing list seems particularly pertinent:

I am very doubtful of ever convincing people not to trust attachments.

Maybe we should switch the campus to Macs? Show of hands? But seriously, although I have never really worked with Macs, I've started to recommend them to friends and family.

I'm known for making tech predictions that never pan out (eg: fuel cell battery packs, or Microsoft's Smart Displays), but my latest prediction is that very soon we won't be able to keep Windows machines running for the average user.

I recently switched my very non-technical sister and brother-in-law to Ubuntu linux (www.ubuntu-linux.com) and it's worked out better than I had ever imagined. I had expected to have to hand hold them for the first few months, or have them ask me to "switch" them back to Windows; but they have never once had to ask me how to do something, and are perfectly happy with it.