First of all, this nonsense (I'd like to use another word, but it's
extremely impolite) about switching to intel processors making macs
more ceseptable to viruses is so much junk, and just shows how
uninformed people are. Tell your Mr. Clark that viruses are run by
the operating system, and the processor they're running on has no
bearing on how many viruses there are. Linux has been running on
intel processors for 15 years or more, and there have been exactly 2
viruses that I'm aware of, and one of those was a proof of concept
released by a research lab, that someone else hijacked, and *tried*
to turn into a real virus. I'd like to point out that neither of
these viruses caused the least bit of damage to linux machhines,
because of their segmented user approach. Exactly the same thing the
mac does. Yoou can't spread a virus to other users if you're the
only one that has it, and the program isn't accessible to anyone else
on the box. This is something the general public fails to remember
(or indeed know in the first place)
I admit, that with the mac, it's a bit easier to get code into system
areas, since the process for installing things as root is greatly
simplified, but I still don't believe this will make much difference
in the virus arena. Sure, there'll be some, but nothing like what
your Mr. Clark seems to be implying. Ask him if he's ever used a
unix box of any sort, and if he has, ask him how as a regular user he
was able to introduce programs into someone else's (preferrably
root's) user space. After he stutters and then claims that doesn't
apply, ask him why macos which is based on a unix core would be any
different in this regard. And, please ask him to learn something
about operating systems before making such a ludicrous statement,
that the processor makes the viruses work instead of the os. I'm
sorry, but there's lots of viruses for dos/windows, and not a single
one of them will run under linux/bsd/sun/mac. Even if those systems
are running on an intel processor. Why are folks that so uninformed
jumping to such silly conclusions? Especially ones that *should* know
better.
Here's something.
Tell Mr. Clark, I'll prove my point.
I'll happily give him virus code I have for dos. If he can get it to
run on a mac osx box, I'll eat my keyboard.
Sure, it could be done with a port of dosbox, or dosemu (once it's
ported) but that's not osx, that's an emulator of dos.
On Jan 12, 2006, at 11:57 AM, Justin Harford wrote:
Hi guys
Could someone here do me a favor. I just got done with my meeting
at the department of rehabilitation, and they have flatly denied my
request for a mac. their points:
1. my converting to Mac would make me less employable since most
of employment revolves around windows.
2. Mac won't be able to exchange information with windows since it
uses different programs than microsoft office. They really
asserted that Mac wouldn't
be useful because Voice Over does not work with microsoft word.
3. Mr. Clark asserted that last year, Freedom Scientific made 2
upgrades to Jaws, and that in 6 months, Voice Over has made none.
4. They think that depending on my major (presently to be either
Law, History, or Spanish), graduate programs may require special
software only usable
with windows. They brought up statistics as an example. If I were
to go into administration as a vocation, I would probably have to
take statistics classes.
5. Mr. Clark asserted that while at present, mac is less
suseptible to viruses, that this will change with the introduction
of its intel processors.
6. I think a primary argument was that there wouldn't be as much
support for mac as for windows should the system need repair since
90 percent of blind
people use the latter.
Of course, I was able to answer to all 6 of the above, but you see,
the organization of my department is different from others. It is
not a simple one on one counselor student relationship. Since my
counselor feels that she has insuficient knowledge in the world of
technology, she has hired a separate person, Steve Clark, to handle
that. She places her undying trust in Mr. Clark, and blindly
follows his advice. I think that their main point (aside from
number 6) is that they think that there will be programs that only
run on windows XP with JAWS, and that I will be out of luck with my
Mac should I need one of those for a certain class. Okay, so here
is my favor.
If I can prove that Mac may support XP too, then I might have a
stronger argument. So, is there anyone on this list who has tried
JAWS with XP on their Mac? If not, could someone give it a try. I
couldn't immagine that you would have to buy the program, just
download the 40 minute demo off the net, and try that. Thanks for
any help I may receive.
