For better or worse Apple has historically dumped its old solutions and
started over when they felt it was worth it while Microsoft has tended
to be more of a packrat and keep everything. Some pain now to avoid a
bunch of pain later. Each time there was an Apple transition there were
Apple users left out in the cold but it also meant that a new better
system came about. To my recollection Apple has done this three times.
They dropped their DOS 3.3 on the Apple II to go to ProDOS which had
minimal backwards compatibility. Later they dropped their Apple II line
to go to the Mac and it's new 68K processor which of course did not run
any of the Apple II stuff. After that they dropped the MacOS 9 series
and made OSX. There's a bit of interesting philosophy about when do you
keep trying to improve or add-on to what you've got and when do you jump
ship. In the latest iteration I think Apple is now reaping the rewards
of building on a clean solid new foundation. Windows is collapsing under
the weight of decades of software layers.
There is an interesting read about standards and how they stop working
as things spiral out of control. It's focused on the IE8 web standards
debate but they go into the history of why standards fail over time. The
article "Martian Headsets" by Joel Spolsky.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html
CB
Scott Howell wrote:
Huh, well don't hold your breath. For Microsoft to do that, they'd
have to damn near toss the entire windows code base out the window --
pardon the pun. This is a perfect opportunity to say that this is
where Microsoft and Apple truly differ. Snow Leopard when released
will likely not contain a large number of new features, but what it
will include if you have read the info available, is a significantly
optimized os designed to take advantage of many new and future
technologies. Microsoft will likely get there one day, but it'll just
be more code tossed on the old code, I don't see them actually sitting
down and basically rewriting windows from the ground up or even from
the fifth floor up.
On Jul 19, 2008, at 9:29 PM, Jude DaShiell wrote:
This topic came up at our Southern Maryland Mac Users Group Meeting.
As of now, no virus has yet been effective against a Macintosh
computer. There were two incidents which are called virus but one of
them was a user who got upset with his Mac because it wouldn't
automatically play a CD when he put it into his drive he wrote a
short piece of code and somehow it got onto the internet. It was so
popular though with other Mac users at that time it spread like a
virus. That code was later purchased by Apple and if I'm not much
mistaken it's been added to Tiger and Leopard as part of how Apple
handles playing of CD's and DVD's. If you choose the right option
that code will play CD's and DVD's for you when you put them in your
drive automatically. The other incident loosely described as a virus
was a company that had written a virus and then announced it but
never released it onto the internet in order to sell their antivirus
package. The Federal Government connected with that Company and made
the company cough up $2.5 million for their misbehaviour. Not for
one moment claiming Mac's are virus-proof and will remain virus-proof
into the future, but this is to the best of my knowledge the only two
times virus and Macintosh could be barely ligitimately associated to
date. Apple as a corporation very likely will be what provides virus
defense and prevention software to its users in future should such
software be needed you'll likely have it downloaded by software
update. Packages possibly vulnerable to viruses are being upgraded
and released as flaws get found and corrected. Generally, packages
either get released with new capabilities or bug fixes. The virus
writers on the Windows side of the aisle have actually done the
screen reader industry a huge favor though. The resources Microsoft
has to use to apply patches on top of patches can't be used at the
same time to add any new features to their offerings, so the screen
reader industry has more time to perfect their new innovations
against an already existing code base. The one true danger to the
screen reader industry will be if Microsoft ever goes and closes all
of those unterminated loops in whatever version of windows is in use
at the time. A tremendous performance improvement will then happen
along with a huge memory requirement decrease windows xp can probably
run in 640K of memory if that ever gets done, then all those
programmers who worked on patches for all of those years will be back
innovating new features again. Such a move were it to ever happen
would make life for virus writers lots harder and also bankrupt Intel
along with other chip manufacturers because computers could get lots
lighter in terms of memory than they've grown over the years.
On Fri, 30 May 2008, Dave Wright wrote:
Hi there all,
I'm not sure whether or not this topic has been discussed on this
list, but I'm wondering if I should invest in a virus removal
program for the mac? I did see that Norton Antivirus does make a
version for mac OSX, however I didn't know if anyone out there had a
preference? Any info would be much appreciated.
Best Regards,
David Wright
Mobile: (832)518-0707
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.knfbreader.com
Scott Howell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
