Microsoft botches six Windows patches in latest Automatic Update

In an amazing tour de force, Microsoft's Automatic Update chute released at least six bad patches on Tuesday. Here's what's amazing: It's just 48 hours or so since the bomb bay doors opened, and Microsoft has acknowledged problems with all of these patches. That's a first, I think -- and the biggest positive development in the Automatic Update minefield I've seen in a long time.

The gory details:

Microsoft botches six Windows patches in latest Automatic Update

Fusion 4 - Mac software - Macworld UK

It’s been a long time coming, but this upgrade was worth waiting for
Cliff Joseph

"It’s been two years since the release of Fusion 3, and its arch-rival Parallels Desktop has managed two fairly big upgrades in that time, so it was starting to look as though Fusion might be losing out. However, this timely update gives the virtualisation program a major overhaul that keeps it right in line with Parallels and makes it an excellent option for anyone who needs to run Windows software on their Mac.

You’ll notice the changes as soon as you open the box, as Fusion 4 is now supplied on both DVD and a USB memory stick for models such as the MacBook Air and Mac mini that don’t have a built-in optical drive. The installer program now provides an automatic upgrade option for existing Fusion users, as well as a Learning Centre to help new users get started."

Fusion 4 - Mac software - Macworld UK

John Sculley On Steve Jobs, The Full Interview Transcript

"The thing that separated Steve Jobs from other people like Bill Gates — Bill was brilliant too — but Bill was never interested in great taste. He was always interested in being able to dominate a market. He would put out whatever he had to put out there to own that space. Steve would never do that. Steve believed in perfection. Steve was willing to take extraordinary chances in trying new product areas but it was always from the vantage point of being a designer. So when I think about different kinds of CEOs — CEOs who are great leaders, CEOs who are great turnaround artists, great deal negotiators, great people motivators — but the great skill that Steve has is he’s a great designer. Everything at Apple can be best understood through the lens of designing."

Continue reading the full story at Cult of Mac by Leander Kahney

Trend Micro offers free secure surfing tool - V3.co.uk - formerly vnunet.com

"Security vendor Trend Micro has added to its growing range of free security offerings with a tool designed to improve the safety of web browsing.

The product has been designed to protect against sophisticated threats such as the Hydraq family which was used to such effective ends in the Operation Aurora attacks by Chinese hackers on Google and other firms at the beginning of the year."

Trend Micro offers free secure surfing tool - V3.co.uk - formerly vnunet.com

The truth about Mac malware. It's a joke - War on Error - Blogs - Technology Blog and Community from IT Experts - Techworld.com

The truth about Mac malware. It's a joke - War on Error - Blogs - Technology Blog and Community from IT Experts - Techworld.com

There are less then 200 Mac malware (that’s viruses, worms, Trojans, etc) programs. Having researched these a bit further as many were unfamiliar, I discovered that they are all years old, some going back as far as a decade or more. Study the list closely and you see that many of them are variants, that is slightly different versions of the same piece of code.

As impressively long as the list looks, this is in fact a fair chunk of ALL the malware that has afflicted the Mac in the last decade. Is this the best the Mac malware writers can do? One of the examples is a reheated virus from - no kidding - 1989."

"Apple antivirus company Intego has discovered a backdoor malware attack targeting Mac users OSX.HellRTS.D. As with so many of the small number of Mac-specific malware attacks that come up from time to time, this one is a variant of an attack from 2004, the company said, which will sound quaint to Windows users hit by thousands of variants on most days."

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Survey: Macs cost notably less to support than Windows PCs

"Macs are often the black sheep in the many enterprise environments which have been dominated by Windows for nearly two decades, but the growing consumerization of IT is slowly changing that perception. Though Macs often have a higher up-front price than many business-class PCs, Macs are usually believed to have a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) due to lower support costs. A recent survey of IT professionals in large enterprise environments that have a mix of Macs and PCs overwhelmingly agree that Macs cost less than PCs to support.

The Enterprise Desktop Alliance, which seeks to make it easier to integrate Macs in Windows-centric IT deployments, surveyed IT admins from companies that made large deployments, including universities and government agencies. Responses included in EDA's analysis include those from environments with a mix of Macs and PCs that had a total of 50 servers or over 100 Macs.

A majority of respondents said that Macs cost less in terms of time spent troubleshooting, user training, help desk calls, and system configuration. Admins generally agreed that costs related to software licensing and supporting infrastructure were the same between the two platforms."

Continue reading the full story by Chris Foresman

I'm not breaking up with Windows, but we're seeing other people

I’ve decided to avoid Windows 7, whenever possible, and rely on Mac and Linux to power my primary systems (you may have seen ).

So, a lot of you are probably wondering why I’m stepping away from Windows at this point. From a technological standpoint, Windows 7 isn’t too bad. As I’ve said before, the best thing you can say about Windows 7 is that it does a better job of getting itself out of the way.

My issues with Windows 7 are mostly bigger concerns with Microsoft
• Microsoft still badly overcharges for Windows
• Microsoft should have made Windows 7 a free upgrade for Vista owners
• Windows 7 does very little to innovate on the OS
• Microsoft refuses to change the default installation of Windows for better reliability
• After so many versions, Windows 7 feels like the Weasley’s house in Harry Potter, with stuff bolted on all over the place

Read the full story at techrepublic.com by Jason Hiner