ICE Computer

Until recently, most MAC users were confident that their computers could not get viruses.  Most users don’t have any virus protection on their systems, because of the perceived view that “MAC’s can’t get viruses”.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  While the MAC OSX is impervious to Windows based viruses, it can become infected with 3rd party software viruses that infect Java, Adobe Flash, etc.  MAC users tend to not do their system updates on a timely basis, just like some Windows users.  I wrote about this problem in a previous post, which you can read here.

Last week, the Washington Post acknowledged that a major MAC virus was on the loose and took advantage of a JAVA vulnerability.    The F-Secure website published a set of instructions that required the user to type commands in “terminal”, something that most users are NOT comfortable doing.  Within a few days, the Mashable Tech website had published a zip file with 2 automated scripts that detected the infection.  I downloaded the file, and ran it on my MAC laptop, and was pleasantly surprised to find that my computer was not infected.  It seems that the virus likes to infect Safari, (the MAC web browser), so anyone that uses it should check your system immediately.

After checking my system, I downloaded Sophos Antivirus for MAC, and ran it on my laptop to make sure that I hadn’t picked up a Windows virus in my email.  (I use my Macbook to send and receive all my email).  I did a full scan of my hard drive, just to make sure that my laptop was clean, (it was).

This has just re-affirmed my reasoning that if you don’t do updates to your system on a regular basis, you are just asking for trouble!

Last month, on a visit to the Houston VA hospital, Carolyn and I went by the Apple store at the Memorial City Mall.  I needed to have the power adaptor cord for my 2009 Macbook laptop replaced, as it was frayed.  It was to be replaced under a class action suit against Apple.  We did not realize that you could make an appointment at the Genius Bar before we went to the store.  We had to wait about 10 minutes before we could see the tech, so we walked around the store and looked at other Apple products.  The store was extremely crowed, with a lot of folks getting questions obviously answered about products they had gotten for Christmas.

When our time came, the tech looked at the power cord, went and got a new power adaptor and cord, and the exchange was done.  The entire process took less than 15 minutes total.  This was our first experience with an Apple retail store, and we both came away thinking that these folks know what they are talking about.  If you’ve never been to an Apple retail store, drop by one and take a look.

A few months ago, (before the Thailand floods and hard drives prices went through the roof), I purchased a new 500GB 7200RPM 2.5″ SATA hard drive to replace the 250GB hard drive in my 2009 all aluminum 13.3″ Macbook.  Changing the hard drive was a preventive measure, a job of changing it now, rather than AFTER a hard drive crash.

Before changing out the hard drive, I did some research on the web about “cloning” my old hard drive onto the new one.  After a lot of research, I settled on “Carbon Copy Cloner“, a free, shareware program written by Mike Bombich.  I found this program much easier to use than Apples’ Time Machine, and was able to do exactly what I wanted to do, make an exact clone of the 250GB hard drive.  I used an external USB 2.5″ SATA hard drive case that I already had, placed the 500GB drive in it, and “cloned” the 250GB hard drive to the new 500GB hard drive.  After cloning, I installed the 500GB hard drive into the Macbook.  All in all, a fairly easy job, removing a few small screws, installing the drive, putting the screws back in, and I was done!  The swap out process took no more than 10 minutes.

My old 250GB had OSX 10.5 on it, and I had bought an upgrade ($19) to OSX 10.6, but I decided not to “upgrade” before the drive swap.  I also did not “upgrade” to OSX 10.7 Lion, after installing the new 500GB hard drive.  After getting everything the way I wanted on the new 500GB hard drive, I cloned it back to the 250GB so that I would have a “backup” in case the new drive failed.

Since the hard drive swap, I’ve used the cloner to perform incremental backup’s without a hitch.  If you have a Mac, do yourself a favor and check out Mike Bombich’s Carbon Copy Cloner.  And Mike, my $15 donation to your project is in the mail.

As most of you know, I’ve been a big fan of Vipre Antivirus from Sunbelt Software for about 4 years now.  However, they were bought out by a big corporation about a year and a half ago.  Since then, the quality of their product has taken a nose dive, so this year when it came time to renew my subscription, I decided to move to Kaspersky’s Internet Security 2012 package.  I have been using this at work, and we use Kaspersky’s AV on all our managed workstations and their Security Center software on all our Windows servers.

I can’t tell you how many computers that I fix every year that have Norton, McAfee, AVG, Avast, Vipre, or some other brand of either paid or “free” AV software.  I have yet to repair a computer with up-to-date Kaspersky software loaded and activated on it.

If you follow the link listed in this article, you will be able to purchase a 3 user license version of Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 for only $19.99.  That’s $60 off the regular retail price, and actually cheaper than just the AV product.  I don’t know how long this price will be available, but even if you still have some time left on your AV product, buy this to replace it with when the time comes.

Like most AV and IS products, there is a large download to do AFTER you install it to get the product up-to-date.  But once it is installed, you can just “set it and forget it”, because it works like a champ!

Do yourself a favor and take advantage of this special pricing right now!

Over the last month, all the tech news has been dominated by the passing of Apple Computers’ co-founder Steve Jobs.  Most folks can agree that Jobs changed the way computers  interfaced with people, and vice versa.

Dennis Ritchie, (aka DMR), passed away on October 12th, and the world barely noticed.  Most folks don’t even know who DMR was, or what he did to revolutionize computer programming.  Without DMR, there would have been no personal computers, MAC OSX, Windows OS, Linux OS, and a host of other OS’s and programs.

Steve Jobs may have changed personal computers for all of us, but he was standing on DMR’s shoulders when he did it!

I personally owe DMR a huge note of gratitude, as I made a living for a while as a “C” programmer.

Read more about DMR at Dr. Dobbs.

RIP DMR