Virus Scanning

Office 93 does not help virus scanners to efficiently look for viruses in the millions of files you make. The virus makers want an XML tag that tells them where the macros are.

I think this is really silly. If you can use XML to embed a macro inside an object, that makes alot of sense. Just then add to the bundle a checksum that makes sure that before any code is executed, you know the content is right. Don't make people scan, innoculate your file structures and prevent infection. Microsoft should know better. One is starting to believe that these inbuilt bugs and scanning of your files is a deliberate scam that gives someone absolute spying rights on your documents.

Another Windows Security Flaw

Ok, this one sounds pretty nasty.

So Windows users - updates are available on the internet (Microsoft makes it relatively easy).

Linux users - err... just be careful with security. Ok?

Usability

You could perhaps be forgiven for thinking that an old toy that has been around for a while could outperform a new toy which has been redesigned several times.

The new toy is more fun, but when it breaks, it stops the world. Its creators did not trust reality with an anomonly because the innerds were complexly linked by many thousands of developers under the intellectual fist of a genius.

The old toy has a workhorse mentality. It doesn't do much other than it was made to, but on the modern surfaces it gets to strut its stuff, and its modular approach means that other new simple working proven parts can be bolted on and extend its meaning. Now we have a hundred toys all happily doing a little each and talking to each other, a community of toys.

The inventor of the new toy was asked to comment on the layrnthine conglomeration forming at his feet.

It looks dangerous, sort of festering and quite frankly creepy. That was his reaction. His sleek shiney new toy had ten times as many parts, but we could not see it as it was in the garage. Unfortunately one of its components failed, and that was it. It crashed in a crumpled heap and now caused thousands of engineers to scratch their skulls and wonder how to patch it back up for Friday's toy race.

Rebuilding the entire toy took a while but these feverish enginners worked for one of the foremost genius' of the world and he was a tough master. He spoke to his crew first thing in the morning with orange juice. His pep talk went like this, your fans will be watching you guys, got to get it to look good for Friday. They burned so much oil at midnight, that on the day, they, being the absolute shiney little heroes that they were, had their new toy bright and shiney and rearing to go, while the old toy clanked in. hardly recognisable on a brand new pair of legs designed by a friend that he had dropped in with: here, he said, these should win you the race today. We liked him and trusted his casual style, and they bolted on easily and worked well, if a little on the noisey side.

The new toy was very dominant all through the race, but the old toy was able to get up more speed, it did not do so well on the curves. But right on the final lap, the new toy did a pit stop. The head engineer checked a valve, a standard procedure, and the new toy turned itself off. It took the engineers a full 10 minutes to get it started again, and when all its complex arithmethic was functional, it lumbered over the finish line. The old had just finished and was a little puffed.

Nicholas Alexander

MS Office on the Linux desktop (look ma, no Windows)

If your career depends on getting MS Office onto your Linux network you now can. Or you can use Sun's free Office productivity tools. Either way, believe it or not, Linux can be used for real work.

Techheads and Nerds beware. Once they start using Linux, they will not want to use Windows. They will start asking "how do I do this?" and realize that they have a real computer operating system that can do real work as well as a platform for writing letters, programming specs and licence agreements.

sendmail exploit

As if it were news. So many sendmail exploits have been discovered and patched over the years that in the Linux world, sendmail is known as a security risk at the best of times. But without it the internet would be pretty useless.

Whatever one does to ensure the ISP has up to date sendmails one should do. We will check our hosting and ensure that sendmail is up to date.

The world's email being at risk is a matter of grave urgency. Whether it be a Microsoft error or any other programmer who wrote the hole where the worms get in.