Friday, September 29, 2006
Computer Security
Much is being made today about Symantec's claims that Microsoft is not treating security vendors fairly by not releasing new Vista APIs so that the vendors can make their products work with Vista. Mary Jo Foley says that Symantec may be right, but then again, they may be throwing a temper tantrum about nothing.
Personally I won't install Vista as my primary OS until Symantec has a version that will work with the OS. Here's why...
My subscription to Norton Anti-Virus expired a couple of months ago and I took advantage of that to try out Microsoft's One Care offering as well as AVG. Here are the results:
OneCare -- I like the fact that it would automatically do a backup. You can turn off that feature. What you can't turn off is the automatic defrag. I scheduled One Care to do a weekly scan at 1:00 AM on Tuesday. It would first do the defrag, then the scan. Problem is, when I got up at 6:00 AM, the process was never finished. I should be able to schedule these items to run at different times...and turn off all of them if I wanted.
However, the biggest problem was an interaction between OneCare, Outlook, and Windows screen saver. If I left Outlook running (which I do all the time), whenever the screen saver would kick in, OneCare would cause the second core of the CPU to kick in at near 100% usage, causing the CPU fan to start up at a high speed and with LOTS of noise. I found this unacceptable and decided to go with another solution. That was AVG.
AVG -- I downloaded and installed the free version of AVG. The scan was fast. It didn't find anything, but I suspect there was nothing to find. However, there was one VERY nasty side effect. I've been running with Outlook 2007 since the first beta came out. When Outlook would download my emails from the server, AVG would inspect them for embedded viruses. One problem...AVG would also remove the body of every email, so all I would get was who sent it, when, and the subject. I quickly removed it.
What did I do? I drove down to CompUSA and purchased Norton AntiVirus 2007. My son works there and he got me a discount, bringing the price down to $29.95. There was also a $30 rebate included, so I got Norton essentially for free. I only paid tax. The weekly scan completed as expected on Monday night and thus far, no problems to report.
Why didn't I try other products? Several years ago, I downloaded and installed McAfee on my Windows 2000 server, based on their web site stating that it worked with Windows 2000 (note it didn't specify between Professional and Server). When it didn't work, Technical non-support told me it wouldn't run on Server. I had to jump through hoops to get my money back. Because of this, I will never install another McAfee product.
Trend Micro gets pretty good reviews, but I couldn't find a free demo version. CA has a product, but it's CA. So, it was Norton, and thus my decision on Windows Vista.
Personally I won't install Vista as my primary OS until Symantec has a version that will work with the OS. Here's why...
My subscription to Norton Anti-Virus expired a couple of months ago and I took advantage of that to try out Microsoft's One Care offering as well as AVG. Here are the results:
OneCare -- I like the fact that it would automatically do a backup. You can turn off that feature. What you can't turn off is the automatic defrag. I scheduled One Care to do a weekly scan at 1:00 AM on Tuesday. It would first do the defrag, then the scan. Problem is, when I got up at 6:00 AM, the process was never finished. I should be able to schedule these items to run at different times...and turn off all of them if I wanted.
However, the biggest problem was an interaction between OneCare, Outlook, and Windows screen saver. If I left Outlook running (which I do all the time), whenever the screen saver would kick in, OneCare would cause the second core of the CPU to kick in at near 100% usage, causing the CPU fan to start up at a high speed and with LOTS of noise. I found this unacceptable and decided to go with another solution. That was AVG.
AVG -- I downloaded and installed the free version of AVG. The scan was fast. It didn't find anything, but I suspect there was nothing to find. However, there was one VERY nasty side effect. I've been running with Outlook 2007 since the first beta came out. When Outlook would download my emails from the server, AVG would inspect them for embedded viruses. One problem...AVG would also remove the body of every email, so all I would get was who sent it, when, and the subject. I quickly removed it.
What did I do? I drove down to CompUSA and purchased Norton AntiVirus 2007. My son works there and he got me a discount, bringing the price down to $29.95. There was also a $30 rebate included, so I got Norton essentially for free. I only paid tax. The weekly scan completed as expected on Monday night and thus far, no problems to report.
Why didn't I try other products? Several years ago, I downloaded and installed McAfee on my Windows 2000 server, based on their web site stating that it worked with Windows 2000 (note it didn't specify between Professional and Server). When it didn't work, Technical non-support told me it wouldn't run on Server. I had to jump through hoops to get my money back. Because of this, I will never install another McAfee product.
Trend Micro gets pretty good reviews, but I couldn't find a free demo version. CA has a product, but it's CA. So, it was Norton, and thus my decision on Windows Vista.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Advisor DevCon Over
The Advisor VFP DevCon in Phoenix is now done. I was not able to attend. The past two years I crashed the conference in Las Vegas (Six hour drive and stay with a friend). Sounds like there were some great sessions. Rick Schummer blogged about the conference.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Wrap Up
Thanks, Rick. See you next month at Southwest Fox.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Wrap Up
Thanks, Rick. See you next month at Southwest Fox.
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