Tag Archives: computing

Securing the Mac 10.4 laptop

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I talked with a guy from the MSU Computer Store this morning about getting Norton AntiVirus or Internet Security for the Mac laptop I’ve been using. His recommendation is to just get AntiVirus 10 for the Mac and change a few settings on the laptop.

Here are his recommendations:

  • Turn off Bluetooth, Discoverable, so that random Bluetooth enabled devices won’t see the laptop.
  • Turn on the systems’s Firewall in System Preferences
  • Install Norton AntiVirus and keep it updated

Just a note, I’ve been using Macs for years, and the last virus I had on a Mac was in 1995 and it was a Word Macro virus. Highly irritating, but it did very little damage.

That said, I’m sure the day will come when a virus will rip through the Mac world and play havoc with all of the unprotected Macs out there.

The ‘puter is dead

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Another Windows computer bites the dust
So, that computer problem I mentioned back on the 22nd…the computer is finished.

I can’t even get an OS to install. Sometimes, it doesn’t even bring up the BIOS.

I figure there is one component or another that is fried, thus messing up the whole system. It isn’t the hard drive. I don’t think it is the RAM. It might be the power supply. It might be the CD-ROM drive. It might be the system board. I do not know. I do not care.

My Mac works, so it isn’t all that urgent.

Okay, now I’m pretty irate.

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I’m not sure what the problem with the Windows system is, but it seems pretty big. I can’t even boot up in Safe Mode. It freezes after listing a bunch of system files. I suspect the hard drive is corrupt.

The problem is, there are files on that drive that I hadn’t yet made copies of on this sytem. Which is to say, those files are now in jeopardy. This is a problem because they represent quite a few hours of work for a client whose project I need to finish before taking on a new job. At least that was the intention.

Oh, drat. Drat. Drat. Why is it always the computers with Microsoft Windows that cause me problems? MS is such a big, easy target. It could very well be a problem with the hard drive itself, having nothing to do with Windows. Really. Now, the trick will be putting in a different hard drive, trying to install Windows on it, and seeing if I can salvage the files from the corrupt drive.

Why am I so dreading installing all the software again? Is it because they will refuse to install because they say they are already installed with that license key? What if I just intall Linux on the other drive and get to the files covertly?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I have the disk images for Red Hat Linux, v9 just stitting in a directory on my Mac. Now I just need a fresh hard drive.