Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon

Try a cost to PC users of $7.8 Billion!!! Wow! How much have YOU spent on getting your computer repaired or re-installed you software? If you are a geek, how time did you spend? (Time is money!)

Viruses and Spyware Cost Users $7.8 Billion

“Consumers paid as much $7.8 billion over two years to repair or replace computers that got infected with viruses and spyware, a Consumer Reports survey found. That figure was down from a similar survey a year ago. Still, it suggests that people are paying large sums to cope with the flood of malicious viruses and other programs that can slow computers or render them inoperable. ‘There is a very high national cost to this,’ said Jeff Fox, technology editor of the consumer magazine. ‘People think they’re invincible, even when this kind of money is involved.’ In a nationwide survey, the magazine found that unwanted commercial e-mail, known as spam, is the biggest computer-security problem. But viruses are the most expensive, with people paying $5.2 billion in 2004 and 2005 to repair or replace afflicted machines, the survey found. Infections of spyware, a type of software that can track computer users’ habits or collect sensitive information about them, declined slightly in the past six months, the survey found. But such infections caused almost 1 million U.S. households to replace their computers, the survey found.”

I have run Linux on desktops, servers, and laptops… but I am a geek (and a proud one, as well!) But, would I “turn a noob loose” on a Linux system? Well, I must admit, I have hesitated to do that. One, because I didn’t want to be “Mr. Support” having to talk them through EVERY SINGLE THING that they wanted to do, and two, because I wasn’t sure they could handle the differences between Linux and Windows. But, recently, I actually installed Linux on a customer desktop… at the customer’s request! Why? Because he was tired of getting viruses, spyware, and having his machine crash! I gave him the usual warnings that Windows apps wouldn’t run, that he couldn’t go into a CompUSA and buy a program, but that he COULD download any Open Source program with one simple click from “Click-N-Run”… yes, it was Freespire Linux!

You know what he said? “As long as I can surf the web (with Firefox), read my e-mail (with Thunderbird), and listen to my MP3 files (with Mplayer, or Lsongs), then I will be happy… I have another system that my kids can play their Windows games on! I want to have a safe, clean web surfing machine!” Dewd. Who would have thought? Folks are beginning to “get it!”

The state of the 2006 Linux desktop

“What I found more interesting, though, was a sea-change in how people saw the Linux desktop. It wasn’t just that there were far more people that were using Linux desktops, it was that they didn’t see it as a statement of their loyalty to Linux over Windows. They were using it simply because it worked. You could especially see this with people giving Freespire a try. Linspire made it almost impossible to be at LinuxWorld without getting a copy of its Linux. Many people decided to give it a try in its live CD mode. They were, in a word, impressed. What impressed them was the same thing that has made Freespire controversial in open-source purist circles: its incorporation of proprietary drivers and codices. With Freespire, they could just use their laptops’ WiFi capabilities without worrying about it. With Freespire, they could view QuickTime or Windows media files or streams without additional software. Yes, of course, any Linux expert can add in those capacities, but with Freespire, you don’t even need to know Linux, much less be a Linux guru, to get your laptop to just work the way a Windows user would expect it to work.”

This flash movie shows how the new KDE “Kickoff” menu and taskbar will work in future versions of KDE.

KDE “Kickoff” Preview

“As previously blogged, openSUSE 10.2 will have a redesigned KDE start menu created by the KDE and usability team at SUSE, after doing usability testing with other start menus. We now have a working prototype, code-named ‘Kickoff’ (started during world soccer championship, obviously), which is currently being tested with real users in the SUSE usability lab.”

This looks really cool!

You’ve got to be kidding!!! Yet, in a perverse way, this would make some sense! Obviously, if true, it would mean that Microsoft is REALLY feeling the heat of upcoming Linux desktop systems like SuSE 10, Freespire, and Ubuntu. I can remember, many years ago, when Microsoft released an Office for the Apple Mac… and it slowed Mac sales… why? Because it slowed innovation in that arena, and gelled the Micorosoft dominance of the Office word processor, spreadsheet, etc. space.

Microsoft Office for Linux ‘inevitable’

“Microsoft within the ‘next couple of years’ will release a version of its Office productivity to run on Linux, Stuart Cohen, chief executive for the Open Source Development Labs, predicted in an interview with vnunet.com at the Linuxworld conference in San Francicso. ‘They did it once with Apple, they will do it again with Linux,’ Cohen said. The OSDL consortium aims to advance Linux and open source. The organization employs Linux founder Linus Torvalds and is funded by IT vendors including IBM, HP and Intel.The software developer will be compelled to create a Linux version in a move to preempt the further rise of the open source OpenOffice productivity suite, Cohen argued. ‘They’ll go fight the total cost of ownership with a very inexpensive office solution. I don’t think that they will open source Office , but they will make it available to run on Linux desktops.'”

That’s what a new report on “The State of Spyware” by Webroot indicates. Social Networking sites like “MySpace” are hotbeds for spyware infection “opportunities.”

Spyware Growing Arsenal

“Spyware’s threat is getting nastier. Infection rates are on the rise, in part thanks to the surging popularity of social-networking sites like MySpace.com. That’s the assessment of Webroot, a leading vendor of anti-spyware software, which released the latest quarterly update of its State of Spyware report. In order to keep its software up-to-date against the latest threats, the Colorado-based company constantly tracks the creation of new spyware—the programs that become embedded in computers and track users’ Web-surfing habits and generate annoying pop-up ads… To date, Webroot’s researchers have identified some 527,000 malicious Web sites, an increase of 100,000 from a year earlier. Overall, Molls says, 89% of consumer PCs are infected with some kind of spyware, a rate not seen in a year. And, on average, home computers contain 30 individual spyware programs.”

So… what would happen if the Enterprise ran off of Microsoft Windows? Data finds out! A nasty BSOD “Blue Screen of Death!” (Look closely at the reflection in the console!) Cute! Ya should’ve used Linux, guys! (Gee, Data, turn off the emotion chip, willya?!)

OK… these are kinda old (I can tell because DEC is in the list… among other things… but for you older geeks… check it out!)

PCMCIA => People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN => It Still Does Nothing
APPLE => Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
IBM => I Blame Microsoft
DEC => Do Expect Cuts
CA => Constant Acquisitions
CD-ROM => Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months
OS/2 => Obsolete Soon, Too.
SCSI => System Can’t See It
DOS => Defunct Operating System
BASIC => Bill’s Attempt to Seize Industry Control
WWW => World Wide Wait

Anybody got a newer list? Share and enjoy!