They’ve peaked and can’t figure out where to go. I’m on my last version of Windows. When it is no longer useful it will Linux, not Windows anything that will replace it.

In other news, Microsoft has decided they no longer want the $200/year subscription from me for Technet. I’m not quite sure why they want to turn down my $200/year, given that I am not going to buy any retail bundles, all I used Technet for was a source of licenses for test/evaluation purposes such as for the Windows 8 virtual machine that I tried updating to Windows 8.1, but so it goes. I certainly am not going to *buy* Windows products. I have an OEM license to Windows 7 on my HP laptop, and that’s all I need. Technet was a “want”, not a “need”, something to play with when I was feeling nerdy and wanted to see what the latest greatest Windows software looks like. But I guess Microsoft doesn’t want my money. Maybe they think Technet is why Windows 8 isn’t selling — maybe they think everybody’s using their Technet licenses for Windows 8. Well, maybe so. But we’re using those licenses to eval Windows 8, not to run our systems with Windows 8 — because Windows 8 isn’t ready for production and it appears we’ll need to wait for Windows 9 to have something that *is* ready for production, because Windows 8.1 certainly isn’t either.

Bloody Norton – you uninstall it and then you have to download another piece of software from them to actually finish the job. It was dragging the speed of everything down and using all available resources.

I actually scored my current ESET license when I bought Win7 pro for the new box, it was a 3 machine license, and I had already bought separate licenses for the XP and the laptop, so I switched them over when their individual licenses expired. I use AVG free on the virtual XP just to get M$ off my case. Those are only on the ‘Net for updates, so there was no point in adding them to my ESET license.

I don’t know about most people, Kryten, but I spent a lot of time reading reviews from all over when I decided to dump Norton. I’m a little cautious about accepting the magazine reviews because the mags depend on ad dollars from the products they review.

I hear you, Badtux, that’s why I went with the AVG, I didn’t want ESET to have a fit over the virtual machine. All of the vendors have made hardware failures and upgrades even worse with their installation systems that are dependent on specific hardware being there. If your motherboard dies, you have to put up with grief after you put in the new one, even if it is the same make and model.

I used to swap motherboards and hard drives all the time – not anymore. They have made it a major PITA.

Anyway, there really is no excuse for people not to have a decent AV or system security s/w (including firewall, HIP, WiFi protection, SPAM, browser security etc. For my own personal use here… I am trying to decide between Comodo ISC & Avira IS. One nice thing about Avira IS is that it uses the least amount of system resources (especially RAM, with everything enabled, it uses less than 25MB). One of the things is that I still need to use Win XP, and many have trouble running on XP without crashing or hanging the system (BitDefender is the worst offender for this). Avira is quite happy with XP, W7 or W8, Commodo is also OK also (some minor trouble on XP), and has a decent Sandbox built in (though I use Sandboxie, so it’s not such a big deal). 🙂

And yes Bryan, agree about Kaspersky (at least the PURE 3 edition). And it doesn’t play very nice with XP either.

I have two others to test. Dr.Web Security Space (which I am about to buy on a special for 21 EUR, & VIPRE Internet Security 2013 (from Sunbelt s/w) which I just got a discount offer for about $35/yr.

It’s one of the first *serious* article I want to post on the Test & Review section of my blog. 🙂

MSs Security Essentials was based upon BitDefender, which is why it was so good. It was a cut down version, but the engine was all BD. Sadly, they had to stick with the old engine and it’s been compromised. However, there are 3rd party fixes/addons for that, but I haven’t tried them yet. The exploit didn’t actually compromise the engine itself, but the layer M$ added to check if you were using a legal copy of windoze and validating it online (good ol’ WGA bites again!) Maybe next article… *shrug*;)

M$ can’t do anything without allowing their rampant greed and paranoia screwing it up. 🙂

Too bad Microsoft’s Security Essentials fell apart the past couple of years. For a while it was one of the best antiviruses out there, then apparently the Eastern Europeans figured out how to subvert its engine, so now it’s one of the worst. SIIIiiigh!

When you spend your student years avoiding monitors and blocking to do what you want, and have to ‘borrow’ software because you can’t legally buy it, you get pretty good at low level programming and gaming the system.

After the Soviet Union collapsed I sent a lot of the old software that I had for the IBM PC to a Russian who was in an e-mail group with me. He had to pay customs duty on ‘used diskettes’ and books, but he couldn’t get a newer computer, and the software he could now buy wouldn’t run on his machine. He was thrilled to get it, and I was happy not to have to move it anymore.

They had the engineers, they just didn’t have the precision manufacturing facilities to make chips beyond something like the 80286, or to produced balanced propellers for their submarines, or a lot of other things. They were amazing at making big things, but the small stuff or the really uniform things were really beyond their capacity.

Oh, there are/were a few people in NSA’s crypto lab who could have done it as an exercise. The child of a member of the lab got into trouble for releasing one of his dad’s worms a few years ago. Mathematicians do that sort of thing for their own reasons, possibly to test defenses against them.

Oh, yes, the problem of the skinheads in Israel – young, anti-Semitic Israelis.

“Hoss” and the generals like him, are trying to impress and frighten people like the Revolutionary Guard, who made mass suicide charges during the Iran-Iraq War. They are totally worthless, and lacking in leadership potential.

The simplest answer is that it was a setup. Someone “inside” *wanted* this information to leak, and found a credulous rube to take the blame and arranged for certain other people to look the other way.

But then, I’m probably ascribing too much competence to the current clown college flunkees who run the place. SIIIiiiigh!

Asking me to accept the concepts conceived by a bunch of nomadic sheepherders in a desert environment, isn’t very logical. Then there is the big problem with heaven – do you really want to spend eternity with the people who are convinced they are going? It is a lot of work to keep myself from helping them achieve their ‘goal’ much earlier than was scheduled.

Now let’s look at the Book of Revelation. It had to be a joke. It’s was the last thing that was added, and no one will ever convince me that it wasn’t a clerical prank that got out of hand. It is a description of an LSD trip that went wrong. If you have ever had to deal with someone on a bad trip, and I’ve escorted a few to the psych unit, it is totally familiar. It isn’t a religious revelation, it is ergot poisoning.

Then there is the prosecution of the Old Believers which shows it took less than 6 centuries for all of the hand copied religious books in Russia to be seriously different than the original texts they were supposedly derived from, and many of the ‘mistakes’ had resulted in changes that were obviously political in nature.

If you see any ‘good Christians’ where you end up, Kryten, you’ll know for a fact you are in hell, and your presence is designed to prove to them that they were wrong.

The kids need to get involved in elections, not just by voting, but by running for office. They need to figure out that if they let other people make the decisions, those people are going to waste all of the resources that future generations are going to need to survive.

BTW, roughly 1/3rd of the Israeli population is actually Russian “Jews” (in quotes, because during the declining days of the Soviet Union anybody could bribe the documents registrars to issue fake birth certificates alleging a Yid granny, and the Israelis with their demographic problem didn’t look too closely at said birth documents). Which, given how many of our viruses come out of the Eastern Bloc nowadays, is probably why they’re so good at writing viruses and other security-related software such as the Checkpoint firewall. For some reason surviving a crumbling Communist regime gives you the right mindset for writing (and defending against) computer viruses. Go figure.

Back in the 80’s & 90’s, whenever I had to enter one of the ultra-secure facilities here (DIO, DSD, DSTO), if we had to take in any device of any kind (including pens), it had to be signed in and when we left, it was confiscated & destroyed (each facility had an automated 200ton press & a plasma furnace for the job, they just doped the item down a chute in the security office, and that was the end of that,) then a receipt was issued. If it was requited to take out anything, we had to have the appropriate orders, which also had to be on the security system, and a paper copy had to be in file at the facility (so it all had to be approved before hand). And they verified everything, and everyone was thoroughly searched in & out. Made no difference that I had one of the highest security clearances available. It never bothered me, I was happy about it, it was necessary. Even if the PM had decided to visit, he/she would have gotten the same treatment (though in somewhat more dignified way). 🙂

Oh, and all those facilities were not guarded by any standard Military security team (though our MP’s were pretty good actually), they were specially trained and usually ex-SAS or similar. I know because I got stuck with the job at DSTO for a few Months while recovering from Cambodia. I loved it actually, was easy duty, and the Scientists there were a good bunch (well, apart from their lack of concern for security), the *facility* (which was many acres, it’s where Jindalee was developed amongst other goodies), it even had it’s own Pub, which was big and served almost everything (all the staff at the facility had a strict alcohol allowance though, and it was enforced), the food was great!) D

I was asked (by a youngster) recently, why I reminisce so much… I thought about it and said “Because they truly were the ‘good old days’. The World is going to hell, and I am glad I won’t be here to see it. I feel sorry for you.”) To her credit, the lass thought about it and asked “What can we do about it?” And I smiled and said “You truly don’t want to know.”

From what I’ve seen lately… Looks like the keystone cops are taking over here also.

Glad I’m out of it! Screw ’em all m8!

Tell ya what m8, *IF* there is a God, & some kind of Heaven/Hell deal… I’ll tell God I’ll happily work in hell. I’ll watch as every one of these pious hypocritical SOB’s comes in and help spend the rest of eternity making them as miserable as possible (and I can get plenty creative!) You’ll know who I am… I’ll be the only bastard in Hell laughing for all eternity! I figure Hell will have to be a hell of a lot bigger than Heaven! Won’t be that many going there.