[Tfug] 2 weeks of Hackintosh fun..

[Jim March]

>>I don't think so (obviously).  I see lots of people that manage to
"get by" with their Windows machines -- at least until the next
Windows release, etc.<<

Uhhh...wait.

In my case, I had over 16 years IS support/admin under my belt,
experienced as hell Windows user, and my own lappy got botnetted to
hell and gone.  I had every possible update plus a paid-up Zonealarm
Pro for firewall and anti-vir.  Something got past all that and nuked
me good.  Spent three days chasing it, going nuts, sat back and said
"oh hell no, never again".

Zero Unix-family background, downloaded Ubuntu Dapper, haven't booted
Windows since.  Was it tough?  Yeah.  I knew I was in for something
different right from the get-go, but I stuck with it.  Zero regrets.
Sept. of '06 I achieved freedom.

Now granted, one issue is that I was (and still am) using a cellmodem
as my main Internet connection, which meant no hardware firewall.  I
admit that a good external router would have likely helped - I'm quite
sure something "crawled up the pipe" and got me versus anything I did.

But if *I* couldn't protect that XP box, then I'm purely puzzled as to
how typical newbies manage.  I swear to God, they're just..."prey
species".

I ain't meat for the beasts no more.  I grew me some fangs and armor,
thank you very much...

Jim