A few weeks ago, I complained about a serious bug in Norton Internet Security and the lack of meaningful technical support from the sub-continent. Shortly thereafter, I received a comment that spoke of Symantec's upgrade program, where I could upgrade to 2008 for free and use the rest of my subscription.

Well, in the interests of fairness, I did so, dutifully removing 2007 and installing 2008. Sure enough, the bug had been fixed---and two more appeared. Meanwhile, my mother calls to tell me that she couldn't get internet service and a local geek traced the problem to Norton 360, which he uninstalled.

My patience is at an end--Norton as been removed for now and all time--the divorce final.

Since I use my laptop rather promiscuously in all sorts of environments, I opted for another suite--this one by Trend Micro and highly rated by Consumer Reports. I installed the trial version without any hitches and noticed that my machine was running a lot faster right off the bat. I will do a full scan tonight and evaluate the software performance over the next couple of weeks before popping for a subscription.

In my experience, it actually takes quite a lot of really bad treatment before long time customers will finally give you the boot. Apparently Symantec really, really wants to be out of the business.

About a month ago, I mentioned that I had removed Symantec's Internet Security Suite from my computer on the basis that its worse than the viruses its supposed to protect from.

I am at the end of one month's trial of Trend Micro's PC illin. My opinion?

Great stuff.

Its a comprehensive security suite, protecting against spyware and viruses. I didn't use the spam protection because in my experience they are pretty useless. The interface is very clean and intuitive--things are where you expect them to be, which was not true of Norton.

Even the default scheduling is very unobtrusive--I only noticed it once when I was up late. The user has a lot of control over the types of scans and when they occur and whether the machine should shutdown afterwards.

I can't really gage how well it actually identifies viruses and spyware, but according to Consumer Reports test, its among the top performers.

The most important thing is that it doesn't slow down my machine, however it does check for updates rather frequently--too frequently for my tastes. The default is every three hours, after which it asks you to restart your computer--not very practical. You can however change it and I did--to a 24 hour update schedule.

The scan speed isn't particularly impressive--for my laptop it takes about 8 hours to do a complete scan, which is about the same as Norton. Big deal--a guy's got to sleep sometimes.

The feature I appreciated the most was a bit of an easter egg--unexpected until it popped up. While traveling, I connected to the hotel wireless system and the application flagged me that I was on a "strange" network and asked if I wanted to disable file sharing.

Nice. Its something that's easy to forget and so the automatic management provides real peace of mind.

I'm also going to try Check Point's Zone Alarm Security Suite, which was also highly recommended, but at this point I would have no trouble recommending PC illin as a solid choice for an Internet Security suite.

On that score--if you're not extremely computer literate, or if you have a laptop that you travel with, a security suite is a must--there are just too many threats and too many ways you can forget to secure your computer to take a chance.

I believe my next laptop is going to be an Apple.

The rollout of the Leopard OS and an unusually frequent number of visits to CompUSA and various Apple showrooms started the ball rolling, but something clicked during my rendezvous with Mark Adam's in Utah's red rock country when he pointed out that his slick little Apple laptop could dual boot Leopard and Windows XP. Subsequent research in Consumer Reports reveals that Apple is tops in quality and support before you ever even consider the aesthetic qualities, power and simplicity of the user interface.

Still--its seems a little strange to being going back to Apple--that's right--going back.

I was one of the original MacIntosh buyers--128K ram and two floppy disk drives. I even paid 2K for a 20 Meg hard drive. I bought Macs through the early nineties until I got a job in the industrial automation industry and was forced to use Windows machines because of the custom software I had to use. From 1994 until now, it was Windows machines. Going back to Apple is like remarrying your first wife...well I imagine its like that (I'm still married to the first one...).

I'll probably wait for the new year's equipment budget, but its a done deal.

Planning on spending 50 bucks for malware protection?

For real protection, however, in view of the flood of new malware, the way these programs cope with new and completely unfamiliar attacks is more important. And that's where almost all of the products performed significantly worse than just a year ago. The typical recognition rates of their heuristics fell from approximately 40-50 per cent in the last test - at the beginning of 2007 - to a pitiful 20-30 per cent. Only NOD32, with 68 per cent, still delivered a good result, while BitDefender, with 41%, could be called satisfactory.

Not good...

Glenn Reynolds can land a jetliner in an emergency, given the right conditions.

I'm with Glenn. I once was confident my Flight Simulator prowess would come in handy during an emergency. Then I invited a career pilot with several thousand hours of multi-engine time to "fly" my computer. He passed, saying he never was good at those things and always wound up crashing the landing.

I've hardly flown the simulation since.

I've been trying different internet security programs for about six months now, after it became clear that my Norton suite was creating significant problems on the computers I had it installed on.

You might want to know that I ended up by ZoneAlarm. It was one of two top candidates that included Trend Micro. ZoneAlarm has a nice, simple interface and a variety of nice features that recognizes when you are in a safe zone (your home or business network) and when you aren't. Yet the real reason I bought it was that it was on sale at the CompUSA closeout sale.

Ultimately, its become apparent to me that quibbling about whether this product or that product is better is besides the point and this seems as good a metaphor for the issue as any I've seen.

"You can't always improve the security of something by doing it better," Tippett said. "If we made seatbelts out of titanium instead of nylon, they'd be a lot stronger. But there's no evidence to suggest that they'd really help improve passenger safety."

The incidence of new virus variants has increased 5 times in 2007 over 2006 and there is no reason to believe that won't continue to happen. This isn't a bunch of computer science geeks anymore either, but well-organized criminal networks benefiting from a statistical approach to breaching computer security.

But if a hacker breaks into the password files of a corporation with 10,000 machines, he only needs to guess one password to penetrate the network, Tippett notes. "In that case, the long passwords might mean that he can only crack 2,000 of the passwords instead of 5,000," he said. "But what did you really gain by implementing them? He only needed one."

Iraq had demonstrated that terrorists are relentlessly imaginative in adjusting their tactics to every new response by coalition and Iraqi troops. For computers, multiply the incidence of such adaptations by millions of times.

The rate of penetration has also grown. Virus-checking software failed to stop some of the newer, untraditional malicious software 30% of the time. New malware is increasingly coming in pieces, essentially compiling itself on our computers to download other pieces one at the time.

Seatbelts don't always save your life either, but its still a good idea to use them, but increasingly its going to be up to users to practice safe-computing.

I've been contemplating the purchase of a new laptop for several months already, but can't bring myself to do it.

Prices are much lower than when I bought the one I used now. They are also faster, with more resources and bigger and better screens (I prefer the "desktop replacements, especially now that I've got a wheeled laptop bag...). So what could possibly be stopping me?

Windows Vista.

Then there’s Mike, who buys a laptop that has a reassuring “Windows Vista Capable” logo affixed. He thinks that he will be able to run Vista in all of its glory, as well as favorite Microsoft programs like Movie Maker. His report: “I personally got burned.” His new laptop — logo or no logo — lacks the necessary graphics chip and can run neither his favorite video-editing software nor anything but a hobbled version of Vista. “I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine,” he says.

It turns out that Mike is clearly not a naïf. He’s Mike Nash, a Microsoft vice president who oversees Windows product management. And Jon, who is dismayed to learn that the drivers he needs don’t exist? That’s Jon A. Shirley, a Microsoft board member and former president and chief operating officer. And Steven, who reports that missing drivers are anything but exceptional, is in a good position to know: he’s Steven Sinofsky, the company’s senior vice president responsible for Windows.

In shopping around, I note that I can only buy machines with Vista Home version, which lacks the security of Pro and makes it unacceptable for my needs. Apparently there is a reason for that--the machines can't handle Vista Pro.

Which brings me to the question of whether I actually need a new laptop if I've got to install XP on it. Why not just keep what I have?

The magnitude of the problem for the computer and software industry is mind-boggling, if my reaction is typical--no machines sold, no operating systems, no upgrades of the dozens of commonly installed programs--billions lost in opportunity cost. Institutions are refusing to upgrade as well. My wife recently spoke with an IT guy at the university and asked when they would be upgrading--not for the foreseeable future.

Today I bought an upgraded processor and more RAM for my existing machine. Better luck next time Bill.

..from London to Jerusalem, Newark, Grand Cayman, New Jersey, Scottish Highlands, Geneva, French Jura, London. Seen Al Aqsa, affectionate stingrays, a nor'-easter at Newark, a blizzard blowing in from Skye, the Forth Rail Bridge at dawn, fine cheese for a pittance. Little has changed meanwhile apart from Spitzer's unzipping. I'm still peeved at the awfulness of all the candidates for President, tho the comic potential is ok. Maybe a Clinton Restoration would inoculate America against nannyism for a few decades. Maybe an Obama Assumption would inoculate America against liberal crushes for a few decades. How about 'Obaminable Snowman' as a sobriquet for this privileged, socialist coke-sniffer? Maybe McCain will pick Romney for VP, then explode from a burst blood vessel and Romney will become President and I will win my bets.

I'm agonizing over which Mac should replace my G5 Mac Pro which works fine (apart from mild fan hum compared to the silence of newer machines), but I lust for novelty and I need an Intel machine to work with the compressed video format of my new videocam (Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder - a miracle for $640). I unpacked an iMac for my mother-in-law recently and it's gorgeous. Form, function, grace, virtually wireless, floats in the air - I think I'm in love. Maybe I'll get a 24" iMac and link it to a 22" screen, tho logic dictates a 15" MacBook Pro so that I just use a single machine wherever I am. That + a large screen is pretty joyful. Mick's struggles wiith Windows may be a professional necessity, but I suggest he get a MacBook to run that baroque software in parallel to OS X so that he can access a modern platform as well.

I'm also impressed with my iPod Touch. It's wi-fiability, synchronicity, sdk and acceptable screen are crucial advances. Apple is taking over. Resistance is futile. Pass the pills.

Bill Gates is stepping down as "Chief Software Architect", completing the phasing out of his role at Microsoft.

He's needed three people to do what he used to by himself. Arguably, he may have needed more people (or smarter ones...). I was never a big Microsoft or Bill Gates fan, identifying more closely with Steve Jobs, but Bill Gates did do one thing that was so important, so ground-breaking that one has to acknowledge him as one of the finest technology business people who have ever lived.

History is replete with successful companies who could not make the transition to the new technological paradigm. The companies who made sailing vessels at the beginning of the 19th century where gone by the end of it, in spite of vast capital and market control. More recently, the market leaders in eight inch disk drives didn't survive the transition to 5-1/4", and those market leaders didn't survive the next transition to 3-1/2".

Gates is one of those rare-very rare individuals to understand how things were going to change and embrace it before it overwhelmed him. I am speaking specifically about the web browser which initially he ignored, then woke up to and then acted to deal with the threat from Netscape. The company hasn't been as aware of their surroundings since.

Newsweek posted these cool photographs of the original Microsoft team, struggling to make and get paid for software for the early microcomputers, and those same individuals now--all of them older, only some of them richer. Most of them eager to change the world and some of them did, but the world keeps going and now its left to others to express their idealism and enthusiasm...or not.