Monday 5 January 2009

Life without walls

Windows: Life without walls.

"Turning off Windows Firewall might make your computer (and your network, if you have one) more vulnerable to damage from hackers and malicious software (such as worms)."

10 comments:

  1. Ummm... was there a point to that warning, or were you just sharing some advice?

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  2. It's irony. Window's motto is life without 'walls', but they also advise you to keep up a fire'wall'.

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  3. Exactly. I was just being flippant. Although I'm a Mac developer (this blog being dedicated to my Mac software), this isn't a Mac/PC thing - I just hate those "Life without walls / I'm a PC" ads. I find them loathsome. The Apple "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads were pompous and arrogant (and more likely to annoy die-hard Windows users than win them over); the Windows response is just embarrassing (particularly cringeworthy is the young rapper who declares, "I'm a PC / just like BG," followed by a dreadful shot of aforesaid "BG" shrugging).



    In other words, in general I think that all of the advertisers who came up with the Mac "I'm a PC / I'm a Mac" campaign and all of those who came up with the Windows response ads should be taken into a room and given a stern talking to.

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  4. It's funny. I turned off Windows Firewall for about fifteen minutes when I was trying to troubleshoot a networking issue with XP on my MacBook Pro.

    A day or two later, I had several fraudulent charges appear on my credit card.

    Coincidence?

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  5. Hi there. I just wanted to tell you that you're the reason I bought a Mac. I've been writing books on a PC for eight long years, but when someone in my local (San Francisco) author's group told me about Scrivener last year (when I was working on book number 4), it was too late to use it for the novel-in-progress, but I decided I had to use it for book number 5. Which I am now writing. On my pretty new aluminum MacBook, with Scrivener, which I adore. Shouldn't Mac be paying you royalties?

    Thanks for a great product!
    Michelle
    www.michellerichmond.com

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  6. Hi Michelle,
    Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad Scrivener lived up to your expectations given that you switched platforms to use it! Hmm, if only Apple would pay me a commission for getting users to switch... Oh well.
    All the best,
    Keith
    P.S. After reading the first page and and synopsis, I just ordered The Year of Fog on Amazon.

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  7. Just written the script for my next comic book during the demo period of scrivener. Don't have to use it for a lot of weeks now I guess. But I buy it today as this is my top app on my mac with Photoshop and Mangastudio.
    Do you plan an international version ? This is not really an issue but you know, when you are writting and thinking in language and then have to think in an another langague just to have some interaction with the software, it's a lot uncomfortable to me.

    A french Comic book creator.

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  8. Just to offer an opposing viewpoint, I think those I'm a Mac, I'm a PC ads are Apple's best ad campaign ever. (excluding that 1984 ad, of course). They're funny little vignettes that illustrate the many frustrations PC users have to contend with while highlighting Macintosh's strengths as an intuitively easy computer "for the rest of us." I didn't really like them at first, but over time I've some to think of them as brilliant. They must be effective too.

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  9. I'm partly in agreement with Geo. The Mac/PC ads have been uneven, and some of the later ones show signs of having been done by a committee. But some of them really did capture the frustrations of Windows users I knew in a witty way.

    One criticism that can be made, I guess, is the uneven development of the "PC" character. Sometimes he's a sympathetic shlimazl who's caught another virus, sometimes he's a shlemiel supposedly representing the shallow values of Microsoft Corp. I think the former approach was more successful with prospective switchers; the latter with diehard Mac users who prefer to see Apple as a lifestyle, not a corporation that aspires to the same kind of dominance MS has enjoyed.

    The "I'm a PC" campaign does seem like a faintly desperate response to the Apple campaign. But the twist of using cute little tykes to demo photo apps is probably about as effective as that approach could be.

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  10. Speaking of computing... sorry to interrupt here but :P Are you the Kayembi of CodeProject.com?
    If so, I noted you managed to cancel a MOVEFILE_DELAY_UNTIL_REBOOT as told here:
    http://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/View.aspx?fid=1647&df=90&mpp=25&noise=3&sort=Position&view=Quick&select=602971&fr=274029#xx602971xx

    If so... would you be kind enough to share the source snippet of this? It would save me some time... Thanks :)

    pierreact@hotmail.com

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