iPad targeted by malware

BitDefender has posted a news story that warns about a new malware scam that targets the new Apple iPad: BitDefender Warns of Malware Targeting iPad Users via iTunes Update. This is unusual, but it is actually nothing new and it is really just a variation of an old scam. It's been used before and this article describes how a message from Twitter can lead to the installation of Malware on Windows PCs. What's new and different about the iPad scam is that the subject of the email prompts you to download and install an update to iTunes in order to update the iPad.

This type of scam will reappear in the future with a different subject, but the aim is always the same - to get you to install malware. The weakest link in any security system is actually people. Always treat any email that tells you to click a link as highly suspicious. In this case, the solution would be to run iTunes on your computer and then use the menu option to check for updates. There's no need to click any links in emails. In fact, by default iTunes checks for updates anyway and prompts you to install them.

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An unbiased opinion is hard to find

I read a couple of interesting articles recently and they are well worth looking at because they highlight a very strange phenomenon. They are examples of the way some people see bias where none exists and the weird way some people interpret events. These things are often found in the constant battle between Microsoft and Apple, but it is not limited to these two companies. This website is concerned with technology, but the way people see bias in things extends to all areas, such as politics, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and so on. Whether you are a Windows, Apple, or Linux fan, you should read these articles with a fresh eye and be on your guard for biased reporting.

There is a great article at Tom's Hardware called Why Apple fans hate technology reporters and it describes how Walt Mossberg reviewed the iMac and praised it. However, he got lots of highly critical emails from Mac fans of all people, asking what he had against Macs. They saw his article as strongly anti-Apple when in fact he loved the machine. Mossberg has even coined a term for the effect. "I call it the Doctrine of Insufficient Adulation."

The article also describes research carried out presenting people with a news story about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how supporters of each side saw bias, but the exact opposite bias in the same story. People neutral to the conflict saw no bias in it. I won't go into further details because you can read the article yourself. It's interesting.

The other example comes from the MacDailyNews website The Microsoft Tax: McAfee correctly identifies Windows as malware; Macintosh unaffected. The site comments on news stories around the web and it saw an article on Yahoo! News titled McAfee antivirus program goes berserk, freezes PCs. This tells how an update to McAfee's anti virus software stopped Windows PCs from working because it  wrongly thought an operating system file was a virus. This was McAfee's fault and it had nothing to do with Windows or Microsoft, yet MacDailyNews said "MacDailyNews Take: If vehicle-makers sold products as unreliable as Microsoft, they'd be sued into oblivion. Yet, with Microsoft products, total failure in critical situations is not only immediately absolved, it's expected." Why blame Microsoft? It wasn't a Microsoft product that caused the problem.

McAfee doesn't have any Mac anti virus products, but Symantec does. Suppose an update for Norton AntiVirus stopped OS X from starting because it misidentified an operating system component. Would MacDailyNews criticise Apple or creating such a shoddy OS? I think not.

Of course, Apple fanatics love this Microsoft and Windows bashing. It's not limited to Microsoft though and it extends to all non-Apple products. As someone who tries to be unbiased, it is very irritating seeing so much biased opinion on the web. I have a Windows PC, Mac, Linux PC, iPod Touch, Blackberry and more, so hopefully I can see things from all angles. Be on your guard for biased opinions.

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What's wrong with Linux?

Windows has more than 90% of the market, OS X has around 6%, and Linux has around 2%. Why is this? Of course, there are numerous reasons, but here's one: Linux just isn't designed for ordinary folk. Well, not so much Linux, but Linux developers write software for Linux developers. Linux users expect everyone to be an expert. As an example, I went to the Flock website recently to get the Flock web browser. It shows everything that's wrong with Linux and why more people don't use it.

Windows installation:
1. Download it.
2. Double click it.

Apple Mac installation:
1. Download it.
2. Double click it.
3. Drag the app to the Applications folder.

Linux installation:
1. Download it.
2. Go back to the website and search the online support for help on installing it. Eventually you'll find an entry in the FAQ that tells you what to do next. Here's what it says, (notice how it starts with "Installing Flock is relatively easy," clearly having no idea what the word 'easy' means):

Installing Flock on Linux is relatively easy. First, download the latest version of Flock and save it to your home folder. Open up a terminal window (not as root) and enter the following:

tar -C /home/yourusername -xzvf flock-*.linux-i686.tar.gz

Make sure you change the actual filename to match the version you have downloaded. This command extracts the contents of the package to your home folder. Now that you have done that, we need a desktop entry:

gedit /home/yourusername/Flock.desktop

You can use your preferred text editor, gedit is being used simply for example. Enter the following in to the new file:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=2.5
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Flock
Comment=Flock Web Browser
Exec="/home/yourusername/flock/flock-browser"
GenericName=Flock Web Browser
Icon=/home/yourusername/flock/icons/mozicon128.png
Path=$HOME/flock
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=
Categories=Network;Application;
GenericName[en_US]=Flock Web Browser

This creates a desktop shortcut to run Flock in your home folder. Feel free to drag it on to your panel or desktop to make it more convenient to access. There you go! You're all set to start using Flock!

This 'easy' Linux installation is only easy for Linux developers and experts. It's really irritating that it's so complicated and it's beyond most people's capabilities and understanding. It's not surprising that Linux only has a 1 or 2% market share when installing software is this difficult. It doesn't have to be this hard and it's worth comparing the installation instructions above to Google Chrome web browser: 1. Download the file. That's it. There isn't even a step 2 because it automatically installs. That's exactly how software should work and Linux won't take off until Linux developers make it easier to install and run their software.

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Why you should buy an iPad or tablet

There is an old saying that you should not buy version 1 of anything. Products are rarely perfect when they are first launched and it often takes several generations of improvements before they become really good and worth having. The original product, whether it is hardware or software, computer related or otherwise, often has flaws or limitations and the people that buy these early versions are really just acting as guinea pigs. They try the product in real world situations, discover the problems, and help manufacturers to iron out the bugs. Subsequent versions are much improved. So with the Apple iPad, HP Slate and other tablet computers about to be launched, should you buy one, given that they are version 1? Yes and here's why.

I didn't like the original iPod and I didn't buy one. However, by the time it had reached version 3, it was a great music player and it had all the features and functions I desired in an MP3 player. I went out and bought one. The iPhone didn't look that impressive on launch day, but after some useful hardware improvements, such as a faster processor and better camera, and app developers had written a huge number of great apps, the 3GS is now a fantastic mobile phone/pocket computer/gaming device.

The thing is, what would have happened if no-one bought the original iPod or iPhone, or version 1 of any other hardware or software product? With poor sales, the manufacturer might have concluded that there wasn't a market for it and they might have abandoned development. Those enthusiastic early adopters who buy brand new products as soon as they come out provide the encouragement that companies need to go on to develop their not-quite-perfect products into great ones that everyone can enjoy.

The Apple iPad, HP Slate, and other tablet devices that are coming out this year are not perfect and they have lots flaws. However, buying them will encourage the manufacturers to improve their products and create even better ones. This version of the iPad isn't going to revolutionise the world as some people are predicting because it has too many limitations, but future versions just might and all the company needs is a bit of encouragement to improve it.

Of course, this presents a dilemma. Should you buy a product that's not perfect or wait until it is perfected? That's a tough decision.

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Will you buy a tablet/iPad or a laptop?

I was reading this Wired article about tablet computers and the future of computing and it got me thinking. It's an interesting article in which 13 technology experts give their thoughts about the tablet computer. It's not specifically about the Apple iPad, but it includes the iPad because that's a tablet computer and it'll probably be one of the market leaders.

The article tries to predict what we'll all be doing in a few years time and it talks about how tablets will replace laptops, gaming consoles and other devices and will become the main way in which we consume media and interact with computers. You should take everything with a hefty dose of salt because the future often unfolds in unpredictable ways. Go back 10, 20 or 30 years and look at people's predictions of the future and invariably they have turned out to be wrong.

Maybe we'll all be using tablet computers, but maybe we won't. Will the iPad dominate the market? Perhaps, but it's not a certainty and there are going to be lots of competitors. The HP Slate looks good and the YouTube video demo is impressive, mainly because of Flash, which the iPad doesn't support. That's just one competitor and there are many more.

Companies like Apple with its iPad and perhaps the other tablet makers too, want us all to buy tablet computers in addition to the devices we already have. However, instead of creating a new market, the tablet will probably split existing markets. You won't buy a tablet computer like an iPad or HP Slate as well as everything else you have, but instead of something you already own. For example, some people will decide that they don't need a laptop and instead a tablet does everything they need in a smaller, lighter, more portable package. Some people might decide that they don't need a smartphone and instead they can buy a cheap mobile that does calls and text and use a tablet for email, web, games, video and so on. Some people will decide that they don't need a top of the range music player and they'll get a tablet for web, video, games, and mail, and carry a small, simple and cheap MP3 player when they need to travel light.

In the future then, I don't think we'll have any more devices than we have now, but we might have a different mixture of devices. A tablet instead of a laptop, a simple phone and tablet instead of a smartphone, a basic MP3 player plus tablet, and so on.

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OS X's interface needs changing

One of the features of OS X on Apple computers is that the menu for an application is always displayed at the top of the screen. The menu bar is one of the unique features of OS X and no matter what application you run, the menu appears in the top left corner. It's time for a change.

The Windows and Linux way of displaying an application's menu is to place it at the top of the application's window. It makes much more sense. Now you might say that I'm just a Windows user and not used to the ways of the Mac, but I use Macs a lot and this is being typed into a Mac right now.

The problem with Apple's way of doing things is that the size of the computer screen has grown over the years. Having the menu in the top left corner works when the screen is small, as they have been in the past with previous Macs. It also works well if you have a MacBook and with a 13in or 15in screen the application and the menu are never very far apart.

But what about the 27in iMac? You can have an application in the bottom right corner of the screen and the menu for it is in the top left corner. That can be literally two feet away, or over half a metre in metric terms! When you can measure the distance between an application and its menus in feet, the time has come for a change. How big will the next iMac be, 32in, 36in? Who knows? The situation is just going to get worse, so come on Apple, it's time you ditched the menu bar.

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What do headlines really mean?

Here's a headline I read today, "February Mac sales up 43%." It sounds fantastic doesn't it? It sounds like Apple is doing really well and is taking over the world with more and more people switching from Windows PCs to MacBooks and iMacs. Here's another headline from today's news, "40% of Blackberry users willing to trade in for an iPhone." Another brilliant result for Apple and a kick in the teeth for Blackberry. However, what do these headlines really mean? Actually, they mean very little unless you dig really deeply into the background.

Take the first headline for example. Sales are up 43%. Unless you know how many sales have been made and what the total size of the market is, the headline means nothing. If I set up a computer store and sell two computers this year and three next year, the sales growth will be 50%. I could claim to have one of the fastest, perhaps the fastest, growing computer businesses in the market. But three sales against the million that are sold each year is nothing.

That's a silly example, of course, but consider this, company X selling 10 million computers a year would have to sell another 1 million to achieve 10% growth, but company Y selling 2 million a year would only have to sell another 200,000. When you're a small company it is easier to achieve big percentage sales growth. If company X sold another 500,000 their sales growth would be the less unimpressive sounding 5%. It would actually have sold more computers and increased sales by a bigger volume, but the 5% sales growth sounds poorer than the 10% achieved by the smaller company. Of course, 10% growth is brilliant for the company, but in terms of the size of the market, it may not be so impressive.

Let's look at the second headline, "40% of Blackberry users willing to trade in for an iPhone." Now suppose the headline said "40% of Ford owners willing to trade in for a Ferrari." I have no doubt they would, but what car will they actually buy next time around? Yes, another Ford. They might desire a Ferrari, but they need something cheaper and more practical, so they get a Ford. I bought a new computer at Christmas. I would have loved to have traded it in for a Mac, but instead I got a Windows PC. A desire to own something doesn't always translate into a sale. And the results of polls and surveys can be skewed by the questions being asked too.

The point I'm making here is that you should always think carefully when you read headlines, see statistics, sales figures, results of surveys and so on. They don't always mean what you think they mean.

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