Hi all, I've been lucky, but very annoyed. My ISP filters out virus infected and junk messages. BUT, wouldn't you think a company like Microsoft could do better than play catch-up in providing "patches" to the vulnerabilities in their software. Maybe it's time to go "off-line" with my Microsoft OS and use it for the things it does well, and purchase a Mac with OS X for internet use.
Well, if OS X became hugely popular, the virus writers would find exploits. Sure, Windows and the Microsoft browser/mail clients have been spotty with respect to security issues, but there's been a patch available for
*2 years* that effectively emasculates Swen. Swen still depends on people doing a foolish thing and running an attached exe file without questioning it. The same kind of exploit can be found for all OSes, since it's effectively a social-engineering trick.
I've been a happy Netscape/Mozilla user for, oh,
8 years, and I've never had a problem with virus exploits. By being a little less integrated with the OS, the Mozilla family of browsers and mail clients have been considerably less prone to exploit.
The junk mail filter in Mozilla 1.4/Netscape 7.1 is very capable, amazingly so, actually. It didn't take much training before 98% of the Swen messages were automatically shunted into my Junk folder. Once a day, I review the folder to make sure nothing important was caught and delete it all.
So, I've been able to make Windows OK by avoiding the botchy Outlook mail client. I've even been able to make it not very annoying at all by using a more clever mail agent.
Hey! It's peak winery-visiting weather. Anyone coming to Napa Valley soon?
Nope, but that was unusually warm. September-October is the best two months to come to visit in general, and it's cooled off to golden warm afternoons (80ish today) and chilly foggy mornings (55 right now).
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