operating system

University of Utah gets hit by conficker worm

Over 700 computers were hit by the most recent release of the conficker worm at the University of Utah. Computers included those at the University’s three hospitals.

The worm was first detected on Thursday on some of the school’s computers. By Friday it had hit the school’s computers at the three hospitals, medical school, and colleges of nursing, pharmacy and health.

University officials don’t believe that any patient data or medical records were compromised. According to officials those are protected “in a deeper way”. That begs the question of what exactly does that mean? Is that the only data that is virus protected? Is it on Linux or Unix?

The IT staff at the school shut off internet access for up to 6 hours Friday in an effort to isolate the worm. The staff worked over the weekend to cleanup the damage caused by the outbreak. Kind of gives real meaning to the saying “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” doesn’t it?

Mindy Tueller of the university’s office of information technology said all faculty and students should take steps to make sure they are protected. The virus does not infect Macs.

Or Linux, Unix or any other OS besides Windows

“It can do a lot of bad things,” Tueller said. “Every university member should be concerned about this if they’re using Windows-based devices.”

Interesting. Ms. Tueller and school officials apparently recognize that the problem is the OS but apparently don’t want to do anything about it. How much does that attitude cost the school?

-j

Does the Operating System really matter?

After reading this article I started asking myself if the Operating System really does matter for most users. I finally reached the conclusion that it does. Here’s why.

For my own vote I asked myself if I would switch from Linux to Windows or Mac. After giving this some thought I decided that I would not switch.

First of all I am a firm believer in voting with my wallet. Now while I might be tempted to buy a Mac no such temptation exists with Windows. Quite simply I just do not like Microsoft as a company. Hence I have no desire to use any of their products let alone the way to expensive Windows operating system. I really, really, don’t like having to purchase the associated software that runs on Windows that I have to purchase to get the operating system to do what I want..

I like having the ability to choose which distribution of Linux and the associated open source applications that I like and downloading them via yum, zypper, Yast or what have you. I have a choice without spending a dime. Free as in freedom to choose and free as in beer. I have a choice to support the software that I use, financially or helping in some way with the project. No such choice exists with either Mac or Windows.

The article points out that most users are only concerned with web browsing, writing and generally getting their work done. From purely a corporate standpoint I agree. However I think most users today expect more out of their computers at home.

I believe multimedia is a big one. Whether it’s creating video, listening to mp3s or editing pictures most people at some point are going to do one at least one of the three.

Another point that I agree with in the article is that Windows 7 is not much more than a face lift. Users are told that it will be better than Vista and so they believe that it will. That belief alone will make it better whether or not it really is. (What administrator among us hasn’t faced this dilemma with users who thought something was “slow” and so it was slow - regardless of whether or not it was?)

The big question is this: If what they say is true that all users want to do is browse the web, write documents and generally get their work done why are they not demanding a lower cost from Microsoft or, better yet, demanding Linux from the hardware vendors or downloading and installing it themselves?

I think the operating system does matter on some level to just about everyone. Sure there are users out there that only use email, browse the web and write documents without giving any more thought to the operating system. I don’t however think that they are in the majority.

-j

Why I like TinyMe Linux

TinyMe Linux is the Operating System of choice if you have an older pc or notebook that you want to use. I have one of those and I have put it to good use with TinyMe.

My wife likes to have a notebook computer in the kitchen. This way she can look at recipes, check mail, check on her Longaberger sales or whatever else she wants to do while cooking. The kids look up the weather before going outside to get on the bus or some other information that they quickly want to know. TinyMe to the rescue!

I read an evaluation of TinyMe in an article long since forgotten. The writer of the article did an excellent job of comparing several of the smaller footprint Linux distributions. After reading through the article and looking at all that TinyMe provided I decided that this was the way to go. I have never looked back.

The notebook computer that I am referring to has a 1Ghz Intel processor, 256Mb of ram and a 30Gb hard drive. I used 1Gb of swap to cover the reduced amount of ram.

The download size is a whopping 200Mb in size so it easily fits on a CD. Even better the default install uses a whopping 792Mb in disk space.

The default applications that ship with TinyMe should satisfy about anyone for general computer use. The Opera web browser is the default along with Abiword word processor, Audacious audio player, TightVNC, Python and Perl. Flash is the only app that I needed to install to meet the requirements of my wife. This is handled quickly and easily with the Synaptic package manager.

Given that the minimum requirements of TinyMe are a Pentium processor and 64Mb of ram TinyMe really flies with my 1Ghz cpu and 256Mb of ram.

If you are wanting to put that old notebook or pc to use you should really give TinyMe a look. You’ll be impressed!

-j