Well the first time since I was about 13 a diary entry:-)

Well not really that, hands up who in the UK didn’t manage to keep a diary for 3-4 days after reading the Adrian Mole books?

I suppose Johns comments in another bloggy bit about Firefox and Micro$haft deserve the full attention of a rant(y)(ie) sp? post.

At the moment Micro$erf have a full and dominant monopoly and despite various attempts by the American courts (substitute minor slap on the wrist if you wish) to limit the company little has had any affect. Micro$hit have a reputation for intimidation, Cite1 Cite2 Cite3
However on a few occasions they have got a bloody nose out of it. Cite1 Cite2

As a few people know I’m not the worlds greatest M$ fan and keep my interaction with them to a minimum. So what can we do?

Well, first change your browser, for the first time this month Internet Exploders share of the market dropped below 90%, not alot you may think but consider they had a 97% share at the beginning of the year, use something else! John likes Firefox, I like Opera. There are others that are as good, Enigma, Omni, Avant, Deepnet, Safari etc…

Second change your Mail client from Outflow or Outflow Exxpress to ANYTHING BUT. I use Eudora, Pocomail is good others include, Gemini, Pegasus and Fox.

Why have you done this? Because with 90% using M$ products the smaller markets aren’t victim to the worms, virri, phish and HTML exploits that plague the M$ Products. Of course you still have to be sensible but the chances of acidentally clicking a link and infecting your PC are dramatically reduced.

Third. Change your OS. The only reason I have Windoze on my box here is my ISP won’t support Linux RedHat, or at least don’t supply the interface software for domestic customers

Fourth. Look into Open Office as an alternative to Office 2xxx. Again all the Macro Virri go away. For an example of the differences between Excel and Calc (the open office Spreadsheet) see the animation on my site

There are options out there.

Comments welcome

DaveA