Steel City PC by Master Joe

What is Steel City PC?

The ultimate goal, behind this web site, is to become the all-purpose launching point, for all users of the World Wide Web. The freeware, available in the Downloads section, is meant to keep your PC updated, safe, secure, optimized, and running at maximum performance, while preserving both the hardware, and software, components of your PC, keeping costs down. The Links section is meant to bring the best of the World Wide Web together, in order for users to be able to find what they are looking for quickly, easily, and in the same place. The hope is that a user could make this web site their home page, and use it to navigate to whatever their desired destination might be, without having to worry about unorganized bookmarks, incorrect web addresses, or out-of-date programs running on their computer. I hope this goal will be realized, and will continue providing these services, in order to make users of the Internet more aware of security, while helping them to find solutions to their computer problems, programs to fit their needs, and web sites to fit their interests. Although this web site and materials within are free, you can show your support by donating, via the Donate page. You can also follow me on Twitter and check out my video posts on YouTube.

News

April 28, 2012 - Rotten Apple?

Well, Kaspersky recently released a report that suggests that Apple is 10 years behind Microsoft, in terms of security. This isn't the best news, considering the recent Flashback outbreak. Shortly after Apple released a patch for the virus that infected over 500,000 Macs, a variant of the virus appeared, and the infection numbers began to increase again. Apple's biggest problem? It has basically brainwashed its users into believing that Macs don't get viruses, that this is a Windows-only problem. Now, with no real plan of action, Apple finds itself under attack for the second time in 2012 (the first was a less dangerous malware outbreak a few months back, and Apple sent out a memo to its employees ordering them to neither confirm nor deny that their customers were infected with malware, if one were to bring an infected Mac to the Apple Store). Certainly, there are antivirus programs out there for Macs. But, convincing people that they should have them will be a very difficult challenge. With more Macs showing up in the enterprise, this is a very dangerous thing, as it means, quite simply, that there is an easy entry point on to the network for malicious hackers through unprotected or unpatched Macs.

I received a phishing e-mail a few days ago from a .edu address. The good news? Getting one from a .edu addressed that has, in all probability, been hacked, means that I can contact the institution (in this case, the College of Wooster), and work with them to regain control over the account. Their IT staff was very responsive, and I am appreciative of their attention to this matter, as I am almost certainly only one of many people who received this message. The lesson here? When you receive an e-mail from a .edu or .mil e-mail address, it is very important that you report it. Don't just mark it as Spam, certainly don't respond to it or click on any links you find throughout the message, and do a small part in helping to protect others from scams and phishing attacks. Granted, most of these messages are sent from domains purchased strictly for malicious purposes, and the malicious parties are often located somewhere overseas. But, when they choose to hijack a known e-mail address (rather than just using a domain they purchased or hijacked, or using a generic account through Yahoo or Hotmail or Gail), it offers us a chance to stop them, at least on some small level. Any progress is forward progress, in my opinion.

In about a month and a half, we should see the next test build of Windows 8 from Microsoft. I am looking forward to it, as I have already enjoyed getting som ehands-on time with the currently released Consumer Preview build of the newest operating system from Microsoft, which is due out sometime in the Fall of this year. The Metro UI takes some getting used to, but it actually is much more efficient, and I do feel mor eproductive, once you master the Start screen and the new UI. Of course, the entire OS is not updated, and you will still have the traditional Windows desktop underneath, in order to run legacy Windows applications. ZDNet released some benchmarks this past week, which show that Windows 8 does offer improvements, ranging from slight to significant, in several key areas, over Windows 7. Certainly, it is too early to tell, as one reader pointed out in their comment to that article, as there could be a great deal of debugging code embedded within the current build of Windows 8. While it is difficult to say right now, there is a possibility that we will see even greater improvements to performance, once the final build is released. Only time will tell.

The Oracle v. Google trial is wrapping up, supposedly this coming Monday. The closing arguments are expected on that day, and we should hopefully find out pretty soon what the ruling will be. For those who don't already know, Oracle has filed suit against Google over its unauthorized use of Java code in its Android mobile operating system. Oracle claims that Google willingly infringed upon Oracle's Java code, as it was acknowledged by Google that it knew Android would not receive Java certification. Still, these tech copyright lawsuits take interesting turns sometimes, and I will be interested to see what comes of this one.

Well, that's about all that's going on right now. Want more frequent and up-to-date tech news and other current events? Feel free to Follow Me on Twitter.

--Master Joe