Myth

Is Microsoft Windows Security a Myth? — This is Sushruta’s submission for the HP Magic Giveaway. Feel free to leave comments for this article as you see fit - your feedback is certainly welcomed! If you’d like to submit your own how-to, what-is, or top-five list, you can send it to me. Views and opinions of this writer are not necessarily my own: Any Linux geek would tell you Linux thrashes Windows in more ways than one. But does it? And why? What makes a system better than another? At this stage, are they even different at all? If there were no Windows vs. Linux battles, the... [Tags: contentious issue, critical programs, geek life, havoc, humble servant]

Behind the infamous 'Twinkie' defense — In a recent Los Angeles Times Op-Ed piece about San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, Josh Getlin perpetuated a myth when he wrote that Dan White "shot the mayor four times, twice in the head as he lay on the floor of his private back office. Standing astride the body, he reloaded his .38-caliber revolver and then raced down a long hallway toward the supervisors chambers. There he demanded to meet with [Harvey] Milk..." In 1979, I covered White's trial for the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Prosecutor Tom Norman told the jury that White had reloaded his gun in the mayor's... [Tags: caliber revolver, chambers, confession, double murder, ed piece]

Puppy's Picks - SES Coverage 12/03/08 — by Jennifer Laycock I scan hundreds of feeds and read dozens of articles each day so you don't have to. From an influx of new search marketing business to a comprehensive guide to non-profit search marketing, find out which articles I dubbed as must-read for the small business crowd today. I got a chuckle out of Mike Moran's post over at Internet Evolution this week. Mike talks about an influx of calls he's receiving for consulting work and just how easy it's been to "sell" his services lately. It's a trend I'm seeing as well. I've only just reentered the... [Tags: amber, boat load, burckhardt, business crowd, commercial purposes]

Google: Not Even Pretending To Be An Engineer-Run Company Anymore — Google was never quite the engineer company its public relations and human resources teams made it out to be, but as Google gets serious about cutting costs, that myth of a decentralized company run by its engineers -- which was, in fact, more true at Google than most anywhere else -- grows ever fainter. For example, remember Google's 20% rule? The one that allowed engineers to spend a fifth of their time on any project of their choosing? Google CEO Eric Schimdt's not even pretending its real anymore. Here's the money quote from the Wall Street Journal's rehash of Google's... [Tags: bottom line, brilliant vision, chief executive, confusion, dark matter]

The Christmas Tree Indicator: Myth or Magic? — ... [Tags: christmas, christmas tree, magic, myth]

Apple Says Users Should Get Anti-Virus Software — How the worm turns. Apple is now saying (kinda buried away in a technical note) that: “Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple anti-virus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.” To be fair here, Apple is saying that the malware gets in not from security flaws but from users downloading software that contains malicious wares. Apple is recommending the following anti-virus packages: Intego VirusBarrier X5, available from the Apple Online Store Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 11 for Macintosh, available from the Apple Online Store McAfee VirusScan... [Tags: anti virus software, apple online store, brian krebs, extent, macintosh]

Vista reminds us that we have a choice — Glyn Moody tackles the ever worsening outlook for Microsoft Vista, and comes up with an absolute gem of a thought in the process: What's really important about this is not so much that Vista is manifestly such a dog, but that the myth of upgrade inevitability has been destroyed. ...... [Tags: absolute gem, inevitability, microsoft, microsoft vista, myth]

The Myth of Upgrade Inevitability Is Dead — Several readers pointed out a ComputerWorld UK blog piece on the expanding ripples of the Vista fiasco. Glyn Moody quotes an earlier Inquirer piece about Vista, which he notes "has been memorably described as DRM masquerading as an operating system": "Studies carried out by both Gartner and IDC have found that because older software is often incompatible with Vista, many consumers are opting for used computers with XP installed as a default, rather than buying an expensive new PC with Vista and downgrading. Big business, which typically thinks nothing about splashing out for newer, more up-to-date PCs, is also having... [Tags: blog, compatibility, computerworld, consumers, dominant os]

The myth of cloud computing — Companies hungry for IT efficiency and cost savings absolutely love virtualization. The idea of reducing racks of servers into smaller and cheaper machine farms is simply irresistible in just about every enterprise.... [Tags: computing companies, efficiency, myth, servers]

The Intimacy Of The Urban — New research challenges the notion that city-dwellers are lonelier:“Every 20 or 30 years, we have a lament about the decline of community, and it’s usually due to cities and urbanization,” says Robert Sampson, the criminologist who chairs Harvard’s sociology department, when I visit him one sunny morning this fall. He mentions one of the classics of the genre, Louis Wirth’s Urbanism As a Way of Life. “It’s all about the impersonal way of life in the city—how it almost deranged people, led to this sort of schizoid personality, to psychosis and loneliness.” He smiles. “It’s a fun piece, actually. There’s... [Tags: bastions, cities and urbanization, city dwellers, criminologist, decline]

Greg Mitchell: Study's Claim on the 'Myth' of Obama's Small Donor Base Is Itself a 'Myth' — The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) study disclosing that Barack Obama actually raised most of his campaign money from "larger" not "smaller" donors has gained wide, approving, coverage in recent days, from USA Today to the Los Angeles Times and countless web sites, even making Huffington Post at least twice, including as a top link currently. Nearly everyone has headed their account with a headline referring to the "myth" of Obama riding a wave of small donations to victory. That study's author himself uses it. But the "myth" is actually in the spinning of the report, including by its author, Michael... [Tags: aggregate, author michael, barack obama, campaign finance institute, campaign money]

Obama's fundraising myth disspelled — Everybody knows how President-elect Barack Obama's amazing campaign money machine was dominated by several million regular folks sending in hard-earned amounts under $200, a real sign of his broadbased grassroots support.... [Tags: barack obama, campaign money, grassroots support, money machine, myth]

Study: Obama's Small Donor Base Image A Myth — Everybody knows how President-elect Barack Obama's amazing campaign money machine was dominated by several million regular folks sending in hard-earned amounts under $200, a real sign of his broadbased grassroots support. Except, it turns out, that's not really true. In fact, Obama's base of small donors was almost exactly the same percent as George W. Bush's in 2004 -- Obama had 26% and the great Republican satan 25%. Obviously, this is unacceptable to current popular thinking.... [Tags: barack obama, base image, campaign money, donor base, donors]

You Are Feeling Sleepy — The LA Times busts a Thanksgiving myth:Was it the turkey? More specifically, was it the tryptophan in the turkey? Well, yes and no. Turkey does contain a large amino acid called tryptophan. So eating turkey puts some tryptophan into your bloodstream. But there are lots of other large amino acids riding around in there too. And, of course, turkey isn't all you gobble up at Thanksgiving. There's a lot of other stuff on the Thanksgiving plate, and a lot of it is carbohydrates. When you eat carbohydrates, the pancreas releases insulin, and one effect of that is to lower the... [Tags: amino acid, amino acids, bloodstream, brain, hat tip]

The Myth About Batman — In a way, this is a Thanksgiving story. The story of Batman is legendary: young boy sees his parents killed, and grows up determined to fight crime to right that wrong in perpetuity. As he develops, Batman learns martial arts, learns scientific methods, becomes a detective, and combats ever growing threats to his beloved Gotham City. The police department under Commissioner Jim Gordon rely more and more on Batman to solve the more complex crimes, and they take the simple petty ones. Besides the fact that this is about a comic book, meaning, if you just accept that for... [Tags: batgirl, batman, comic book, commissioner gordon, crimes]

Penny Herscher: Balance is a Myth for Executive Women — In the technology industry, with few women in the executive ranks and fewer still in the board room, we live in a world where balance is a myth. We talk about balance but the reality is that women in the corporate world are competing with men most of the time, appropriately competing on skill and hard work, but up against significant gender stereotypes and so we have to work harder and smarter to get ahead. Balance is hard for most working women -- but it is particularly elusive for women wanting to be a senior exec, be in the board... [Tags: aging parents, belief that, ceo, communications technology, company executive]

Oh, the carnage! — I’m not cooking on Thursday. and I don’t even feel slightly guilty about it. As I get totally lazy and wind down for the holiday- check out these must reads and must sees and must musts: Ford’s Scott Monty tells you everything you need to know about what one automaker has been doing to turn things around. I am quoted in AdAge this morning on the whole Motrin Moms debacle. I would pay close attention to those numbers in there if I were you. Media Matters dispels the myth of the $70 an hour auto worker. This video would be... [Tags: adage, auto worker, automaker, boss, brother]