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"Neil Harrington" <> wrote:
>
>It's possible that's because the overwhelming majority of personal systems
>out there are running Windows, so that's what the malware writers target, I
>suppose.


That's undoubtedly a part of it, but Mac systems are far more
resistant to these kinds of attack. Same applies to Linux and of
course Unix. Microsoft is out on a limb here.

To bring the discussion back on topic, I started to get involved in
forensic photography a few months ago and regularly get called out to
scenes of crime that involve physical theft of IT equipment. The same
investigators are also involved investigating hacking and other
non-physical offences and they describe Microsoft Windows-based
systems as "asking for trouble" because they are so insecure.


>Doesn't matter, of course. Whatever works, works.


For me, Microsoft systems have caused no end of problems whereas Mac
systems are stable, robust and reliable and require almost zero user
intervention outside booting up, using and closing down hardware and
software. I'm not in the least interested in meddling with hardware
and operating systems, I just want a system that works out of the box
and does what it claims. MacOS and Linux systems seem consistently to
achieve that. Windows is just a lot of hard work for no gain.

One thing this discussion has achieved is that I have resolved to
eliminate Windows machines from my life at the next available
opportunity.

"Neil Harrington" <> wrote:
>Bruce wrote:
>> Savageduck <savageduck1@{REMOVESPAM}me.com> wrote:
>>> On 2011-06-16 15:40:20 -0700, Bruce <> said:
>>>> "Neil Harrington" <> wrote:
>>>>> Yes, there's something to be said for that. Newer versions are not
>>>>> always better than older ones.
>>>>
>>>> I agree. I paid to upgrade to 6.0 and wondered why I had.
>>>
>>> Yup!
>>> Even software for the Mac is not immune to bad upgrades.
>>> Two such examples are Skype 5.1 for Mac which is a complete
>>> disaster. I had to revert to Skype 2.8.0.866 which works just fine.
>>
>> Within days of Microsoft taking over Skype, a new version of Skype was
>> issued. A very stable program was replaced with a bug-ridden POS that
>> crashed every few minutes.
>> As my partner said: "Welcome to Microsoft".
>> It seems that everything Microsoft touches turns to garbage. Still,
>> as we have said before, it creates work for systems people.
>
>I know nothing about Skype, but what you say seems to fit a familiar
>pattern. Lots of people loved Paint Shop Pro as long as it was produced by
>the original developer, Jasc. After it was bought out by Corel and
>"improved," starting with version 10, there were endless complaints and
>evidently there still are. (I have the first two Corel versions but haven't
>used them enough to have an opinion.)


I could never understand why Corel bought Paint Shop Pro when they
already had PhotoPaint. Perhaps Paint Shop Pro came bundled free with
a package of really valuable software.

Corel PhotoPaint was my photo editor of choice for a few years but it
now seems to have fallen by the wayside through lack of development.
There is now a Mac version but I haven't tried it. I have never liked
Photoshop but clients expect me to use it, so I have to.


>Similarly with Nortion Utilities. I never saw any complaints about it, and
>never had any problems with it myself, until it was bought by Symantec. Then
>the complaints were endless. (Though in this case all the problems were
>eventually corrected, evidently. I'm using the latest version of Norton as
>it's provided by my ISP, no problems at all after a year or so and I really
>like it.)


In photography, I suppose that Sony's takeover of Konica Minolta was
something similar. Now, after several years of disastrous errors of
judgement that have lost Sony many millions of dollars and all but
destroyed the formerly well-respected ex-Minolta DSLR range, Sony has
finally come good with NEX. It is not before time.

Savageduck <savageduck1@{REMOVESPAM}me.com> wrote:
>On 2011-06-17 08:59:05 -0700, Bruce <> said:
>> "Neil Harrington" <> wrote:
>>>
>>> It's possible that's because the overwhelming majority of personal systems
>>> out there are running Windows, so that's what the malware writers target, I
>>> suppose.
>>
>>
>> That's undoubtedly a part of it, but Mac systems are far more
>> resistant to these kinds of attack. Same applies to Linux and of
>> course Unix. Microsoft is out on a limb here.
>>
>> To bring the discussion back on topic, I started to get involved in
>> forensic photography a few months ago and regularly get called out to
>> scenes of crime that involve physical theft of IT equipment. The same
>> investigators are also involved investigating hacking and other
>> non-physical offences and they describe Microsoft Windows-based
>> systems as "asking for trouble" because they are so insecure.
>
>Using a civilian photographer for crime scene photography seems
>unusual, even for the UK. What kind of investigators are you talking
>about, Police/Law enforcement (I know a few of those), or private
>internal corporate?
>
>What sort of protocols do you use for taking your "forensic crime
>scene" photographs so they might be admissible in any court, UK, US, or
>anywhere for that matter?
>
>...and "forensic photography" is a little something I have been
>familiar with my entire career.


None of it is used in court. It is used to support insurance claims
and for company records. The investigators are all private, some
self-employed working under contract and some employed by the
companies who suffer losses.

I believe some of my images have been passed to police for use in
investigations but so far none has been used to prosecute. Quite
possibly they would not be admissible in a court - I don't know.

Prosecutions seem rare in relation to the number of thefts. I
expected to be called out only occasionally, but the last time I made
myself available I was called out four times in an eight day period.

So far, all the clients have been internet service providers who have
had switches stolen from telephone exchanges.

It isn't fun. It involves early starts (typically 3:30 to 5:00 AM)
and I have to get to site quickly because no work to restore service
can be started until the investigators and I have completed our work.
So all the work is within a 75 mile radius from home, which covers the
whole of Greater London.

But it pays well, and that is the only reason I would ever consider
doing it. It has never taken me more than an hour to complete my work
on site. I hand over a flash card and that's it - off to McDonald's
for breakfast!

"Neil Harrington" <> wrote:
>Bruce wrote:
>> One thing this discussion has achieved is that I have resolved to
>> eliminate Windows machines from my life at the next available
>> opportunity.
>
>Another thing it's achieved is that you've gotten me more interested in
>Linux again. I have nothing against Apple and can accept everything good
>you've said about it, but since I can't build one it's really out of the
>question for me. The only systems I've had since 1997 that I haven't built
>myself, have been laptops and one netbook. I realize there are Mac laptops
>too, but they're expensive and I'm a cheapskate.


I agree, PowerBooks and MacBooks are ridiculously expensive. I've
built 3 PCs and enjoyed it but I don't have the energy any more. My
health is chronically poor and I have to keep what little energy do I
have for gainful employment. So my last new PC was a Dell and I hate
it. Every single component is the cheapest Dell could find.


>My present laptop (just one, I don't keep 'em very long) is a really nice
>piece of hardware -- 2.4GHz Turion II, Radeon 4200 graphics, 4 gigs of DDR2,
>and the usual rest of the stuff, cost me just under $500. I bought it mainly
>to familiarize myself with Windows 7, since that is quite different from the
>WinXP that I've been using most of the time. (I skipped Vista because of all
>the bad reviews.) It's a great system, especially at that price, and points
>up a major advantage to Windows -- there's a huge number of different brands
>and models to choose from, which inevitably means you can get a really good
>buy by shopping around. Obviously that is not and never will be the case
>with Macintosh.


Like you, I avoided Vista and I would have to upgrade to Windows 7 if
I stayed with Microsoft. I suppose XP has served me reasonably well.
But the next computer I need to replace - the one I am typing on now -
will be replaced by a Mac. Probably not a new one, but another iMac
would suit me well. Even used Macs aren't cheap.

I'm very grateful for all who have contributed to this discussion as
it has really helped me to decide where to go next. I have had more
time than usual to listen to others' opinions during a mostly restful
week waiting for the directors of our fledgling company to digest my
report on the state of the company - with our future direction as its
main focus.

I have kept myself available in case anyone wants to ask me questions,
but they have been very few in number and mainly about detail. I
don't know whether that is a good or a bad thing. This is uncharted
territory for me.

On 6/17/2011 1:10 PM, Neil Harrington wrote:
> Bruce wrote:
<snip>
>>
>>
>> I could never understand why Corel bought Paint Shop Pro when they
>> already had PhotoPaint.
>
> I know; that seemed odd to me too. Corel has *so many* varieties of graphics
> software they seemed to have every conceivable type of customer covered
> already.
>

The PSP interface is extremely easy to use and quite intuitive. It was
designed for use by the casual user. IIRC you didn't have to wade
through menus to change brush type and size, it had a reasonably
accurate and easy to use set of pre-casts for eyes and color replacement
& tinting was a breeze. (Way ahead of its time.) Also, I suspect that
Corel didn't realize how bad its marketing policies were, and about a
year earlier it made sever cuts in its development personnel.



>> Perhaps Paint Shop Pro came bundled free with
>> a package of really valuable software.
>
> Or Corel just wanted to removed a competitor from the market, and/or the
> Jasc people had lost interest in their product and decided to get out of it,
> or out of that business altogether. I don't know of any other product that
> Jasc has been associated with.
>
>>
>> Corel PhotoPaint was my photo editor of choice for a few years but it
>> now seems to have fallen by the wayside through lack of development.
>> There is now a Mac version but I haven't tried it. I have never liked
>> Photoshop but clients expect me to use it, so I have to.
>>
>>
>>> Similarly with Nortion Utilities. I never saw any complaints about
>>> it, and never had any problems with it myself, until it was bought
>>> by Symantec. Then the complaints were endless. (Though in this case
>>> all the problems were eventually corrected, evidently. I'm using the
>>> latest version of Norton as it's provided by my ISP, no problems at
>>> all after a year or so and I really like it.)
>>
>>



--
Peter

In article <>, Bruce
<> wrote:

> >Another thing it's achieved is that you've gotten me more interested in
> >Linux again. I have nothing against Apple and can accept everything good
> >you've said about it, but since I can't build one it's really out of the
> >question for me. The only systems I've had since 1997 that I haven't built
> >myself, have been laptops and one netbook. I realize there are Mac laptops
> >too, but they're expensive and I'm a cheapskate.
>
> I agree, PowerBooks and MacBooks are ridiculously expensive.

nonsense. they're competitive with similarly speced laptops from other
manufacturers and apple hasn't made a powerbook in 6 years.

Neil Harrington <> wrote:
> Savageduck wrote:

> Astonishing, isn't, to get only 91 bhp out of a 7.2 liter engine -- even at
> a leisurely 1600 rpm. But of course compression ratios were very low in
> those days.

> And it's awfully low for an aircraft engine. The similar-looking Mercedes
> six-in-line used in the famous Fokker D.VII fighter developed 160 bhp. And
> the similar BMW engine later used in the same fighter had 185 bhp. That was
> in 1918 (for both engines). I don't know offhand the displacement of either,
^^^^
> however.

>> prize in the 1913 Kaiserpreis competition. Lautenschlager and Salzer,
^^^^

The art of flight (and, AFAIU, also the engines) did a *enormous*
jump between 1913 and 1918. War does that to things.

-Wolfgang

On 6/17/2011 7:26 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:33:57 -0700, Savageduck
> <savageduck1@{REMOVESPAM}me.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2011-06-17 08:59:05 -0700, Bruce<> said:
>>
>>> "Neil Harrington"<> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> It's possible that's because the overwhelming majority of personal systems
>>>> out there are running Windows, so that's what the malware writers target, I
>>>> suppose.
>>>
>>>
>>> That's undoubtedly a part of it, but Mac systems are far more
>>> resistant to these kinds of attack. Same applies to Linux and of
>>> course Unix. Microsoft is out on a limb here.
>>>
>>> To bring the discussion back on topic, I started to get involved in
>>> forensic photography a few months ago and regularly get called out to
>>> scenes of crime that involve physical theft of IT equipment. The same
>>> investigators are also involved investigating hacking and other
>>> non-physical offences and they describe Microsoft Windows-based
>>> systems as "asking for trouble" because they are so insecure.
>>
>> Using a civilian photographer for crime scene photography seems
>> unusual, even for the UK. What kind of investigators are you talking
>> about, Police/Law enforcement (I know a few of those), or private
>> internal corporate?
>
> I spent about forty years doing forensic photography as part of my
> work. It rarely involved the police as it was mostly for the purpose
> of civil litigation.
>>

There is a major difference between the proof required in a civil case
and a criminal case. Technically a snapshot from a P&S would be
admissible if the photographer was able to testify that the image fair
and accurately represented the scene at the time of the incident in
question.

It might also make a difference if the purpose for the image was simply
for cross examination of a witness.


--
Peter

On Fri, 17 Jun 2011 20:37:39 -0400, PeterN
<> wrote:

>On 6/17/2011 7:26 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:
>> On Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:33:57 -0700, Savageduck
>> <savageduck1@{REMOVESPAM}me.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2011-06-17 08:59:05 -0700, Bruce<> said:
>>>
>>>> "Neil Harrington"<> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> It's possible that's because the overwhelming majority of personal systems
>>>>> out there are running Windows, so that's what the malware writers target, I
>>>>> suppose.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That's undoubtedly a part of it, but Mac systems are far more
>>>> resistant to these kinds of attack. Same applies to Linux and of
>>>> course Unix. Microsoft is out on a limb here.
>>>>
>>>> To bring the discussion back on topic, I started to get involved in
>>>> forensic photography a few months ago and regularly get called out to
>>>> scenes of crime that involve physical theft of IT equipment. The same
>>>> investigators are also involved investigating hacking and other
>>>> non-physical offences and they describe Microsoft Windows-based
>>>> systems as "asking for trouble" because they are so insecure.
>>>
>>> Using a civilian photographer for crime scene photography seems
>>> unusual, even for the UK. What kind of investigators are you talking
>>> about, Police/Law enforcement (I know a few of those), or private
>>> internal corporate?
>>
>> I spent about forty years doing forensic photography as part of my
>> work. It rarely involved the police as it was mostly for the purpose
>> of civil litigation.
>>>
>
>There is a major difference between the proof required in a civil case
>and a criminal case. Technically a snapshot from a P&S would be
>admissible if the photographer was able to testify that the image fair
>and accurately represented the scene at the time of the incident in
>question.
>
>It might also make a difference if the purpose for the image was simply
>for cross examination of a witness.

Yes, but "forensic" means "suitable for use in court". The standards
and requirements may be higher in a criminal case, but a photographer
who takes photos used in a civil case can still be considered to be
doing forensic work.

Even the statement that the standards and requirements may be higher
in criminal cases is not always the case. Images from cell phones,
CCTV, and video cameras used by the public have been admitted into
evidence.

That snapshot from a P&S could be admissible in a criminal case, but
it would not stand alone as proof.


--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

Alan Browne <> wrote:
> On 2011-06-17 15:45 , Neil Harrington wrote:
>> Alan Browne wrote:
>>> On 2011-06-17 12:54 , Neil Harrington wrote:


> It stinks as a home/office desktop environment, however.

When will Windows get virtual desktops per default?

> The most
> prevalent office suite (MS Office) does not exist for it.

And isn't exactly missed, since the file formats can be read
and written.

> The most used photography suite (Adobe Photoshop and associated s/w)
> does not exist for it.

Various versions of Photoshop run under wine.

> And I'm sure there are lot's of great Windows apps that aren't compiled
> for it at all.

Whereas in Windows you can at least get an idea of

> Linux does have an attractive desktop environment. In fact two
> different ones (and some other lesser known environments as well).

Let's say, a couple dozen desktop environments, most extensively
tweakable, including some that are designed for keyboard only ---
if you don't like mice. Some that are very spartan in the use
of RAM and CPU (they could run on 20 year old computers). etc.
And you are free to choose at any time.

> But OpenOffice (docs, spreadsheets, presentations) is not a pleasant
> thing to work with.

It's different in some things from Word, Excel, PowerPoint.

> Fixing system issues on a Linux platform is a nightmare if you can't
> find a particular driver or "recipe" online on how to fix it.

'driver'?

A bit of google usually shows the 'recipe', and since Linux
is quite logical, one can usually find the problem.

> When
> Linux goes "twangggggg" and comes up in CLI mode only, the newbie is in
> deep doo-doo.

That would happen if the newbie did something as root he
didn't understand. Like putting a high voltage flash on a
camera that doesn't like that, only not as permanent.

The newbie can always use a rescue disk or a CD/DVD
distribution like Knoppix to get back.

I understand randomly changing things in the registry can
break Windows, too.

> I'm not a newbie and I've wrestled with video issues on
> several flavours of Linux.

It's gotten much better.

> With Linux you can download and install "The GIMP", a good photo editor
> that is a pain in the butt to use. It is a poor, behind the times,
> imitation of photoshop. (You can also get the GIMP for Windows and on
> the Mac.).

And for Windows.

> Mac OS X is a certified Unix compliant system (intel versions).

'certified' means very little.

> Ironically, Mac OS X through VMWare Fusion allows you to install and run
> Windows and Linux (and other OS') on your Mac. AND run them in parallel
> with Max OS X. (Even two or more other OS' at the same time - eg: I
> have (for kicks) run WinXP and Linux on my Mac at the same time and
> transferred files amongst the three.).

VMWare Workstation has Unity, and runs on Linux.


> Once you go Mac you never go back!

Until Apple does the AppStore on Macs and will only allow you to
buy software from there. Would be a great model for Apple.
Works with the iPhone.

-Wolfgang