Recession?
Can we put an end to the recession talk at least for now? The last time I checked a recession was defined as two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth. So far we haven’t had a single quarter of negative growth so all this talk of a recession is, well, premature.
Make no mistake the economy is tough shape what with the struggling housing market, credit crunch, high oil prices and week dollar. But we’re not in a recession.
Take a swing over to Kudlow’s Money Politic$ and read Recession? What Recession? for interesting take on today’s GDP number.
First Impressions: Windows Vista Business SP1
I installed Windows Vista Business SP1 on a couple of test PCs recently and I’ve been putting it and Office 2007 through their paces over the last couple of days. For the most part I’m happy with them… Vista’s Aero interface is such a radical departure from Windows XP that it takes a little getting used and the same can said for the ribbon bars in Office 2007 but once you get used to the changes they’re not bad.
My biggest complaint with Windows Vista is the User Account Controls feature, it annoys the hell out of me. If I’m logged in as an administrator and performing administrative tasks I shouldn’t have to click through a confirmation dialog to confirm that I actually want to perform the task that I just elected to perform.
But aside from the aforementioned annoyances Vista Business SP1 is stable, and does what I need it to do. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be abandoning Windows XP Professional or Office 2003 though. I’m happy with both and they do what I need to do well enough that I don’t see a compelling reason to upgrade.
That said Windows Vista Business SP1 looks pretty solid and with sales of Windows XP scheduled to end on June 30th Vista Business looks like an acceptable replacement.
Missing Laptop Causes Security Concerns
Stories about missing laptops containing confidential information are becoming an everyday occurrence so I wasn’t surprised when I came across this story about about a pilot’s missing laptop causing security concerns at a number of airports.
I’m not going to beat up on the pilot or the TSA they seem to have handled the incident properly. What I am going to do use this as chance to beat the Safe Hex drum.
What bothers isn’t that laptop containing confidential was apparently stolen, that happens more often than anyone would like it to. What bothers me is the apparent lack of encryption. If you’re carrying around a laptop that contains confidential information you should be using some type of encryption to protect that information. No technology is fool proof or 100 percent effective but using products like PGP whole Disk Encryption greatly reduces the chances that the bad guys will be able to exploit the data on a stolen laptop.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s your personal financial information or pass codes for airport security checkpoints you need to take steps to protect it. Making sure your laptop requires a user name and strong password* to log on is a good first step. Adding encrypting, whether it’s whole disk encryption or just file encryption is an important second level of protection that all to often over looked.
*A strong password should be at least 8 characters and include letters, numbers, mixed capitalization and at least one special character. It should also be easy to remember but hard to guess.
Changes
Just a quick note to let everyone know that I’ve closed registrations and opened up comments so you won’t have to register to leave comments anymore.
Congratulations Danica!
It took her a little while longer than I thought it would but Danica Patrick made history on Sunday by becoming the first female driver to win a major auto racing event. Patrick took the checkered flag in her 50th career start at the Indy Japan 300 .
Congratulations Danica, the first one is always the sweetest.
Somthing you should read…
Take a couple of minutes to read Jerry Bowyer’s “Don’t Blame the Markets” OpEd in the New York Sun today it does a good job laying out how we got to where we are in the current sub prime mortgage mess.
Disgusting
Disgusting is about the nicest thing I can say about the cover of the April 21st issue of Time Magazine. There are somethings that are sacred, that symbolize courage and selflessness Joe Rosenthal’s photograph of Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima is one of them. Time’s decision to alter that photograph by removing our flag and substituting a tree is an insult to the men who raised that flag and to everyone who has fought to defend the ideals it symbolizes.
Congratulations
Congratulations Trevor Immelman, 2008 Masters champion.
Immelman posted a 3 over par 75 in the final round to beat Tiger Woods by three strokes. He held at least share of the lead through all 4 rounds making him the first champion to do so since Seve Ballesteros in 1980.
Mobile Malware
Here’s a short but informative video on mobile threats from the folks at F-Secure.
Secure Computing Follow-up
I came across a few interesting articles and resources anyone who attended last nights presentation might be interested in. First is an article by David Harely on Macs & Malware. Second the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has released its annual report on cyber crime. IC3 is a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C)… It’s interesting reading, in addition to statistics based actual case work it also provides details on a number of popular scams. You can download a copy here.
Last is Looks Too Good To Be True.com. Looks Too Good To Be True provides a wealth of information various types cyber scams. It’s well worth a look.
One last thing before I forget… You can download a copy of last night’s presentation here.