johnhook

PatInCanada,

Yeah - the good old days of the "Trash-80" the Commodore PET, Vic 20 and C-64 to name a few. I remember when the Intel 80286 was a big deal! The IBM PS2, etc...Been there - done that and now am seen my 16-year-old geeks on sites like this as an obsolete Dinosaur.

Most of the malware, viruses and hacks out there are a result of all of the wonderful networking, programming, application interfaces and scripting standards built into Windows OSs makes it a great platform to network and develop applications on - especially for Microsoft's Application software and networking architecture. Unfortunately, the downside of all this tightly coupled interoperability is how vulnerable Windows OSs are to viruses, network hacks and malware in general. The fact that Windows has the largest install base of any OS out there makes it a fun target to those who are challenged by exploiting its security flaws. I would love to see Linux overtake Windows as the dominant desktop OS. Linux is far more efficient, doesn't HOG hardware the way Windows does and is far less vulnerable to malware.

As far as Internet access goes - Ma Bell's twisted-pair dial-up and DSL need to go away. Comcast and Time Warner need to hang up their Coax cables. Forget about cellular wireless and satellite TV/Broadband. I see a future where every home and business is wired directly with a fiber-optic connection, capable of handling Terabytes of data - giving users telephone, internet, television and MUCH more! Due to the inherant limitations of all the existing technologies - fiber is the obvious choice. I believe it's simply a matter of time.

- John

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