blatently cut and pasted from Cult of Mac Blog:

Mac OS X is, and always has been, vulnerable to trojans.

The whole point of trojans is that they exploit the most serious security problem of all: gullible users. A trojan does not take advantage of any holes in the code, all it needs is to persuade someone to click an “OK”, or to run an installer, and it has done its job.

The problem with a lot of the reporting of malware, especially by traditional media, is that the word “virus” is widely used to mean “malware”.

Most of us who are half-way to computer literate know the difference between a trojan and a virus, but most of the rest of the world has no idea.

That’s why we’re seeing news articles about “Mac viruses”, and we shall continue to see them in future. That’s also why your Windows-using friends are going to be smirking at you, saying: “Heh. And you said you didn’t get viruses on your Mac. Bet you feel stupid now, huh?”

Any computer is vulnerable to trojans. The security hole they exploit is not in the operating system, it’s the one sitting in the chair and tapping on the keyboard.

Wanna keep your computer clean? Next time you’re surfing some random porn site and a pop-up tells you to “Install a codec” so you can watch the movies, it’s a good idea to click Cancel.

I must be computer illiterate as this clarified the difference for me! …. lol

This post from David Pogue is worth reading - and the gazillion comments:

Last week, I wrote an entry on my blog that began like this:

“One of these days, I’m going to write a book called, ‘The Basics.’ It’s going to be a compendium of the essential tech bits that you just assume everyone knows–but you’re wrong.

(I’ll never forget watching a book editor at a publishing house painstakingly drag across a word in a word processor to select it. After 10 minutes of this, I couldn’t stand it. ‘Why don’t you just double-click the word?’ She had no clue you could do that!)”

Many readers chimed in with other “basics” that they assumed every computer user knew–but soon discovered that what’s common knowledge isn’t the same as universal knowledge.

I’m sure the basics could fill a book, but here are a few to get you started.

I have just been playing this great new tables game from Big Brainz that I have found in my bloglines subscription to my Delicious network. It is a playstation type game that teaches kids their tables. I am usually bored VERY quickly with video games but this is really quite addictive … I can see kids absolutely loving it!
Has plenty of James Paul Gee type good learning theory built in too.
Big Brainz.tiff - for a screenshot that is refusing to imbed FREE download from HERE.
this would have to be one of the best finds for ages!!!!

as they say ….

Timez Attack is an unbelievable, new multiplication tables game. You have to see it to believe it!!

I ahve been looking for this for ages …. and so simple!
changing from the week view to Today-next 6 days
YAY!!!!

source

I am looking to revamp our school website as I am not happy with the rather clunky ‘look and feel’ of it.
Please let me know of any standout school sites you know of!!!!

I am keen to have a largely static website with Web2.0 sites linked from it that have the ‘dynamic content’ on them.

Thanks in anticipation Greg

thanks Derek for highlighting this one. I am now using it a lot and particularly with kids…. a great tool!
http://www.searchme.com/

I am using Firefox3 beta and love it. It certainly appears to be much faster and the interface is slick.
I have had no issues with buggyness to this point. I found these tips via Lifehacker today though:

One thing that you may not realize is how many different actions can be performed simply by dragging and dropping text or URL’s in Firefox. Most browsers actually support similar actions, but we thought it would be useful to provide an overview of the different ways you can put it to work.
You can drag and drop…

* a URL (hyperlinked or not) onto the address bar to immediately be taken to that site in the current tab.
* a URL (hyperlinked or not) onto an existing tab or blank tab to immediately replace it with the new URL.
* a URL (hyperlinked or not) onto an empty area on the tab bar to immediately have that URL opened in a new background tab.
* highlighted text onto the address bar to replace the URL with the text, but it will not be executed immediately.
* a single highlighted word (cannot contain spaces) onto an existing tab or blank tab to replace it with www.[highlighted word].com immediately. Where [highlighted word] is the single word you were dragging and dropping.
* a single highlighted word (cannot contain spaces) onto an empty area on the tab bar to immediately have www.[highlighted word].com opened in a background tab. Where [highlighted word] is the single word you were dragging and dropping.
* an image onto the address bar to immediately have that image open in the current tab.
* an image onto an existing tab or blank tab to immediately replace it with the image.
* an image onto an empty area on the tab bar to immediately have the image opened in a new background tab.

source

this link is to a great entry from Allanah detailing an activity she saw…. love it.

There are lots of creative things you can do with a digital camera and I must admit I find image often more useful at school than video. Video just takes sooooo much time for many children and I find myself asking if the message is sufficiently different, powerful or meaningful to justify the time it has taken to produce….

Can be a challenging question to ask about lots of technology-based sharing of learning. Does the end really justify the means or is it simply ‘technifying’, and making a simple thing complicated and time consuming?

I am interested in using technologies to improve learning not become a suck on the precious classroom time.
What do you think? If it is not better with the technology and it simply takes a lot longer to produce an electronic version, is the learning improved? It may be different, but is it improved?
Can we then justify the time spent? I struggle to answer anything other than a resounding NO.