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Date:	Fri, 5 Mar 2004 10:00:10 PST8
From:	"J. R. Fox" <jr_fox@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: VMWare

Content Type: text/plain

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> >This is probably the major thing that I wonder about, wheher it's VPC,
> >VMWare, or SVISTA under consideration: is fake (emulated) Windoze
> >*still* going to open any doors for viruses, Trojans, worms, backdoor
> >programs, or spyware executables to get in and do their thing ?

Steven Levine wrote:

> Sure it is. The only safety factor will be that most OS/2 users using an
> SVISTA type of setup would not allow the WinXX side to see the internet
> all that often, if at all.

O.K., I suspected as much. But what do we really need WinXX for anyway ? --
mostly the few areas where OS/2 has weak, limited, or non-existent app. coverage:
PhotoShop; multimedia stuff, all the way up to editing sound or video. (One needs
some web access for streaming video, even if just occasionally, but wouldn't the
exposure be similar if running RealPlayer under Odin ? At least with the full
emulation layer, even though it may be set to see the internet, we can control *when*
the emulation is loaded or not loaded, right ? And there are such things as
firewalls,
which one should have with broadband anyway.)

> However, let's say you want to file your taxes with TaxCut or whatever.
> This is a typical case where OS/2 alternatives are lacking.

And a few other scattered examples. I like RSJ a lot, but let's face it: there are
some
situations where Nero is better, and just a whole lot easier to use. I recently tried
to
burn my first RW cd with RSJ. Pain in the rear command line stuff, and in the end
I had a coaster that said it had 18G worth of files on it (!), with some accessible
files
but most of the cd unreadable. Not ready for Prime Time there, wonder how it does
with DVDs ?

> It's going to be pretty hard not to let the WinXX side see the internet.
>
> The door will be open. How far open is hard to say.

Well, here's another possible strategy: isolation. Have one dedicated OS/2 + emulator

partition that can see the internet, part of the time. If something sneaks in there,
it
can probably be contained to that area.

> There was plenty of demand for VPC at $300 a pop and there will continue
> to be.

I had no inkling of that, but still doubt that many of these sales were to ordinary
end
users. Their budgets tend to be somewhat different than institutional departments.

Jordan

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