They actually do that now. It's called a fecal transplant and it helps people recover from massive intestinal infections where subsequent antibiotic routines have wiped out all the good flora/bacteria. Sounds weird but true!

Time to go back to school! The bell curve is going to heavily favour those of us who know how to write...and spell.

http://secunia.com/advisories/27213/2/

Yeah that is ancient news my friend. It was patched with OS version 1.1.2. in 2007 if my information is correct.

iPhones and iPods can now run OS version 3.1+

I would say that pretty much anyone going online has patched as version 3 of the OS brought copy/paste functions.

I can't imagine using my iPhone or iPod without copy/paste.

I'm not sure what you mean by "basic functionality".

My iPhone isn't broken and I have tethering enabled. Sounds like your problem is with AT&T. I'm in Canada under Fido/Rogers so YMMV.

With "both" companies my tethering is enabled with a quick call. My provider asserts that my data plan must be 1 GB or higher, but this is largely to protect me from ignorantly going over my data plan usage allowances. I go to my settings and turn on tethering. There is no step three ;)

As for "applications that Apple doesn't [sic] like", you must mean malware, trojans, and data theft mechanisms. If you want to run those by all means do so. You could save yourself some trouble and just write your date of birth and credit card numbers on a placard and hang that around your neck when you head to the mall.

But I keed.

I think everyone missed my point. The internet as a whole is being attacked by systems loosely guarded by their owners due to onerous and obtuse support requirements and maintenance routines. The fact that there is even an antivirus industry speaks volumes about where we are now.

Windows PC make up the bulk, if not all of all botnets (please cite for me any unix/linus/macos x desktop botnet that's been discovered that isn't just focused on weak LAMP setups)

In the "developing" world we might see corruption that is culturally endemic, such as when a police oficer takes a bribe for processing a complaint, or a train conductor taking a bribe for helping you get to your destination. Yet we pay a stipend to a windows desktop software industry that by all accounts would almost disappear tomorrow if everyone switched en masses to Unix, Linux, or OS X...even temporarily. We pay off an entire sector that by all rights should be working towards its own demise as soon as possible. That it's not working to it's demise, but growing, tells me that we need to inoculate the internet, not just locally treat the infections. I am speaking of general user desktop security
here, not firewalls and banking systems or high stakes e-commerce or government portals.

That's why I think the solution proposed, while draconian, in ways does make sense. That my comment is modded troll, so that we can cite the one-in-a-million windows users who succeed in locking down their setup without A/V tells us again that there is a problem. For expert users windows is as fine as any other OS. I don't suspect that it makes sense anymore to say to people that they are just idiots because they don't know how to run windows update, but then do NOTHING to stop the problem by letting them back online.

Yes there would be widespread unemployment, but we could get back to work as *use* the internet. if we could lose the 90+ % of email traffic devoted to spam derived from botnets what else could we do with those savings?

I dunno...it's a dumb idea, yes, but all the others ain't working.

Oddly enough that's close enough to a decent solution to work.

How about we START with that, and work our way back to allowing pre-vetted workstations back onto the interwebs. I like the idea of running a simple system checking script though a web browser based internet portal the same way you must login to a hotspot to gain access to the internet.

Make that kind of access a precondition for users who were deemed to be hosting malware/bots and go from there. Once confirmed as clean the portal requirement disappears. The portal software will have to be hosted by a non-profit with government oversight for obvious reasons.

Of course I'm OK if that software isn't particularly Mac compatible ;)

Even better idea: NO TimeCapsule.

They are not warrantied if you have to crack the case to service them, and Apple hasn't come up to snuff with data recovery options if a TC fails entirely.

So if, say, files are deleted from the TC that you need back you must take the HD out to access the files natively - poof, your warranty is void. Deleting files from a local volume puts the files in the trash. Deleting them from a networked location deletes them right away. You must be bale to access the Hard Disk from time to time as a matter of course.

I find this combo works best:

1 x Apple Airport extreme
1 x USB powered hub
n x external USB Drive cases + high quality SATA drives (choose how many you need). I have one running for my wife's macBook, and use an internal 1TB drive for my Mac Pro. I can add as many extra USB drives to that Airport Extreme any time I like...2, 3 TB if I like. So form time to time I can take a Time Machine back up offline and toss it on the shelf for the yearly protected backup in case the live backup dies for any reason.

http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/features/harddrivesharing.html

TC does not give you that flexibillity and couple that with Apple's lack of support for failed TC's other than to wholly replace them - what about your data! God forbid your laptop/desktop AND the TC die the same time...I've been through it once with a client and Apple's Genius bar staff did not handle it well in my mind.

Regards.

JB