AOPA Flight Planner - Microsoft only?

Sylvain,

I prefer to use a real computer myself, but there are some simple
solution: commercial solutions like I use myself (running AOPA Flight
Planning under either VMware or VirtualPC -- the former making it possible
to run it from Linux, among other things, the latter from Macintosh); or
another free solution: AOPA Flight Planning works just fine under Wine
(under linux);


This made me fall of my seat with laughter: You claim to be using "a real
computer" and then go on to describe how to use the "real computer" to make
it behave like a "non-real computer"???? Jeeze...

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

"Eric Rood" wrote in message
...


Peter Duniho wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I think MacOS and Linux are great options, and each
has
lots to offer in their own way. It's just that when someone goes around
claiming that those options are inherently secure while Windows is
inherently not secure, it's obvious the hamster's not engaged upstairs.

Windows is insecure enough that the US Army migrated to Apple software
based
servers to improve security of it's network several year ago.


BWAAHAHA! What a colossal waste of money! That is like trying to improve
security by moving the hinges of a gate from one side to the other.

Yep. Mac OS -- endorsed by the United States Army. The same people who
brought you wasted billions on trying to find out if psychics could see what
the enemy is up to are now improving security by playing with toy
computers....

Eric,

Windows is insecure enough that the US Army migrated to Apple software based
servers to improve security of it's network several year ago.


News to me. A source?

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
gonline.com...

I tried to go to the AOPA Flight Planning web page today, and found that
the
only option remaining is to download a Microsoft-only application. This
seems annoying.


If you are using Linux or Solaris, have you tried running the
application with 'wine' (www.winehq.com)?

I've tried several Windows native applications on Linux and
had no problems, although I've not yet tried the flight planner.

('wine' is a free Windows API emulator that runs on a variety
of other OS)

In article , C J Campbell wrote:
Windows is insecure enough that the US Army migrated to Apple software
based
servers to improve security of it's network several year ago.

BWAAHAHA! What a colossal waste of money! That is like trying to improve
security by moving the hinges of a gate from one side to the other.

OK, several years ago: what did we have?
Windows was a DOS-extender then. A veneer over a single user, single
tasking operating system (Windows = WinME, exclduding NT are DOS
extenders). Although MacOS = 9 was also from the ground up single user,
it didn't have any of the inherent problems that WinME and below have
by their nature as DOS extenders.

The real problem with Windows isn't so much the features it has (or
lacks) - like any other OS, it has bugs, and like any other OS, stupid
people use it. Win2K3 Server + AD + WinXP on the workstation has some
very *good* security features. You can now do a much better job of
locking a Windows system down.

The problem with Windows is cultural. Windows comes from a single user,
single tasking culture - and many of its features have been added on
without regard for the fact they might be connected to a public network.
These cultural aspects are endemic from Microsoft themselves to the
people who use the OS. Unix-based OSes, on the other hand, come from a
culture of being plugged in to public networks from day one, and being
multi user, multi tasking from day one. RedHat learned many years ago
why you don't enable 1001 services by default in a fresh install (that's
why it got nicknamed RedHack in the 6.0 days). Debian always seemed to
have this particular bit of clue. On the other hand, if you buy a brand
new Windows package with all the latest updates, it STILL has the RPC
ports open by default, despite all the worms that have exploited holes
in it! This is Microsoft's fault. Finally they are fixing it in Windows
XP SP2. How long until a significant number of users are running SP2,
and have these vulnerable services open by default and no firewall by
default? Years, I wager. There's still a significant number of Win98/ME
machines still in use, and I bet there's a lot of unpatched XP systems
out there.

Then there's the software writer part of the Windows culture. Many
software companies are still writing software which won't run at all or
not properly unless you are running as administrator - meaning users are
forced to run insecurely if they want to run some software. But then
again, since when you create new users on XP, they are Administrator by
default, software houses can get away with it because users are insecure
by default anyway. Note in the Mac OSX world and the Linux/Unix/BSD
world, new users aren't root by default. (In fact, OSX comes with the
root account *disabled*).

Finally, there's the usual things such as Outlook making it very easy to
just click on email attachments to *run* them. The basic OS
architectural problem that just giving your file an .exe extension makes
them executable, and therefore if you find another bug like the MIME
bugs OE suffered from, you can leverage it to make executables attached
to email run automatically.

Of course, there are many users who can be socially engineered to run
anything (people download and run spyware voluntarily, and it's not even
emailed to them!) which would be a problem regardless of which OS is
run.

As for security cultu consider this. Although Apache by far and large
is the most common web server, all the serious exploits so far has been
for the minority web server - IIS (Code Red et al.) I'm still getting
hits from attempted Code Red infections. Perhaps there is something to
the differing security cultures since in an area where Microsoft are a
decided minority, they *still* are the attack vector of choice?

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message The reason you cannot
is because companies/groups like AOPA waste time and
money developing platform specific products because the programmers don't
know any better.

Well, that plus the fact that Apple chose not to license their OS long ago
and changed history. I'm sure it sounded like a good idea at the time.

--
Jim Fisher

Peter Duniho wrote:

"Wizard of Draws" wrote in message
news:BC7FD46C.66F2%jeffbREMOVE@REMOVEwizardofdraws .com...
Andrew isn't even close to a rabid Mac fanatic on the basis of what he's
posted here.

Of course he is. Anyone silly enough to claim that using a Mac is in and
of itself safe computing (or that using a Windows machine in and of itself
is not) is by definition a rabid Mac fanatic.

Of course, most Mac users are rabid Mac fanatics. It's the only way Apple
could have hoped to have survived under their business model.

Psst: I don't even use a Mac. There are some on my floor at work, but none
in my home and none in my actual office. How rabid is that? And if I'm
that rabid, what does this say about you and your prejudices?

This is good, though. Perhaps your mistaken assumption about me is enough
to raise a flag in your mind about those prejudices. And recognizing a
problem is a necessary first step in correcting it.

That's what I think we need to do with AOPA: help them recognize the
problem: that they're encouraging a dangerous monoculture.

- Andrew

Dylan Smith wrote:

(In fact, OSX comes with the
root account *disabled*).

I only learned of this recently (in discussion on system security in a forum
where it's on topic {8^). It's a nice touch.

[...]

As for security cultu consider this. Although Apache by far and large
is the most common web server, all the serious exploits so far has been
for the minority web server - IIS (Code Red et al.) I'm still getting
hits from attempted Code Red infections. Perhaps there is something to
the differing security cultures since in an area where Microsoft are a
decided minority, they *still* are the attack vector of choice?

MSFT fanatics ignore data like this. To them, they're the majority
everywhere. But it's getting some press, even outside the trades that only
professionals see. I think there was even an article in the Washington
Post on this a number of months back.

Ah, I've found:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...&notFound=true

Not quite your point, but related.

- Andrew

I was a Mac user back at version something. About 5 years ago I gave up.
Yes they have a great operating system but Apple has done everything
possible to screw up the adoption of it by the general public.

According to Google Zeitgeist the operating systems used to access Google
during February 2004 by percentage were

Windows 98 23%
Windows XP 46%
Windows 2000 18%
Windows NT 3%
Windows 95 1 %
Mac 4%
Linux 1%
Other 1%

That's 91% for Windows.

There just isn't the base out there for every body to port every thing to
non-Windows OS. Hell, the virus writers don't even port their stuff to Mac.



"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
Morgans wrote:

Who cares? You are a very small minority. (only half a grin, here)

The question is: Does AOPA care (about the minority that doesn't spew
viruses at everyone {8^) ?

I am, after all, an AOPA member.

Seriously: I spend a nontrivial amount of effort selling people on
non-viral-farm solutions. Thanks to Apple's OSX, this is actually quite
feasible for the nontechnical today.

So what is AOPA saying about safe computing (and never mind monocultures)
if
they ignore us?

- Andrew

Travis Marlatte wrote:

AOPA - please use my money to keep airports open and ADs to a safe
minimum. --

Agreed. AOPA: Just provide pointers on the web site to various planning
products, and spend our money on your mandate.

- Andrew