On Thu, 14 Aug 2003, Alan Dayley wrote:

> The virus has pushed Maricopa County into "red alert" status. In all, more than 260 computers were infected in the county's system, which includes more than 10,000 personal computers.
> 
> Paul Allsing, the county's deputy chief information officer, describes the infection as mostly a waste of time.
> 
> "It's taken us three full days to get this contained, which is the worst virus experience we've had," Allsing said. "It's been a significant consumption of county resources in terms of time."
> 
> Allsing said residents shouldn't see a slowdown in customer service, although e-mails sent to the county may have been delayed. "

All I can say to Allsing is... "You dug the hole, don't complain that you
fell in and got your clothes dirty.".

I realize that people (ie unwashed masses) think I'm insane or full of 
crap when I try to educate them on why MS is a *bad thing* in a production 
environment, especially one that is connected to the internet.  
In the last six months, I have taken a much more relaxed approached to my 
evangelism and I simply let the news and the media do the talking for me.

Now, more than ever, Linux and Mac OSX are GREAT alternatives to the 
virus-laden, worm-ridden, license-fee-charging MS world.

> 
> [sarcasm on]
> I'm so glad they signed up for several more years of this!  What a good use of scarce tax funds.
> [sarcasm off]

No kidding!  Again, this is what happens when you let suits decide the 
technology roadmap for a municipality (or any organization).  MS markets 
their slop to executives to 'educate' *cough* assimilate *cough* them.  
They realize that money rolls downhill.  Get the executive team and you've 
got the company.  

This is an area where RedHat/IBM/Apple really need to step up to the plate 
and play ball.  

> Hopefully this will encourage more use of non-Micrsoft OSes to build a less homogenous infrastructure.

We can only hope, Alan.  We can only hope.

*crosses fingers*