[thelist] OT Win Question - Norton vs McAfee?

Luther, Ron ron.luther at hp.com
Mon May 17 11:13:12 CDT 2004


Hi Gang,


Still working with my brother-in-law's old laptop. Was installing the 
McAfee 'suite' of protection apps yesterday.

* Didn't think I could install spamcop since he's reading his email 
through the web interface to yahoo_mail.  That sound about right - 
he's not gonna have access to the servers, so he can't run his own 
spam software?

* Was also having some issues getting McAfee to 'play nice' with 
allowing him to send email with attachments (resumes) over yahoo_mail.
That sound about right?  Couldn't find a way, short of turning the 
dang thing off, to allow the active-x yahoo components access to the 
files on his local drive for browsing. Any 'easy' way to get around 
that?


Would the Norton suite have been any better?  Or would that pretty 
much hit the same issues with a different interface?


Sorry ... it's Monday ... fairly lame-o tip for my OT transgression:


<tip author="RonL" type="skepticism">

Be sure to maintain a healthy skepticism when dealing with clients, 
with IT, and with your own work.

Cross-check everything.

If the client says "that field only contains two possible values" ... 
don't trust them. Run periodic checks dumping all distinct values for 
'eyeballing'.

If IT says "we put in the patch and corrected that last Wednesday" ... 
don't trust them.  Run a check on data entered after the patch was 
put into effect to validate that it is working as expected.

If the users say "your new report is running great" ... test it 
even harder ... they obviously missed something important.

</tip>



RonL.



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