I finally got on Twitter. Mostly it just reflects my Facebook status… but I do appreciate the fact that it does exactly one thing—no photos, videos, games, stupid time-wasting apps, etc. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Check out my “tweets” here: http://twitter.com/vtluu

Saw a news story over at the BBC about how laptops sent up to the International Space Station were infected with a computer virus, partly because the computers “reportedly do not have any anti-virus software on them to prevent infection”. The mind boggles; how could so many smart people be so stupid?

That got me to thinking about how I don’t have any antivirus software on my Macbook laptop. (Not quite true: I have ClamXav, a free virus scanner for the Mac, but it’s not a “real-time” scanner and I rarely perform scans manually.) I did a bit of Googling on the topic and found a Slashdot piece (followed by the usual pro- and anti-Apple bashing; get a life, people!) that linked to a pertinent and interesting, if not entirely convincing article by computer security expert Rich Mogull, “Should Mac Users Run Antivirus Software?” Mogull claims that most Mac users do not benefit from running antivirus software, given how very few viruses target the Apple OS X platform. The latter statistic owes partly to Apple’s relatively small market share, and Mogull notes that there may come a point when that market share grows high enough for viruses to start becoming a real threat.

On the Windows side I’ve found that most antivirus software offerings suffer from creeping featuritis: antivirus programs turn into “security suites” and eventually install all kinds of extremely obtrusive programs that make them as much of a hassle as many of the viruses they’re supposed to block. Over time I’ve bought and given up on Symantec and McAfee when both programs started popping ads selling upgrades or worse, unrelated products from the same company. Evidently it is too much to ask for a program that does just one thing and does it well.

Fortunately, using a Mac largely spares me the aggravation of dealing with bloated antivirus software. As long as Macs remain largely unpopular, of course. So please, don’t buy a Mac… unless if you’re a national or international space agency.

I got Janice a new solar-powered quartz watch for her birthday.

I am a bit meticulous, if not downright obsessive-compulsive, when it comes to timekeeping. I keep my computers’ clocks synchronized precisely using NTP, two of the watches I use and my bedside alarm clock automatically synchronize themselves to the atomic clock in Fort Collins, Colorado via radio signals… I frequently adjust my Zenith mechanical watch to match these other “trusted” clocks although the fact that I usually wear such an inaccurate timepiece at all proves that my timekeeping obsession is short of pathological.

Janice’s new watch, being quartz-driven, is supposed to be accurate a few seconds a month or something like that. In keeping with my aforementioned obsession I would periodically check her watch, and much to my consternation find it running a few minutes fast. I couldn’t understand how a quartz watch could be running so inaccurately…

Until today. Janice saw me adjusting her watch and promptly told me not to. “I match it to the clock in my lab. It’s supposed to be synchronized to some satellites or something.”

She said she couldn’t figure why she would find her watch off by a few minutes every day, and have to readjust it. And of course, I noted wondering the exact same thing.

Still, it seems that Rigel’s timekeepers have a lot to answer for, because Janice’s lab clock, if her watch is any indication, is ahead by about five minutes.

I finally got around to dropping off my MacBook for repairs (a couple of hardware glitches, annoying but not fatal, had cropped up over a year ago) at the Stanford Apple store. (I chose the store because they were the only store without any 8GB iPhones in stock, hence I reasoned would be less crowded.)

I went to the “Genius Bar” and showed them the problem with laptop, and they said they’d take it in for diagnostic testing to be followed by any necessary repairs. They told me the initial diagnostics would take about 48 hours and they would follow-up by phone.

Five days passed without any word from Apple, nor any update on the repair status on the tech support website. I finally called Apple’s tech support line; they contacted the Stanford store who claimed that they had tried to contact me a few days earlier for authorization to send out the computer for repair. Funny, that; I’d given them my mobile phone number (verifiably correct on the receipt I received from them) and at no point did I miss a call or get a voicemail from the store.

Anyway with my authorization they sent the MacBook out to Memphis (if the FedEx tracking information is to be believed) for repairs, which were completed last weekend. The computer was shipped back to Stanford which received it on Monday. I phoned them and was told the computer was being “processed” and they would call me when it was ready.

Two days later and no phone call. I called up the Stanford store, inquired, and sure enough, the computer is ready to be picked up.

For a company that now makes phones, you’d think they would understand how to make phone calls.