Email virus protection

Thu Aug 21 03:39:00 UTC 2003

Warning, this is an off-topic rant about client software and the state of 
the world WRT Windows and Linux.  There is zero operational content in this 
post.

At 06:07 PM 8/20/2003, Lou Katz wrote:

>On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 03:46:48PM -0700, JC Dill wrote:
> >
> > At 02:07 PM 8/20/2003, Karsten W. Rohrbach wrote:
> >
> > >There's quite a lot of usable stuff out there. Many Win32 users have
> > >switched to Mozilla which seems to solve 100% of the Outlook-specific
> > >attacks which account for... hmmm... 100% of the malicious email
> > >messages of the last 6 months.
> >
> > Unfortunately, that's not true.  My father has to use Windoze because
> > several software programs for his industry (Real Estate, specifically
> > managing rentals) only come in Windoze flavors.  He stays away from M$
> > client software whenever possible and was using Mozilla for email (until
> > yesterday, I'm getting him started on Eudora).  His email software doesn't
> > automatically open attachments for him.
>
>For some (but not all folks), you can run such software on a Windows
>virtual machine (I use Win4Lin) under a Unix or Linux OS. That might
>be an attractive and not very expensive solution for the above.

He needs to be able to automatically and easily move data between all his 
programs.  It's not at all unusual for him to scan a document with 
PaperPort, then export it to Acrobat, then attach it to email and 
send.  Then he needs to automatically accept a fax and transfer it into 
PaperPort, so incoming faxes come in with WinFaxPro.   Then he needs to 
transfer data from an email into Homeworks, or Promas.  Then he needs to 
type up a document in WordPerfect (grabbing the address data from his Palm 
software), send attached to an email, also attaching a document just 
received via fax or just scanned.  Typically he has 6 or more programs all 
open at once.  We just upgraded the RAM so that his computer could handle 
all this in native Windows2k.

He (which means me, when he has problems) has enough trouble getting 
everything working nice/nice under Windows.  It would be impossible to get 
it all working seamlessly with some of these applications in Windows inside 
Linux and others inside Linux itself.  If we aren't running at least 1/2 of 
his applications under Linux itself, I don't see much purpose in running 
Linux at all.

Is there a Linux program that does what WinFaxPro does (booting at startup, 
automatically answering incoming faxes, saving in a format that can be 
exported to Acrobat or PaperPort, automatically forwarding a copy of the 
fax via email)?  Is there a Linux program that does what PaperPort does 
(scanning and filing all paperwork, then saving the file thru Acrobat or 
Photoshop, transferring to email or fax or OCR and into WP)?

I'm quite sure that there aren't any Linux programs like Homeworks or 
ListTrak or Promas (all Real Estate speciality programs required for his 
business).

So at most, he can use Linux with the Palm software (maybe), a browser 
(he's already using Mozilla under Win2K, so this isn't a big gain) an email 
client (he's using Eudora now, and I don't believe they have a Linux 
version), and Star Office (maybe, if it doesn't crash) for a WordPerfect 
solution.  Except that he really needs to migrate *off* WP and onto Word 
because he needs to send and receive docs in the format everyone else uses 
(Word, unfortunately).  In many cases he'd have to pay to buy new Linux 
versions of software he has already purchased for Windows (like Acrobat, 
Word, Norton Antivirus or the equivalent, with update license) even though 
some equivalent applications can be had for free (Gimp for 
Photoshop).  Then there's the learning curve, I'm sure that Gimp doesn't 
work *exactly* like Photoshop, he will have to learn to do things 
differently.  And this assumes all his RE software will run in a Win4Lin 
environment.  Can you say "the vendor doesn't support that" boys and 
girls?  :-(  Yeah, I thought you could.  A support tech drove from San Jose 
to Monterey yesterday to install a ListTrak because they have problems 
installing it on Win2K systems with SP4.  There's NFW they would support 
any of these programs if they were installed under Win4Lin or if we had 
problems with them running under Win4Lin but they run fine in Windows2k itself.

Oh, and he needs to be able to print from all programs to the HP 3330, 
which is directly connected to the desktop computer and accessed by the 
laptop as a Windows network printer.  Due to program driver weirdness 
(particularly with Promas) he has two different instances of this printer 
installed with two different drivers, he uses one version for some 
programs, the other version for the others.

The there's the hardware.  His desktop box is a el cheapo Compaq Presario 
desktop computer with 2 different CD drives (one reads, one reads and 
writes) with an internal zip drive and internal floppy.  It also has a 
modem (months ago I replaced the crappy win-modem with a real one so that 
WinFaxPro would work) and NIC, has a palm cradle via a serial connection, 
the HP3300 via USB, a mouse via USB, monitor, keyboard, and speakers.

And it needs to all work simply and easily for his non-technical bookkeeper 
who comes in only 1 day a week to input the bills and payments.  She scans 
documents into PaperPort, enters data into Promas, makes deposits, cuts 
checks, and then backsup all the day's data onto the Zip drive.

For some people, the applications needed simply dictate that they use 
Windoze.  My dad has been using WordPerfect since the DR-DOS days (and 
before that it was Electric Pencil), so he's not a M$ fan by any stretch of 
the imagination.  He can no longer use his favorite scanner (which works 
Win2k to use the latest versions of all his RE programs.  He's pissed at M$ 
for their crappy software and at the vendors for the forced upgrades, but 
he can't do without it because the alternatives are much more expensive and 
less likely to work well together, if they actually work at all.  And he 
needs this to work every day.

So he's stuck between a rock and a hard place, and we just try to secure 
his Windows system the best we can.

jc