For some reason, Macs and theft go together like peanut butter and banana. Two examples spring immediately to mind: the first is the way in which thieves will often walk right through a room full of PC's and spend extra time and effort to break into the room where the Macs are kept. There are a number of stories to this effect in the EvangeList archives, if you're willing to dig. In fact, we've personally experienced this phenomenon; our PowerBook was once stolen from an office in Los Angeles, and the Wintel laptop (not to mention the $20,000 Unix workstation) sitting right next to it was left untouched. Go figure.

The second example is being reported on MacFixit. It seems that iMacs are vanishing en route from resellers' warehouses to customers' homes. Take, for example, the strange story of Michael Ward, who contacted MacConnection to find out why his iMac still hadn't shown up several days after it should have arrived. MacConnection tracked the shipment, and discovered that the iMac had apparently been stolen en route. So they shipped a replacement. The replacement was also stolen en route. And according to MacConnection, this wasn't an isolated incident-- they're seeing several iMacs vanish during transit.

So there you have it-- one of those petty hidden drawbacks of being a Mac user; increased probability of theft. Macintosh: The Choice of Discriminating Thieves. Think Insurance Policy.

Remember back when the Macintosh platform had the edge when it came to speech recognition? Okay, maybe it never really held the lead when it came to actual dictation of spoken text, but at least all Power Macs were capable of understanding spoken commands after the simple installation of some free software from Apple. When we first got our PowerTower Pro, we had lots of fun putting together Applescripts that would connect the Mac to the 'net, grab our mail, load a specific web page, and start playing an audio CD, all with a single spoken command. If nothing else, it was a great "gee whiz" feature.

Nothing new had arisen in Apple's speech recognition software for several years, so that's why we're intrigued by the story over on Mac OS Rumors that indicates improved speech support in Mac OS 8.5. According to a reader, the new speech recognition extensions have had their versions bumped by .01, apparently signifying the fact that they now sample all speech at 44.1 KHz. This reportedly results in much improved recognition-- and if memory serves, we believe it'll also allow speech recognition on the iMacs, which have not been able to use the released version of the software because their sound was too high-quality.

Of course, when it comes to dictation software, Windows users have something like a dozen applications to choose from, and several are in the $100 or less range. Mac users, meanwhile, still only have Power Secretary, which costs significantly more, and uses an older speech recognition technology. Still waiting...

Hands up, how many of you are aware of the first real Mac virus to hit the scene in a few years, the Autostart 9805 Worm? Okay, keep your hands up if you're regularly scanning your Mac for its presence and taking precautions to guard against infection. We only ask because it continues to spread like wildfire, despite several relatively easy (and free) methods of protection; MacInTouch reports that two commercial CD-ROM's recently shipped with the worm on them, and we also personally witnessed-- and squelched-- an outbreak at our day job company.

The very simplest thing you can do is open the QuickTime Settings control panel and uncheck the option that says "Enable CD-ROM AutoPlay." That should prevent infection on your system (at least in theory), and it's not a feature you're likely to miss. Ten seconds and you've significantly reduced your risk; it doesn't get much simpler than that. If you're willing to spend a few more minutes protecting the health of your Mac and the integrity of your data, take the time to download and run any of a multitude of freeware Worm detectors and eliminators. We use EarlyBird, ourselves. (Of course, if you are conscientious enough to be running a commercial virus protection package like Virex, make sure you're using the latest available data file.)

We find it a little ironic that the AutoStart Worm has spread so effectively, given how relatively simple it is to detect and remove. If the Mac weren't such a virus-free platform to begin with, the Worm probably wouldn't have even made it to the U.S. The simple fact of the matter is, Mac users aren't used to worrying about viruses-- but we'd better learn fast. (This has been a public service announcement brought to you by AtAT.)