A friend of mine just switch to a Mac iBook after years of PC. Does she need anti-virus software, and if so, does anyone have any good recommendations?

Random question: anyone know why my powerbook would suddenly think it's 1969? I mean, I know I've been reading a book about timetravel, but...geez!

I was using it last night, plugged it in, went to bed, used it this morning, shut it down, flew home, started it up again...and all of a sudden it's all "Your computer is set before 2001 you might have issues!". And I go to "Date and Time" and it says it's set to update automatically, but...7PM on 12/31/69??

(ETA: I changed it manually, logged on to the internet, changed it back to automatic update, and it's fine now...but still weird)

I don't know why your Powerbook would have reset itself, but midnight 12/31/69 is zero in Unix time, and is the default whenever a Powerbook (all Macs?) clock resets itself.

I don't understand why 7 pm though -- that's weird.

It's 12:00am 1/1/1970 Greenwich time, which is 7pm 12/31/1969 Eastern time.

Ah hah! Well, that at least makes the 7pm make more sense (I had some idea as to the 1969 part, but couldnt' figure out the time issue). As to why it would've reset itself, I'm completely baffled. Hmmm. Perhaps my aunt and uncle's wireless network is insane?

Did you take out the battery for an extended time?

If you reboot the computer again, does it do the same thing?

Hmm. Have not yet rebooted the computer.

Did not remove the battery, though it did at one point a day or so ago run out of battery--however, I'd think it would've done the "yo, weird date!" thing to me yesterday, when I was using it. Though perhaps...hmm. Might've been the first time I entirely shut it off after the battery died, and restarted it. Hmmm...

How old is the powerbook? Sometimes the internal PRAM (CMOS in the PC world) battery (button-type, sometimes) gets old and worn out, and especially drained when it is idle without power for a while. The latter can be cumulative.

My iBook (an OS 9 machine) thinks it's 1904, even if I keep it plugged in. As Daniel says, it's probably the wee battery.

I've seen that happen to Powerbooks that are set to the network time server option and then for some reason lose the connection to the server. I haven't been able to reproduce the problem consistently, but it's happened to me often enough that I'm fairly sure it's related. Perhaps if the powerbook finds a wireless network that's available but which will not allow it to connect to the time server it gets confused. This could happen quite easily in something like an airport where there are plenty of wireless access points that want you to pay before they allow a real internet connection. If the powerbook is cold booted under these conditions it may be what causes the date to go haywire.