Geez, is it already that time again where we have to sit down and talk about security.

It's bad enough that your faithful Mac Inspector has been running his tail off to cover the RSA Conference, but now I check out our site and see that Iain Thomson's recent article on Mac security has been peppered with responses from angry Mac users who continue to swear up and down that things are just fine and dandy.

People, there is a threat. There are Mac vulnerabilities, there are Mac updates, there is a Mac botnet. To claim that Macs are in no danger for malware infection at this point is pretty much just sticking one's head in the sand.

Are they major outbreaks? No. Are they as numerous as PC threats? No. But does any of that really matter at the end of the day? The threat is there. Wake up and accept that Mac users now have to protect themselves. It's not hard. Make sure everything is patched, don't open unknown or suspicious files. If you really want, you can download an anti-virus package as well (ClamX AV is free and is used by Apple for OS X server.)

This is just getting silly. It's time Mac users all grew up a bit, accepted the emerging dangers and quit throwing a fit whenever someone uses the words 'Mac' and 'malware' in the same sentence.

The latest assualt from Redmond now uses 'average' folks who go get PCs instead of Macs because the PCs are cheaper and the people who buy them are "not cool enough for a Mac".

But isn't this what Apple has been saying for the last 10 years?

Hasn't the whole idea behind their campaigns been that Apple computers are 'superior' machines made for those with discerning taste?

This has been Apple's selling point for quite some time now. It's why Jeff Goldblum and not John Goodman narrated the first iMac acts. It's why Steve Jobs always talks about making "beautiful machines" and not "quality, affordable products". It's why Justin "I'm a Mac" Long always looks like he just came out of a J-Crew add and John "PC" Hodgman looks like a children's formal ware mannequin.

That's kind of the point.

If these latest Windows ads are trying to say that PCs are for regular schlubs and Macs are for the fancy types willing to pay more for a computer, then they're spending a lot of money to say what most everyone figures out within five minutes of walking into an Apple store.

Of course Macs are "cooler" and more expensive, that's why they sell well in the markets that they do. It seems that Microsoft is just appealing to its existing fan base here, and missing the point with those who are buying Macs.

Steve Jobs has been away from Apple's Cupertino campus since January, but that hasn't kept him from keeping a pretty steady grip on the goings-on down at Infinite Loop.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Jobs has kept the reins of the company while working from home and recovering from what is only being termed a "hormonal imbalance." And Steve is said to be heavily involved in the development of Apple's mystery netbook/tablet project.

While it is a welcome bit of good news on Jobs' recovery, it is hardly a shock to most that follow the company.

Jobs is said to be something of a control freak, to put it lightly, and has always been closely involved with the development of Apple's big projects going back to the days of the Macintosh. While Phil Schiller and Tim Cook were certainly going to see their roles at the top of the company increase, it was still clear that as long as Steve Jobs could stand up, he would be running as much of the show as he could.

Now, the questions turns to when Jobs will be returning to Apple headquarters and whether he will be resuming his role as the primary public face of the company. Phil Schiller hasn't exactly destroyed the company with his appearances, but he's also no Steve Jobs.

When he first left, Jobs said that he would shoot for the end of June. Aside from the end of the fiscal quarter, late June has traditionally been when the company issues its iPhone update. Perhaps we will see the triumphant return of Jobs at some sort of iPhone function around that time.

Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg... all computing icons and all only got part way through college.

Now you too can reap the potential rewards of only getting a little bit of a university education: Stanford University has begun offering its iPhone Application Programming course for free via the iTunes U service.

Okay, so it's not exactly like being at Stanford to take the class in-person, but given the mental and physical state most of us were in throughout college, you're probably capable of absorbing the material just as well as the average undergrad.

Between this and the free MIT classes, one can now build a fairly impressive web-based academic record.

Today RIM launched its much-anticipated BlackBerry app store, giving owners of those handsets the option to download third-party applications and developers the opportunity to sell their applications.

Given the runaway success of the iPhone's App Store, should BlackBerry lovers expect the same? And if so, should Apple be worried about that success coming out of the iPhone's pockets?

Well, perhaps. RIM has been pushing the latest BlackBerry models on their web and multimedia features, and with no major sftware update planned before the summer, interest in the iPhone could cool.

What could be more likely,however, is that the two sides steer clear of a showdown altogether. After all, the two sides occupy two pretty different ends of the spectrum, and the smartphone market is still growing. Think for a minute about how many iPhone owners you know of who have their phones through a corporate account, then think for a minute about how many BlackBerry owners you know of who pay for the bill out of their own pockets. As long as the two sides steer clear of each other, a true showdown could be a ways off.

It seems both sides should be more concerned with other foes at the moment; RIM with Windows Mobile in the enterprise space and Apple with Android and the Palm Pre in the consumer space.