Week in review: Of mice and Microsoft

Apple Computer broke with longstanding tradition this week by introducing its first multibutton mouse for the Mac, while Microsoft has been busy working through security issues and shopping for new execs at Wal-Mart.

Dubbed Mighty Mouse, Apple's new $49 pointer has a 360-degree scroll wheel and can be programmed to recognize a click on either the left or right side. For Apple purists, it can also act as a single-button mouse.

Multibutton mice have been standard on Windows PCs for years, and even the Mac OS has long recognized a right click. However, the company has stuck by its single-button design, refining it and adding a Bluetooth wireless version, but maintaining only a single-click option.

Of the dozens of CNET News.com readers who offered feedback to this story, some were Apple fans heralding the mouse as an innovative new pointing device and lauding the "stroke of genius" from CEO Steve Jobs. Others, however, took a more facetious tone.

"Apple certainly is on the forefront of new and innovative technology!" wrote David Arbogast. "How long will it be before the PC industry 'steals' this amazing new idea?"

Reader "Fray Fray" defended the new mouse, writing that "actually it is something pretty new. I know I've never seen much less heard of a mouse with a built in mini-trackball and touch sensitive buttons."

Meanwhile, Apple fans are upset over a security chip found in a special x86-based PowerMac--a chip designed to prevent people from loading the company's new Intel-centered OS onto non-Apple machines.

Apple supplied the Intel-fitted PowerMac to members of its Apple Developer Connection, a group for software programmers. The PowerMac includes a microcontroller known as the Trusted Platform Module--TPM for short--that contains a digital signature necessary in order to install the Mac OS X operating system onto the box.

Speaking of security
Virus writers are targeting a new Microsoft tool that will be part of Windows and is set to ship as part of the next Exchange e-mail server release.

A virus writer has published the first examples of malicious code that targets Microsoft's upcoming command-line shell, code-named Monad, according to Finnish antivirus maker F-Secure.

The tool was initially intended to be included in Vista. When news of the exploits came out, it triggered reports that they would be the first viruses for Windows Vista. But later Friday Microsoft clarified that the Monad viruses will not affect the client version of the operating system update, formerly known as Longhorn.

"Since when is it the responsibility of the OS vendor to protect the user from viruses?" --Rob Rodriguez

Readers quickly started offering feedback on this late-breaking story. Some, like Rob Rodriguez, wondered, "Since when is it the responsibility of the OS vendor to protect the user from viruses? It would be an impossible task to create an OS where it was simple impossible to create viruses. You would have a completely useless environment."

But Carl Johnson called some readers "dysfunctional and codependent apologists" and said the problem lies with the way Windows is written.

To help make its software more watertight, Microsoft wants its "Blue Hat" date with hackers to become a regular affair, with twice-yearly events where outsiders demonstrate flaws in Microsoft's product security.

In March, Microsoft invited several hackers to its Redmond, Wash., headquarters for the first time. The two-day meeting of Microsoft