Mac users opinion?
 

So, sick of windows, I've been thinking of switching to Mac...
Is this a concern, or just a sales pitch?

http://www.forbes.com/facesinthenews/2005/03/22/0322autofacescan09.html?partner=my_yahoo?partner=m y_yahoo&referrer=

I know nothing about Mac's, other than I love my iPod. So much so that I'm thinking of purchasing their latest product .....

http://andyyeo.0catch.com/itoilet.html

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1111543500.jpg

I suspect mostly a sales pitch. It must be pretty hard to sell Mac antivirus products.

Security firms have been warning for the past year of virus exploits for Mac. But there hasn't been any noticeable rise in security problems. I know we haven't ever had an issue with our Mac.

I assume that if Mac ever did capture major market share, it would become more interesting for virus writers. But at <5% now, that seems a long ways off.

SYmantec and other smaller antivirus companies are notorious for fanning the flames of worry. They suck, Apple doesn't.

Thanks, guys...

My wife had a virus on her Macs when she worked at Yamaha. It happens.

Yes, it happens, but whether a computer uses Mac OS or Windows, it's still a good idea to be vigilent by killing unknown email and attachments, and using a good antivirus and antispam software. Either system is good once you're protected.

Sales pitch.

Len, how long ago was that?

There has not been a Mac virus since OSX debuted 4+ years ago.

If it was recently then they are still running OS 9, time to get updated.

Yeah, but if one's unfortunate to have a machine that won't run OSX, time to spend a little more than $100 for an update... :(

Virus writers target the largest audience, which as everyone knows is Windoz. If it were Mac, Solaris, or HP-UX, they would find a way. I've been told by some ex Mac developers that some of the worst code written lives in the pre OSx Mac operating system. Mac has avoided most of the hw/sw issues by keeping it mostly proprierity, and expensive. That said Windoz is no bug free OS either. Nothing is. If that is your goal then pick up a copy of Linux and start hacking.

Oh, they suck all right. But they suck Differently.

Go Mac. You won't go back.

If you don't want to go mac right away, try Linux for awhile. Learn to use the terminal and find some alternative programs to what you're used to. If you can adapt to it and learn something, then maybe go to Apple.

The only reason I got an apple (powerbook) was that I wanted a good laptop that I could write Java with, so it was either put Linux on a laptop or get something already unix based.

Now I don't have a windows box even running in the house, everything's linux except for my powerbook and 17" iMac. (23" Cinema display coming!!)

You can try the experience fairly cheap if you buy that little box, the mac mini, at around $500. Use your existing peripherals. If you don't like you can sell it and maybe lose $100.

Yeah, those mini Macs are hella cool. I hear they don't do Adobe well, however...

Then you'd be running at least a 6 year old box. Definately time to upgrade. Get a Mac Mini if cost is a factor.

$500 and you get the box, OS and just about all the software that the average consumer would need.

Re: Mac users opinion?
 

I've had bad luck with Mac. I had an ibook that was a meltdown nightmare. Viruses never got the chance to mess with it as it failed quickly on it's own.

However, I would ask what your applications are? Also, why don't you like windows? What's happening?

Macs are better at some things than others. For mainstream use, I would stick with windows. For certain apps such as photo/art and music I hear the macs are superior. I think that may be at the upper end of those uses, however.

I know windows has it's issues, but for the money, hell-even even money, I'll take windows. But, I use mine for business and travel. I can't imagine going back to Mac.

Hoping not to get into the which is better debate. I'm sitting here at my Mac 17 inch laptop and right next to it is my HP P4 Notebook.

Both machines are capable of doing the same thing but my primary weapon of choice is the Mac.

For me and most other Mac users it comes down to a preference for user interface.

I prefer the Mac, it's my opinion that the UI is superior allowing me to get more done with less stress making me more productive.

Others will prefer the Windows interface and that's just fine as it's a question of what you like.

Sorry your Mac toasted on you but I've had Windows boxes do the same thing, you got a lemon, it happens. You can't judge the entire product line by that one incident and if they were all like that Apple would have been out of business a long time ago.

So why do I have both? Simple, Microsoft have a nasty habit of taking open industry standards and improving them to the point that they are almost Windows proprietary.

I need the box to test video and web visuals in the environment where they will be viewed the majority of the time.

I currently have a website going up for a client, building it on a the PC in Frontpage so the client can update stuff later on their own.

Pages work fine on the Mac under Mozzilla, Safari, IE, Opera and work fine on the PC under every browser except IE.

So the one place it f's up is under Windows where it was built with another MS product and being viewed by an MS product.

Way to go Bill.

PC, Mac (PPC, some IBM stuff too), MIPS, Alpha, Sparc, who cares... they all run Debian :)

Honestly though, if nothing is tying you to windows, I'd say go for it.

It may have been 4 years ago, in fact likey was. She left Yamaha maybe 2 years ago.

I've been experimenting with a coup[le of flavors of Linux for the past month or so. Red Hat 9 and SuSE 9.1. While similar, they are just "different" enough to make you have to think.

All in all though, I'm really starting to like it and am planning on switching a few of my computers over to it. Even one of my servers will be getting a make-over soon.

Randy

The one and only malicious attack I've had on my Mac was a long time ago and when you booted it would show Homer Simpson laughing. It was easy to dump and actually pretty funny. At least the writer had a sense of humor.


Go Mac you won't regret it........until you start buying software of course.

One thing I like is the Apple Stores. My wife's iBook had a problem (bad logic board), and although I was unhappy that the problem arose I liked being able to simply walk into the nearest Apple Store, spend 1/2 hour with the tech at the Genuis Bar, and leave the laptop there for repair, which was done promptly. Beats spending hours on the phone to India and then rooting through the garage looking for a box to mail the laptop in for repair.

Has anyone else used the Apple tech support? I used it once, because my bird threw bird seed in my keyboard and I wanted to make sure I'd be able to remove the key, clean it out, and put it back together.

Oh my god, the tech support chick had about the hottest voice you could imagine. I swear, she could've talked me into buying a dual G5 machine and I wouldn't have even thought about it.

Re: Re: Mac users opinion?
 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sebring77
[B]I've had bad luck with Mac. I had an ibook that was a meltdown nightmare. Viruses never got the chance to mess with it as it failed quickly on it's own.

However, I would ask what your applications are? Also, why don't you like windows? What's happening?

Good question...an I'd like to add that you folks are wayyy over my head when it comes to using these things. My main gripe lately has been a series of trash emails...trying to sell me horney housewives, coedine, viagra, other porn...just garbage. I hit "block sender", but the same krap keeps coming, only under new names...4 & 5 of these every day. Are apple user immune?
I mostly surf the car sites, Cindy uses the computer for financial (investment) info...emails to friends and family, of course. We pay McAfee for virus protection, and so far, so good.

Apple's Mail app is pretty smart. I get maybe one email a week that slips past the junk filters, but it catches hundreds a day, literally. I look through the junk every few days to make sure it didn't get anything important mixed in there, and haven't found a mistake yet.

You need an industrial type, i.e. corporate style, spam blocker to make a dent in all the crap being sent. I am at a major corp and I still get some of that stuff. At home using AOL, there is no effective blocking. It is not the type of machine, but the spam blocking software protection on the email system that you need.

The corportate policy is never to hit any reply button on those emails. That just tells them they hit a live body.

So hitting "block sender" only encourages them? I should just double delete?

Block sender has no effect on anything at all. the addresses they use are spoofed anyway, so it just adds a line to whatever your mail client uses to filter your mail.

Well... I should amend that... some clients will use some info about the message, header patterns, message patterns, subject patterns, how much of what type of content is in the message, and make some new filter out of that criteria when you try to block the sender or when you mark it as junk. The smarter ones do all of this... Outlook, afaik, just blocks the sender, which doesn't exist anyway.

bryan, thank you very much for the info! :)

To the person who said mac minis did not play well with Adobe, can you be more specific ? I've been toying with getting one of those for light photoshop stuff. Could it have been because they come stock with a paltry 256 meg ?

You can put in a gig if you want.

I think it has something to do with the bus speed as to the reason the minis don't do well with Adobe. I can't recall entirely.

CNET.com should have a review of the Mac minis. Maybe it'll illuminate this issue.

AFAIK, most spam blockers use either blacklists (lists of prohibited addresses) or simple filters (specific prohibited words) or probabliity-based filters (calculates probability of new email being junk based on similarity of its content to the messages you've already marked as junk).

The current crop of junk emails that I'm getting has some innocuous and legitimate-looking words (fragments from poems or news stories, etc) and the Viagra or Hot Sexxx advert is in an embedded image, which the spam filter can't read.

That's why even email apps with good spam filters, like Apple's Mail or Mozilla's Thunderbird, still fail to catch all the junk emails.

Presumably the spam filter guys will start using OCR (optical character recognition) software and get on top of this type of spam, then the bad guys will think of something new.

I don't see a real solution as long as it remains virtually free to send millions of spam emails. If it cost 1/100 of 1 cent to send an email, the economics of spamming would break down. Yes, some legitimate businesses would incur cost too. But if you are sending out millions of emails that only a tiny fraction of a percent of recipients will ever respond to, then I think that's basically spam, even if you are otherwise a legitimate business.

The performance hit with Photoshop will come from the Hard Drive.

Mac Mini's use a laptop drive, 4200-5400 RPM. Desktops use a 7200 rpm drive.

Photoshop makes big scratch files. Writing them to a slower drive will create a hit.

It's not that big a deal. It's like running it on a laptop, perfectly doable and certainly adequate for the average consumer.

There are 2 workarounds if you want, swap out for a Hitachi 7200 laptop drive or simply hang an external usb or firewire drive on it and set Photoshop to use that drive for scratch space.

For moderately heavy Photoshop that box should be fine, just add some RAM, you can never have enough and the stuff is cheap.

Be patient and shop the circulars. My deal of the week, Kingston 512mb pc2700 sodimm for one of my laptops, $70 final price.

I'm not so sure Apple blocks spam better than anything else. I use Yahoo mail and I get very little spam. The filter works quite well. I also use Roadrunner/Time Warner and get no spam whatsoever. I guess you need to be careful where you go on the internet. I hear chat rooms are spam death for your computer.

Based on your needs I wouldn't get a Mac. Not because they are bad machines, but because they're a little spendy vs a windows counterpart. For example; you can buy an ibook (which I would strongly discourage) for around $1300. For half that you can buy a name brand windows laptop that will cruise the internet as well or better than the apple. Why better? Some sites require plug ins that aren't installed on Macs. You can hunt around to make a Mac work, but a windows computer will work right out of the box.

Sign up for a Yahoo e-mail account. I think you'll be happy.

Dude not again, cruising the net is probably one of the least intensive things that you can do with any computer and does not heavily task them at all. It's by no means a benchmark to use to compare any computers.

Some sites require plug ins that you have to hunt for to make a Mac work? That's the biggest load of BS I've heard.

So prove me wrong and name them. Cause I've yet to come across a site that required an additional plug-in download on my Mac.

Scott

Whoa! I might have to buy that.

I'd also like a 7200 RPM drive. Have any sources?

Hitachi is the only one that makes a 7200. They can be had for around $150 and are SO WORTH IT. Buy it online, zipzoomfly or newegg.

I've been running the 60 gb in my 17 in for the last year and it runs whisper quiet, does not heat up and makes the box run like a desktop.

Difference is night and day. Old drive went into a portable USB powered enclosure.

Best computer money I've spent in a while.

The RAM is at Best Buy.

under $100 including tax with a $25 rebate.

Even w/o the rebate it's a good deal for 512 mb of brand name memory.