Mac vs Windows

[KKOB]

not sure where to post this so here will do.

 

My mom got my old laptop off me, which she offered to pay for, but i forgot about her having to pay for it lmao meh anywho my old laptop, she got it and it was playing up, turned out the motherboard is deaded basicly, and it'll cost £200+ to replace, bearing in mind the laptop cost about £1,200. I've persuaded her to use the money to get a mac mini as she only really wants a laptop so she can go on the computer while she's in the lounge.

 

She's been thinking about a Mac since she's heard me yabbering about it, she went and checked out the website and it looking forward to trying out my macbook pro in a couple weeks. We'll see, i hope she does like OS X because then she'll get a mac mini, and she can use it to record TV and such like and maybe she'll actually use email! lol

[Jasper]

not sure where to post this so here will do.

 

My mom got my old laptop off me, which she offered to pay for, but i forgot about her having to pay for it lmao meh anywho my old laptop, she got it and it was playing up, turned out the motherboard is deaded basicly, and it'll cost £200+ to replace, bearing in mind the laptop cost about £1,200. I've persuaded her to use the money to get a mac mini as she only really wants a laptop so she can go on the computer while she's in the lounge.

 

She's been thinking about a Mac since she's heard me yabbering about it, she went and checked out the website and it looking forward to trying out my macbook pro in a couple weeks. We'll see, i hope she does like OS X because then she'll get a mac mini, and she can use it to record TV and such like and maybe she'll actually use email! lol

 

Good one. my parents aren't even willing to consider a mac. Wich is sad, actually, but heck - they're hapy with XP nonetheless (even if it stops every once in a while...).

[KKOB]

Good one. my parents aren't even willing to consider a mac. Wich is sad, actually, but heck - they're hapy with XP nonetheless (even if it stops every once in a while...).

 

Next step is to get Airport in the house, but i think we'll wait till we move, and stick with the belkin unless it starts giving us grief.

[UziT]

Next step is to get Airport in the house, but i think we'll wait till we move, and stick with the belkin unless it starts giving us grief.

 

where u moving :S

[KKOB]

where u moving :S

 

Same area still, just different house-looong story but basically its worth the bit of hassle so we wont have to move again.

[Jackster]

EDIT: Wow I'm stupid, I never realised Jordan's post was on the first page, kinda bringing back an old argument. Oh well, my bad.

 

I have used OSX 10.4. I don't see what all the fuss is about. It looks pretty, but no more so than Vista. It lacks so many things i'm used to on a PC and it frustrates me that so many programs don't work.

Of course it won't have all the things you're used to in Vista, Macs run a different operating system. Of course your programs won't run... it's a different operating system.

 

1, It is more difficult to upgrade a Mac, unless you have a Power PC mac.

What are you talking about? I have never heard anyone say that PowerPC Macs are easier to upgrade. You can easily upgrade the RAM and Hard Disk in any Desktop or Notebook Mac, and you can upgrade pretty much everything in the Mac Pro. Yeah all Macs (except the Mac Pro) are kinda crap when it comes to CPU and Graphics Card upgrades, I'm hoping Apple will fix this at some point. I think the main problem with the iMac especially is it has got to save space, therefore things like the CPU don't have a little bay so you can swap it, it's actually soldered onto the Logic Board.

 

2, Vista has not only been shown to load programs faster but more efficently than OSX when the same program is used.

I should hope so, it's only had 5 years to get that right</immature stab at Vista>. But seriously, I'm not actually saying you're wrong here, I would just like to see where you're getting this information from. Your friend/colleague/PC World guy doesn't count.

 

3, Hardware is over priced when buying a Mac.

Yes Macs are generally more expensive, there are two reasons I can see for this: you get iLife free with every Mac; and manufacturers like Dell get paid by AOL and others to include their software prominently on every computer, hence they can sell the computers at a lower price while Apple don't do this. Actually three, Apple are also aware that they have a lot of users who will pay anything to have the latest and greatest Mac, so they can afford to bump up the prices. Annoying but true.

 

4, You're technically paying ALOT for Mac OSX.

<see above>

 

5, The whole thing about patching, yes when you have an OS used by millions and millions of people with billions of different system configuations rather than a few set specs you have to patch it.

I'll give you that there can be a hell of a lot of issues with all the different hardware configurations but in my opinion a computers components are no excuse for programming errors which cause so many security problems in Windows.

 

6, People who own a Mac think that they are 'immune' to viruses and spyware. Viruses are on the rise for Macs, sooner or later a huge increase will happen.

Again, I would like to see your evidence of this. Basically unless there is some seriously dodgy program doing something it really shouldn't (and I'm not actually aware of any like that), OS X will ask you if you're absolutely sure you want to do something if it could potentially compromise your computer's stability or security, asking you for the administrator password.

 

7, The people who own Mac's are most of their time completely up their own asses. I don't know why you'de think because your using something totally encased in white makes you better somehow.

Totally agree with you on this one, I hate most Mac users (although not all!). They do honestly believe they are superior when they're really not. If you want an example of this go to your local Mac User Group *shudder*

 

8, Mac's look horrible, honestly. The whole white thing is just... bleh. Give me black or silver anyday.

Really? I love the White! although you can get Macs in black or silver, they're just a helluva lot more expensive, which is kind of a bummer.

 

Man I wish I didn't always argue with you, it's just I have to make sure there are always two sides to an argument. I like your crown!

[Emasher]

Again, I would like to see your evidence of this. Basically unless there is some seriously dodgy program doing something it really shouldn't (and I'm not actually aware of any like that), OS X will ask you if you're absolutely sure you want to do something if it could potentially compromise your computer's stability or security, asking you for the administrator password.

 

not to mention apple will emediatly release a security update fixing this like they did once before.

[Wesley]

I don't think Apple try and find security holes in their systems as well as they could....

 

EDIT: Oh I just checked my Mac for updates and it said there was a new security update. See, Apple are cool and have special program for updates; does Windows?

 

Oh... wait.

[Emasher]

there's a quicktime update too.

[Marshmellow]

Don't get me started with Quicktime... This might be a stab at Windows and Mac but I can't get the newest version of Quicktime to work on Vista or XP.

 

And for some dumb reason you can't use old versions of Quicktime. According to Apple you need to use the newest version! Bunch of Bull.

[Jasper]

Don't get me started with Quicktime... This might be a stab at Windows and Mac but I can't get the newest version of Quicktime to work on Vista or XP.

 

And for some dumb reason you can't use old versions of Quicktime. According to Apple you need to use the newest version! Bunch of Bull.

 

Well, again, you are running it on a windows system. But the latest work fine over here and the latest updates should work well on Vista, too.

 

About the virusses: There are virusses for mac - don't get that wrong! But these virusses are very hard to get simply because the entire file system on mac is different. You can't mail a command to anyone on mac because macs don't recognize files from the extension, but from a file determination within the document. UNIX-style systems contain the meta-tags within the files, and therefore a virus cannot be disguised as a harmless, say, JPEG - because the OS will read the files meta and see it's an executable command and will ask your permission. Now, you barely see any of these notes on Mac - but Windows has buckloads of them, since he can't really tell what sort of file it is.

[Wesley]

Tell us more. I didn't know any of that!

 

One thing that annoys me is that Mac OS is so... closed. With Windows as a little kid I woould play about with everything and find out ho everything works. But my Mac... it's... magic as far as I know.

[theguyfromspark]

About the virusses: There are virusses for mac - don't get that wrong! But these virusses are very hard to get simply because the entire file system on mac is different. You can't mail a command to anyone on mac because macs don't recognize files from the extension, but from a file determination within the document. UNIX-style systems contain the meta-tags within the files, and therefore a virus cannot be disguised as a harmless, say, JPEG - because the OS will read the files meta and see it's an executable command and will ask your permission. Now, you barely see any of these notes on Mac - but Windows has buckloads of them, since he can't really tell what sort of file it is.

 

Very quickly.. I'm at work so can't spend much time explaining myself, but I can't really agree with anything you say here. If a file in windows has a jpeg extension it will open with whatever is configured to open jpeg files, typically a picture viewer editor. If you renamed an executable file containing a virus to have the jpeg extension and opened it, the picture viewer software would attempt to load the file as a picture, it wouldn't execute the file and therefore recieve the virus.

The vast majority of viruses are spread due to people executing programs they recieve from unknown people on the internet or email. Even if the files have their extension renamed to something apparantly harmless, the person would have to first undo that rename in order to execute it, and anyone who does that deserves everything they get.

[McPhee]

exactly

 

tbh Windows only has a Virus 'problem' because half the people using it have a lower IQ than a pea. Its not hard to avoid Viruses:

 

1. Don't use McAfee or Norton anti-virus, both of these suck. Badly. Avast is best avoided too, the free version is crap

 

2. Don't open any files ending in .exe without scanning for viruses first

 

3. Schedule regular virus scans

 

4. Keep you're AV up to date. If its subscription based then don't go cancelling the sub

 

From what you described it sounds like OS X will open the file whatever the extension? So if a Virus was hidden as a Jpeg, it would warn the user and if the user chose to proceed then it would open the file as an executable?

If thats true then be glad OS X doesn't have some of the idiots that use Windows!

[Wesley]

You mention what anti-viruses to avoid. But.. which one is best then? I have AVG installed when ever I have Windows.

[Emasher]

Tell us more. I didn't know any of that!

 

One thing that annoys me is that Mac OS is so... closed. With Windows as a little kid I woould play about with everything and find out ho everything works. But my Mac... it's... magic as far as I know.

 

no wonder there are so many pc viruses.

 

Don't get me started with Quicktime... This might be a stab at Windows and Mac but I can't get the newest version of Quicktime to work on Vista or XP.

 

And for some dumb reason you can't use old versions of Quicktime. According to Apple you need to use the newest version! Bunch of Bull.

 

your probably doing something wrong at your end.

[McPhee]

Quicktime is horrible! Unfortunately Apple seem determined to send it the way of Real Player

 

You mention what anti-viruses to avoid. But.. which one is best then? I have AVG installed when ever I have Windows.

 

Personally i rank AVG and Kaspersky as the 2 best. AVG due to being good and free, Kaspersky due to it being the best

[Jasper]

Very quickly.. I'm at work so can't spend much time explaining myself, but I can't really agree with anything you say here. If a file in windows has a jpeg extension it will open with whatever is configured to open jpeg files, typically a picture viewer editor. If you renamed an executable file containing a virus to have the jpeg extension and opened it, the picture viewer software would attempt to load the file as a picture, it wouldn't execute the file and therefore recieve the virus.

The vast majority of viruses are spread due to people executing programs they recieve from unknown people on the internet or email. Even if the files have their extension renamed to something apparantly harmless, the person would have to first undo that rename in order to execute it, and anyone who does that deserves everything they get.

 

Apple files, in theory, don't have file extensions. They're merely added for cossmetic and windows-ish use. For compatibility with windows. A command line cannot be executed without permission (if a pasword is enabled) of the user. You can delete the extenstion of an apple file name with no problem - it will still recognize the file as that type of file. You can change the executable postfix (like prefix, but on the back) from.app to .jpeg and the application will still be recognized as an application. Oh wait, after testing this, you can't even change the filename to .jpg, because it will make it application.jpeg.app and if you delete the .app, it will re-add it. Off course, you might be able to do so through hacking, but still it will be recognized as a command line, because inside of the file there's an tag ssaying 'this is a command line' (wich your operating system recognizes and asks permission for). On windows it will automaticly assume that it's the file by extension and therefore will execute it nonetheless as if it is 'executing' a JPEG-file. You can easely hide a virus as a JPEG on windows, but on mac the first line would be 'this is an executable commaand' and not 'this is a JPEG-strcture'.

 

Okay, after digging through Wikipedia on this it was shown that files are all referred to to the application within they open. So an executable must say 'open in finder' to executre such aa command, but finder will ask permission. If it says 'open in Photoshop' it will try to open in Photoshop and be unable to do so. If you open an .exe file disguised as a .jpeg in mac it will open picture viewer, but will let windows execute the command. UNIX has only one file type: UNIX.

[theguyfromspark]

Apple files, in theory, don't have file extensions. They're merely added for cossmetic and windows-ish use. For compatibility with windows. A command line cannot be executed without permission (if a pasword is enabled) of the user. You can delete the extenstion of an apple file name with no problem - it will still recognize the file as that type of file. You can change the executable postfix (like prefix, but on the back) from.app to .jpeg and the application will still be recognized as an application. etc etc

 

You can hide an executable application in windows by renaming the extension, but then you can't execute it so there's no risk. For the record, I like macs method of recognising file types as it uses the same method as unix and linux but I can't see how one method makes it more or less likely to obtain a virus. At the end of the day, the user has to execute an executable file that contains the virus, either on Windows or on any other platform. (I'm excluding buffer overruns here as they are a different type of virus)

[Jackster]

One thing that annoys me is that Mac OS is so... closed. With Windows as a little kid I woould play about with everything and find out ho everything works. But my Mac... it's... magic as far as I know.

 

In my experience OS X is just about as configurable as Windows if not more. I may come back later and post examples but I'm playing Harvest Moon, who knows when I'll be done.

[Shift]

Just a quick question from me.

 

A while back microsoft got dragged through the court system for including WMP with their OS (they were told that they were monopolising), whats the difference between what MS did and what Apple are doing including all the "i" programs?

[Cube]

2. Don't open any files ending in .exe without scanning for viruses first

 

Windows Vista has it's own built-in virus scanner that does that, and allows another Anti-Virus on top of it. (So Vista users have the built-in stuff, plus their Anti-Virus of choice).

[Jasper]

Just a quick question from me.

 

A while back microsoft got dragged through the court system for including WMP with their OS (they were told that they were monopolising), whats the difference between what MS did and what Apple are doing including all the "i" programs?

 

Apple doesn't have opponents that complain about it. The iLife studio has no free software counterpart (apart from iTunes, off course) and the OS is delivered on the system. Remember this: Apple only ships the OS with iLife on computers, while if you buy the OS seperatly, you need to buy iLife with it, too. But in action, there's no difference, apart from, say 180 million users? There's nobody suiing Apple over it because Apple doesn't have that userbase and therefore does not threaten the free software market all too much. If you're developing an iTunes-like application and you release it for windows, you have to cope with Windows Media Player - delivered on each and every computer. People don't develop that for Apple, because the user base is much smaller.

 

And, off course, Windows Media Player can do much more than iTunes - it can play DVD's,, AVI's, WMV's, music, rip, burn, ... It was a competitor for too many developers, and it was free on every single system. (And again, iLife studio doesn't count - it is a seperate product and actually not a free one, except for iTunes).

[Emasher]

Apple doesn't have opponents that complain about it. The iLife studio has no free software counterpart (apart from iTunes, off course) and the OS is delivered on the system. Remember this: Apple only ships the OS with iLife on computers, while if you buy the OS seperatly, you need to buy iLife with it, too. But in action, there's no difference, apart from, say 180 million users? There's nobody suiing Apple over it because Apple doesn't have that userbase and therefore does not threaten the free software market all too much. If you're developing an iTunes-like application and you release it for windows, you have to cope with Windows Media Player - delivered on each and every computer. People don't develop that for Apple, because the user base is much smaller.

 

And, off course, Windows Media Player can do much more than iTunes - it can play DVD's,, AVI's, WMV's, music, rip, burn, ... It was a competitor for too many developers, and it was free on every single system. (And again, iLife studio doesn't count - it is a seperate product and actually not a free one, except for iTunes).

 

iTunes isn't part of iLife

other people use the i*insert name here*

and you can rip and burn with iTunes

[Jasper]

iTunes isn't part of iLife

other people use the i*insert name here*

and you can rip and burn with iTunes

 

iTunes was originally part of the iLife studio, yes you can rip and burn with windows media player but my point was more on the total verssatility of Windows Media Plyaer being a competitor to more than just media players. This is the second time you try and outsmart me with your boring, theoretical comments. And I'm not going to ask what "other people use the i*insert name here*" would mean. Yes, loads of iProducts out there, but your remark doesn't really make any sense concerning iTunes, iLife or Apple-oriented products. It was just totally innecessary...

 

I would advice you to read between the lines every once in a while to see what I mean and not what I literally say.