My computer is being retarded...

[Fingon]

Yeah. I noticed that your posts are etched in stone.

Yes, your posts do a whole lot to disprove anything that's been said in this thread.

[The Dean]

Interesting. I use a PC at work. It's a 3GHZ Dell. (Or as I like to say: 'Smell')

My six year old 1.8 GHZ G5 MAc absolutely shreds the PC in speed,and reliabilty.

(I use the Mac for the Adobe Creative Suite 3)

And yes, the PC freezes,and crashes several times a day and completely screws up my workflow.

 

 

Which is why making broad assumptions based solely on your personal experience is probably not a good idea.

 

I will tell you one area where I think Mac has a huge advantage over PC. When you take a Mac out of the box it is pretty much ready to go and mostly properly configured. PC's really should be attended to before using, out of the box. Because there are so many different manufacturers of PCs, each trying to make them less expensive to the consumer and gain market share, they tend to sell hard drive space to advertisers and software companies. They also tweak the PC OS to look pretty (instead of performing as fast as it can) and the security is almost always poorly set on a PC.

 

For the most part, when I set up a new PC for one my clients and they do a decent job of maintaining them (or have me maintain them) these PCs have very few problems and run very fast. Now, I don't know what processor your Dell is running (3Ghz tells me very little, as there is more to processor performance than the Ghz), but if it is a modern dual core (or quad core) processor, I would guess the Dell hasn't been properly configured.

[The Dean]

Which leads me to my question for you Bart. How do you know your computer has never been infected? If you don't use AV or Antimalware, and don't perform scans looking for malware, how can you be positive you are clean? You may be infected and not even know it. Not all infections make themselves apparent to the user.

 

 

..I did run Symantec Anti-Virus for a few years on the advice of a friend ,but I never found anything, and I never bothered upgrading it. Apple sends security updates for free, so I figured what is the point?

 

 

Well, Microsoft sends security updates for free, too, you know. Just the fact that Apple sends security updates should be proof enough that there are security issues. And, you should keep in mind that Apple is fairly slow at responding their security issues. according to many computer security experts.

 

But back to the point, Symantec is an AntiVirus and really isn't the best malware detector. This was even truer several years ago. AV programs were way behind at detecting infections like trojans, dns changers, hijackers, malware and assorted spyware. It was meant to detect and protect against "Viruses". As I mentioned earlier, virus infections now represent a very small part of the total infection landscape.

 

Some of the better AV programs now do a decent job with assorted malware.

[The Dean]

I deleted my initial post on this topic the other day as it was fueled by several glasses of wine

 

 

I've been there, that's for sure.

[EC-Bills]

.......

 

No virus attacks EVER in 22 years.That's all of the 'research' that I need.

Keep drinking the Windoze Kool aid.......

Better start saving for your next "service pack'.....

 

 

Oh where to begin....

 

1. Windoze koolaid?!? Give me a break, I support Windows: Servers and desktops as well as Macs at work. I have seen both sides of the argument and know better than to believe the fan boy hype of either side.

 

2. Yes, there are more viruses out there for PC's. That's what you get for having the lead market share. Was XP lacking in security architecture? Undoubtedly. It was released in 2001 and the last major update was in 2004 w/SP2. That changed significantly with Vista (I am referring to the under the hood changes, the surface layer blew chunks) and the changes were further refined in Windows 7 with stuff *still* not present in OSX 10.6 (one example, lookup Address Space Layout Randomization). Linux and the BSDs already have it.

 

There are many more threats out there besides viruses that the macs are susceptible too. Examples include: rootkits (osxrk, togroot and weaponx), fake codec trojans, keyloggers, etc. These days most bad guys are focusing on phishing scams/social engineering to pwn machines regardless of OS. Javascript is a common tool implment these attacks which Safari is especially vulnerable too. The geniuses at Apple sandboxed a portion of the apps on OSX to keep it from getting pwn'd (which is good), but they didn't do that with the cesspool known as Safari. Thus bad guys are still able to exploit vulnerable apps that Safari can open on the Mac. I can go on about other stuff such as LaunchD (the mother of all processes for OSX) exploits, etc. So things are not quite as peachy as you would like to believe.

 

3. Paying for the next service pack?!? Oh that is rich. What the hell do you think OSX 10.6 is?!? It's a glorified service pack!

[EC-Bills]

Interesting. I use a PC at work. It's a 3GHZ Dell. (Or as I like to say: 'Smell')

My six year old 1.8 GHZ G5 MAc absolutely shreds the PC in speed,and reliabilty.

(I use the Mac for the Adobe Creative Suite 3) (Photoshop primarily)

And yes, the PC freezes,and crashes several times a day and completely screws up my workflow.

 

Out of curiousity, is the PC crash a blue screen or app crash?

[EC-Bills]

At the end of the day, anything can be hacked. I do think that Apple is vigilant about keeping any malicious bugs from becoming a problem.

 

FYI, that is not a wise assumption. Apple has sat on their asses just like other companies have when it comes to vulnerabilies.

 

I deleted my initial post on this topic the other day as it was fueled by several glasses of wine, but a few people replied in the meantime. Sorry if my participation in this thread got a bit out of hand......

 

Not a bigee. I hope it was good wine though and not an old bottle of Boone's Farm Tickle Pink wine...

[The Dean]

If there are any 'freebee's' out there, I'd be happy to run a scan and report back with my findings.

Or maybe suggest something, and I'll check it out just for fun. Again,I will report back with what I find.

 

 

I'm not completely up-to-date on the latest protection for Macs. But there are a few options. First of all, I think you may already have antimalware protection built in to your OS:

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2352102,00.asp

 

Check it out to see if it has the capability to do a scan, or if it is simply works actively to prevent intrusion.

 

This article pimps an offering from PCTools called iAntivirus for Mac. It is free, as is ClamXav. Both are Antivirus programs, but may be OK with other types of malware, I really don't know.

 

http://www.freepcsecurity.co.uk/2009/01/11...-free-programs/

 

http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/12/how-t...ac-for-viruses/

 

These articles are over a year old, which can be a long time for computer security information. I will keep my eyes open and let you know if I come across anything interesting.

[EC-Bills]

Sometimes, I can prevent a reboot through task manager,sometimes the whole machine goes down. A hard freeze... I have to reboot.

 

If there is a bluescreen, there should be a crash dump file in C:\Windows\minidump\ that your tech folks should be able to analyze to figure out the cause.

[EC-Bills]

I don't use Safari. I don't like it.

I'm not running 10.6 either.

All that I know is that I've been running mac's since 1988.and I haven't had a single problem with any malware,virus, or any other 'affliction' which seems pervasive on Windows architecture......

 

Ah yes, the early days of the mac. No you didn't have to worry about malware you just had to deal with extension hell and crappy memory management. Thankfully they have progressed since those days. Although OSX really didn't become somewhat usable until 10.1.5 and much more usable with 10.2.

 

I agree, Windows architecture pre-Vista blew major chunkage.

[EC-Bills]

Maybe that's *another* issue. We are still running XP.

 

It all comes down to what and how things are installed. I have a single XP image (moving to a W7 image this summer) for my application development, web development, and sql reporting groups that does not have any issues. Apps include Creative Suite, Visual Studio, SQL Management Tools, Office, assortment of browsers, multimedia apps, etc.

 

In general the usual breakdown of Windows issues is as follows:

 

1. Overwhelming majority is due to crappy drivers (video, sound, etc.)

2. Crappy software applications

3. Faulty hardware (memory, hard drive, etc.)

4. Actual OS bugs.

[Chilly]

This thread is pretty ridiculous. There are *tons* of variables involved here. Simply saying "my G5 iMac smokes my 3ghz Dell" means nothing. Unless you're comparing base OS installs with the same exact hardware (a feat which is pretty much impossible without buying a brand new mac, immediately installing bootcamp, and doing the exact same benchmarks under Windows as Mac OS X), there's nothing to say about Speed. Same with reliability. It's basically impossible to measure reliability numbers across platforms.

 

When talking about the whole virus & malware deal, there are multiple reasons for the discrepancy. Here are the top 3 in order, imo:

 

1.) The popularity of the platforms

2.) The way users use the operating system (which is largely due to the difference between the default user models, but MS is trying to change that in a kinda dumb way)

3.) The architecutre of the platforms (BSD vs Windows security models)

[The Dean]

Ah yes, the early days of the mac. No you didn't have to worry about malware you just had to deal with extension hell and crappy memory management. Thankfully they have progressed since those days. Although OSX really didn't become somewhat usable until 10.1.5 and much more usable with 10.2.

I agree, Windows architecture pre-Vista blew major chunkage.

 

 

XP, after SP2, and with considerable help from 3rd party apps (free for the most part) was terrific, IMO. I still use it on my laptop and have no problems with it. Of course, you shouldn't have to go to the effort I did to make your OS work well. But one nice thing about Windows is there are a bunch of free apps to choose from to help out the issues with the OS.

[The Dean]

I don't disagree with you. I'm just talking about my personal user experience. The Dean says that Macs are garbage.

 

No, i said the Macs I have owned and used extensively were garbage. But I don't use that experience to say all Macs are garbage, as I know better.

[Fezmid]

I'm intrigued by Windows 7, but I haven't heard any feedback about it positive,or negative.

 

You haven't been paying attention then....

 

Windows 7 is leaps and bounds better than Vista. I actually really like it - seems very stable, boots up quickly, installs quickly. I don't know how much of that is the monster PC I built (SSD drive, 12G of RAM, i7 920 quad core, water cooled), but the thing is smooth as silk. I can even boot Photoshop in less than 3 seconds. Like I said, a lot of the speed is the SSD drive, but overall the OS seems very good.

[stuckincincy]

XP, after SP2, and with considerable help from 3rd party apps (free for the most part) was terrific, IMO. I still use it on my laptop and have no problems with it. Of course, you shouldn't have to go to the effort I did to make your OS work well. But one nice thing about Windows is there are a bunch of free apps to choose from to help out the issues with the OS.

 

I agree, Dean. Whatever OS, user behavior is a big factor IMO.

 

I freely admit to paranoia - HW, SW firewall, real time and non-real time avs and malware progs, cleaners, no stored passwords, a constant disk cleaning, any info with a whiff of personal info on removable media only invoked off-line, almost-universal hardwire connection (I use a strongly-protected WAP2 63 random character ASCII wireless connection very rarely - just to see if it still works), cookies allowed only at my choosing, monthly defrag and chkdsk etc, wariness about visited sites and so on.

 

I'm comfortable with xp - the devil I know. There is no end of good advice out there...you and others here have given me valuable tips through the years.

[Chilly]

You haven't been paying attention then....

 

Windows 7 is leaps and bounds better than Vista. I actually really like it - seems very stable, boots up quickly, installs quickly. I don't know how much of that is the monster PC I built (SSD drive, 12G of RAM, i7 920 quad core, water cooled), but the thing is smooth as silk. I can even boot Photoshop in less than 3 seconds. Like I said, a lot of the speed is the SSD drive, but overall the OS seems very good.

 

God I'd love to see how fast Ubuntu 10.04 boots on that bad boy. I bet it'd be like 3 seconds.

[Fingon]

You haven't been paying attention then....

 

Windows 7 is leaps and bounds better than Vista. I actually really like it - seems very stable, boots up quickly, installs quickly. I don't know how much of that is the monster PC I built (SSD drive, 12G of RAM, i7 920 quad core, water cooled), but the thing is smooth as silk. I can even boot Photoshop in less than 3 seconds. Like I said, a lot of the speed is the SSD drive, but overall the OS seems very good.

In fact, Windows 7 has been almost unanimously heralded as the best windows OS yet. It's by far the best I've used.

 

 

Built my computer about a year ago:

 

1.5 TB 10,000 RPM HDD

2x Geforce 260

12gb RAM

i7 920

 

 

Been thinking about a SSD drive, but I would only get a 20 or 15 GB to install windows on, and have the rest of my programs on the 1.5 TB drive.

[The Dean]

Are you running apps that are native to the processor on that Mini?

Try doing a 'permissions repair',and disc repair in the Disk Repair utility.

 

 

That Mac Mini is running OSX and OS9, because some stuff has to run in OS9. I rarely get on it. But it used to be the computer connected to the modem/router, so I would sometimes use it for some basic maintenance. Even opening a browser takes forever. Their is one old design program one person there uses to work up ads and announcements.

 

But if I get a chance, I will try what you suggest.

 

And IMO Windows 7 is great. It requires less effort in the initial setup (which I still recommend as there are a few tweaks that help the speed and some builders are still putting garbage programs on their machines) and seems to be more innately secure. As has been already mentioned, it starts up, runs and shuts down quite fast.

 

Oh, one more thing. "Vag-Com"? Sounds like something a gynecologist would use

[Fingon]

I wish that we'd get it at the office. I'm about ready to tear out what remains of my hair....

The problem is that much of Windows 7 is not designed for business productivity. I think a lot of IT experts would have a hard time justifying shelling out money for new OS to their bosses.