The Computer Blues

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Macs do crash occasionally. I have used Macs and I have used PCs. I will say that until Windows XP Pro, I liked the Mac OS better. Now, with Win XP Pro, not so much difference.

Price is another story. Until the Mac mini, PCs kicked ass in this regard. PC apps are much more affordable (and avialable) as well. Money-wise, a PC is still a better choice.

As for viruses, I'm also of the camp that the Mac users have been spared the wrath of the scumbags who write the things. If they decide to target Macs, watch out.

Kevin

[casanovas347]

yeeeees...the mac mini is not over-prized!

yeeeees...macs have their problems too!

yeeeees.....i have MAC and i'm very happy! Since 3 years i got that G3-Powerbook (500Mhz) and it works and works and works.....on OS9.2

my advice....get a Internet-connection for your Hammond-Organ.... B-)

[Guest che]

  Kevin Bresnahan said:

Macs do crash occasionally. I have used Macs and I have used PCs. I will say that until Windows XP Pro, I liked the Mac OS better. Now, with Win XP Pro, not so much difference.

Price is another story. Until the Mac mini, PCs kicked ass in this regard. PC apps are much more affordable (and avialable) as well. Money-wise, a PC is still a better choice.

As for viruses, I'm also of the camp that the Mac users have been spared the wrath of the scumbags who write the things. If they decide to target Macs, watch out.

Kevin

Yes I hear they do, but it has never happened to me, and I have had several PC crashes, virus attacks etc. Open source programs are so much safer, and with only 2% of the computer population using Macs, there has not yet been a major virus attack with the Macs.

Yes price is an issue, and you are right that the Mac Mini is aimed at addressing this, which is why I have ordered one. I paid about £1600 for my G4 Powerbook, for this you could a pretty impressive PC laptop. But then it would not look at good or be more realiable

Che.

[Guest che]

The only down side, well for me at least, is that there are some compatibility issues with Mac's. You have to work a little bit harder to get the Mac to talk with other devises, it is not a case of plug and play as with PC's.

Having said that I would still prefer the Mac's.

Che.

[ejp626]

In general I prefer Macs, and that was what I used all through college and most of grad school. However, I work in a very data intensive job, and sometimes I take the work home. The software we use will only run on PCs. In fact, it won't even run on Linux, so I am pretty much stuck with Windows.

[Guest che]

  connoisseur series500 said:

  JSngry said:

Did you check to see if there was a disc in it?

Did you check to see if there was a copyrighted disc in there?

Yeh Go Macs Go B-)

Che.

[Soulstation1]

problems i was having with my computer, besides it being 5 years old

1 using mcafee spy/adware program WITH norton's internet security. i found out is a big NO-NO. nortons wasn't able to load correctly w/ mcafee d/loaded

2 12 hours to rip a single cd and then it still wasn't finished. what a joke

3 unable to log on the internet at home since the first of the month. waste of $$$$. went to the library. high speed @ the library for FREE and no wait. why am i not taking advantage of that?????? also picked up some cds there. joe williams w/mel/thad. brubeck's essential 2 disc set. louis jordan's best of.

4 web pages staying up after they were closed

5 web pages never never showing up, with a white web page

i had enough of this shit and reinstalled everything the monday night.

i still couldn't log on even after calling comcast for some help.

my ip address wouldn't change and seemed like it was locked/frozen up

i was like maybe this computer is finally history. i fiddled around some and finally got the ip address to change and i am no computer whiz. now i have the nortons running smoothly and everything is great. it's like a new computer. log on to the internet in 2 seconds and no more FUNKIN' pop-ups. NICE

i've "won" so many freakin' mini i-pods from pop ads it's freakin' ridiculous

ss1

[Jim Dye]

I swing both ways. I am a big fan of Macs, but recently have become a PC guy again. I couldn't live without Foobar2000, the awesome audio player, encoder, music library and all around incredible audio program for PCs. There is even a plug in that allows me to sync and control my iPod without using iTunes. Much more powerful.

  Quote

As for viruses, I'm also of the camp that the Mac users have been spared the wrath of the scumbags who write the things. If they decide to target Macs, watch out.

I think that is true to some extent, however, the multi user unix based design of OS X is architecturally much more secure by default than Windows. That doesn't mean that a determined cracker couldn't own your G5 though.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

  Jim Dye said:

I swing both ways. I am a big fan of Macs, but recently have become a PC guy again. I couldn't live without Foobar2000, the awesome audio player, encoder, music library and all around incredible audio program for PCs. There is even a plug in that allows me to sync and control my iPod without using iTunes. Much more powerful.

Damn you, Jim! I have come very, very close to buying a Mac lately. The Mac mini really intrigues me... and now this!

Later,

Kevin

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Soulstation1, these pop-up ads sound suspiciously like spyware to me. You may have supressed them for now but they may pop up () again of you aren't protecting yourself. Try that Microsoft Anti-spyware download. It can help actively protect you.

FWIW, I think all of these "Internet Security" packages from both Symantec (Norton) and McAfee suck resources for no good. I've never worked on a machine with this stuff where it did anything helpful. What they really do is make it harder to surf to the point where you (usually accidentally) shut off protection and you're right where you would have been without the package. Just use a good anti-virus and a firewall program. I like Norton for anti-virus and Windows XP for a firewall.

BTW, anyone not using Windows XP Pro on their PC should think about doing so, especially if you have problems with your PC crashing. I now have Windows XP Pro on 5 machines that work on directly and not one of them has ever crashed in well over a year. That's a lot of hours on these machines without one "blue screen of death". XP Pro just doesn't crash on me.

Later,

Kevin

Edited February 23, 2005 by Kevin Bresnahan

[wesbed]

  Soulstation1 said:

i was like maybe this computer is finally history. i fiddled around some and finally got the ip address to change and i am no computer whiz. now i have the nortons running smoothly and everything is great. it's like a new computer.

You can go here and download the Hijack This program. Run it and get the log it creates.

Post the log in the forums located here. I don't know how to read the log well. The people on this forum, however, are fixing many types of malware problems by giving directions based on the Hijack This log.

[Jim Dye]

  Kevin Bresnahan said:

  Jim Dye said:

I swing both ways. I am a big fan of Macs, but recently have become a PC guy again. I couldn't live without Foobar2000, the awesome audio player, encoder, music library and all around incredible audio program for PCs. There is even a plug in that allows me to sync and control my iPod without using iTunes. Much more powerful.

Damn you, Jim! I have come very, very close to buying a Mac lately. The Mac mini really intrigues me... and now this!

Later,

Kevin

I dig the Mac Mini too, but I just can't justify getting one since I already have an eMac that my wife and kids use. I use my work laptop, a Dell D800 with a docking station at home.

All the ripping / encoding / audio tools that I like are written for Windows. If you like to get down to the nitty gritty and configure things to your liking, then Foobar2000 is the player for you.

http://www.foobar2000.org/

I have been playing with the foo_pod.dll plugin the past couple of days. I now have no use for iTunes! It's great.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ST&f=33&t=19156

Columns UI is great for configuring the GUI. The possibilites are endless.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/musicf/

[Jim Alfredson]

  wesbed said:

  Soulstation1 said:

i was like maybe this computer is finally history. i fiddled around some and finally got the ip address to change and i am no computer whiz. now i have the nortons running smoothly and everything is great. it's like a new computer.

You can go here and download the Hijack This program. Run it and get the log it creates.

Post the log in the forums located here. I don't know how to read the log well. The people on this forum, however, are fixing many types of malware problems by giving directions based on the Hijack This log.

It sounds like ss1 re-installed windows, which is one way to solve the problem.

Anyone, feel free to download hijack, run it, and post the log here. I can help tell you what is bad and what is good and my brother is even better. He's a computer whiz.

[Guest che]

  Kevin Bresnahan said:

  Jim Dye said:

I swing both ways. I am a big fan of Macs, but recently have become a PC guy again. I couldn't live without Foobar2000, the awesome audio player, encoder, music library and all around incredible audio program for PCs. There is even a plug in that allows me to sync and control my iPod without using iTunes. Much more powerful.

Damn you, Jim! I have come very, very close to buying a Mac lately. The Mac mini really intrigues me... and now this!

Later,

Kevin

Kevin.

Go with the Mac it is far more relaible, looks better, no virus attacks etc. I currently have a G4 Powerbook (15inch), fantastic machine no problems at all. Now I have ordered a Mini Mac so that they can talk with each other

Che.

[WD45]

  Kevin Bresnahan said:

Just use a good anti-virus and a firewall program. I like Norton for anti-virus and Windows XP for a firewall.

Does that Windows XP firewall protect as well as the aftermarket programs? My McAfee firewall update subscription has just expired and I am considering a renewal. However, if XP will do a good enough job, I can spend the $40 on CDs. What do you think?

[Guest che]

  WD45 said:

  Kevin Bresnahan said:

Just use a good anti-virus and a firewall program.  I like Norton for anti-virus and Windows XP for a firewall.

Does that Windows XP firewall protect as well as the aftermarket programs? My McAfee firewall update subscription has just expired and I am considering a renewal. However, if XP will do a good enough job, I can spend the $40 on CDs. What do you think?

You don't need any firewall or virus protection with a Mac B-)

Che.

[Jim Dye]

  che said:

You don't need any firewall or virus protection with a Mac B-)

I guess that's why Apple also built a firewall into OS X.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

  WD45 said:

Does that Windows XP firewall protect as well as the aftermarket programs? My McAfee firewall update subscription has just expired and I am considering a renewal. However, if XP will do a good enough job, I can spend the $40 on CDs. What do you think?

They all work on the same principal, they block unwanted traffic. The one in Windows is integrated into the operating system so it should know all the "hooks" as well as any outside software company like Symantec. Knowing Microsoft, they probably just licensed someone else's code or bought a company.

Later,

Kevin

[Uncle Skid]

FWIW, I've had excellent luck with these two *free* packages:

Zone Alarm Firewall

AVG Anti-Virus

These two, in combination with Mozilla Firefox, have kept my PC clean for years.

It also probably helps that I *never* use Internet Explorer or MS Outlook Express. In fact, I'm so paranoid about viruses and such that my email is on a different (Linux-based) machine.

[Guest che]

  Jim Dye said:

  che said:

You don't need any firewall or virus protection with a Mac B-)

I guess that's why Apple also built a firewall into OS X.

'Virex' is naff and not necessary, it was put in to entice people to buy a Mac, but it really is not necessary at this time. I never run a virus check on the Mac.

Che.

[Jim Dye]

I'm not talking about Virex. There is a firewall that is part of the guts of OS X. Go to your system preferences and look at your networking. It's there. On by default.

[Soulstation1]

now i can't log on the computer w/o disabling my nortons internet security first

also for some strange reason i can't install my m/s word program

ss1

[Brad]

Mine's in the shop right now (I'm using my mother's; she's got dialup and it's a drag). I think my son's games messed it up. Hopefully all back up by the weekend.

[wesbed]

  Soulstation1 said:

now i can't log on the computer w/o disabling my nortons internet security first

You can't log in to the 'computer' without disabling the Norton Internet Security? Or do you mean the 'internet?'

[Jim Alfredson]

Kinda off topic, but I just downloaded Firefox and I'm digging it. I used an earlier version of Mozilla a few years ago and didn't care for it, but this is much better. Quicker, smaller, and cleaner than IE, too.

Good stuff!