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Thread: Is it time for a Mac?

  1. #16
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    I simply prefer the ease of use with programs. Macs prove far more intuitive for my little feeble mind. It's no fun trying to become a computer programmer to figure out what needs accomplished. I'll pay the fee in order to save sanity and time. Right now a basic Mac is about $1100. What's the cost of a basic type of PC?

  2. #17
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    David, I'm certainly up for suggestions on how to be "savvy" and avoiding penalties. I'm not sure what I could do. I don't visit suspicious sites, I don't view shady stuff. But, this seems to be a continual problem. Add to that, this thing has slowed to almost a crawl. I have a friend who purchased a Mac a few years ago. I mention him b/c he has about the same if not less computer knowledge I have, (which isn't saying anything) and he's had virtually no problems with his Mac and speedwise, it's about the same. Any help would be appreciated.

  3. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    I've not had any virus issues in 7 years on an HP laptop. I don't use "paid" antivirus, either. Used to be AVG and now avast or whatever the other free one is on another PC. I guess you could get a mac, but it seems like a heck of a penalty money-wise, when it sounds like a little bit more savvy on a windows machine is all that's needed.

    When I bought my last HP laptop, an equivalent Mac was more than three times as expensive.....what a penalty.
    You shouldn't have to learn to be a geek or tell the difference in a spoofed email from your bank in order to be able to safely use your computer. Some people would rather spend their time doing other things than learning geek stuff just to keep them "safe". My parents are in their 70's. I don't think there's much hope in my Mom learning what's safe to click or open, nor should she have to.

    That's exactly the point people with Mac's are making. We don't have to do that. You see it as a "penalty", I see it as not having to pay for inferior products that expose me and my family to dangerous things. If I had to pay 10 times more to never have to deal with anything like that again, I'd gladly pay it and not ever see it as a punishment.
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  4. #19
    A Mac Mini starts at $599 new. Add keyboard, monitor and mouse and you've got a system. If you don't like Mac OS X, you can install Linux or Windows.

  5. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewis Ehrhardt View Post
    ...All I do is simple word processing, some blog reads and web browsings. Thanks for any help. lewis
    If that is all you do, you should consider a ChromeBox. They make a couple of versions, but ASUS makes an upgraded one that sells for $375 and comes with a keyboard and mouse. All you need is a monitor that has a hdmi input or even a TV for that matter. It uses the Chrome Operating System which is based on linux.

    It is only 5" x 5" x 1.65" in size. The only drawback is you would not be able to run any window programs, but for your word processing you could use google docs.

    Here is a link to a review about the chromebook - which is the laptop version
    http://www.cnet.com/news/living-with...get-work-done/

    Here is the ASUS chromebox at Amazon
    http://www.amazon.com/CHROMEBOX-M075...ords=chromebox
    Last edited by John Huds0n; 07-25-2014 at 12:05 AM.

  6. #21
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    Macs are every bit as vulnerable to a virus as any other computer.
    So is Linux.

    Maybe even more so than Windows because so many people buy into the myth that they aren't and run naked systems with no virus protection.
    My granddad always said, :As one door closes, another opens".
    Wonderful man, terrible cabinet maker...

  7. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Rich Engelhardt View Post
    Maybe even more so than Windows because so many people buy into the myth that they aren't and run naked systems with no virus protection.
    You left off the part about they run without virus protection and have no issues for years and years.....

    The reality is that there's not much out there that's a risk for the latest version of OSX that the typical user is doing. If I get a spoofed email from my bank and click on it, nothing bad is going to happen. That's the stuff that's causing so much havoc on PC users. Just simple tasks that you shouldn't have to worry about, not the complex "someone could get remote access through a hole in remote access" which so few people use.
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    Real name Steve but that name was taken on the forum. Used Middle name. Call me Steve or Scott, doesn't matter.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by William Adams View Post
    A Mac Mini starts at $599 new. Add keyboard, monitor and mouse and you've got a system. If you don't like Mac OS X, you can install Linux or Windows.
    If that isn't a stripped or crippled machine, that's not a bad deal. I'm not a fan of Apple's Walled Garden approach but it has its benefits. Re antivirus, catching 45% of threats isn't a great batting average.
    “The entire industry has moved beyond anti-virus a long time ago,” said Bret Hartman, chief technology officer of the security business group at Cisco CSCO . “It’s not a surprise.” But anti-virus protection remains important as a first line of defense against threats. According to Dye’s estimates, traditional cybersecurity methods catch more than 45 percent of threats. The problem, he says, is that anti-virus alone is insufficient. “The point that we were making in the interview with the Wall Street Journal and that we make with our customers on a regular basis is that anti-virus alone is not enough,” Dye clarified in an interview with Fortune. “The era of antivirus-only is over.” “If that’s all you’re using to protect yourself, you’re vulnerable,” said Fran Rosch, senior vice president of Symantec’s Norton consumer business. http://fortune.com/2014/05/15/no-ant...isnt-dead-yet/

  9. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Shepherd View Post
    You shouldn't have to learn to be a geek or tell the difference in a spoofed email from your bank in order to be able to safely use your computer. Some people would rather spend their time doing other things than learning geek stuff just to keep them "safe". My parents are in their 70's. I don't think there's much hope in my Mom learning what's safe to click or open, nor should she have to.

    That's exactly the point people with Mac's are making. We don't have to do that. You see it as a "penalty", I see it as not having to pay for inferior products that expose me and my family to dangerous things. If I had to pay 10 times more to never have to deal with anything like that again, I'd gladly pay it and not ever see it as a punishment.
    I don't get spoofed emails from my bank. Why would that be any different with a mac or PC? I see a mac as the same type of penalty payment that someone pays if they buy one of those credit protection services instead of paying a fraction to write the credit bureaus and have their credit frozen or unfrozen when they need it to be unfrozen.

  10. #25
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    I don't get spoofed emails from my bank. Why would that be any different with a mac or PC?
    He's using an incorrect terminology - spoofing.
    Spoofing is the act of sitting outside someone's network and gaining access to the secured network via the perimeter devices (usually a firewall) by putting an IP address in the packets you transmit that match the secured network.

    I believe what he's referring to is Phishing. That's where someone sends you a message and when you view the message, it redirects you to a bogus website.
    With a PC, that bogus website can often push down an unwanted installation of malware. It can also do it if you're running a Mac or Linux box & the malware rides in via Java or Flash or some other middleware.
    Another trait of Phishing is to redirect you to a bogus site that looks for all the world like the real thing.
    But - if you look close at your browser bar, instead of being at http://www.bigbank.com it says http://www.bigbank.net Notice one is dot com and the other dot net.
    Once at the bogus site, you are asked to enter confidential information - SS number, driver's license number. bank accounts, passwords, etc.
    In this case, then no - it doesn't matter if you have a PC or a MAC or anything else.

    Re antivirus, catching 45% of threats isn't a great batting average.
    Take all that w/a large grain of salt. Both Cisco and Symantec are pushing their perimeter devices.

    The reality is that there's not much out there that's a risk for the latest version of OSX that the typical user is doing.
    That's not true at all. The entire computer industry has been warning Mac and Linux users for years that the threats to them are increasing daily.
    In the last couple years, as the Apple I devices have become the dominant players, the threats to them and the Mac OS is increasing even more.

    There's plenty of valid reasons to prefer a Mac. Why this myth of "no virus" won't die is beyond me.
    Do yourself a favor and start running an anti virus program on your Mac.
    Sophos has one that's a freebie.
    My granddad always said, :As one door closes, another opens".
    Wonderful man, terrible cabinet maker...

  11. #26
    A good rule of thumb for all sites, banks, ebay, paypal, or whatever, is if you think that you got a message from them about something - go to the site and log in there. If it's something important, it'll be there.

  12. #27
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    I switched to a 27" iMac about four years ago for my personal machine. Two years later I bought a 13" MacbookPro Retina for my BYOD work machine. I still have Windows 7 available for those few applications that require it (run in a virtual machine using Parallels), but I'd be very unlikely to go back to Windows "full time" at this point. My Macs just work...and work well. There is a slight learning curve in the beginning, but it's not significant.

    Some folks have mentioned Linux. It's a great operating system and certainly offers a lot to folks who wish to use it. The downside is that it's pretty much limited to "generic" applications. Of course, virtualization can be used there to accommodate other OS, too. Most users who are not reasonably "computer savvy" are probably best to stick with Windows or MacOS. IMHO...and I'm sure that there are folks who do not share that point of view.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  13. #28
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    These threads are common on the internet: Should I switch to Mac/What are the disadvantages to switching to Macs?, and so on.

    FWIW, I rarely, if ever, read posts from people who switched away from Macs and are happy about it, or switched to Macs and regret the move.

    We use Windows at work and I've got an iMac at home, my fourth. One quibble I have with Apple is that once they move beyond a piece of hardware or software, they stop supporting it and you have to suck it up and move on; no backwards compatibility for Apple!

  14. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Frank Drew View Post
    FWIW, I rarely, if ever, read posts from people who switched away from Macs and are happy about it, or switched to Macs and regret the move.
    I have purchased many used Macs from people that found the experience didn't live up to the hype, and switched back to Window PC's.

    I have kept a couple but most of them get rehomed to households friendly to Macs.

  15. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Rich Engelhardt View Post
    Macs are every bit as vulnerable to a virus as any other computer.
    So is Linux.

    Maybe even more so than Windows because so many people buy into the myth that they aren't and run naked systems with no virus protection.
    Well we're going to have to respectfully disagree with that, because the big difference between a default Mac and a default Windows install is the privileges with which a user runs.

    Even with Win7 and beyond, a home user typically has administrator privileges. Windows may ask to elevate privileges ("do you want the following computer to make changes to the computer?") but all the user has to do is click on "sure" or whatever. The next thing you know, that app (which may be malware) is installing itself as a rootkit (bad).

    On OS X and pretty much anything *ix, you need to supply the root password.

    I setup my Windows PC's so they work more like a Mac. So my kids or a guest can't just browse the web and click on "you bet" if something tries to sneak into my PC. A user in this case will be prompted for a password (which they do not have) and so any malware can only infect the user account they're using (and often won't bother, it was designed as a root kit and if it can't deliver the payload just aborts).

    So that helps a ton.

    But we are still left with the fact that there are a bazillion variants of Windows viruses and few for the Mac.

    So advantage is definitely Mac and Linux.

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