Mac Virus - One for Blister

[Chems]

Recently Blister has enjoyed his gloating about Mac and seems to be under the mis-guided premise that Macs are magic machines and can't get viruses. So I thought you'd enjoy reading about this article and make sure your not infected:

Flashback OS-X Virus

Also this week you Apple fans have been likened to a religious cult!

I hope this hasn't completely burst your bubble Blister, the macs strength is still more robust due to its foundation on the unix OS. But the evil nerds are only going to spend more time aiming for the macs so hopefully this will keep you diligent online.

:lol:

 

[woodbloke]

Dunno about 'religious cult' but having switched from a Windoze7 PC, to an MacBook Pro and now to a very large IMac :mrgreen: I'm totally hooked. The build quality and the way the things are put together as well as the way they operate is simply staggering. The only, and best way to describe a Windoze PC is just 'clunky'...and that about sums it up - Rob

 

[Blister]

I STILL Love my Mac's

:lol: :lol: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: 8) 8)

 

[Chems]

Nothing wrong with loving them, just make sure you're not blistering around the internet thinking you're invulnerable!

@Woodbloke, I enjoy the mac interface but personally don't agree with the larger ethos of Apple. Have you ever used a windows PC that was as expensive as your mac, if the MOD is like the rest of the gov I imagine they gave you some low powered dell so no wonder Mac is like a breath of fresh air? I've got a powerful windows machine that's probably a little more powerful than the top end non customized iMac and its not clunky. Its not as sleek as apple but its fast, it never has any problems I've never lost any data and its used for professional level computing daily. I think a lot of it comes down to choice in a similar way that Android vs iPhone does. I'm not knocking the mac at all but can see what your saying, I've used plenty of cheap windows pc and laptops that are just awful experiences and make me really really frustrated but I've never experienced the same on a mac because they are all high quality expensive machines. I go into offices of some of the top computer science research professors every few weeks and they always have a HUGE iMac on the desk and they only like the best when it comes to computers. You have to have a mac anyway, its sleek design will compliment your sleek Japanese styled furniture, a boxy black PC wouldn't look right alongside!

Just a disclaimer I'm not having a downer on Mac, I had a similar discussion on Haven about Sketchup and the guy left the forums he was so offended.

 

[woodbloke]

Nothing wrong with loving them, just make sure you're not blistering around the internet thinking you're invulnerable!

@Woodbloke, I enjoy the mac interface but personally don't agree with the larger ethos of Apple. Have you ever used a windows PC that was as expensive as your mac, if the MOD is like the rest of the gov I imagine they gave you some low powered dell so no wonder Mac is like a breath of fresh air? I've got a powerful windows machine that's probably a little more powerful than the top end non customized iMac and its not clunky. Its not as sleek as apple but its fast, it never has any problems I've never lost any data and its used for professional level computing daily. I think a lot of it comes down to choice in a similar way that Android vs iPhone does. I'm not knocking the mac at all but can see what your saying, I've used plenty of cheap windows pc and laptops that are just awful experiences and make me really really frustrated but I've never experienced the same on a mac because they are all high quality expensive machines. I go into offices of some of the top computer science research professors every few weeks and they always have a HUGE iMac on the desk and they only like the best when it comes to computers. You have to have a mac anyway, its sleek design will compliment your sleek Japanese styled furniture, a boxy black PC wouldn't look right alongside!

Just a disclaimer I'm not having a downer on Mac, I had a similar discussion on Haven about Sketchup and the guy left the forums he was so offended.

I've used run of the mill ordinarie Windoze machines (straight out of PC world, nothing fancy) since the mid -90's and have just recently had the opportunity to switch to Macs. Having done it, I would never, ever go back to a Windoze PC, with the one exception that there isn't a decent, compatible Mac programme to MS Money, which is what SWIMBO uses to keep track of household expenses. So we still use one Windoze PC but keep it solely for finances - Rob

 

[Harbo]

Get yourself VM Fusion (about £30) and run MS software on your Mac as well.

Rod

 

[Waka]

Get yourself VM Fusion (about £30) and run MS software on your Mac as well.

Rod

Tell us more about this fusion thing.

 

[Harbo]

VM Fusion (& Parallels) partitions part of the Macs hard drive and installs a virtual machine.
I bought a cheap XP OS and run some of my MS software on it.
You can switch from the Mac OS to Windows without rebooting.

Rod

 

[Hudson Carpentry]

Not sure on current specs but my PC was for sure miles above spec to the best offering from Apple a year ago and as chems says. Its not clunky at all. Its just as fast if not faster and screen quality is just as good (in my opinion better as its not a glossy screen that suffers glare) and hardware. I paid £1000 less than the top mac costs and have even more for my money. I have had macs and there good no doubt but the build quality people normally talk of is just fact value, the inners are assembled in the same ways as windows pc's. Windows ran PC's are just as well made if you spend the money. In fact I hate the stock Mac keyboard and mouse. There is nothing that a windows PC that a mac can't do and visa versa. It purely is preference, budget or trend. If we was to start our network again I would have macs but all boot camped with windows 7 as its in windows 7 that I would spend most of my time on and the family all would spend there time in windows & not knowing how to use mac, even more so the kids that are tort on windows machines at school.

Business I would probably stick to windows as well as I prefer android phones.

Like many things, mac and windows will be a never ending argument. In truth one only becomes better when best suited to a situation.

 

[misterfish]

Like many things, mac and windows will be a never ending argument. In truth one only becomes better when best suited to a situation.

This is spot on. Before retirement part of my job was specifying and procuring computer equipment as well as its subsequent programming and support. Our modus operandi was to communicate fully with the individual or branch requiring computer support to obtain a specification of what they thought they wanted. We worked under strict management guidelines that stated that shopping lists of equipment were not acceptable we had to assess the needs and provide the best solution to fulfill the requirement. For most 'standard' type office systems we used Windows based systems, but for the high end DTP/publishing and video production we went down the Apple route.

Back to very recently - my son is an IT developer (Software Engineer) involved with large retail web sales sites. Some of his customers are now wanting smart phone apps and he is now including iPhone programming amonst his skills. To be able to improve his skills he recently bought a Mac Mini - a neat (but not cheap) box. However, its initial set up was a bit of a pain. Having connected it all it initially showed the apple logo on his screen which then went blank and stayed blank. It seemed to be doing nothing. He ended up attaching it to his TV where he actually got a lowish quality display that allowed him togo through the o=initial setup followed by over 2Gb of updates. After this the system then worked OK with the monitor.

My son reckons the Mac is OK but just a tool to undertake certain tasks. He still prefers his Windows machines but none are better - they are different and offer different facilities, though both will of course do some things well.

Misterfish

 

[RogerS]

.... they are different and offer different facilities, though both will of course do some things well.

Misterfish

Yup..PC's are great for playing games :wink:

 

[Eric The Viking]

Well, the Unix security model is far better than Windows... and OS X is based on BSD (Unix). It's one of the main reasons why there are few viruses out there attacking the Mac platform - less ability to penetrate (although yes, it's not impossible).

Also setting up relatively safe internet access is very easy. Create a second user, and disallow administration on the computer. That becomes the day-to-day account, leaving admin for occasional use. You can do this on a PC too, but it's clunky. Things I don't like are Apple's enthusiasm for dropping hardware interfaces quickly, and the closed architecture for hardware support. That said, I like the fact they ship developer tools with OSX (or used to).

We're getting an iMac soon - it'll be the first 'current' mac for about ten years! I have to say I'm looking forward to it, but I'll be seriously p***ed-off if I can't use it as a print server for the iPad. "AirPrint" or whatever is a classic example of the aspects I hate, as is the bluetooth keyboard support on the iPad (or lack of it).

Still pondering jailbreaking our iPad 3... :x

E.

 

[gus3049]

Get yourself VM Fusion (about £30) and run MS software on your Mac as well.

Rod

Provided you have an Intel Mac (all the latest ones are) you can run Windoze in a separate partition. You don't need any additional software and can run all your existing programs on it. It just needs a restart to swap although I can see the convenience of swapping directly between the two OSs, in practice its straightforward and quick enough.

I have run Windoze on the Mini to try and play a driving game but soon gave up and decided that it wasn't worth the hassle for just one game.

The point about the expensive PC is well made and suggests that Macs aren't actually expensive for what you get.

 

[Benchwayze]

Just a disclaimer I'm not having a downer on Mac, I had a similar discussion on Haven about Sketchup and the guy left the forums he was so offended.

Really? :roll:
Did he leave his toys on the floor, and what must you have said Chems! (No need to answer if it's personal! :lol:

By the Way, I junked my Amstrad, PCW 8512 only a few months ago. Was working okay, but I just wasn't using it! :mrgreen:

 

[Eric The Viking]

By the Way, I junked my Amstrad, PCW 8512 only a few months ago. Was working okay, but I just wasn't using it!

I remember those turning up in BBC production offices in the early 1980s! Did yours have the 3" disk? Some years ago there was a thriving business transferring data ("Locoscript"?) from those disks onto more recent formats. IIRC, someone like Mitsubishi made them, and only for a very short while, with no alternatives, so when the drives began to fail... also used in some 'home games' machines, and at least one musical keyboard.

Isn't it great we never have compatibility issues nowadays?

Gotta go - must scare off the flock of pigs that just landed on the croquet lawn, before they eat the hoops*!

E.

*shot the last Caribou several months back - pesky things.

 

[Benchwayze]

3.5" Eric.
I upgraded mine to a dual-drive with a kit that was on the market at the time. Both drives were bootable. I still have all the discs of course, which can be read in a PC floppy drive... Although since I bought a new Motherboard, I had to get a USB floppy drive, as the built-in drive no longer gets recognised.
But the next move up will be installing Win 7 as necessary, so NP with needing a floppy for installation files, as I do at present.
I loved that old PCW. Wrote stacks of articles on it for Woodwork Mags! So it earned its keep. What I do miss is the ability to use Basic, and write those little useful programs. I haven't yet found a version of Mallard Basic, I can use on a PC!

 

[Eric The Viking]

You'd be amazed at what's still about: I was staggered to find an Apricot emulator not so long ago (I had an Apricot, MS-DOS but not PC-DOS!). So I can (probably) still read all my old Apricot stuff from nigh-on 30 years ago! Incidentally, I found out this morning that the current iMacs do ship with a developer kit included. So, if you know C or C++ or can write perl, you'd probably be well set-up!

E.

 

[woodbloke]

We're getting an iMac soon - it'll be the first 'current' mac for about ten years! I have to say I'm looking forward to it, but I'll be seriously p***ed-off if I can't use it as a print server for the iPad. "AirPrint" or whatever is a classic example of the aspects I hate, as is the bluetooth keyboard support on the iPad (or lack of it).

E.

We also got a 2T 'Time Capsule' wireless back-up HD so that once set up the printer will now print wirelessly for the IMac and MacBook Pro - Rob

 

[Benchwayze]

You'd be amazed at what's still about: I was staggered to find an Apricot emulator not so long ago (I had an Apricot, MS-DOS but not PC-DOS!). So I can (probably) still read all my old Apricot stuff from nigh-on 30 years ago! Incidentally, I found out this morning that the current iMacs do ship with a developer kit included. So, if you know C or C++ or can write perl, you'd probably be well set-up!

E.

There is a PCW emulator for the PC too Eric, I have the file somewhere, but my powers of organisation let me down sometimes! :mrgreen:

Well, the truth is, I found I didn't have time to develop programs just to work out my Tax, when HM Inspectors do it for me! (hammer)

 

[Chems]

Its not a good week for the Mac and viruses, alerts about another one today.

http://gizmodo.com/5897693/ms-office-op ... e-exploits

I think that time has come that everyone knew would come when the evil nerds are turning their attention to macs.