Attention !

[disabled modeler]

Hi everyone.....there is a new devastating computer virus out there........dont open anything that is an invitation or on obama. doing so can destroy your computer with no repairs possible, micro soft stated it was the worse one they have seen! im just the messenger to spread the word....you have oldman23 to thank for the info so heads-up everyone......mark

[JamesW]

Thanks for the heads up Mark. I don't have to worry, my email is set up so that ALL junk goes to my trash.

[disabled modeler]

Hi reaper....thats great!

[Eshaver]

Hummmmmmm, annother reason to hate the scoundrel Ed Shaver

[MrObsessive]

Also a good reason to have more than one email address. I have at least six if I include my work email. Close friends and family get one (One that goes into my Windows Mail), brick and mortar businesses as well as internet businesses, get one of five others. That way if the spam/viruses/nonsense start, it goes more than likely to the web based one and not my PC based email.

I've also had to warn folks recently about sending attachments or emails where they want you to pass on this or that to ten people or whatever. VERY DANGEROUS TO DO IN THIS CLIMATE!!

I instantly send those to the cyber bit bucket if I see such an email sent to me! I recently had to get rid of a annoying virus that infected my desktop PC.............thankfully I had everything backed up (Carbonite), and was able to retrieve everything.

For those of you not backing up your files in some way, you're just asking for trouble sooner or later!

[Harry P.]

Two easy solutions to viruses spread by emails:

1. DO NOT open suspicious emails or emails from senders you don't know/never heard of.

2. Better yet... get a MAC!

[Foxer]

Two easy solutions to viruses spread by emails:

1. DO NOT open suspicious emails or emails from senders you don't know/never heard of.

2. Better yet... get a MAC!

Good advice, Harry .. but I have to actually DO things on my computer ..

[Eshaver]

I used to drive a Mac with a Maxidyne , does that count ?????????? Ed Shaver

[vizio93]

Two easy solutions to viruses spread by emails:

1. DO NOT open suspicious emails or emails from senders you don't know/never heard of.

2. Better yet... get a MAC!

Exactly !!! Once you go MAC you never go back !!!

[charlie8575]

I used to drive a Mac with a Maxidyne , does that count ?????????? Ed Shaver

Nah, way too powerful and too much metal!

Charlie Larkin

[Nick Notarangelo]

As A certified computer tech the best advice i can say is only open what you know and trust.

[Guest Gramps-xrds]

Hi everyone.....there is a new devastating computer virus out there........dont open anything that is an invitation or on obama. doing so can destroy your computer with no repairs possible, micro soft stated it was the worse one they have seen! im just the messenger to spread the word....you have oldman23 to thank for the info so heads-up everyone......mark

I'm afraid this statement is a little mis-leading. No virus can destroy a computer. It can only affect the software of a system causing you to maybe have to reload the operating system. After a leload your PC is as good as new or as good as it was before.

It's always a good idea to never open any mail that is from someone you don't know.

[CAL]

Exactly !!! Once you go MAC you never go back !!!

I did.

I had a horrible experience with a G4 and Jaguar OSX. My home built AMD MSI machine was much more powerful and more stable with XP Pro than at that time the latest and greatest MAC, which quite frankly sucked a big one - not at all stable. And at that time the G5 was in the pipeline and it was already clear that it's architecture was never going to be as powerful as PCs architecture that was already available. And sure enough bench test after bench test the G5 didn't stand up to the current PC.

Plus they had a limited software library, it was good stuff but limited and much more expensive.

Now that MAC has changed their architecture they are really not that different anymore.

and if you run Win apps on your MAC you are just as suceptable to attack, and there are viurses out that attack specifically MAC machines.

It's not that MAC can't get a virus, it's not many people write virus for MAC because not many people use them. If everybody switched there would be just as many viruses for MACs.

[Harry P.]

It's not that MAC can't get a virus, it's not many people write virus for MAC because not many people use them. If everybody switched there would be just as many viruses for MACs.

Exactly! Us MAC users are a very happy minority, while the PC world has to deal with viruses, crashes, and Microsoft...

BTW... your comments on Macs not being as stable or powerful as PCs? HAH!!! Macs rule the graphics world, and with the size of graphics/video files, you'd never get very far if your computer didn't have the guts. I commonly work on files as large as 500 meg or more (yes, that's ONE graphic file, a large poster or something similar), and my Mac has never had any problem handling a "heavy load."

[CAL]

Exactly! Us MAC users are a very happy minority, while the PC world has to deal with viruses, crashes, and Microsoft...

BTW... your comments on Macs not being as stable or powerful as PCs? HAH!!! Macs rule the graphics world, and with the size of graphics/video files, you'd never get very far if your computer didn't have the guts. I commonly work on files as large as 500 meg or more (yes, that's ONE graphic file, a large poster or something similar), and my Mac has never had any problem handling a "heavy load."

That is what I was using it for silly. Final Cut Pro and After Affects. Much bigger files. Don't get me wrong I like FCP a lot but had to hard restart G4 many times a day - it was one crash after another. I was seriously considering a G5 but it didn't make sense to get a G5.

It was significally more money.

It wasn't even released and people were already comeing to the realization that it was not going to catch up to the current PC in terms of power. The clock speeds were much faster on the PC that were out already compaired to the said G5 clock speeds and dual cores and quad cores were just around the corner making the G5 obsolete almost before it hit the market.

I sometimes worked on parllel files with a PC and Adobe Premiere without nearly as much trouble, althought Premeire wasn't as nice a program to work in, niether was AVID.

It was largely the OS.

Jaguar was new and had many teething issues.

XP Pro was redesigned specifically to hand graphics better than previous Windows.

My XP Pro AMD MSI machine never crashed.

I guess Apple got the OS finally striatened out, but the moment had passed on the G5. I just kind of hit them at one of their transitional low peirods.

I still had to use a G4 - Jaguar, and I still can't see what all the rave was about. It was set up very much like XP - Pro, program navigation was nearly indentical, the interface much the same, only the G4 crashed often, and my XP Pro system never did.

[Harry P.]

If your computer keeps crashing while manipulating heavy duty files, it could be that you don't have enough hard disk space for the software to function (scratch disk space).

I dunno... I've been on Mac since I've been on computers. I've always found Macs to work better for me than PCs. Part of that may just be familiarity/comfort with Mac OS vs. PC OS. I do have a PC laptop and PC tower too, but almost never use them.

Years ago, Macs were a lot more user friendly and intuitive compared to PCs... not because Macs were that much better, but because PCs were that much worse! They were very geeky, tech-oriented, seemed to be tailored more towards the geek market than the mass market. Remember MS-Dos? Sheesh...

Nowadays, the OS of both Mac and PC have become very similar, and there's not much difference, really, in day to day operation between the two. Mac has adapted the best features of the PC OS, and vice versa. But still, nobody is writing viruses for Mac. That alone makes being on a Mac worth it!

[CAL]

If your computer keeps crashing while manipulating heavy duty files, it could be that you don't have enough hard disk space for the software to function (scratch disk space).

I dunno... I've been on Mac since I've been on computers. I've always found Macs to work better for me than PCs. Part of that may just be familiarity/comfort with Mac OS vs. PC OS. I do have a PC laptop and PC tower too, but almost never use them.

Years ago, Macs were a lot more user friendly and intuitive compared to PCs... not because Macs were that much better, but because PCs were that much worse! They were very geeky, tech-oriented, seemed to be tailored more towards the geek market than the mass market. Remember MS-Dos? Sheesh...

Nowadays, the OS of both Mac and PC have become very similar, and there's not much difference, really, in day to day operation between the two. Mac has adapted the best features of the PC OS, and vice versa. But still, nobody is writing viruses for Mac. That alone makes being on a Mac worth it!

Work files were on a seperate firewire drive. Maybe because they tried to partition them up too much. They kept through more RAM at. then bigger drives. It was never really resolved by time I was outta there. Most people said it was Jaguar wasn't up to snuff and was resolved with the next OS.

As far as nobody, I wouldn't go that far.

Mac still recommends running an antivirus scanning software, and there are several, some particularly dangerous MAC viruses, and again if you are running Win apps is also a weakness.

I have gone to some particularly nasty sites trying to get a virus and with a live updated live scan antivirus maleware and a double firewall with tweeked settings nothing has got through. So you can set up a formidable PC.

I would seriously consider a MAC again if someone gave me a good reason to switch, but nobody, even MAC gurus, said it's not really worth it any longer if you are heavily invested in PC hardware and soft, more so with the increasing overlap.

Yup, when I started getting into computers it was Windows 3X, which was basically MS DOS with a fancy, if you wanna call it that, interface, many programs were still DOS based. It was very crude by MAC standards and probably really wasn't til XP Pro, (XP Home not so much) windows was catching up fast especially in the grapics arena, since they pretty much buttoned up the business apps.

Edited January 5, 2010 by CAL

[Harry P.]

Exactly right. PCs have pretty much caught up with Macs as far as user friendliness. But the difference was much more pronounced years ago, when I was first learning computers. It all comes down to what you grew up with, I suppose. I was a Mac guy from Day 1, probably always will be. But all the software now comes in both Mac and PC versions. The difference between Mac and PC these days is really pretty insignificant. PCs now operate in a way that an average human can understand (finally!!!)... and Macs can run MS business programs (finally!!!).

Now if only MS could actually come up with an OS that works. I haven't tried Windows 7, my PCs both run Vista... which is quirky and annoying. Oh well, Vista sure didn't last long as the default PC OS!

[Jantrix]

Hummmmmmm, annother reason to hate the scoundrel Ed Shaver

Ed, I've never really thought of you as a scoundrel, but whatever you say.

[CAL]

Don't know if it is true, but I have heard software is harder to come by for Macs. Any truth to that?

Used to be, there used to be a very limited software library and what was available was more expensive.

When I looked into 2003-2004 it was about 47% more expensive to own a MAC than a equal PC.

Now days you can run win apps on a MAC.