UGN Security Forums UGN Security: Knowledge Base Operating Systems Windows & Windows Security purchasing a computer

hello all

i am in the market for a new computer and am confused about the best purchase.

first of all, i do not know whether to go mac or pc, b/c the macs seem to be moving at a quicker pace, and developing new and interesting programs and hardware monthly. At the same time, more people use pc's. please explain

Well, one thing you should think of, most PC software manufacturers do NOT publish Mac variants; for 90% of users a PC would be what they want just for this reason.

Secondly, usually one builds their own pc as it's usually cheaper and will last longer.

If you're just a random guy who wants a pc and has little knowlege of them, http://www.hp.com

If you can be patient, I would simply wait for the MacOS to be compatible with Intel. There are some various betas and hacks that will allow this I believe, but nothing reliable as of yet. This way you can build a system that will run linux, windows, and MacOS.

I've heard of a way to run MacOS on a Win machine, MacOSX is the first big step towards that...

I do not condone piracy, but this seems to be the way to go:
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Install_On_A_Partition_Simple_And_Ac curate

I understand where you're all going with this, but im still worried about viruses. I was reading another post elsewhere, and i think Gizmo, not sure, said that he's never gotten any kind of viruses on his computer. I for one have owned both a mac and a PC in the past, and the mac never had any kind of problem. on the other hand, the PC, even though i purchased protection for it and had a firewall blah blah it still got viruses and spyware.

Then, the basic subscription is not enough, and they ask you to pay more money for their stronger software, or to have someone come clear your hard-drive off. Many of my friends use macs, and they get monthly security updates for free, and never have any problems ...

what is a good solution to this if i was to go with a pc?

well if you stop going to the pron sites then you wont have as many issues :p

well seeing as thats not gonna happen anytime soon ....

in a posting below, i saw that gyzmo was talking about importing songs into itunes ... seems that more and more people are using macs for music/videos ...

How about you stop this whole stupid "I'm going to convert you to a mac cas they're better" bullshit? That's a debate and belongs in the debate forum; if you're going to be alittle prissy [censored] who can't follow rules you can feel free to leave now.

Whoa... bit touchy...

Okay, you picked up nasty [censored] on a PC because 80% of computers on the net are PC's so the spyware and virus writers code for PC's or Internet explorer/Windows.

Now if you had a PC running say CentOS Enterprise Linux and Fire Fox browser I bet you can go to the same obscure site and not catch a thing. See Internet Explorer is very much tied into the OS. I do not think a browser opening a web page should ever allow a Registry change, yet it happens all the time.

As for OSX, no idea. I have only played with it a few times, it is pretty and it is technicaly neat as I belive it is running 3 layers of *nix

Darwin
BSD
and the OSX crap itself.


To note however...

All Windows NT systems are POSIX compliant. This means there is a bit of unix under the hood. Why would they do that? Because POSIX compliant is a DOD standard for OS. Microsoft wants the DOD money. DOD = Department of Defense.

I would go PC because most stuff runs on WINDOWS and you wont have to deal with bullshit like finding a port for your games, ect.
Just download mozilla firefox or another browser instead of Iexplorer like Sintax said, and you will be more secure.

Macs are fun, but i dont like them because you cant do fundamental tasks, like import a video to a folder. At least i Couldnt on my friends macbook, but i might just be inept. But hey thats because most computers arent macs now are they?

WINE development has come quite far in recent times for being able to execute windows binary files in Linux; so much in fact that I'd be willing to bet that your everyday items you use could likely be run fairly easy now adays...

FireFox ad Thunderbird both run in Linux just fine, in fact, they dev there first before making the Windows port. Same with Pidgin.

MacOSX in fact is a BSD varient, which can run Linux code (when set properly), and now that they have x86 processors you can also run Windows on them as well.

Myself, I'm not a Mac fanboy; though I had to use a dualboot MacOSX/MacOS9 machine when I Was at Adobe for tech queries.

Whether you go with a Mac or a PC isn't much of an issue anymore. I know someone who runs Mac OSX on his PC, and I use a really nice program called "Parallels Desktop" to run Windows XP on my MacBook Pro inside Mac OSX. There are a couple issues with Windows drivers for the Mac hardware. Generally it's not a problem, but I can't reach my video card's full potential until they release it. It connects to the net just fine and runs my adobe suite beautifully, even while I'm working with my Mac publishing software. However, if you take this route, I highly recommend addition hard drive space (500gb external is what I use, USB 2.0 works great for me, but there is a firewire port), and you may want to upgrade to 4 gigs.

As far as malware goes, I use a mac antivirus, though there isn't many out there. PC is probably safer in the long run for malware, because there are Mac hackers out there, regardless what the ignorant tell you. And it's only a matter of time before more hackers target mac (and with no antivirus programs, since everyone has a false sense of security, there will be a lot of easy targets).

In the end, if you work with graphics, I recommend a mac, but if you program, or play mainstream videogames, PC might be a better choice (unless there is a mac version of the game or they come out with the correct driver).

again, MacOSX IS on BSD; just install WINE and hack at it and you could get just about any Window$ app running...

Well, it matters what are you are intending to do. If you are just going to be doing word processing and excel, than all you need is a barebones system, like a low end core duo processor or even a pentium 4, 1 gig of RAM, either an integrated graphics card or a low end one like a GeForce 6800 or something, and storage.

If you know you are going to be doing lots of work, maybe storing huge amounts of data, or pictures, etc, go with 500gb of storage. Otherwise, go with about 250gb.
And thats about it

Whereas Win7 will run on a 1ghz cpu with 512mb of ram, I would highly advise at minimum a dual core 1.5ghz-2ghz processor with at minimum 2gb of ram...

A real world spec though would end up 2.5ghz or so dual/quad core with 2-4gb ram and 250gb+ hard drive space... And it's even affordable now (we're talking a 4gb ram 3ghz quad core with a 2tb raid array disk for under a grand).

Mac variants are not published by many of the PC software manufacturers including the leading software producers. The decision depends on the individual to choose the pc. The knowledge about the pc makes easy to configure, and the person who buys own pc can make cheaper price and losts longer.
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