On Jan 4, 2005, at 4:24 AM, Tom Scales wrote:
> Not true. There are mac viruses. There would be many more if the
> marketshare
> was higher. What's the point of bothering if you're a virus writer?
> The Mac
> is not inherently more secure, nor is Linux. Just read some of the
> security
> periodicals.
All very true, but from a practical standpoint your risk of picking up
a virus on a Mac is several thousand times less than on a PC, if only
because of the small market share you've just pointed out. It doesn't
matter *why* Macs are less likely to get infected. As a user, the point
is that they don't get infected as often.
> So are most PC boxes. Just make careful purchases. My Dells, middle
> of the
> line models, are very well built.
Again, I'll agree. Still, my Quicksilver machine's case opens up with
the flick of a lever and the whole side swings open. Upgrades are
faster and easier on it than on any machine I've ever owned.
> But why? That's like saying "I like Windows 98 better than XP because
> I can
> get to DOS".
Exactly. DOS was really fast and dealing with Windows problems by
dropping down into DOS was usually a lot easier than dealing with them
in Windows. Not only that, but there were a ton of free DOS programs
that did a much better job than their Windows counterparts. Having
LINUX running underneath OS-X is even better than being able to drop
into DOS.
> Or better said: Hardware doesn't innovate as fast, so my machine
> doesn't
> appear to be as out of date.
I dunno, how cost-effectively can you get a dual-processor PC with a 1
GHz FSB? Wait a few months and check out the quad-processor models.
Apple doesn't upgrade their hardware as relentlessly as the Wintel
community, but when they do it's usually a pretty significant stride
forward. My friends who use Macs usually buy the second or third
generation of each model that comes out and it lasts them until the
next major model release. The G3 300 MHz lasted until the G4
Dual-Processor 800 MHz which lasted until the G5 Dual-Processor 2 GHz,
etc. That usually yields 4-5 years of product service. It may not be as
sexy as a speed bump every few months, but from a practical standpoint
they make excellent work machines.
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