Mac or PC

[Alfa Vincent]

My turn for the rant

[GhostyDog]

Originally Posted by Alfa Vincent

Answers on my original question about PC users suffering spyware etc are welcome - if its useful knowledge I could even pass it on to my PC friends who seem to suffer from it

Don't run your Windows machine logged in as a user with administrative permissions. Simple as.

When windows is first installed a default user account is created and this is an admin one, most people never create a working account and just use the admin one day to day, this means any software that may run or be run has complete control of the system.

In windows XP if someone wants to install some software they can right click the executable file and select run as... then put in the credentials of an administrator on the machine, this negates faffing about switching users just to install software.

P.S. Never heard of rootkits?

http://theappleblog.com/2008/01/23/w...ootkit-hunter/

Far worse than ANY virus or spyware and they do exist for OS X - Clam AV Anti Virus software that is included with OS X deals with them IF you run it. But then the idea of a rootkit is that you'd never know it was there which is what makes it so dangerous.

The ability to give someone root access via ssh to your machine is a powerful one.

[Alfa Vincent]

Originally Posted by GhostyDog

Don't run your Windows machine logged in as a user with administrative permissions. Simple as.

When windows is first installed a default user account is created and this is an admin one, most people never create a working account and just use the admin one day to day, this means any software that may run or be run has complete control of the system.

In windows XP if someone wants to install some software they can right click the executable file and select run as... then put in the credentials of an administrator on the machine, this negates faffing about switching users just to install software.

P.S. Never heard of rootkits?

Anti Rootkit Software - OS X Rootkit Hunter

Far worse than ANY virus or spyware and they do exist for OS X - Clam AV Anti Virus software that is included with OS X deals with them IF you run it.

Nope never heard of them - but thanks for the tip off
As you seem the man in the know - can a rootkit make its way into the root even if you are signed in without root access?

Thanks for the banter mate

[GhostyDog]

Originally Posted by Alfa Vincent

As you seem the man in the know - can a rootkit make its way into the root even if you are signed in without root access?

Not sure about leopard but on previous versions you had to 'enable' the root user before it could be used.

rootkit can be a bit misleading term on a mac as sudo or su commands emulate root access.

I believe the most common way of getting it on a machine would be the use of social engineering, I'm fairly sure any of you who have used limewire to download some kind of software would be at risk as the installation scripts can be tampered with to include a rootkit which will be installed when you sudo up with the dialogue that appears when you install software.

One reason why I don't use any form of peer 2 peer, it's the most affective way of getting nefarious content onto as many machines as possible.

Incidentally I replaced the rootkit link in my post above with a move relevant one.

[Alfa Vincent]

Ghosty - I have to admit my respect for you has grown massively you obviously know your stuff
But I got to say (not wish to stir thing at all!) that I am amazed that someone from your background would still recommend a PC for the home user above a Mac! Obviously if the home user wanted to do serious gaming etc then a PC would be the way but I mean for general website creation, music, photos, basic design, letter writing or whatever I don't doubt that there are many like you but I have always found (up until now!) that most people with real Mac experience, like yourself, would usually suggest a Mac for home use. This is a generalisation, but I always find most PC heads haven't even had real experience of Macs and base their knowledge on things they have heard. And to be honest most of my PC experience is not relevant as I have been on Mac for the last 14 years or so - I only use the PC when I have to.

[Alfa Vincent]

Originally Posted by GhostyDog

Not sure about leopard but on previous versions you had to 'enable' the root user before it could be used.

rootkit can be a bit misleading term on a mac as sudo or su commands emulate root access.

I believe the most common way of getting it on a machine would be the use of social engineering, I'm fairly sure any of you who have used limewire to download some kind of software would be at risk as the installation scripts can be tampered with to include a rootkit which will be installed when you sudo up with the dialogue that appears when you install software.

One reason why I don't use any form of peer 2 peer, it's the most affective way of getting nefarious content onto as many machines as possible.

Incidentally I replaced the rootkit link in my post above with a move relevant one.

I will look into the rootkit info provided
I don't use P2P, but I once was a limewire user when it was first about. P2P is not worth the grief these days and I am happy to say I am a licenced user these days and no longer a bootlegger

[PaulR]

P2P?

I have used Limewire for years, tend towards bittorent these days.

Both work with no problems at all.

Paul.

[GhostyDog]

Originally Posted by Alfa Vincent

Ghosty - I have to admit my respect for you has grown massively you obviously know your stuff
But I got to say (not wish to stir thing at all!) that I am amazed that someone from your background would still recommend a PC for the home user above a Mac!

Cheers, I think you misunderstand though, I don't advocate any one system over another, if someone comes to me and says "what computer should I buy?" I say "What do you want to do on it?" and from what they say I offer what I think would be the best solution.

My Mum and Dad have just got broadband, both approaching 60 and neither has used a computer or the internet before, I advised they have a look at Apple and see if it did what they wanted. I took them to the Apple Store in the Trafford Centre as I'd arranged for them to have an appointment at the (as it turned out) not so Genius bar. I ended up telling the 'Genius' to bugger off and I showed the olds what the system could do.

My dad wanted a computer mainly for photography and digital video and as it now happens to spend all night planning routes on the via f errata on google earth, my mum just wanted something to buy and collate music onto for her line dance clubs and ipod(s).

They ended up buying a 20" iMac ad they are more than happy with it.

[GhostyDog]

Originally Posted by PaulR

P2P?

I have used Limewire for years, tend towards bittorent these days.

Both work with no problems at all.

Paul.

That's great but where does the content come from? Think about that.

[PaulR]

Originally Posted by GhostyDog

That's great but where does the content come from? Think about that.

You're right.

LizR won't go there (on her computer at least) and I think she (you) may have a point.

She (we) is (are) watching Torchwood which arrived via bittorent though - hypocrites? Well that's as near as we get to religion.

Paul.

[Alfa Vincent]

ghosty - I know what you are saying re the genious bar, not good mate! Its all a bit of a marketing ploy - and it pains me to say that being an apple man! Good to hear your folks are getting on with the iMac - lovely bit of kit for the home user!
Thanks for the banter mate - my bed awaits + my girlfriend is about to kill me for being on here all night!! No doubt we will meet up in another forum soon - hopefully we may agree on more stuff there!

[Kevin Slegg]

Probably side tracking here - but all I can say is that my work lap-top I got at the beginning of January which runs XP (my company took Vista off it) is already 'freezing' and having log-off and printing problems.

My home PowerBook is just so much nicer to use.

After using a Mac I would never buy a PC over one

[PaulR]

Originally Posted by Kevin Slegg

After using a Mac I would never buy a PC over one

The voice of reason.

Paul.

[Nev]

Ahhhh Apple fangurls and their suspension of reality.....

[Shibboleth]

Used a PC for over 10 years and after lots of trouble and crashes I bought a Mac 2 years ago.
Now with my imac, ipod and iphone I've turned into an Apple nut.
There's a reason people rave about Apple, they just make great stuff.

[badgers_nadgers]

I'm quite surprised at Ghosty's experience, I've been in charge of IT in design, publishing and print all my life and haven't had the problems he mentioned. That said, I held off upgrading to OS X until Panther came out as I didn't think OSX was up to being used in a production environment until then.

Interesting also your experience with Quark 6. One of our printers has a nightmare with Quark 6, but it's been absolutely solid as a rock for me. As for Quark 5, I never bothered with it. Didn't seem to be a single reason to upgrade to it. I read somewhere that if you rename your hard drive, Quark doesn't like it. Our printers call each of their primary hard drives something different, whereas mine are called Macintosh HD on every machine. That could be the reason for it.

[Alfa Vincent]

hey badger - my only problem with Quark 6 came because I was using their first beta release I do have a licenced copy of 6.5 now and that runs fine. But i have been converted to indesign and am more than happy with CS3. I am doing my best not to comment on the mac vs pc thing - but its safe to say that nothing would get me onto the microsucks platform i have not found anything i can do on a pc that i cant on my apple. The only real thing that i use a pc for is to check out websites i have created work in IE.

[Astro]

Im a mac...but dont let me bring my dead horse on here...!

[jay w]

I have been a windows fan for years, that was until Vista came along....

Bought a hi spec lappy with vista installed, within a week it was back and i had traded it for a mac book.
When the Desktop PC finally died i went and bought a mini mac.

This was a year ago now, in that time i think i have needed windows for only one programme, Sage, i have parallels installed with XP on both machines, but hardly need to use it.

Just bought Office 2008 and so far have had no compatability issues at all....

[Alfa Vincent]

Good man Jay - Sage is that accounting software? Parallels is a good bit of kit - but i never use it either!!

[badgers_nadgers]

Originally Posted by Alfa Vincent

hey badger - my only problem with Quark 6 came because I was using their first beta release I do have a licenced copy of 6.5 now and that runs fine. But i have been converted to indesign and am more than happy with CS3.

Yeah, I've recently been converted to InDesign as well. Still use Quark for longer documents, but InDesign's perfect for ads and brochures. Not upgraded to CS3 yet, I'm still quite happy with CS1! I've always been a bit of a reluctant upgrader, my attitude is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it…

[Alfa Vincent]

Originally Posted by badgers_nadgers

Yeah, I've recently been converted to InDesign as well. Still use Quark for longer documents, but InDesign's perfect for ads and brochures. Not upgraded to CS3 yet, I'm still quite happy with CS1! I've always been a bit of a reluctant upgrader, my attitude is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it…

I know what your saying there badger - just got no choice with the upgrading, they upgraded at my work so I had to at home
But trust me CS3 is a peach

[GhostyDog]

Originally Posted by badgers_nadgers

That said, I held off upgrading to OS X until Panther came out as I didn't think OSX was up to being used in a production environment until then.

Your not wrong it was appalling

Originally Posted by badgers_nadgers

Interesting also your experience with Quark 6. One of our printers has a nightmare with Quark 6, but it's been absolutely solid as a rock for me.

We had a big enough installed base to warrant a site licence, unfortunately Quark's implementation of Anti Piracy measures was to have a Licence Server built one third in Java, one third in Pearl and one third in fuzzy felt.

It was a nightmare to administer, the licence pools never worked correctly and when a machine screwed up and needed reinstalling/reimaging/etc. you couldn't reactivate the licence that was used without ringing the licence clearing house in fecking Switzerland.

I would quite happily have moved to CS 2 and InDesign but politics frowned upon this. Also it would have been a big job to convert all the standard templates to InDesign and it just wasn't suitable for some of our workflow.

Coupled with a boss who was somewhat Maverick it caused problems, although we did have some kick *** kit, couple of XRAIDs hooked up to a Fiber Switch 4 or 5 XServe's a switched circuit giving us 10mb connectivity straight into one of our employers premises so account handlers could work out of their premises direct with the marketing teams.

But then you always get that little bit of legacy kit that you have to maintain for the one occasion a week it gets used (Transmission sodding Manager on an OS 9 machine for iSDN ).

Quark: Quark License Administrator provides the server-based ability to manage the availability of licenses for Quark products << evil personified

[Alfa Vincent]

hey ghosty - to reactivate my quark when I installed a new HD I had to ring sweden.... But I did get put through to a very hot sounding woman called angel - so I didn't mind! But they did set up online activation by the time 6.1 came out. So no more reason to ring Angel!!!

[GhostyDog]

Originally Posted by Alfa Vincent

hey ghosty - to reactivate my quark when I installed a new HD I had to ring sweden.... But I did get put through to a very hot sounding woman called angel - so I didn't mind! But they did set up online activation by the time 6.1 came out. So no more reason to ring Angel!!!

Online activation didn't always work though I remember the old excuse everytime I rung up was.

"Oh yes, new logic board in this one"

Need a new unlock code