Unix is an OS that runs on completely different hardware (usually expensive servers...), Linux is an OS similar to Unix that runs on PC platforms, phones and who knows what else these days.

I believe Leopard is the name given to Mac OS.

Now it's "OSX Snow Leopard" 64 - bit computing. Nothing like installing 16 gig of ram and being able to utilize it.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

I think you may be correct about Gui and Linux . And yes I have BootCamp assistant on My new Mac that will also allow me to run Windows you can even run that a OS X. at the same time. Once bootcamp partitions your drive anything is possible.

And Time Machine backs every thing up on separate hard drive should you loose something by creating a snap shot of your hard drive every 60 minutes via fire wire. Macs rule though I still have a two PC's going in the house I like the Mac and Mac Book. Love the SNOW LEOPARD

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

I once bought a computer at Comp USA. They talked me into an extended warranty. Well.......slowly afterwords......the Comp USA store, from who I bought the extended warranty, went out of business........I was told I could go into any of the other stored in the Comp USA chain and my warranty would be honored. Well........shortly afterwords, the whole chain went out of business.......the warranty wasn't cheap either.

I also had an extended warranty with Dell. It was in in-home warranty, meaning they would come to your home and fix any problems......well......my hard drive went out.........when I called for them to come to my home, they simply refused. All they were willing to do is mail me a blank hard drive. I heard that happened to a lot of other Dell customers about the same time period.

Moral of the story........save your money on those expensive extended warranties.

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"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."-John Wayne

OK so several people have confirmed that Linux is actually a version of Unix and that Macs can run Windows software. Nobody has yet confirmed or denied the other point but I think it's a fairly safe bet that OSX is also a version of Unix. I've heard this claim on a number of occaisions.

The reason for my questions is my curiousity about some people's comments that they don't run Macs due to incompatibility with MS Office for Windows and/or other Windows programs. Don't get me wrong, I think there are some very compelling reasons not to run Macs, price being the obvious first issue but I've never understood how compatibility with existing software could be the cited reason if Macs can run Windows programs. I am also at a loss to explain or understand why Macs cost two and three times the price of a Windows machine when both platforms now use essentially the same hardware made by the same manufacturers. Intel chips. nVidia and ATI graphics cards. Creative audio. etc.

I would love to use a Mac but I abso-frikkenly will NOT pay double or triple for the same hardware just so I can run OSX.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I know so much about this stuff, for once I'm not even going to read the whole thread.

1. With Windows, use XP and download from Microsoft the free Security Essentials.
2. Download the free and open source Fedora 13.
3. If you have the money to burn, by Macintosh.

I have licenses for Windows on 4 computers in my house. I'm writing this on my preferred Linux box; Fedora 13.

No need to buy into scare tactics any more thanks to Microsoft Security Essentials.

Linux Rules, MS dominates and Mac is cool.

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-Kirk

GUITARS
'12 Sonoran Acoustic - black (dated 10/31/12)
'13 Standard Strat
AMP
Vox ac4c1-bl
PEDALS
Compressor
Big Muff
Vox Stomplab 1G
Carbon Copy Delay

Sitting on the floor behind me inn My office I have a Dell PC that cost me 1600. that was running XP Pro + MCafee a virus got it. Boot it with the disk it just shuts down within 30 seconds saying a keyboard error. I can't even scrub the disk to reload everything with a scrubber. Thats the second PC screwed up in three years, first was running Norton. No scare tactics there because I have had the problems. My Son's PC has Windows 7 what a piece of junk that is I think it's a bad as Windows Millennium.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

When you consider what a really good monitor costs and good hardware etc. Macs aren't such a bad deal. The problem as I see it with PC's including my own, is there is no standardization of the hardware such as hard drives, video cards, motherboards, etc. It's all over the place. That's why you have such wide price ranges even in PC's. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some Mac preacher guy, I have two PC's a laptop and a desktop that I removed from my office and are doing time in the house. I'm not saying a Mac can't have any problems, they can. I just haven't seen any yet. I wouldn't recommend spending money on a Mac if you just surf the internet and check your email, but for what I do in my business, it increased my productivity by a huge margin.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

All kidding aside, I have MAC and PC. I prefer the MAC. Don't get too carried away about not using virus protection woth your MAC.

http://www.examiner.com/x-39728-Tech-Bu ... re-Secunia

The more popular and commonplace Macs become the more they will be targeted. For years many people believed naively that it was the superiority of the OS that kept Macs safe. While OSX certainly has it's benefits the truth is there is no such thing as a totally bullet-proof OS. All OS's have their weaknesses and the reason they weren't targeted in years past is because they represented less than 1% of the installed base of computers world-wide.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Mac OSX is a Unix based OS but I haven't done much reading about it. According to the Max OSX wikipedia page some parts of it are based on FreeBSD and NetBSD. I've only used FreeBSD as a web server and don't know much about it beyond that... The FreeBSD wikipedia page says it's it's Unix-like. not Unix...

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Steve

And interesting article from Fortune Magazine about virus's and PC's To Mac's



There are, as far as we know, no Mac OS X viruses in the wild.

To prove that assertion wrong, you only have to name one.

Academic proofs of concept and theoretical vulnerabilities don't count. Neither do computer worms, Trojan horses, spyware, adware, spam or any of the other nasty species in the zoology of malware.

That eliminates Inqtana-A, iBotNet, MacSweeper and a handful of other examples of Mac malware usually trotted out at this point by PC apologists. Nor can you count the 10-second Zero Day Pwn2Own Safari exploit that got so much press attention last March. None of these, strictly speaking, were viruses.

The issue comes up anew because Apple's (AAPL) latest Get a Mac ads are once again hammering Microsoft (MSFT) for those "thousands of viruses" to which its operating systems and application suites are heir. And that, in turn, has led to a resurgence of comments in this space to the effect that a) Macs are just as vulnerable as Windows machines and b) the only thing that protects them is their miniscule market share.

Those ideas, while widely promulgated on the Web, are wrong. The fact that Mac OS X represents less than 4% of the worldwide installed base of computers might explain why there are fewer Mac viruses. But it wouldn't explain why there are none.

So what's the answer?


First, let's define some terms.

A Mac OS X virus in the wild, to use the definition put forward in a short-lived contest that offered $25,000 to the first hacker who could write one, is executable code that attaches itself to a program or file so that it can spread from one Mac to another. "In the wild" means it has infected, or is currently infecting, new machines through normal day-to-day usage.

By this definition, there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of Windows viruses (see partial list), a handful of Mac OS 9 viruses, and not one for Mac OS X.

The reasons for this have been extensively debated by security experts, who offer several explanations:

Small market share. There is some truth to the "security through obscurity" argument. Many virus writers are motivated by the power they can command -- and the money they can make -- by seizing control of large numbers of computers. That puts a financial premium on Windows viruses.
Mac OS X, with its Unix-based file system and kernel, is harder to infect with a self-replicating program. (See Claudiu Dumitru's MacOS X Vulnerabilities for background.) Windows, as I understand it, allows users to write run executable code outside their own protected memory space; Mac OS X does not.
Viruses are going out of style. The action these days, I'm told, is in Trojans and spyware.
This is not to say that OS X is invulnerable. The frequency of Apple's security updates and the emphasis the company is putting on the new security features in Snow Leopard are proof that it is not. Maybe Apple is just lucky. Or maybe it's better at protecting its users from infection than Microsoft.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

I think I speak for everyone when I say nobody really cares about differentiating between viruses and other forms of malware. It's a case of splitting hairs.

Nobody at the Apple depot was ever able to determine just what exact kind of malware it was that crippled my mother's Mac beyond any cost effective repair but it did happen last year and she was forced to buy a new one. I educated her about the dangers of just roaming around all willy nilly clicking on anything and everything and she has suffered no issues since then. That's all anybody really cares about.

As time goes on and Macs become more commonplace we will see more Macs being targeted. Which methods are used in those attacks is generally irrelevant to John Q Public.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

This article on Windows vs Linux at The Register has been around for a while, but it's worth a read if you're interested in the subject. I won't quote it, because it's a long article and doesn't mention Fender instruments!

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Steve

Thanks for the link.
Interesting read.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.