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General discussion

Debating

Jun 13, 2007 8:47AM PDT

Hi. I'm deciding on a laptop and have heard good things about both mac and windows. I am still deciding but I am looking at a 15.4 inch macbook pro and a dell xps m1210. Does anybody have any input or suggestions on different laptops? Let me know please.

Discussion is locked

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I would go for
Jun 14, 2007 10:47AM PDT

the macbook pro. Since apple has a small market share and not many viruses are out there , you're security won't be comprimised. The macbook pro's were recently updated the the santa rosa chipset which means it will run like a dream and apple's ilife software is intuitive and functional. But if you are going to consider buying the pro wait unitl october for leopard so you'll have some cool new features

That's just my thoughts
best of luck getting whatever laptop

Candice

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Santa Rosa
Jun 14, 2007 12:48PM PDT

yep, gonna be good with that running.

What exactly are the "not many viruses out there" that I would need to guard against.

Just curious

P

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I'm just saying
Jun 15, 2007 9:29AM PDT

that the risk of getting a virus is possible still on osx from like email attachments etc but very very unlikely if you are a smart computer user


Candice

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But what viruses would I risk getting?
Jun 15, 2007 10:51AM PDT

What is the name of any of the viruses I can get from email attachments on my OS X machine?

I'm not suggesting that the Mac is invulnerable, but you seem to have inside knowledge of something.

Please share


P

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wow
Jun 15, 2007 12:00PM PDT

actually I dont have any inside knowledge at all. I haven't use osx more than an hour and that was me at an apple store. I'm saving for a macbook and have been doing a whole bunch of reading all over the internet especially on the macbook discussions at the Apple website. I just have read that email attachments and using windows with a mac can possibly infect your system.

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Ahh, I see
Jun 16, 2007 12:07AM PDT

You have managed to combine two completely separate things and create a third.

1. Currently there are NO viruses in the wild that attack OS X. That's not to say that there will never be any, just that there are NONE right now. (7 years and counting)
2. Running Windows on a Mac is exactly that. WINDOWS. As you know there are tens of thousands of viruses that attack Windows and even though you are running Windows on a Mac, the viruses are not attacking the Mac, they are attacking Windows. Those viruses do not run on the Mac OS.
3. There are a number of MS Word macros that could cause a problem but only if you run MS Office on your machine. Turning off Macro support will counter this, as it will in the Windows version.
4. You equate small market share with the zero count for viruses. Not so. Vista had a number of viruses directed against it before it was released! Only 10,000 copies existed and it had virsues.

Enjoy your Macbook when you get it, leave Windows off it until you find something that you need to do but cannot. Then ask the folks here how to do it and you will probably find a Mac solution. There really is nothing that you really "need" that does not exist or cannot be done on a Mac. Notwithstanding proprietary software for certain occupations.

Ask lots of questions but avoid sweeping statements.

P

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Thanks
Jun 16, 2007 11:28AM PDT

for the explanation. I actually plan to do at the best at my ability to avoid anything with windows. I plan to be completely reliant on osx completely. I am just saying to the last post if the user runs windows with a mac that problems can arise with viruses but the user should not be worried if he is a smar omputer user.


Thanks for the explanation.
Candice