ORIGINAL: technophile

Be careful, you might learn two new things today, then what will you do with the rest of your week?

ORIGINAL: technophile

OSX is a unix based system that utilizes protected memory so when you do have an application go toes up on you the whole system won't freeze up. The first couple of times it happens to you will wonder what the heck just happened. You'll be working then BAM! no more application, then OSX politely lets you know that the app has just quit and no other systems are affected. I have had a few crashes but it was mostly the work of a third party application like Micro$oft orafice.

OSX also has a nice sharing utility under your preferences where you can set if you want to share a printer over the network and/or share files. Not only that but you can specifiy which folders you wish to make public and the firewall built into the OS will keep people from rummaging about your hard drive.

These days most of your Macs will come with airport and bluetooth cards installed. If you purchase a MacBook or a PowerBook that doesn't have one, have them install it for you. It isn't hard to do, but if you do it yourself you may void your warrranty. Any unprotected WIFI access point is fair game to a mac and if you have the hex key you can get onto any windows based wireless network also, just prefix the hex key with a "$" when connect dialog asks you to enter the network password. I've used my personal laptop on the company network several times using this little bit of information.

I was also able to network a couple of PC's and my macs at home when my wife was stubbornly refusing to move over to the good side of the force. (I finally cheated and dismantled her computer lol). I never really had any issues with any of the computers talking to each other.

Oh, I am also using a micro$oft branded wireless router with my generic DSL modem on my mac. It takes a little more work to set up the network becuase you have to access the router to set it up manually (via a web browser) but it can be done.

I'm a geek alright, if it has microchips and a battery, I probably own one...two if they are small.

ORIGINAL: Blackkawi400

ONE, you don't have to run windows on a PC, there are several other operating systems to choose from, including freeware. Understand that a MAC doesn't have alot of the same problems PC's have because it's not as popular. Firefox was once considered very safe. That was until alot more people started using it. It then became more logical for Hackers to start exploiting it. Eventually if enough people use the MAC's they will be prone to the same exploiting that windows is now famous for.

TWO, if your computer is crashing and getting viruses, stop blaming your computer. Computers only do what you (or some hack) tell it to. I have 13 pc's currently and have only lost four, two to faulty (see old) hardware and two others by my fault. If you take care of your OS, ie download updates, patches and use firewall/antivirus/spyware programs, you will have alot easier time keeping it running. I'm not saying this is 100% protection, but I've been sitting here on the same XP install on 7 of my computers that came with it.

THREE, if you want to pursue a MAC, be my guest. They are excellent machines at what they do. Don't expect to be able to run 100% of the software you are accustomed to, but in recent years software manufacturers have given the MAC a chance.

FOUR, watch these.

MAC - GAMING
MAC - FUNMAC