minimac

[intelligentfool]

i'm trying to convince my gf that the minimac would be a good comptuer for her since its basically immune to virus/spyware. i've never owned a mac myself, but from supporting them at work they seem like really good computers for people that simply browse the web and chat on AIM all day. any suggestions on trying to convert the unwilling?

 

[drag]

Just find a local place that sells apples. Like compusa or whatnot.

Take her there and have her play around on one. If she likes it, then your set.

Also run down to the local bookstore and buy the 'missing OS X manual' so you can muck around with it if it breaks.

Apple operating systems are very different from Windows stuff and a lot of the knowledge and skills you've gotten from Windows will be pretty much worthless.

What it comes down to is mostly the computer equivelent of hand waving and step-by-step maintainance.

 

[hopejr]

A Mac Mini would be a great computer for someone like that.
Tiger is finally announced so I'd wait until the end of the month when they start shipping mac minis with them Tiger is much better than panther.

 

[phisrow]

Is she trying to pick up a new system, or replace an old one? I ask merely because, while the mini is quite elegant, if you just want virus resistance, dropping Linux on whatever she has now(if she has something that is otherwise suitable) will give you that quite readily.

 

[Nothinman]

i'm trying to convince my gf that the minimac would be a good comptuer for her since its basically immune to virus/spyware

That's a really bad reason to buy one. Eventually something will come out for OS X and you won't notice until it's too late because of your false assumption that the gay apple icon makes you invulnerable. I'm not saying they're bad computers, just that they're more expensive and the gains might not be worth the additional cost.

 

[Zolty]

I think the "it just works" feeling is very nice and worth the premium for that "gay apple icon". For someone who knows little about PC, a mac is perfect, because they require alot less knowlege to use.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I don't know if they're great for the computer illiterate, but I plan on picking up one or two...

 

[Nothinman]

I think the "it just works" feeling is very nice and worth the premium for that "gay apple icon". For someone who knows little about PC, a mac is perfect, because they require alot less knowlege to use.

But if that person already uses a Windows box at work (and most do) it requires a lot more knowledge to use because their current knowlege is all invalid.

 

[shortylickens]

As I have always said:
"If you dont know alot about computers, if you dont want to know alot about computers, get a mac."

They really arent bad machines, I just dont care for them personally.

Keep in mind, you will still need to know a little so you can help her out from time to time. Have noticed that people who dont know anything about computers dont learn a whole lot if they just use Mac. But that was kind of my point to begin with.

 

[ValuedCustomer]

a mac is perfect, because they require alot less knowlege to use.

A lot less knowledge than what? - Somewhere along the line someone started the silly little rumor that Mac = "easy" & Windows = "hard". - Honestly, Mac is cute and looks neat and all but anyone past the age of 12 that can't figure out Windows but can, for some reason, figure out Mac needs their head examined. Or at least needs to stop drinkin' the Job'sAide.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: ValuedCustomer

a mac is perfect, because they require alot less knowlege to use.

A lot less knowledge than what? - Somewhere along the line someone started the silly little rumor that Mac = "easy" & Windows = "hard". - Honestly, Mac is cute and looks neat and all but anyone past the age of 12 that can't figure out Windows but can, for some reason, figure out Mac needs their head examined. Or at least needs to stop drinkin' the Job'sAide.

I found Mac OS 9's interface to be almost painfully easy. Much easier than Windows was.

 

[Aisengard]

Yeah, Mac is all for the dumbing down of the computer society. I've had three friends who's Macs perform less, and are much less reliable, than my Windows machine. Of course, maybe that's because they've used Macs from the beginning and haven't had the chance to learn a darn thing about computers.

If you want less complaints, get her a Windows computer, and make her figure it out for herself.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Aisengard
Yeah, Mac is all for the dumbing down of the computer society. I've had three friends who's Macs perform less, and are much less reliable, than my Windows machine. Of course, maybe that's because they've used Macs from the beginning and haven't had the chance to learn a darn thing about computers.

If you want less complaints, get her a Windows computer, and make her figure it out for herself.

Your friends are retards. The Apple platform is at least as stable as a competant Wintel setup under decent administration.

 

[MedicBob]

Originally posted by: Aisengard
Yeah, Mac is all for the dumbing down of the computer society. I've had three friends who's Macs perform less, and are much less reliable, than my Windows machine. Of course, maybe that's because they've used Macs from the beginning and haven't had the chance to learn a darn thing about computers.

If you want less complaints, get her a Windows computer, and make her figure it out for herself.

Umm, anytime you tell a woman to figure it out for herself, you can bet she will tell you what to figure out yourself next.

Mac = pretty easy to use and harder to find someone to fix
windows = pretty easy to use and easier to find someone to fix
Linux = pretty easy to use, fix it yourself.

 

[ValuedCustomer]

Mac = pretty easy to use and harder to find someone to fix
windows = pretty easy to use and easier to find someone to fix
Linux = pretty easy to use, fix it yourself.

Very well said. :beer:

 

[ArjSiv]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

i'm trying to convince my gf that the minimac would be a good comptuer for her since its basically immune to virus/spyware

That's a really bad reason to buy one. Eventually something will come out for OS X and you won't notice until it's too late because of your false assumption that the gay apple icon makes you invulnerable. I'm not saying they're bad computers, just that they're more expensive and the gains might not be worth the additional cost.

Actually OSX is inherently more secure than Windows mostly because of a lot of it being based upon open source and the fact that pretty much every program on it doesn't need administrator access to run ( unlike Windows where you pretty much need Administrator privledges to run a lot of things ).

I'd also recommend ensuring that the Mac is set up so that you MUST type in your administrator password if a program ( say during installation ) wants to modify anything in the core system. I believe it asks you this stuff when you first boot up the Mac.

As for learning the OS, it's quite a bit more intuitive. Apple spends a lot of money on UI research, in fact they spend the most, far more than MS.

A good example of one of their practices is how their dialog boxes are designed, here's an example:
A dialog box pops up, and asks "This program wants to modify system settings, do you want to give it permission?"

Windows will give two buttons, "Yes" and "no". OSX will give you two buttons "Give the program Access" and "Do not give access".

This greatly reduces people from just clicking "yes" or "no" without actually knowing what they're doing because the dialog box might say "do you want to refuse access?" in which case you want to click "yes".

This is one of the many things that I like about OSX.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: ArjSiv
Actually OSX is inherently more secure than Windows mostly because of a lot of it being based upon open source

The fact that something is open source does not mean that it is more secure than something that isn't open source.

and the fact that pretty much every program on it doesn't need administrator access to run ( unlike Windows where you pretty much need Administrator privledges to run a lot of things ).

Ummm, I don't. I use a limited user on my XP machine at home for most things.

 

[bsobel]

Ummm, I don't. I use a limited user on my XP machine at home for most things.

Well, you are smarter than most. The MAC model of asking for your login info when installing patches/changes that require it vs always running escalated privs is nice (not novel, but nice in a consumer OS)

 

[Nothinman]

Actually OSX is inherently more secure than Windows mostly because of a lot of it being based upon open source and the fact that pretty much every program on it doesn't need administrator access to run ( unlike Windows where you pretty much need Administrator privledges to run a lot of things ).

That's irrelevant, a worm doesn't need root access to do it's job. It could hide itself in your home directory and bind to a highport and do just as much damage on the network.

I'd also recommend ensuring that the Mac is set up so that you MUST type in your administrator password if a program ( say during installation ) wants to modify anything in the core system. I believe it asks you this stuff when you first boot up the Mac.

And all that does is get the user into the habit of typing the root password into every dialog that asks for it.

 

[intelligentfool]

ok, first things first.... linux is definately out of the question for her. the whole point is for something thats easy to use for the non tech's. i can use linux just fine, but im also not yet at the point where i could field problems readily and thats a major factor. any slight problem is enough to anoy her and not want to learn it. thats why the mac was a good alternative.

as far as someone earlier saying that the mac is invincible, well... duh, any system is not invincible. i'm sure there are antivirus progs for mac, and i would definatley make sure they're installed. note that i originally said "basically immune" not "completely immune to any problems"

she is just going to be using this mac for basically 3 things.... email, web/IM, and editing pictures. she doesnt need to be running webservers or anything like that. security is not the main attraction to the mac, UI is.

anyway, the budget to buy her a new mac is still 2 months out or so anyway (gota take care of my shizzy first).


edit: for those recommending linux for her.... how many sucessful rollouts have you performed for end users??? (see poll at the top)

 

[n0cmonkey]

I don't know about your girlfriend, but mine's smart enough to pick up linux quickly. Probably faster than I did. I have a feeling she'd prefer BSD though.

Mac OS X is great, for techies and lamers alike.

 

[intelligentfool]

yea well, lets see how the poll spans out

 

[Nothinman]

Your poll makes no sense. For what you want her to do, she doesn't have to know how the system works in any case. A properly setup Linux box would be just as good as a properly setup OS X box, in either case she's going to call you whenever something needs changed or fixed. And in many cases Linux (and OS X to an extent) is better for "dumb as a rock" users because it's harder for them to break things, 99% of the time you have to make a Windows user local admin for everything to work so they end up killing the box.

 

[intelligentfool]

meh, letting her run linux is like opening pandora's box... its either mac or windows for her

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Your poll makes no sense. For what you want her to do, she doesn't have to know how the system works in any case. A properly setup Linux box would be just as good as a properly setup OS X box, in either case she's going to call you whenever something needs changed or fixed. And in many cases Linux (and OS X to an extent) is better for "dumb as a rock" users because it's harder for them to break things, 99% of the time you have to make a Windows user local admin for everything to work so they end up killing the box.

I agree.

Linux is difficult in terms of setting it up and getting all your hardware working. If you don't have a OS that has good packaging handling software (use Ubuntu, it's got good packaging handling thru apt-get) then installing software is difficult.

In terms of actual usability, it's on par with Windows especially when you take into account that unless a user has the root password, or you have sudo setup, that the system is almost completley invunerable to clueless users. (they can only screw up their own enviroment and home directory)

But OS X is nice.

Buy it, and if she doesn't like it, use it yourself.