I've joined the rebel alliance!

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

After decades of being a staunch PC user, going back to the early days of Win’95, I’ve finally decided that enough is enough and I’ve just gotten my first Mac. The semi-annual hard drive nuke and pave, constant worry about malware, annoying glitches and my general disdain for all things “Gatesish” have driven me over to the other side. I’m the proud owner of the cheapest MacMini available and I love it. Yes there is still a bit of a learning curve to it and yes I wish I’d spring for more ram but I’m so glad I have this.

My last desktop, a six year old Dell, gave up the ghost a few weeks ago. This was just a few days after the most recent hard drive rebuild and I decided that enough was enough. The hard drives were salvaged and the rest was recycled - good riddance.

That being said, all is not perfect for the life of this newly liberated ex-PCer. Specifically, I need software recommendations. I’ve been trying to sort through the included software but so far nothing seems to be what I need. Of course that could just mean that I’m blind or stupid. Any polite suggestions on the following subjects are welcomed.

Security - Many people seems to be of the opinion that malware and internet security in a mac is essentially a non-issue. This may well be true, I certainly can’t prove that it isn’t. With that understood, any security software or non-obvios, non-default preference setting suggestions are welcomed.

DVD tools - Specifically, I want a mac replacement for DVDshrink. I like the ability of this program to rip out specific titles or small specific clips from a dvd without recoding from standard DVD format. I also like the ability to rip a dvd and compress it down to fit a 4.7 gig blank disc but this is a secondary requirement. I’ve done some searching on this but I can’t seem to find a consensus. What’s your experience on this?

#2

You’ve taken your first step into a larger world…

I don’t use any anti-malware software. Currently, there are essentially zero threats against OS X in the wild, although there are a lot of cross-platform phishing attacks - so always practice “safe computing.”

I use DVD2OneX as my DVD shrinker. I just bought DVDRemaster, but haven’t had a chance to use it yet. You can also use Handbrake as a DVD transcoder, in case you just want to create a movie file from a DVD.

#3

My brother-in-law, a computer science degree holder and mac expert, also swears up and down that malware and internet security is a non-issue with macs, but that didn’t stop our macs from having our emails spoofed a little while ago. We changed our passwords, and so far so good. It does get a little annoying that macheads swear up and down that what you’ve experienced can’t possibly have happened!

That said, I don’t worry about viruses on my macs (yet). I mostly love my macs (desktop and laptop). They do a few things that bug me (the file management is my biggest bug), but overall, two thumbs up. :slight_smile:

#4

Well, having your emails spoofed is plenty easy to do without any malware residing one your machine - why do you think otherwise?

#5

Just the way my brother-in-law was describing it to my mom (who is 69 and also owns a mac - purchased for her by brother-in-law); I was concerned that my email spoofing would be passed on to her, since she is in my email contacts, and he basically told her she didn’t have to do anything, it couldn’t possibly happen. Well, it happened to ME, and I’m on a mac, too, so why can’t it happen to her?

#6

Contrary to popular belief, owning a Mac doesn’t not bestow the owner with superpowers. If said owner makes the mistake of believing a phishing scheme, they are going to reveal their passwords, regardless of what computer they are using. No knowledgeable Mac user would say otherwise.

#7

I don’t know. I think dumping Windows in favor of a Mac is sort of like leaving the Empire…then getting assimilated by the Borg. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if you’re into appliances.

#8

Zero threats on the mac is just not true.

When I did mac desktop support, I saw ONE virus. It was easy to spot. The guy complained about excessively slow internet. So we checked his network settings. His DNS had been changed to a server beginning with 85. Puts it in Russia. The guy then admitted he had been looking at a lot of Russian porn. Virus I says, get some AV software, but in the mean time let’s correct this. It’ll probably get changed back, but just keep checking it.

Sophos, McAfee and Nortons all make for the Mac. I think a few other do too. Just be sure to have a lot of ram, because I know the McAfee active scan just kills my work mac.

#9

That’s it! I want my money back!

:slight_smile:

While I have your ear, what phishing scheme do you suppose I stepped in to get spoofed? As far as I know, I didn’t do anything to earn that (and my 69 year old mom would know even less about how her computer would get spoofed if it ever did). I did get phishing emails from other people from my social group - do you suppose that was the way in? I might have clicked on one of those, thinking it was a real email from someone I knew.

#10

I used a Macintosh in 1985. The on/off mechanism was too intuitive for me, but the GUI was nice.

Once the industry went GUI, I went with the mainstream rather than bother about compatibility. Yup, herd mentality – that’s me.

#11

There’s no way to tell from way over here…
There are so many of these, and some of them are very, very clever - the bogus UPS one almost got me. Also, your information could have been compromised by use of a public computer, or a insecure WiFi hotspot.

#12

Congrats, AlphaTwit your OP was pretty much me exactly about a week ago. (PC user since 1987, six year old Dell giving daily BSODs, etc.) I’ve long been enamoured with Macs, so it wasn’t a stretch to have that be my next one.

A couple things different, though, as per this thread where I talk about joining the Dark Side just last week, I decided to hang on to my PC, however, for web site testing purposes on IE, as a designer that comes in real handy. Also, my daughter really wanted her own computer, so it works out. (Unfortunately, the only one in the family who didn’t use IE for their day to day web browsing when we had the PC was me (usually Firefox, but also had Safari, Chrome, Opera, and even an old NS on there (again, all for cross-platform testing), the kids and the wife all wanted to use IE, so the kid is using IE on the PC still. And my anti-virus on there (ESET) will expire in a few days :smack: