OK, I’m thinking of buying a new computer, and I’m trying to determine what I all need. I’m looking for a little advice.
I’ll be using this computer almost exclusively for internet surfing and Microsoft Office. Besides those 2 things, I’d maybe burn the odd CD or two, but that’s about it. As of right now I don’t download music, but I’d like to keep that option open I guess.
As far as gaming goes, I’m not at all interested in it. I can’t remember the last time I bought a PC game, and when I do play video games they are on my Gamecube or XBOX.
I’ll be connecting to the internet with a cable modem if that matters.
The one thing I am interested in is making this computer as secure as possible. I’m planning on getting the best spyware/virus protection I can find. This is because my current computer didn’t have any protection and has become overun with problems.
So, I’d guess I can buy close to the bottom of the line computer, is that correct? Any suggestions/input on what specs I should look for? One big question I have is processor, mainly Pentium versus Celeron and how that would affect me (if at all). What about RAM or hard drive space? Anything else to consider?
I’m also interested in where I should look to buy this computer. I’d been thinking Dell, but I’m really completely wide open as far as this goes. Any brands and/or retailers to look for or to avoid?
I’ve thought about price range, and to be honest I don’t really have one. I’d be fine spending a grand or more on this system, but I have a feeling it won’t cost anywhere near that. I’d like to keep cost down when possible, but its not a huge factor in my decision.
Any suggestions and/or advice would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.
Okay, first off… ahem I DO NOT WANT TO TURN THIS INTO A PLATFORM WAR ahem
so, i’ll only go from my experiences with my platform of choice, the Apple Macintosh
Why not consider a Mac, everything you list as uses for the machine can be easily done even with the lowly Mac Mini or iBook, surfing the web, no prob, Macs come with Internet Explorer and Safari (Apple’s web browser), you can get other browsers like Firefox, Camino, Opera, etc…, Apple’s Mail application (very creatively named Mail.app :rolleyes: )has one of the best out-of-the-box spam filters i’ve seen, you can also use Firebird, Eudora, and Microsoft Entourage (if you buy the Microsoft Office suite)
Microsoft’s Office suite is (and it REALLY pains me to say this as a card-carrying M$-hater) a damn nice piece of programming work, rock solid, stable, doesn’t crash, looks rather nice, i’ll give credit where credit is due and say it’s a good suite of apps, AND the file formats are bit-for-bit identical to the PC version
Now, to get to the meat of your argument, you want a SECURE OS, one not privy to crackers and script kiddies, well, the Mac OS has security in many forms…
1; security thru obscurity (yes, this isn’t REALLY security, i admit, but bear with me here…), Macs comprise a much smaller cross section of the computer industry, so it just doesn’t make sense to target them, why write malware for 5% of the market, when you could attack the other 95%…
2; OS X is a multi-user OS based off a Unix core, first off, Unix has been poked-and-prodded for the last 30 years, and is verry robust and stable, it has far fewer security holes (ALL OS’S have holes, it’s a fact of life in the computer industry), and those holes are typically patched relatively quickly, either by the Unix userbase or Apple’s security updates, secondly, the Unix system has 3 levels of user access;
User- you can run apps and use the machine, you just can’t make any low-level system changes like installing software or changing the startup disk, or monkeying with networking settings, unless you have an Administrator name and password handy
Administrator- this is the default setting in OS X, when you first set up OS X, you create an Admin account, you have access to about 80% of the machine, can install apps and change system settings, (it asks for your password in these instances) but you cant go poking around inside the System Folder
Root- also called “Godmode”, the OS assumes you know what you’re doing and doesn’t restrict your access, you have 100% access to your machine…
Root is turned off by default, the user must enable it
as far as networking is concerned, file sharing, remote login and other functions are turned off by default, OS X ships in a relatively secure state, it’s up to the user to unsecure it, there is a built-in software firewall (off bt default, but activated with a single click of the mouse), that has an available advanced feature of “Stealth Mode”, where the OS will not respond to any detect pings, it will not acknowledge it’s existence to a remote machine
from what little i understand of windows (and i could be wrong, probably am…) it ships in “root” mode, and all the networking ports are open, i.e., it ships in an inherently unsecure state
now, onto the other big problem in the windows world…
Adware and Spyware, a scourge on the windows side of the fence, on the Mac side…
nothing, nada, zip, there is (currently, could always change, but i see no signs of it changing in the immediate future) NO Adware/Spyware for the Mac, it doesn’t exist, you don’t need any of those “spysweeper/zonealarm/adaware” apps, as there is NO spyware/adware for the Mac
Viruses and Trojan Horses- hoo boy, does the windows side have this, thousands, if not millions of computer viruses, on the Mac (OS X) side…
once again, NONE, nada, zip, no viruses on OS X (once again, that could always change…), OS 9 (obsolete OS, you’ll only encounter it on older machines, or running in “classic” mode within OS X) has around 100-120 viruses, but most of them only work with OS 8.6 or lower…
actually, i may have exaggerated a little, there is ONE virus i know of on the Mac, but it’s not even in the wild, and was written simply as a “proof of concept” virus, someone wrote it to prove it could be done, secondly, IT DOESN’T DO ANYTHING, IT’S BENIGN, all it does is play an annoying sound file and tries to import your Home directory into iTunes, it’s harmless and difficult, if not impossible to find, and Mac antivirus apps protect against it anyway…
could it be recoded into something malicious, sure, but just like the trojans on the PC, it requres you to type in a password for it to work, no password, no go, it’s stopped dead in it’s tracks…
Ditto on the Mac, especially if security is your big concern.
If all you need to do is web-surfing, word processing, and some CD-burning, a basic Mac Mini will do the job. Use you existing USB peripherals and VGA monitor, bump the RAM up to 512MB, and you’re in for under $600.
You can either buy MS Office for the Mac ($130 or so for the “student edition”), or use Apple’s (free) TextEdit or ($80) iWork package for MS Word file compatibility.
You can almost certainly get a low-end PC for less than any Mac. You’ll have MUCH more in the way of aftermarket parts and upgradability than a Mac will have, and you’ll have a vastly larger base of software to choose from, on the whole.
Now… as for security, it’s not as bad as people make it out on PCs so long as you take a few steps:
1. Get one of those firewall/router appliances for your network (believe it or not, you have a small LAN when you run a cable modem). This will remove much of the threat from outside sources.
2. Run something other than MS Outlook as your email client. Seems like the majority of the really big viruses and worms all use Outlook.
3. Don't run Internet Explorer. Run Mozilla Firefox. I'm shocked at how drastically the incidence of spyware infection has dropped since I stopped using IE.
That right there ought to keep you fairly secure- you might get the occasional spyware/malware infection, but that’s more or less the price you pay for keeping the greater flexibility and expandability of the Windows style PC.
Heck, Linux might be just the thing here: that way you can pay nothing for a very-secure OS, and still use cheap-a$$ PC hardware. Distros like Fedora install a Windows-like GUI and a web browser and mail client, and for Office tasks, OpenOffice might suffice (for Word, PowerPoint and Excel, I dunno if there’s an open-source app to use Access database files yet, or whatever else you may need in MS Office…?). Potential problems:
For general surfing, Linux does just fine, but I saw (when I tried Fedora) that many times, fancy multimedia stuff would not work. Things like sites with Flash-only navigation menus (*#@**%!) and embedded Windows media files are two I remember. I tried casually to fix this for a long time but gave up after no progress.
You would need to make certain beforehand that you could get software and hardware you needed: to do the office tasks, to get a network card that works in Linux, and to burn the types of CD’s you want from the types of files you want. For the network card, if whatever you end up with does not work, then the easiest solution would just be to cough up a few dollars for one that is known to work 100% in Linux; this info is available online.
You will need to get a PS/2 keyboard and mouse, not USB. Linux can run USB keyboards and mice fine in most cases, but the problem is that starting out, you will need to boot into early stages of the OS and make adjustments to it, and USB devices will not work until the OS boots completely–so you should know that you will need a PS/2 keyboard and mouse for this. After you get the OS basically running how you want, then you could switch to USB’s and it should go with no problems–but the PC’s BIOS may give a warning about “no keyboard connected” on boot.
And you can try it cheap: get an old P-II computer w/monitor any way you must and download the Linux install CD’s.
Most of the people who try and give up on Linux have a large number of software and hardware to run, and they usually cannot get everything they need working in Linux. So I do not normally advise anyone to try to use Linux as a replacement for Windows, because Linux still does not have the versatility with typical consumer-retail hardware and software that Linux does–but–when you only need to run a very-small-number of hardware and software, and if you verify beforehand everything you need is out there, Linux can be a practical option.
~
Security for a PC isn’t as big a deal as the Mac Evangelists make it out to be. You already know what to do: get spyware and virus protection, and don’t be an idiot when it comes to giving out personal information.
You can get an entry-level Dell for a couple hundred dollars that will do everything you need it to do and then some. Even with a cable model, your internet connection will probably be the bottleneck when surfing the web.
I wouldn’t go with Linux, as has been suggested… I use it, I like it, but unless you like tinkering to get things just right, it really isn’t great as a home OS for people who just want something to play around with. That just isn’t its target market.
I will third/fourth/whatever getting a Mac… the idea that you can get a PC for cheaper is kinda ludicrous. Sure, you CAN… but I can also get a 1988 Toyota Corolla cheaper than a 2000. The Mac Mini is, as stated, about $600. All the PCs I’ve seen less than that are really crappy, and have a lot of problems.
Now, if you don’t mind spending a little money on a PC… here’s what you should get, in my opinion:
Spend at least several hundred. Don’t need to spend $1000 or anything like that, but a decent amount will save you headaches.
Things to watch out for: get at least 512 MB of RAM(this goes for the Mac, as well), and an Athlon 64 if you can. It isn’t REALLY needed, but it would be nice and forward-looking. Watch out for the built in video chipsets… they aren’t all bad, but most of them in the PC world don’t have onboard video memory, and eat into your RAM instead. Nasty and S-L-O-W… umm… hardware wise, that’s what you should watch for, really.
As for software:
As stated, use something aside from Outlook. Eudora, Pegasus, Thunderbird… it’s all good. Firefox for the web browser should work nicely, avoid using IE as much as you can. Ad-aware and Spybot both together provide good protection. For antivirus, I would recommend AVG, as it’s FREE, and I find it works with less fuss than McAfee or Norton.
Please. The ‘cheap’ pcs are crappy is such bull. Sure there’s a difference between a $199 machine at Walmart and the Mac-mini. So what? If ALL he want’s to do is surf the web and write letters, all he needs is a cheap box. It’s a toaster…in one-two years he hands it down, donates or dumps it. It takes real effort to make a crappy PC these days.
Further there are many great user friendly Linux distros, that don’t require tweaking. Ubuntu, Xandros, even Linspire offer a great enduser experience; without the tweaking.
If it was me, I would make sure I got 512 megs of RAM, look at whatever’s on sale at whatever price I felt comfortable with (including software) and go with the guys with the best warranty…whomever that is.
I didn’t say you couldn’t buy a decent one for cheaper than the Mini. It depends on what you want. But the cheaper designs DO have that onboard video/memory sharing problem. And yes, it is a problem. Of all the machines I’ve worked on, and I’ve worked on a fair number lately, those are the most crash-prone of all. Dell or Gateway or whomever might have a good machine for less than the Mini, it’s entirely possible. The Mini’s advantages are its price(cheap for a Mac), lack of noise, and teeny tiny size.
As for Linux, I stand by my comment. Perhaps things have improved vastly in the very latest releases, but they still wouldn’t meet the needs of the OP. No MS Office, remember?
Frankly, you’re the one blowing this out of proportion. If the OP looks at different PCs, I just suggested they might want to look at the Mac Mini, as it has many advantages. If they can find something reliable that meets their needs for much cheaper, and would prefer that, then that’s great. But what’s the harm in researching the Mac in addition? Maybe he’ll like it better.
MS Office isn’t a problem on linux. http://www.codeweavers.com/ offers and I use it; a great way to be functional on Linux and I ain’t a tweaker. IF Linux is the way you want to go, Office, Quicktime, Flash etc; isn’t a problem on Linux, hell I’m wireless…but if you don’t want to pay ANY money, using Linux can be a pain.
I didn’t blow anything out of proportion and certainly didn’t suggest the OP didn’t look at the mini. I suggested that the manta that “cheap” PC’s are crappy and with lots of problems isn’t so and that Linux is and can be a viable alternative to Windows or OSX, with a minimum amount of effort…IF cost and “security” are an issue.
Yes, because we know the computing experience is not complete unless you can run a truckload of shovelware on it.
You get what you pay for.
And on the topic of MS Office replacements, there’s the freeOpenOffice, which is pretty popular in the Linux community. Mac folks can use OpenOffice, but most prefer to use NeoOffice/J, which is OpenOffice grafted with more Mac-friendly functionality.
okay, okay, lets keep this civil here, each machine has it’s own unique advantages and disadvantages…
for ME the Mac is simply a better fit, i just wanted the OP to at least look at one, not dismiss it sight unseen
some more hints/info on the Mini…
it has only one PC-2700 DIMM socket, if you choose to have the ram upgraded (highly reccomended, 512MB or 1 GB minimum), you will lose the stock ram if you have it upgraded at a service provider
the hard drive is a 2.5" 4200 RPM portable computer hard drive
if you want AirPort or Bluetooth, you can have it added at a local service provider for minimal cost (i believe the kit is $100, install cost varies depending on where you get it done) and takes around 3-5 minutes to do
since the Mini is marketed as an “entry level” or “second computer” computer, there are no user-servicable parts inside, if the end user opens the case, the warranty is voided, the iBook on the other hand, has 256 MB soldered on the logic board, AND it has a customer accesable PC-2100 SO-DIMM socket, you can upgrade the RAM in an iBook without voiding your warranty
actually, the ONLY Mac that’s not end-user upgradeable is the Mini…
Mini - not end user upgradeable
iBook - RAM is user-upgradeable
PowerBook G4 - RAM is user upgradeable
iMac G5 - RAM and hard drive are user-upgradeable
PowerMac G5 - RAM, hard drive (supports up to 2 Serial ATA drives), optical drive, and video card are user-upgradeable, the G5 also has 4 open PCI (or PCI-X depending on config) expansion slots
And I forgot where I heard it, but someone once claimed that Apple’s marketing research showed that 90% of folks who buy a “consumer” level computer never upgrade anything other than the RAM, so there wasn’t an incentive for them to make their consumer-level Macs easy to upgrade.
On a PC, everything is user-upgradable. If you decide that you want to start playing games on your computer, you can just go out, buy the video card that suits your fancy, and plug it in. Last time I was in the computer store, there were at least a dozen different cards to chose from. If your machine is running Windows XP, then you probably won’t need to install drivers. If you decide that the on-board sound card (which most new PC’s have) isn’t cutting the mustard, you go out and buy a Soundblaster card and plug it in. There’s dozens of manufactuers who can supply any upgrade component that you might want to buy.
And, like holmes says, the idea that entry-level PC’s are crap is nonsense. It might have been true back when Reagan was president, but time marches on. Even the cheapest, most basic system made today is more than a match for anything you could buy 5 years ago. (Seriously. It wasn’t too long ago that a 1.4 gigahertz processor was high-end, and a 2 Ghz processor was God’s own computer.) Your needs are quite modest, so an entry-level PC should be all you need.
Someone suggested that you get an Athlon processor. If you’re not going to be playing games, or making elaborate multi-media presentations, don’t get one. You won’t get your money’s worth out of it. (On the subject of CPU’s, Celeron is the basic processor that you’ll find on the cheaper PC’s. Pentiums are a step up, and are pretty much standard for mid-range and better PC’s. Athlons, which I think are made by a different company, compete with Pentiums and have a reputation as being high-end chips.)
Also, if you get a PC, you absolutely must have Windows XP. It leaves all previous versions of Windows in the dust. With one exception (Internet Explorer) it’s never given me a bit of trouble, and it has the drivers for nearly anything you might want to add already in it.
I’ll second the use of Firefox as a good solid browser. It’s free. Microsoft has a free beta version of an anti-spyware program that you can download. Apparently, they’re going to be releasing it as part of a combination anti-virus/anti-spyware program that’s coming out soon. For virus protection, I use good old Norton.
If you are familiar with WINTEL machines I would stay with it and get a Dell. Dell sends out ads every Sunday in our local paper. Better yet have a local shop make up a mid powered machine in the 2GHz range. Don’t shy away from any machine with AMD chips .You generally will get more computing power for your money. Get a CD/DVD burner because they are fairly inexpensive and may come in very handy for backup purposes. I do not like Celerons and would not recommend them at all. Don’t scrimp on a monitor. Get a nice one and you won’t regret it.
Holy shit guys relax on the Mac shtick. Yesh he just wants some advice not to start another Mac-PC death match and Linux? Does the OP sound like someone who would want to use Linux?
** Blunt ** I don’t think a Mac is for you, they don’t provide enough benefit for the extra cost in your case. For your needs a 2 year old bottom of the line computer would probably suffice. I don’t know what you are currently using now but it sounds as you have a lot of problems with it. If it is fairly new and the problem is with viruses, spyware and the like then perhaps all you need is to format the harddrive and do a clean Windows install. Programs you should be running include (these are free and the ones I run) AVG (anti virus)Zone Alarm (firewall) and Lavasoft Adaware (spyware protection). I highly recommend Firefox (browser) and Thunderbird (e-mail) as more secure and just flat out better programs than the MS counterparts. Perhaps you can post the specs of your computer and we can see if you do in fact need a new computer. Check start->control panel->System->General for the processor speed and RAM.
If you do get a new computer the only thing you really need to ensure is that you have 512 MB of RAM or higher. In general even the slowest processor and smallest harddrive will be more than enough for web browsing and e-mail. As long as you only download files from trusted sites and be carefully in opening e-mails your computer should be fine for many years.
