Another perspective on Mac vs. PC / OSX vs. Vista vs. XP

[mohler]

Heya Forge,

It was for you if you want it, but it was mostly a jibe at Neb.

Sounds like you are having too much fun with your computers right now to make music. All that installing..... You could always run YellowDog on a Mac! I tried it out a while ago on an old G3 and it rocked.

I've just spent too many days sitting infront of the windows installer over the course of my IT support career to want to go back to it on my personal computer.

In keeping with the real topic of the thread, If I was buying a new PC and it came with Vista then I'd take it. If I was building a PC I'd put XP on it. I used to ghost my system partition when it was fully set up and refresh it every 3-6 months. Always worked well for me.

[ewistrand]

Here are the links to these tools:

Objectdock: http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/

StyleXP: http://www.tgtsoft.com/
and a ton of themes at http://www.themexp.org/

MS Powertoys - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/down ... rtoys.mspx

I've been using various pieces of Object Desktop and Powertoys for a couple years; it makes for a much more pleasant environment.

This is what my desktop looks like;



I use a custom skin and custom icons. Instead of desktop shortcuts, I put them all in folders with toolbar access. Works for me...

ew

[ze2be]

Here are the links to these tools:

Objectdock: http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/

StyleXP: http://www.tgtsoft.com/
and a ton of themes at http://www.themexp.org/

MS Powertoys - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/down ... rtoys.mspx

Very nice! Do you know how to add the start menu stuf: settings/control panel to the dock? Perhaps "turn of computer" also possible? "Programs" I figured out!

For now I did kind of like in osx; put the task bar on top of the screen, and the dock on the bottom. Sweet!

[ekwipt]

Rocket dock works for me

http://rocketdock.com/

[Precision]

which brings me to the next question

does anyone know if windows defender is enough in vista? or do I still need a 3rd party virus scanner?

It just occurred to me maybe it was Sophos causing slow downs

I've not used it personally, but I've heard very good things about Avast - the home version is free and works on Vista:

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

The best anti-virus software I've ever used is Nod-32 - doesn't seem to slow anything down compared to Norton's (for example):

http://www.eset.com/index.php

Hope that's useful

EDIT: I haven't got a clue about Vista and Windows defender....I'm guessing that it would be best to have some AV software too, though.

[forge]

thanks all

I downloaded AVG and it seems ok so far

and I'm using that RocketDock now - nice one!

I actually think the problems I was having before might have been down to Sophos - I'll see how it goes but Vista is working really well right now

I actually quite like it as an OS - I just didnt like how slow and unreliable it was - if it carries on like this then I'm sweet

[debu]

between xplorer2 as a replacement for windows explorer (Which I basically use as a desktop/shell), autohotkeys, total uninstall, filebox eXtender, tune up utilities, media monkey (Cause itunes does blow in comparison) I NEVER think about the OS. I occasionally use an older Mac too, but don't feel any more creative or productive on it...

[djadonis206]

This is pretty cool

thanks


a

[adventurepants_]

forge: if only you had mentioned sophos before. I hate that piece of crap, its slow, buggy, it hijacks your computer for about 10 minutes at startup while it works out whether it can connect to the update server, and it eats lots of ram!

I have to support it at work, and Im starting to see it as equally crappy as Nortons.

I used to use AVG, but it let through a couple of nasties. Im now using a combination of Avast free, and AVG Spyware free, and Spybot. In the tests Ive done no nasties have escaped them. MS Defender is good, but it has failed at picking up some nasties that AVG did pick up, so why bother?

[glu]

Here are the links to these tools:

Objectdock: http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/

StyleXP: http://www.tgtsoft.com/
and a ton of themes at http://www.themexp.org/

MS Powertoys - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/down ... rtoys.mspx

I've been using various pieces of Object Desktop and Powertoys for a couple years; it makes for a much more pleasant environment.

This is what my desktop looks like;



I use a custom skin and custom icons. Instead of desktop shortcuts, I put them all in folders with toolbar access. Works for me...

ew

dat es sixy!

[forge]

forge: if only you had mentioned sophos before. I hate that piece of crap, its slow, buggy, it hijacks your computer for about 10 minutes at startup while it works out whether it can connect to the update server, and it eats lots of ram!

I have to support it at work, and Im starting to see it as equally crappy as Nortons.

I used to use AVG, but it let through a couple of nasties. Im now using a combination of Avast free, and AVG Spyware free, and Spybot. In the tests Ive done no nasties have escaped them. MS Defender is good, but it has failed at picking up some nasties that AVG did pick up, so why bother?

thanks

was this on Vista?

I have installed AVG and only want to bother any more if I have to - I read some things online about Vista being pretty secure on its own

I'm not going to d/l any dodgy crap - I'm actually really preferring using vista now that it's working so I'm not going to do anything dodgy with it and keep it as clean as possible because it seems to handle alot of other things a lot better

the really weird thing now is XP keeps doing these random slow downs -OH SHIT! I just realised it has Sophos on it too! I just used it because it was a free d/l from the Uni, so I figured the IT dept must be recommending it

cheers

[dirtybomb]

I do have to say that if it wasn't for Ableton Live, a handfull of plugins and Adobe, I could COMPLETELY switch to Linux now though, it's REALLY doing it for me for every other use i need a computer for. My mother's laptop is now running it too and it absolutely flies.

This is the version of ubuntu I'm running at the moment that shows some of the Compiz Fusion effects if you're into eye candy. This is the stock ubunty "gutsy" install!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvnQE1EAEZY

I have it turned off though, cos I'm a "minimal dude"

funny... i work as a freelance tech and a good friend of mine had purchased a new toshiba laptop pre-installed with vista. he couldn't get his head around it and wanted to install xp instead... unfortunately for him the toshiba had a lot of proprietary components, and maintained no support or drivers for xp. he ended up installing ubuntu on it, and i haven't heard much from him since

personally i have switched %100 natively to debian linux. the only windows i run now is in vmware so i can print to a usb scanner/printer and use a few other usb devices not supported in linux. Live's performance in vmware is probably terrible for really low latency recording, but might be adequate for arranging/performing/editing. hopefully, there will be a time when live gets ported to linux.

[adventurepants_]

forge: if only you had mentioned sophos before. I hate that piece of crap, its slow, buggy, it hijacks your computer for about 10 minutes at startup while it works out whether it can connect to the update server, and it eats lots of ram!

I have to support it at work, and Im starting to see it as equally crappy as Nortons.

I used to use AVG, but it let through a couple of nasties. Im now using a combination of Avast free, and AVG Spyware free, and Spybot. In the tests Ive done no nasties have escaped them. MS Defender is good, but it has failed at picking up some nasties that AVG did pick up, so why bother?

thanks

was this on Vista?

I have installed AVG and only want to bother any more if I have to - I read some things online about Vista being pretty secure on its own

I'm not going to d/l any dodgy crap - I'm actually really preferring using vista now that it's working so I'm not going to do anything dodgy with it and keep it as clean as possible because it seems to handle alot of other things a lot better

the really weird thing now is XP keeps doing these random slow downs -OH SHIT! I just realised it has Sophos on it too! I just used it because it was a free d/l from the Uni, so I figured the IT dept must be recommending it

cheers

sophos is used here at the uni i work for. There are reasons why it makes sense from a back end point of view, but the front end user experience of it is awful. I run the free antivirus programs in preference to it. Vista still needs an anti-spyware prog running, as well as antivirus. In the magazine roundups I looked at AVG Spyware outstripped MS Defender, and MS Defender actually let quite a few nasties through.

[forge]

sophos is used here at the uni i work for. There are reasons why it makes sense from a back end point of view, but the front end user experience of it is awful. I run the free antivirus programs in preference to it. Vista still needs an anti-spyware prog running, as well as antivirus. In the magazine roundups I looked at AVG Spyware outstripped MS Defender, and MS Defender actually let quite a few nasties through.

thanks!

I'm just downloading Avast for viruses and AVG spyware - and I just uninstalled AVG virus

this better be good advice because I'm taking it all!

they wont affect performance will they? do I need to switch them off doing audio? I always noticed how much ram sophos seemed to be using

[adventurepants_]

avast is pretty light on resources, but of course it all depends on how many resources you have! i dont have the anti spyware programs monitoring in memory, I just run them when i want to scan.