PC vs Mac? The Debate Goes On
I still have no concrete news to report to regular readers that have been following my own home Internet debacle so I will report on this at a later date. This week we will look at the old PC vs Mac debate and try to make some sense of the situation.
For many years Apple McIntosh were a minority player compared to big brother Microsoft and ‘Macs’ were mostly for the desktop publishing crowd. Things have changed and Macs have become more mainstream so their current advantages and disadvantages need looking at again.
When an operating system becomes more popular it then becomes more of a worthwhile target for the hackers and scammers. So this is one area where Macs previously excelled which has largely been eroded by their popularity. Now you have to run a virus scanner on a Mac and you need to be just as careful on the Web as Window’s based users.
As I mentioned previously Macs were very powerful devices for desktop publishers however they now use the same hardware as Windows PC’s so this advantage has also largely disappeared. Because they have become more mainstream there is a greater variety of software written for them than previously however there are still many software applications that will not run on a Mac.
For the above reason we see many Mac users running ‘parallel software’ to install a Windows operating system as a ‘secondary’ operating system on their Macs. Lets’ examine this logic a little closer.
You are buying a Mac to then install a version of Windows so that you can run software that is not compatible with a Mac? You have now introduced the need to keep two operating systems up-to-date, you also need two virus scanners and you also have the complexity of two operating systems. I have seen this setup even in a business and I have always asked – why?
One of our larger business customers currently has a heap of Windows PC’s and one user that still wants to run a Mac. This same company relies on the use of accounting software that doesn’t run on the Mac so this one person uses parallel software to also run Windows 7 from the Mac. Can you guess which PC gives way more problems than any other PC in this business?
I can see some advantages for people that use an iPhone to then also have an iPad or a Mac PC however this advantage is completely eroded if they need to run software that will only run on a Windows machine. Before you invest in any PC make sure that you are 100% certain that it will run the software that you need.
On another note – be very wary that there is an increase in popup messages suggesting that your PC needs urgent attention and offering you a 1300 number to call. I have rung some of these numbers and have encountered some very persuasive scammers asking me for access to my PC. They always try to gain this access BEFORE they ask for credit card details and put the real hard sell on you.
If at any stage you get caught in the middle of one of these pranks make sure that you disconnect your PC from the Internet before you tell them off and then get the PC to a local professional for a proper health check as soon as possible.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
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