NEWS: Macintosh Hacker Attacks Are on the Rise -Symantec

Originally posted by Facefirst

I am a professional musician and I have yet to see a PC used in a Major studio on either coasts of the US. Some studios have them as well, but they collect more dust than data. Trust me on this one.
There is a reason that most of the music you hear nowadays is recorded on macs, because they work....very well I might add.

I have not recorded into a PC on any major label session I have ever been on.

Hello Infidels!!!!!

hello zombie!


Mac's have a niche market with all kinds of artist & I guess that includes musicians too. Again - I think Mac's are good computers & the fact that they've replaced the old multitrack tape machines in your industry doesn't make them better then any other computer - Someone found a good use for them & they work.

I'm just wondering just what makes you think they're better computers because the failing music industry thats been robbing the artist & consumers for 20+ years is using them?

Your a professional musician & I've been selling/building/supporting computers for the past 15 years, so your telling me what computers are better, maybe I should tell you what kind of guitars, keyboards, drum kits, microphones & amps are better, because that's what works best for me.

Besides if you aint Tom Petty, David Bowie, Sting, or some other well known sucessful recording artist that I like why should we trust you on this one?

So - the pretty trim on your dashboard was designed with a Mac, but did you know that the fancy wheel was designed on AutoCAD runnning on a pc & cut on a CNC running using a PC.


[edit on 24-3-2005 by outsider]

Originally posted by outsider
Mac's have a niche market with all kinds of artist & I guess that includes musicians too. Again - I think Mac's are good computers & the fact that they've replaced the old multitrack tape machines in your industry doesn't make them better then any other computer - Someone found a good use for them & they work.

I'm just wondering just what makes you think they're better computers because the failing music industry thats been robbing the artist & consumers for 20+ years is using them?

Your a professional musician & I've been selling/building/supporting computers for the past 15 years, so your telling me what computers are better, maybe I should tell you what kind of guitars, keyboards, drum kits, microphones & amps are better, because that's what works best for me.

Besides if you aint Tom Petty, David Bowie, Sting, or some other well known sucessful recording artist that I like why should we trust you on this one?

So - the pretty trim on your dashboard was designed with a Mac, but did you know that the fancy wheel was designed on AutoCAD runnning on a pc & cut on a CNC running using a PC.
[edit on 24-3-2005 by outsider]

I actually earn my living playing on records and touring. I have played on gold records and one platinum. So yes, you can trust me. I prefer being behind the scenes. It is much more sane there.

Failing indusrtry robbing artists? What does that have to do with an argument about computers? Pretty weak angle.

If anything, the computers have been empowering the artists to produce music on their own terms.
You can record a great album for a few thousand now.... as opposed to several hundred thousand just a few years back.

A computer is a tool. How the industry is run in an ethical sense has almost nothing to do with the Mac/PC argument. I never said PC's were bad. In fact I own two. But the Macs have been nothing but wonderful in my industry. I have used PC's for recording on occasion, but the Macs seem to be more intuitive and easier to use when it comes to interface. Plus, I can count on one hand how many times my PB G4 has crashed in the last year..... and still have three fingers left to count on.

And I don't have to have to babysit my Mac.... though as the subject of this thread points out, time seems to be running out as far as the virus issues go.

I don't know everything about computers, but I know what works. And in a business where money is no object, don't you think that every studio or post production house would have PC's then?

peace

[edit on 25-3-2005 by Facefirst]

Okay - you got me I was rambling a bit. Like I said Mac's a good machines & I think those that went that way including the software developers did so while the microsoft O/S was not as good as it is today. I've always gone with the PC because I've always been more interested in more bang for the buck & besides the more problems others have with them the more money I make. I thought plug & play would have put me out of biz years ago, but I'm still doing the same thing. Though I'd rather be making music like you than fixing someone elses problems. Cheers.

First of all, I am a PC and an Apple user; I'm on a PC right now.

On addressing the story concerning Apple being prone to hackers - of course Symantec is going to say this. I don't have evidence that suggests Symantec actually manufactures viruses and outsources hackers, but I wouldn't be suprised... somebody with the last name of McAffe was in the order of the Skull and Bones during the mid 80's. It's also worth mentioning that Windows purposefully will never make itself secure; here is why...

Right now, I'm working at a nationally known computer store. I sell PC's and Apples, and everybody who wants a new computer is paranoid about contracting a virus. They say "My old computer has a worm. It's a Dell from about two years ago, and it's just running real slow. I downloaded some program off the internet to check for viruses, and it said that I didn't have any. So who knows what it is... I just want a new computer."

A lot of people don't know the difference between "viruses" and "spyware"; it seems that most of what these people have is spyware when they claim to have viruses. People don't know how to get spyware off their two-year old computer, so they go out and buy a new one. I'm dead serious; I can't tell you how many cases like this I've had.

Sometimes I suggest that they go home and download Spybot S&D or upgrade to XP Pro, but most of these people just want a new computer anyway, and this is when I suggest Apple.

As for hackers using OSX as a platform... I've never heard about that. What I have heard, is speculation that most hackers are current/former employees/programmers for Microsoft or other PC-based software developers; speculation, yes, but it makes sense. Also, I think Apple is offering a reward to the person who can hack their website - I've heard this at work, but I'm not sure. This doesn't say that this testament of security carries over to their [Apple's] products, but it just shows how high of a priority security is to them.

Now I'm going to address the hard-core PC people who have this nutty hatred for Apple computers.

Steve Jobs loaned the Macintosh's GUI code (not written by Jobs, but by a guy who recently died- I forget his name) to Bill Gates, as Gates was working on a word processor that he wanted to release as software for the Mac. But Gates and some others reverse-engineered the code, and changed some things around so that they could come up with a GUI'd OS for the IBM DOS-based platform, which wasn't very consumer-savvy.

-Meanwhile Linus Torvald creates the first kernel for Linux-

So look at it this way - Microsoft evolved because of Apple - todays PC's are user-friendly (meaning they have a Graphical User Interface) because of Apple invention; as you read this, it might get to surreal to think that you're interfacing thru Windows, but that over twenty years ago, Apple released the technology nearly a decade before Windows 3.1 became readily available to the public.

Respect.

"It's a UNIX system - I know this!"
It's also too bad that the rest of America didn't understand the young charachter Lex in Jurassic Park when she said this, because then everybody would have been like "Wow - the Jurassic Park computers are Apple's" - which they literally were, as Apples were the backbone of the film's ground-breaking computer animation. From here, Apple computers would be at the forefront of changing the production standards of the film industry - and forever changing the way we watch movies (along with Silicon Graphics, also based on UNIX - Maker of Maya; the special effects program used for productions like Lord of the Rings). Now Apple's have become an all-in-one solution for indi film makers and videographers. The highly respected Final Cut Pro (written by the same people who write Adobe Premiere) has become an industry standard for professional Digital Video/High Def/Film editing.

Respect

Currently, the PowerPC G5 chip is running Apple's line of Power PC's - a 64 bit chip running on a 32 bit OS, but still able to run 64 bit programs. Once OSX Tiger comes out (soon), it will be 64 bit, and backwards compatible with 32 bit applications. 16GB of RAM should be available on Tiger-equipped dual-chip PowerPC G5 desktops, and 8GB on the next-gen iMac's. Go to the Apple website to read more about Tiger.

The thing about Apple's is that they last longer than most PC's; largely because of user ignorance on the PC side - but there is no doubt that Apple's are built better than their comparable PC counterparts. All you have to do is open up the side panel of the PowerMac G5 to see this.

They not only last longer physically, but they are built to handle the future. For example, the new Tiger OS will be shipping with H.264 compression capability - basically, this is the next generation DVD codec for High Def. video that will be stored on Blu-Ray DVD's or HDDVD's.

If you think that Apple's are only good for video and graphics, you are mistaken. Apple was the first to integrate Gigabit ethernet support on their computers - from iMacs to PowerBooks. That's 1000Mb per second transfer speed across a capable network. It is bocoming more of a reality to businesses that UNIX-based and open-source servers will better serve their network.

By utilizing fast ethernet speeds and XGrid technology, a network of 64-bit computers will be able to share processing power, not just data. IBM's "On Demand" business is based on open source technology which can also use Grid - the same as XGrid.

Now for the bad news...

If you die-hard Mac-lovers only use them because you think that Microsoft aims to take over the world, or that Microsoft has a contract with the government to spy on Window's users, read this from the Apple website:

"When the Hypersonic Missile Technology (HMT) team at COLSA Corporation and the U.S. Army need to model hypersonic flight on a computer system, they’ll no longer have to wait two months to get results.

"The HMT team, headed by senior scientist Dr. John Medeiros, now has access to one of the world’s largest and most powerful computers: a supercluster of 1,566 64-bit, dual-processor Apple Xserve G5 servers.

"Called MACH5 — an acronym for Multiple Advanced Computers for Hypersonics — the Apple cluster “gives us more than 60 times the computational power of our current production machine,” says Medeiros. What used to take two months can now be done in a day.

"Medeiros and the COLSA team chose the Xserve-based supercluster to model the complex aero-thermodynamics of hypersonic flight for the Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) of the U.S. Army at nearby Redstone Arsenal. Working with the COLSA team, Drs. Billy Walker and Kevin Kennedy of RDECOM conduct leading-edge analysis of hypersonic flight for a number of important military programs.

"At its peak, the supercluster can exceed 25 teraflops — calculating more than 25 trillion floating-point operations per second. By comparison, the world’s fastest computer — NEC’s $350 million Earth Simulator — runs at a peak speed of 40 teraflops. A single person using a hand-held calculator — without pausing to eat or sleep — would need more than two million years to calculate what the Apple supercluster can calculate in a single second."

www.apple.com...

Longhorn

You PC lover's, however, will be getting your 64-bits in the next version of Windows, now known as Windows eXPedition (official release name). Windows does have 64-bit OS versions - 2003 Server, and the upcoming XP Pro x64. Examining the Microsoft website, they do not seem to have a readily accessable page dedicated to eXP, so the release date is uncertain at this point - and Microsoft doesn't want potential buyers stumbling across the future on their own website... they would rather have them buy a computer now, unbeknownst to the 64 bit dilemma.

The 64-bit PC

At work, we asked our Intel rep what will happen to the Windows customers stuck with 32-bit chips who want to upgrade to the new 64-bit version of Windows (eXP). "Umm... they don't know right now." Because Microsoft enjoys making as much money as possible, they will choose not to make their new OS backwards-compatible with 32-bit applications. It'll be interesting to see, though, how fast spyware is developed for the 64-bit platforms.

Nice post Bly - While I agree with much of what you have to say a few things I would like to correct or clarify for those who may not know better. Yes, the Standard Apply box is superior to most PC boxes as far as quality materials & parts, but that's because there's allot more choices for the pc boxes and many of those choices that mainstream companies/consumers go with are inferior to the Mac's., - there are plenty of equal and superior PC's boxes/componants out there & just because your company (CompUSA or whatever) doesn't sell them doesn't mean they don't exist. The fact is many bean counters don't want to know the difference between a $15 power supply & a $100 one - they just know that they both power the unit & they get the same production out of both at least for awhile.

Also, before you get to caught up in the lie (well maybe not a completely a lie you did say some guy other than Jobs, but you infer that it was Apples to begin with) that Apple created the GUI interface you might want to recheck your sources. The boys at Xerox (the company that invented the laser printing & copy machine) labs Palo Alto Research Center created the GUI interface & the mouse. Steve Jobs spent some time at those labs with the creators & when Xerox management saw no future in the interface or was too busy selling copy machines to care & Steve Jobs took advantage and developed it for his Macintosh computer. I'm not positive, but I think Jobs actually hired a few of those guys after Xerox dropped that program & cut them loose. Jobs & Gates just happened to see the future markets for this interface & they both exploited/developed/marketed it. If Apple had truly created that interface they would have won the lawsuit they brought against Microsoft for copying it. I'm sure Jobs is doing just fine, but the fact that he had the advantage over Gates for so long & didn't exploit it probably haunts him a bit. Had Apple allowed for a smaller profit margin we would probably be seeing 90% Mac pc's & 5-10% Windows based pc's today. Then the snobs would all be using Windows and driving Saabs, BMW's & Volvos.

It will be interesting to see how things pan out in the future - with windows XP professional being the most expensive component on all but high end PC's these days greed has once again left the door open for other O/S's to exploit. Maybe apple will come up with $30-50 O/S to get back at Windows.

Last but not least I'd like to say thanks to apple founder Steve Wasniak for the US festival - that was a blast. Without the Steve or the Apple it never would have happened.


[edit on 25-3-2005 by outsider]

Originally posted by outsider
Okay - you got me I was rambling a bit. Like I said Mac's a good machines & I think those that went that way including the software developers did so while the microsoft O/S was not as good as it is today. I've always gone with the PC because I've always been more interested in more bang for the buck & besides the more problems others have with them the more money I make. I thought plug & play would have put me out of biz years ago, but I'm still doing the same thing. Though I'd rather be making music like you than fixing someone elses problems. Cheers.

No worries.

There are some things that PCs are great for. But I will still pull out my G4 PB before I will pull out my PCs. ( i have two PC laptops in addition to three Macs)

Though I am interested in getting a Linux based PC laptop at some point. I have XP and 98 and am not very impressed. I am curious to see longhorn though.

Originally posted by outsider
The boys at Xerox (the company that invented the laser printing & copy machine) labs Palo Alto Research Center created the GUI interface & the mouse.

Yeah, that's right; I suppose I meant to say that Apple was the one that made GUI computing avail. to the masses.

Though I still think one of the coolest things about the Macintosh was Apple's 1984 super bowl commercial directed by Ridley Scott; that is probably my favorite commercial of all time.

Originally posted by Bly Magister
Though I still think one of the coolest things about the Macintosh was Apple's 1984 super bowl commercial directed by Ridley Scott; that is probably my favorite commercial of all time.

and no coincidence. 6800 vs. 0086? 'gates', 'job'? the forbidden fruit? bar codes. the mark. totalitarianism. the super bowl(see the super bowl thread for more recent illuminati symbolism.) biblical. ewwww.

brrrrr. shivers.