Finally MBP has arrived quick Q

[ustahir1]

Finally got it through yesterday, right in the middle of exam period (no pics at the mo cant find camera )

had a little play and safe to say its wwwwwwaaaaayyyyy better than the PC im using now!

just a few Q's

1) at the moment ive used windows until now, so ive got a lot of documents in notepad word etc, im going to get the office for it so i can contiue doing university work on it but what about files like notepad or microsoft specific documents is there a way to convert them??

2) also i know people say that mac is more secure but i did read somewhere that macs are actually more vunerable that PCs so could you recommend a good antivirus for MBP and does it effect performance??

thanks

 

[miles01110]

Antivirus discussions:
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=011016...te:forums.macrumors.com&hl=en&as_qdr=m6&meta=

Notepad files are typically just saved as plain .txt files (right?). TextEdit should be able to open them just fine, or you could download something like TextWrangler.

 

[MrCheeto]

DO NOT install antivirus. There are ZERO viruses for MacOS X version 10.5 and up. ZERO. Installing these programs will weigh your system down and drastically increase your blood pressure.

I think you'd like iWork better. It's cheaper than Office and is far far more natural with more features. It includes Pages (Word) Numbers (Excel) and Keynote (Power Point), and these apps can open the file formats of their Windows counterpart. A friend of mine got a Power Point presentation sent to him and opened it right up in Keynote, edited and saved it.

Most file formats from Windows work right on Macs and vice versa. We're not in 1992, here.

 

[Youngchild]

There are ZERO viruses for MacOS X version 10.5 and up. ZERO.

Seriously?!?!!??!?! And you back this up with...ignorance?

Mac Trojan Horse found in pirated Apple iWork ’09
http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?newsid=24572

...anyways...

To the OP:
Congratulations on your purchase and welcome to OS X!

I'm not saying that you SHOULD download an Anti-virus program for your mac. But in general, if you stay away from illegal or shady areas of the internet you SHOULD be fine.

I own both a Mac and a PC and have never got a virus in 10+ years. All in all, what works best for me, works best for me. It really comes down to how comfortable you are and if you think you need a Anti-virus.

 

[Dozerrox]

Seriously?!?!!??!?! And you back this up with...ignorance?

Mac Trojan Horse found in pirated Apple iWork ’09
http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?newsid=24572

...anyways...

To the OP:
Congratulations on your purchase and welcome to OS X!

I'm not saying that you SHOULD download an Anti-virus program for your mac. But in general, if you stay away from illegal or shady areas of the internet you SHOULD be fine.

I own both a Mac and a PC and have never got a virus in 10+ years. All in all, what works best for me, works best for me. It really comes down to how comfortable you are and if you think you need a Anti-virus.

A trojan isn't a virus, but still, better to be safe than sorry and have some protection imo.

 

[Youngchild]

A trojan isn't a virus

My apologies, that is correct. I tend to use the term "computer virus" as a catch-all phrase to include all types of malware (including true viruses, trojan horses, worms, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware, rootkits...etc).

Not to beat a dead-horse, but there are "viruses" for OS X:

http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/osxleapa.html

 

[craiger902]

I too received my first MBP yesterday. What an awesome computer! I spent a few hours on it last night playing around with it and getting use to OS X. Tonight I'm going to start transferring files from my PC to it. I also have a number of MS specific documents but I just bought iWorks. I think that should cover everything for me. I took a quick peak at Keynote and Pages and it looks pretty straightforward. I also downloaded Open Office as well though. After a quick look at their Word type program, it appeared very similar to Word. So Open Office may be a better option for you since it's free.

 

[MrCheeto]

OpenOffice is a turd. Constantly crying to be updated by not-so-friendly means, and the interface is just...did anybody test that crap?

BTW, since you have both on your system, here's how to change the default program for a file type.

Click on a file to highlight it.
Press Command+I for the inspector
Look at the part "Open with:"
Click the pull-down menu and choose an application
You can click "Change All..." to always open files of that format in the application you choose.

Worms? Yes. Trojans? Yes. Spyware? Yes. Viruses? Still no.

 

[aristobrat]

Not to beat a dead-horse, but there are "viruses" for OS X:

http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/osxleapa.html

The horse is dead, unless you want to debate semantics. Since you manually have to unzip the file and execute it yourself, most security experts don't consider it a virus.

 

[scaredpoet]

1) at the moment ive used windows until now, so ive got a lot of documents in notepad word etc, im going to get the office for it so i can contiue doing university work on it but what about files like notepad or microsoft specific documents is there a way to convert them??

If you have MS Office, then you don't need to convert anything. All of your files should open just fine.

iWork is a nice, cheaper alternative to MS Office for Mac, if your files are pretty basic and you don't think you'll be sharing your documents with other Windows/MS Office users to edit. For complex documents with tables, charts and diagrams though, iWork doesn't always get things exactly right, so they may end up looking slightly different if you frequently exchange files between iWork and MS Office. Just something to keep in mind if you're considering iWork.

The compatibility between Office for Windows and Office for Mac is always spot-on, however.

2) also i know people say that mac is more secure but i did read somewhere that macs are actually more vunerable that PCs so could you recommend a good antivirus for MBP and does it effect performance??

No, there is no antivirus software for Mac in existence that does what it claims to do while not affecting performance. And given the absolute lack of a problem in that regard, any hit in performance running antivirus software is absolutely not worth it.

That said, since the inception of OS X, there has not been a single virus in the wild that has affected mac users. There's a lot of speculation and theories that it could happen, and a lot of "proof of concept" software that requires you to jump through hoops and actively and knowingly work hard to MAKE it infect your mac, but in the 9 years OS X has been around, a true threat has not materialized. It simply hasn't happened.

There have been a couple rare instances of malware that targets OS X, most notable in pirated copies of iWork. But when you download questionable software from questionable sources, and then knowingly give that software admin privileges by typing in your password, not even antivirus software is going to help you there.

If you absolutely want antivirus software though, I would recommend ClamXAV. It's not a background virus scanner, but you can run it periodically to make sure all is well. It will also detect files infected with Windows viruses, so you can scan your friends' drives and any files they send you. Although Windows viruses will not run under OS X, it's still good to know you can remove that junk from any files on your system, and also makes sure you're not an inadvertent "carrier" of a Windows virus to others.