Newbie Questions

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I'm still in PC land, but may be making a jump to Mac sometime soon. First to an iBook, then perhaps later to a desktop.



Thing that worries me is HD space. I have 2 250gb HDs in my Shuttle PC, and the biggest iBook HD is only 60gb. Could someone tell me how much space the system will take?



Wondering if I could live with only 1 250gb drive on an iMac for all my desktop work. I totalled up all the stuff I really need and it only came to 150gb. I wonder what on earth Windows is using all that space for, as I only have 200gb free in total.



Also, what are the various messenger programs like on the Mac? ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo. Not interested in the AOL one.



Finally, how are things on the Mac with regard to spyware, virus killers, and firewalls? I use a combination of McAfee and Adaware on the PC. What are the best programs on Mac to keep everything clean?



Thanks in advance!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    Hello, and welcome to the wonderful world of Mac. To answer your questions...



    1. Once you have Mac OS X and whatever apps you want installed, it'll probably be a few gigs taken up. This can be lessened if you remove extra language packs or printer drivers from Mac OS X (when you install it). You can always buy an external FireWire enclosure and place your 250GB drive in it, then use your new Mac to format the drive.



    2. There are Mac versions of all the chat protocols you listed. iChat will handle AOL and ICQ and it comes with Panther (Mac OS 10.3). There are also third-party chat apps that you might find better such as Fire or Adium. Go to www.versiontracker.com and search for Instant Messenging.



    3. Rest assured that spyware on the mac is non-existant and viruses can only be passed on and will not affect your mac because they're mostly all aimed at Windows users. To play it safe, you can get Norton Antivirus or Virex. Again, see versiontrack.com. If you're not behind a firewall already, Mac OS X has a built-in one you can use if you wish.



    Have fun!
  • Reply 2 of 10
    For IM clients, I recommend Proteus http://www.proteusx.com/

    It handles all the standard protocols and is really clean and customizable.
  • Reply 3 of 10
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kotatsu

    ... the biggest iBook HD is only 60gb. Could someone tell me how much space the system will take?



    Wondering if I could live with only 1 250gb drive on an iMac for all my desktop work. I totalled up all the stuff I really need and it only came to 150gb. I wonder what on earth Windows is using all that space for, as I only have 200gb free in total.




    The OS X system and a typical complement of apps only takes up about 3 gigs. These days the majority of disk usage is for media files. I assume most of your 150GB is music, photos, and movies, and maybe games. Obviously the games won't move over to your Mac. I deal with my own iBook's tiny 20GB HD by putting all of my media files on a 120GB external drive (which I use for backups as well), putting all the music on my iPod for mobile use, and keeping just a "little bit" (10 or so GB, actually) on my iBook's HD.



    I think you'd be fine getting a big external firewire drive; you can keep all of your media files on it and attach it to either your iBook or your iMac (or your PC, for that matter) as you need. Keep a selection of your favorite stuff on the iBook for use on the go; you can swap stuff back and forth so easily with a firewire drive.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    kotatsukotatsu Posts: 1,010member
    Thanks all. Glad to hear OS X isn't that big. Windows just seems to consume hard drives with bloat.



    Most of my space is on xVids and MP3s. My iTunes folder is 22gb, my videos folder is almost 100gb. Fansubbed anime can be addictive. Was thinking I'll just drop the vids on DVDs if I want to watch anything on the move.



    I have a feeling iBook will lead to a desktop, and I can't really afford a Powermac. Wish the iMac had a better GPU in it. I have a Radeon 9800 Pro now, and that struggles with games like Doom 3. I'll just have to move the game playing over to the Xbox and Gamecube.



    One other question, and I guess this could be a big one. How easy is it to network a Mac to a PC? Just to transfer files, nothing fancy. I have a router now, which connects both my Xbox and PC to the net. If I plugged a Mac into that, could I see the PC and could the PC see the Mac? I'm able to use this setup to get the Xbox and PC talking, so I can FTP and stream files.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    Kotatsu,



    Yeah, you can see pc's from macs and vice versa. Just plug-in to the network, turn on windows sharing on the mac (network preferences), set a drive/folder up to share on the pc and look in your network control panel - should be right.



    I have a mixed pc/mac network - to transfer files, operate the pc remotely, use it as a rendering station. It's a doddle.



    bathgate
  • Reply 6 of 10
    connecting mac to pc is quite easy; but i learnt that you need to enable netbios over tcp/ip on the win xp-machine.



    connecting win to mac is a bit more tricky since I belive your login/username must be the same on both machines.



    there are also third-party apps like dave from thursby that makes networking mac to pc and vice versa very very easy.



    however, if you are confident with ftp, then the mac has a built-in ftp-server, xp does not. but you can always ftp from xp and transfer your files and so on onto your mac.



    the other thing you could do, is to buy a box and put in that harddrive in your win machine, then it would be even easier (i think) to trransfer the files, and probably a lot faster too. besides, you would have a back-up solution as well!



    wellcome to mac!
  • Reply 7 of 10
    Quote:

    To play it safe, you can get Norton Antivirus or Virex



    A word of warning: Stay clear of Norton. I (and many others in this forum) have had nothing but trouble with Norton Antivirus/Internet Security/Utilities.



    I shall not go into all the details here (unless you want me to), but I have gradually had to deactivate components of Norton and in the end completely uninstall anything Norton to keep my sanity. Other users on this forum and Apple's forum (and probably better informed than me) has said that Norton will not support Mac after OSX 10.3.

    Have not heard anything bad about Virex.



    Johan
  • Reply 8 of 10
    kotatsukotatsu Posts: 1,010member
    I used to have Norton on XP, and it caused so many problems I uninstalled the lot. Using McAfee now for Virus scanning, firewall, and spam filtering.



    So far so good.



    How about firewalls on Mac OS?
  • Reply 9 of 10
    I have used Norton Firewall until yesterday when Norton Wipe messed up my Mac. So, I ditched everything Norton then and switched on Firewall in System Preferences (-> Internet & Network -> Sharing). I'm using OS X10.2.8, things may be somewhat different in OSX 10.3??



    Therefore, very short experience with Mac's own firewall but hope it does the job. Maybe some other users have views on firewall protection in OSX - system's own or third parties?



    Regards,

    Johan
  • Reply 10 of 10
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Johan Siebke

    I have used Norton Firewall until yesterday when Norton Wipe messed up my Mac. So, I ditched everything Norton then and switched on Firewall in System Preferences (-> Internet & Network -> Sharing). I'm using OS X10.2.8, things may be somewhat different in OSX 10.3??



    Therefore, very short experience with Mac's own firewall but hope it does the job. Maybe some other users have views on firewall protection in OSX - system's own or third parties?



    Regards,

    Johan




    You could also use Brickhouse, an easy-to-use shareware utility that enables and manages OSX's build-in BSD UNIX firewall. It's almost free and works well.
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