Mac Forum / Country Specific / UK Mac Group / May 2008

No additional security required. The standard MacOS X firewall should be
fine.

If you're the only machine behind a router then you arguably don't even
need that. If you're on a network then you probably do.

Jim

Aye, but any modern Mac will have plenty enough `oomph' for whatever you
need, and whether or not it's robust enough is something that is down to
Apple's design and quality control standards - which are whatever they
happen to be at the moment.

The `oomph' claim comes from the idea that modern heavy duty computing
is distributed.  If you want /lots/ of oomph for scientific work (for
example), it'll be the department's distributed computing service or
similar (whatever that might be, assuming it exists).

Okay, if it's video editing you'll be wanting to do, the more power in
one box the better.  And gaming often puts things under heavy load.
Aside from that?  Nah, anything'll do just so long as it's got the
external interfaces you need and the RAM and disc capacity you'd like.

More RAM and a huge hard disc - that's the ticket.  You'll end up using
more of each than you thought possible, especially if you keep the
machine a few years.  Make sure it's got room for plenty of RAM.

I've got a Mac here with a 20MB HDD.  This one has 550GB internal HD
capacity and it's not enough.

What you purchase via iTunes is permission to play music according to
the terms of a contract with Apple - better read the licence agreement
carefully and see what it says.

Definitely not.  He's just looking to increase the value of the sale.

It's not that Macs aren't at risk, but more that all you need to add by
way of software in reality is Little Snitch (shareware, $24.95+VAT):

(if you want to see some comments)

<http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17642>

(the source)

<http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html>

The rest, you do with setting things up sensibly - and you can get all
the advice you need on that here.  Macs come with fairly good security
by design and a pretty good firewall.

What Little Snitch does is let you know if anything running on your
computer tries to send anything out over the network.  You can set it up
to obey rules on what's allowed to do what.

This means you'll know if your Mac's been turned into a zombie botnet
participant (for example), and also get warned about applications
`phoning home' which you might not want to permit.

If you're madly keen on security, you might want to look at TOR:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28anonymity_network%29>

If you're not quite that madly keen, VPNs from Macs can be done (ask
here, but don't ask me), and there are a fair few different firewall
configuration tools available that give you finer control over the
firewall that provided by the standard Apple preference pane.

Various stuff in that line crops up with this search:

<http://www.versiontracker.com/php/qs.php?mode=basic&action=search&str=f
irewall&srchArea=macosx&submit=Go>

You might like to bear in mind that I've been using Macs on and off
since 1990 - completely `on' since about '94, got a home 'net connection
in '95 IIRC.  And in all that time, the only Mac malware I've ever seen
was neatly filed on a long-gone dodgy archive server.

So, after years and years and years of using a virus scanner (Virex 7
most recently), I gave up - the only viruses I've ever received were
sent to me via email, they're Windoze only, and the virus scanner
(Virex) tended not to get virus updates to cover the new malware for a
month or two after I started to see it - which made me think it was all
a bit of a farce, really.

Anyone trying to flog you a package of security software for your Mac is
trying to rip you off - it's just an attempt on the part of the salesman
to pick up more commission, and he'll be pushing it very hard since he
can't do that by flogging you a service package due to the existence of
AppleCare.

I'd only buy a Mac direct from Apple these days.  I've bought Macs from
shops, and always had a bad experience.  They all seem to want to take
the payment from the card twice for some reason, and the trouble we've
had getting the money back...  Not to mention refusing to refund money
on defective goods.  Oh yeah, and one of the three shops seems to have
been especially dodgy 'cos its staff was implicated in the card fraud
that saw rather a lot of transactions on my wife's credit card being
conducted in Malaysia.  And while she's been hoping for a trip there on
the firm for a while, it's not come off yet and she was very definitely
not abroad at the time.

Not a clue, sorry.

Rowland.

Sure. Stuff bought through iTunes is licensed to run on 5 different
computers, or is it 3? Anyway, you run iTunes on your new Mac,
authorize it, and it'll now play your purchased music. You may want to
then de-authorize the old machine running iTunes.

Cheers,

Chris

We don't get the same deal as the US, but we get a similar one. I can't
remember what the details of it were from last year...

Another Question - am i legally allowed to transfer my purchases

Yes, you can have the songs authorised on up to five computers. If
you're ditching your old PC, be sure to deauthorise your old computer
from your itunes account before getting rid of it. You don't need to
transfer the songs, you can just open up itunes, sign in to the store,
then go Advanced -> Check for Purchases and it'll download all the
stuff you have in your account.

No, you don't need anything. Just don't do something stupid like go to
a dodgy website that tells you you need to install a codec or something
to play their dodgy videos.
While we're on the subject, all you need to install to play pretty much
any video is Perian and Flip4Mac.

They won't be able to do time Machine backups obviously, but I believe
that you can access the Time Capsule drive as a normal network share
(you should double check this).