What computer/OS are you using?

[Bella]

Magic > friendship, and OpenVMS is the best contemporary system/Multics the best historic one.

[NejinOniwa]

And now that the supremacy of magic has been established, I shall sleep. Need to recharge my mana. -w-

[Chocofreak13]

whenever i see you guys being petty and fighting over which is better, it makes me want to leave this site. >:[
i agree with red and nej that ignoring your fanbase in times of crisis is wrong, and not preparing for disaster--even if you don't think it's coming-- is stupid.
i agree with bella that we should stick to what we know. i'm unfamiliar with macs, so the only insight i provide on them is personal opinion. i never claim to know more than what i do about macs (which is basically only basic ipods and itunes), or anything i'm unfamiliar with. you don't see me claiming to be a master of DOS, do you?

@stew, nej: friendship is INDEED magic, and magic is greater than all. ALLLLLLLLL. >:3
@aurora: you shouldn't be absent so much, then. ^^;

also, i take back what i said about tanky's performance. here's a more accurate review:

Tanky: "I can do it! .......I think."
Tanky is fairly stable, given that she's running and fully updated with the os she came with, but still has the occasional glitch. yesterday i had to perform emergency shutdows twice due to freezing. she seems to handle the internet well, so long as i don't have too many tabs open (i have 5 running right now, and she's comfy, compared to the 9 yesterday where she was freezing up). she (sadly) can't run any instant messengers; i tried to download an old version of skype yesterday that was compatible with windows 98, but the installer insisted i update to the latest version of skype (from the 1.3 i had downloaded to the current 5.5), and then insisted i update my version of windows. given all the glitchyness yesterday, i don't even want to try AIM. other than the occasional bout of slowness (text taking a sec to load when i type), tanky seems to be an alright sub for speedy till she gets back on her feet. :\

also, in other computer news: i found a crapload of my electronics today (including my mic, not that it matters), and my cooling pad is finally failing (out of 11 blades, it has 4 left). :\

[Bella]

We're not fighting over which is better. At least I'm not. I'm trying to explain to people that Unix systems - OSX included - cannot catch viruses the way Windows can, because of the very way the OS is structured.  (In fact - here's a great, short, written-in-layman's terms article explaining why Unices are near-impervious to virii. )

...

The root (no pun intended) of this whole shitstorm is, of course, the Mac Defender program.

Mac Defender ... is an internet Trojan horse masquerading as an anti-virus program that can be installed by unwitting users of computers running the Mac OS X operating system. First media reports of the software surfaced early in May 2011 (the 2nd) with a patch not being provided by Apple until the 31st of May. The software has been described as the first major malware threat to the Macintosh platform (although it does not attach to or damage any part of OS X). However, it is not the first Mac-specific Trojan, and is not self-propagating.

And that's what it is. It's not a virus, it's not a worm, it's a malicious program - a Trojan Horse.

A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is a destructive program that masquerades as an application. The software initially appears to perform a desirable function for the user prior to installation and/or execution, but (perhaps in addition to the expected function) steals information or harms the system. Unlike viruses or worms, Trojan horses do not replicate themselves, but they can be just as destructive.

This is how it works. The user clicks onto a website and a pop-up window appears, telling them that their system has been infected by a virus. (To a user who doesn't have shit for brains: this would be red flag #1.) The pop-up then suggests they download an antivirus program. (Red flag #2.) If the user is still suffering from a bout of acute shitbrainitis, they will click the link that the pop-up provides and a fake "system scan" will appear, at which point the user is prompted to download a provided antivirus program (in reality the trojan horse Mac Defender).

Now, this next step separates the major-league shitheads from the run-of-the-mill doodoobrains. The user is asked to fork over their credit card number so they can pay between $60 and $80 USD for a copy of the program. Assuming the user doesn't snap out of their stupor, they then type in their credit card number and download Mac Defender; instead of being an antivirus, the program hijacks the system's internet browser and displays porn sites and the user gets their identity stolen by the crackers who created the program.

There are variants of Mac Defender, but every single one requires the user to willingly go through an installation process. It does not act on its own, attack the system or replicate itself, as virii do.

Unix is impervious to viruses; the only valid reason to use an antivirus on a Unix system is to stop the spread of program-based macro viruses to Windows machines.

However, Unix is not impervious to stupid users. If the user is stupid enough to download a Trojan horse - which is, I repeat myself, the only type of malicious software that can effect a Unix system - and go through the install process, frankly, I think they deserve whatever they get. The same goes for the victims of any other scam - be it the idiots who answer spam emails for Miracle ____ Enhancing Pills, or forward life-savings to "Nigerian Princes" because a chain-email asks them to. For me, this is less a matter of computer security and more an issue of human gullibility.

[Nichi]

It doesn't help matters with the MacDefender fiasco, or really anything of this sort, that some people don't care to look up the facts before they criticize something

[Red-Machine]

Anyways, my fleet:

Chachamaru-II: "Good morning, master.  What would you have me do today?"
My main workhorse, the second incarnation of my gaming PC desires.  Has a graphics card more powerful than god, but CPU is a bit lacking. (something that will be remedied soon, hopefully!) Runs a lightly customised build of Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit, but will be upgraded to 7 when I get around to buying a new CPU and motherboard as I have a few annoying issues that are unique to my builds.

ChachaGo: "I can take on anything!  Provided it doesn't require pixel shaders, that is..."
My legacy gaming laptop, bought mainly because it has the world's first laptop GPU (an nVIDIA GeForce2 Go).  It's a Dell Inspiron 8100.  When I got it, the hard drive was dying, so I swapped it out for a newer one.  I tried many different OSes on it: XP Performance Edition (streamlined and heavily customised), Vista Basic (ran rather well!), Tiny Se7en  (in the same vein as XP Performance Edition); but finally decided on a dual-boot of ME-tan and XP PE.  Even stripped down and streamlined, XP PE still ran a little slow for my liking, so I downgraded to 2k which runs smooth as silk.

MISAKA: "'Awesome power in a tiny package' MISAKA states importantly."
My uber-powerful gaming netbook.  An Alienware M11x R1.  Overclocked CPU, a blazingly fast 500GB HDD, and a hybrid graphics system that lets me swtich to the integrated Intel chip when I don't need gaming power in an effort to save battery life.  I watched several episodes of Stargate SG-1 on the way to and from my great aunt's funeral last month.

Cortana: "Why don't you love me anymore..?"
My old gaming laptop, sporting an nVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS.  A great piece of kit, but the CPU was a little slow (the slowest in the Core2 range).  Sold it to my parents when I bought MISAKA.

"The Veteran": "I'm still useful!  Oh god, not ANOTHER OS install disc..."
A mint condition Toshiba Satellite Pro 410CDT.  Sporting a 90MHz Pentium and 40MB of RAM.  Would have cost almost £8,000 at the time with all the options it has, was originally given to my mother (running NT 4.0) when she worked at Motorola as an executive PA.  Came home with her as part of her redundancy package when Motorola downsized back in '99.  This little beast has has a lot of differenct OSes on it.  Started with NT 4.0, which I replaced with 95 SP1 for gaming purposes many years ago.  Later upgraded to 98 for teh lulz and again formatted a little later so I could install DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11.  Served admirably as my DOS and 3.11 gaming machine until I borked the install last month when trying to install Office 4.3.  Now has 95 OSR2.5 with a lot of patches.  Using the LAN card that my mum used back in the 90s, I can surf the web with impunity thanks to Firefox 1.5.8.  A little slow, but renders just fine.  Still not managed to get YouTube working, though...

[Bella]

I'd rather not go into the details of my menagerie, since there are well over 20 of them (I think? I lost count awhile back) and of those 20+ maybe only half work.

But my main rig is Evangeline "Eve": "Mistress is nice, she only ever asks me to do simple tasks. Oh to be born the computer of an artist!"

She's a IBM alike all-in-one desktop (read: Intel Mac) running BSD (OSX 10.6). She was made in 2009, has a 2.93ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4gb RAM. Her primary tasks are running Photoshop CS4, OpenOffice, web browsing/communications, media... center... thing, and emulating historic OSes. Some personal favorites:

-OS/2 Warp 4.5
-Windows 1.0 and 2.0
-CTSS in an IBM 7094 emulator (I can say with a degree of certainty that it might be one of a handful of computers emulating CTSS)
-Unix V7 in a PDP-11 emulator
-POS in a PERQ emulator (an early graphical workstation)
-Xenix in QEMU

[Red-Machine]

A Core2 Duo in 2009?  Apple really were behind...

[Bella]

A Core2 Duo in 2009?  Apple really were behind...

I can't decide if you like attempting to start arguments, are trying to outtroll Nej but completely fail at being creative or amusing about it, or if you simply enjoy complaining about everything Apple does.

No matter, whatever it is it's getting really tiresome. If you can't say something nice, insightful, or even just not bitchy or condescending-sounding, STFU.

[Red-Machine]

Hey, you're talking to a guy who bitches about his own CPU.  This is purely a hardware thing, not a dig at your Mac.

[Bella]

Ahh.

Yeah, my basic philosophy of computer hardware is If it works and works well I don't care. My computer never freezes or hangs and is fast enough in processing whatever I throw at it; so I'm not going to give the speed of the processor, amount of RAM, or anything else a second thought.

[Red-Machine]

Everybody in the tech industry bitched about Apple's late adoption of the Core i series.  I remember on techPowerUp!, whenever a new MacBook was announced everyone was like "Another Core2 Duo?  Is Intel paying you in obsolete CPUs or something?" The only Mac I know of to use the Nehalem CPUs was the Mac Pro.  Which still does, actually; no Sandybridge on it yet which is odd...  Apple loves putting cutting edge tech in the Pro.

[Chocofreak13]

@bella: we share the same philosophy ^^ but i have that mindset mainly because i'm too cheap/poor/inexperienced to buy/install anything new into my OSes. with this in mind, i try to consider the computer's limits when i use them. :3 for example, tanky's a bit taxed right now (i wish there was an option to view or not view gif images on this board, since your sig is playing at a frame rate of 1 frame per 10 seconds or so), so i only have 4 tabs open (considering downsizing to 3).

from a hardware standpoint, i find macs to be annoying in the respect that you can only replace mac parts with mac parts. with PCs, you can stick any properly sized piece in, no matter the type.
from a software standpoint, the only thing that really annoys me about macs (besides price ><; ) is that there's less you can install on macs (there's more programs written for windows than macs) and the parent company seems a tad.....elitist. :\

[Bella]

(i wish there was an option to view or not view gif images on this board, since your sig is playing at a frame rate of 1 frame per 10 seconds or so), so i only have 4 tabs open (considering downsizing to 3).

In Firefox:
-Right click the GIF images you want to hide
-Select "block images from..." in the menu
That should take care of it. (But beware, then it'll block ALL images from a given sever.)

there's less you can install on macs (there's more programs written for windows than macs) and the parent company seems a tad.....elitist. :\

That's why god invented virtualization. d:

All the programs I can't run directly on OSX, I run in a virtualized XP machine on OSX.

The XP system actually works better virtualized than it did on any physical machine I ever owned (and has a bootup of around three seconds ^^) and can run every Windows-only program I use. 


I'm afraid there's nothing you can do about an "elitist" company - I likewise dislike Microsoft's hilarious attempts at coolness, but the public image of the company doesn't affect my view on Windows or the usership.

[Chocofreak13]

(i wish there was an option to view or not view gif images on this board, since your sig is playing at a frame rate of 1 frame per 10 seconds or so), so i only have 4 tabs open (considering downsizing to 3).

In Firefox:
-Right click the GIF images you want to hide
-Select "block images from..." in the menu
That should take care of it. (But beware, then it'll block ALL images from a given sever.)

i laughed when you assumed i use firefox. xDD

heh, i think i have problems with the lack of programs because idk how to virtualize. ^^;

also,
HAY GUIZE
FORCED TO DOWNGRADE TO IE5
WORKS ALOT BETTER
LOL

EDIT: hey guys, in my search for a desktop mascot/music player for tanky, i decided to try a player i heard about when i found some os-tan skins for it awhile back: lilith. it works with legacy computers (i believe 95 and up), so i'm covered there, but for some reason i can't get it to work. :\ it's mainly in japanese, and since tanky can't read japanese (and i don't think the language pack is available for SE anymore), i was wondering if there was anyone willing to help. :\