Day 70: I'm Sorry, Dave. I'm Afraid I Can't Do That

[anarchist_nomad]

Contrary to popular belief, I am not a computer guy. Sure, I consider myself to have a basic competence with the things. On the hardware side, I have semi-built my own desktops; on the software side, I can program passably in Fortran 77, C++, Perl, and an assortment of other minor languages. Really, though, I just learn what I need to do whatever task is required of me in any given moment. I have known some true computer people -- they spend their weekends writing device drivers, just for fun!

What experience I have has been mainly within a Linux environment. I have been using Linux since about 1994 and administering Linux systems for over a decade. Although I avoid Windows whenever possible, I have certainly had my fair share of experience there, too. With Macs, not so much.

Anyway, I have two computer related questions to throw out to the collected wisdom of my gentle readership. One involves Mac hardware; the other, Windows software. One hundred points are at stake for each question -- the person with the best answer in each category walks away with them!

So, without further ado, here goes:

Question the First: What is the difference between a MacBook and a MacBook Pro. Online searches have mainly turned up two answers, neither of which is helpful. The first is simply a common statement that: "A MacBook Pro is essentially the same as a MacBook, but more powerful." Thank you, Igor. Not terribly useful; this answer screams ignorance. The other unhelpful answer is that a MacBook has a thirteen inch screen, where MacBook Pro screens start at fifteen inches. Whilst once true, this information is now obsolete. I am curious because I recently priced a MacBook and a similarly equipped MacBook Pro. With the former, I took the base system from Apple's website and simply upgraded to a 320 GB hard drive and added a three year warranty. With the latter, I configured it to the same specifications as the MacBook -- same RAM, same hard drive, same processor speed. The MacBook Pro still cost $245 more. What I want to know is this: What does one actually get for those $245? The best I can tell, you get:

• A backlit keyboard
  
• A firewire port
  
• An SD card reader
  
• A spiffy looking metal exterior

Am I missing anything? I'm fine with Apple charging $245 for these things; it makes the decision between a MacBook and a thirteen inch MacBook Pro quite straightforward -- one simply asks if one wants to pay $245 for those four items. However, I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something. Help me out, dear friends -- am I??

Question the Second: I run a dual-boot system with Linux and Windows. Annoyingly enough, my Windows partition seems to have recently been infected with some minor, yet annoying, viruses. Adware, Google redirects -- you get the idea. I have been running various free anti-virus programs: Spybot Search & Destroy, Ad-Aware, AVG Free, and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. This has had varying degrees of success, purging the worst of the lot from my system. Not all of it, though. So, gentle readers, do you have a favourite free program to recommend? Or perhaps it is time to byte the bullet and purchase some digital protection? If so, what would you suggest that has been useful to you?

Remember! There are two hundred points at stake here! Think carefully and answer well!

Comments

[kat1031.livejournal.com]

AVG is awful - almost as bad as Norton. My rec is to switch to Avast! It's what I use both at home and on my winboxen at $VSC

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

Malware Bytes is what I typically use for malware infected machines at work. But on top of that, I can recommend you check out the spyware removal instructions at bleepingcomputer.com. They've been very helpful to me in getting rid of whatever my company's employees manage to pick up.

MacBook v. MacBook Pro

[blaisepascal]

MacBook is Apple's line of, for lack of a better word, "consumer-grade" laptops.
MacBook Pro is Apple's line of, for lack of a better word, "professional-grade" laptops.

MacBooks are generally less expensive and less powerful than MacBook Pros. However, since (a) both lines have a wide, overlapping, range of configurations and pricing, and (b) Moore's Law pretty much ensures that both lines get more powerful quickly, it's easy to have a MacBook that's more powerful than a MacBook Pro, even of the same vintage.

Where the real differentiation is is in small things, like backlit keyboard, firewire port, SD card reader, and metal exterior. Also: The machines likely have different motherboards, so that the MacBook might not be able to take the same maximum amount of memory, or have the same battery lifetime, or whatever. If you look at two machines configured within their range of overlap, the difference in max memory, processor, etc, isn't going to be an issue.

The peanut gallery here is also saying that the screen quality and video card is usually much better in the Pro, and a large cry of "Don't discount the value of the backlit keyboard."

If you have the option to visit an Apple Store, I'm sure you'd be able to try them out side by side and see of the backlit keyboard and/or video card makes a difference for you.

[chefmayhem.livejournal.com]

I can help you on the macbook thing, I am, however, considerably rusty on my virus battling.

I have an older (2 years now) macbook. It seems the new macbooks are more formidible on the inside (better video cards, etc) than they used to be. The macbook pro can be upgraded to twice the ram. Other than that....you're mostly paying for the spiffiness. That's about it. Try messing with them both in an Apple Store, see if they feel different enough to warrant the price difference.

[lionessprite.livejournal.com]

I've a Windows and Kubuntu partition on my box as well.

I love Spybot in the background (so teatimer not so much). We have a mutual friend scalp-hairless friend who will no doubt have some significant opinions on the matter (he, in fact, recommended Spybot but will no doubt have more tools in his toolbox than that... Probably a bootdisk with anti-spyware/anti-virus stuff. Some of these new viruses force the OS to not recognize its been infected, so booting from a disk helps...)

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

from macrumours, best buy have deleted the macbook pro which suggest that new models are coming soon http://www.macrumors.com/2010/02/08/current-macbook-pro-models-deleted-from-best-buys-inventory-system-updates-imminent/

new unreleased core i7 mac book pro benchmarks
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/02/06/unreleased-core-i7-macbook-pro-61-benchmarked-supplies-constrained/