MAC VS PC

Q::I’m having trouble deciding which kind of system I should get, either a mac or a pc. I’m a big gamer so I’d like to be able to play games well on it, but I’m also thinking of performance wise, such as macs don’t get any viruses since all of the viruses are programmed for windows. Which system should I get?

Marc
Richmond Hill, ON

Sean’s note: If you’re a big gamer, you’re probably going to be most happy with a Windows machine that’s properly spec’d out for gaming (good video card, fast hard drive, and a good CPU). While you can certainly run Windows on the new Intel-based Macs, you may find less upgrade paths for the Windows side of the equation that will still work without consequence on the Mac side. (ie you can’t just upgrade the graphics card and expect that it’s going to continue to work when you boot into Mac.) On top of that, to get the proper gaming experience on the Mac, you’re probably going to want a Mac Pro instead of the iMac, and that can get pretty pricy.

If you get a new Windows machine with Vista, you’re certainly going to have much better protection from viruses and spyware than you had on XP…and if you follow the basic common sense rules of online computing (don’t click on links or attachments in email, avoid warez sites, etc) and protect your computer with anti-virus and anti-spyware software, you should be able to stay reasonably safe.

UBUNTU WIRELESS DRIVER

Q::I am trying to install ndiswrapper with Ubuntu 7.04 in order to gain access to my wireless network and then the internet. However - and here’s the problem. The add/remove software lists ndiswrapper but needs an internet connection to download it. There doesn’t appear to be a .deb package available so I can download and install it using a package manager. The tarball doesn’t allow me to install and the information available in help files indicates that there is a ndiswrapper-common (plus a few extra files) I need to download an d install in order to get ndiswrapper working working with Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn but redirects me to a site that doesn’t actually have ndiswrapper-common available on it. While Ubuntu is great in that it is the first version of Linux I have ever installed that immediately had support for sound (in fact that I could get working with sound) it is the difficulty in wading through everything else that still makes it difficult to choose over the dark side.

Eric
Hobert, TAS

There are sites like www.ubuntuguy.org and a lot of other sites have how-tos on getting ndiswrapper working.
then of course that's only the first part because then you have to get the driver for your card and you have to get
that working and that may not be that easy to do. I would go to http://www.ubuntuguy.org - there's a wiki page on getting ndiswrapper working.

REGISTRY CLEANING

Q::My system seems slow, and I am having problems installing some software that I previously had trial versions of on my computer. I am using XP - Pro, and would like to clean the Registry of all the accumulated detritus. What can I use that will take all this “stuff” out?

Chris
NWT

I don’t generally recommend registry cleaners at all - they can cause more problems than they solve. If you must use one I recommend the free EasyCleaner http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm , or better yet, the cleaner that comes with JV16 tools http://www.macecraft.com/jv16powertools2007.

Read this article for an opposing viewpoint (but same software recommendations!):

http://www.windowssecrets.com/comp/070301