Should mac user crossover to HP Envy desktop for After Effects and Production premium?

[Walter Soyka]

[Tom Daigon] “Walter, I think “careful” is a more appropriate word :D”

Ha! You say potato… 🙂

[Tom Daigon] “There is the need to constantly update the virus definitions on the PC. That is not necessary on the Mac as of now.”

Microsoft Security Essentials auto-updates.

Don’t visit shady web sites. Don’t install programs unless you know they’re legit.

This applies to both platforms. Mac security is a very comfortable myth. Last year saw 700,000 Mac infections via FlashBack [link].

[Tom Daigon] “Keeping the firewall up can interfere with the operation of some apps. This is not an issue on the Mac.”

When Windows Firewall blocks an application for the first time, it pops up a little dialog box that says something along the lines of “Application XXX is attempting to access the Internet” and then gives you the option of blocking or unblocking it. You can also configure application-specific firewall settings in Control Panel.

There is no reason to disable the firewall entirely.

[Tom Daigon] “On the PC you must be careful about opening email lest you release a worm. You can open any email on the Mac “

Outlook used to execute JavaScript and VBScript code embedded in messages when they were selected and previewed in the preview pane, which was exploited by worms. It doesn’t do that anymore — script execution is now blocked by default.

Since I’m cross-platform and use a bunch of different computers, I prefer cloud-based email anyway. I’m using Google Apps for Business, and they’ve got some pretty killer spam detection and virus scanning built-in.

I’m not saying the internet is not a scary place, or that any OS has perfect security, but I don’t feel it’s practical or necessary to keep your computer locked in a lead-lined room, either. Taking just a few basic precautions — and having a good backup strategy, just in case — is probably acceptable to most users.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Tom Daigon]

Yes all that sounds well and good, but I have learned many years ago not to assume anything 😉

You folks heard Walters stance on this. If you get worms/trojan horses/malware, you know where to lodge your complaints 😀

Im keeping my baby off the grid. And will enjoy my Mac Pros ability
to forage undaunted into email and the Web 😀

See you at NAB, Walter.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Walter Soyka]

[Tom Daigon] “Im keeping my baby off the grid. And will enjoy my Mac Pros ability to forage undaunted into email and the Web :D”

I totally understand the argument for keeping production machines off the public internet — it turns a small risk into practically no risk.

But you might want to unplug your Mac Pro, too. While we were debating this yesterday, a brand new piece of Mac malware was discovered: https://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/03/ad-injecting-trojan-targets-mac-users-on-safari-firefox-and-chrome/

And check this graphic out:
(Full article here: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/12/04/sophos-declares-2012-the-year-of-android-and-mac-malware-as-cybercriminals-look-beyond-windows/)

I don’t intend to come across as argumentative, but I don’t see this as a black-and-white issue where Macs are inherently secure and Windows PCs are inherently not.

Since it’s not realistic for everyone to leave their machines offline, someone new to the Windows platform should know the basic precautions they should take to minimize their risks: leave the firewall on (allow access to your apps as needed), leave UAC on (default settings), install some anti-malware software (like the free Microsoft Security Essentials), clone your boot drive (I use Acronis True Image), and keep regular backups (hard disk, Blu-Ray, tape, cloud, whatever). Don’t install software you don’t know.

In other words, pretty much all the same stuff you’d do on a Mac.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Brandon Davidson] “That was one of my concerns with the PC was that I was going to have to deal with a lot more bloatware and viruses than you usually have to deal with on a mac.”

There’s no shovelware on the HP workstation line — not sure about the ENVYs.

In general, it seems that consumer-grade PCs come pre-installed with a whole lot of software you don’t need. I do recommend uninstalling the pre-installed apps you don’t use, especially if they run automatically at startup.

Whichever way you go, good luck with your new system!

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Tom Daigon]

You most certainly are being argumentative 😀 😀

At this point, in my experience, all reports of Mac malware and viruses are theoretical at best. Usually propagated by PC folks who hate to hear how easy it is to use Mac without the need of installing anti virus or anti malware programs.

I do agree with your final paragraph. Its wise to know ways to protect yourself when embarking on the purchase of a PC. Even more so then a Mac for the moment.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Brandon Davidson]

I truly appreciate everyone’s input and comments and I feel much more informed about choosing my next computer. I’m still not sure where I’m leaning but I feel much more open to giving PC a try if I’m willing to deal with a new OS and workflow. Thanks again for everyone’s time and effort in helping me out!

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Tom Daigon] “At this point, in my experience, all reports of Mac malware and viruses are theoretical at best.”

Word. The hundreds of thousands of infected Mac users can now relax about the dangers that Sophos and Kaspersky were touting. Word.

[Tom Daigon] “Usually propagated by PC folks who hate to hear how easy it is to use Mac without the need of installing anti virus or anti malware programs.”

Among those – Kaspersky, Sophos, McAfee, other security researchers. Oh, and Apple, too. Weird! 🙂

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Tom Daigon]

Jive talk to your hearts content Alex. 😀

As I said, “in my experience” (which includes thousands of folks thru the Adobe and Cow forums) this has not been an issue that in any way, shape or manner approaches the PCs vulnerability. This may change in the future.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Brandon Davidson] “On the 3 drive raid 5, I’m not very familiar with hard drives and how they work except that a raid is supposed to be redundant to help not lose data. Is there a different setup you might recommend?”

One of the most popular configuration for After Effects consists of two volumes:
– (1) an SSD for OS and apps, with a folder dedicated to After Effects CS6 Global Performance Cache
– (2) a media volume (single drive, RAID0, 1 or 5) for, well, media.

A 3-drive RAID5 may be OK but isn’t optimal – in terms of both performance and usable capacity. RAID5 setups usually start at 4 drives. I’d look into RAID1 for redundancy or RAID0 for performance if regular backups to external drives are a possibility.

I haven’t yet researched those Envy desktops yet – but from the many years working with HP servers and workstations, I know they don’t offer all possible (and sometimes necessary) configurations so you just have to get what you can, and then add the necessary items yourself. My business is basically built on the fact that HP, being the enterprise behemoth they are, just aren’t flexible enough to offer the right configurations for video editing.

HP Envy Phoenix desktops seem to have three drive and two optical bays limiting your storage configuration. The easiest option is then to choose a 256GB SSD as the primary drive, and two 3TB drives configured either in RAID1 or RAID0.

If you’re up to a little tinkering, you could install one more drive into the available optical bay.

Hope this helps.

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Tom Daigon] “As I said, “in my experience” (which includes thousands of folks thru the Adobe and Cow forums) this has not been an issue that in any way, shape or manner approaches the PCs vulnerability. This may change in the future.”

So is it “my experience” or the “thousands of folks thru the Adobe and Cow forums”?

And if the latter – are those informal impressions, the “gut feeling” or a thorough count weighted against market share?

I second Walter on that the systems I manage (starting from MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 and a number of other OSs some thirty years ago) never had infections. That was my day job, and those systems were always online. So based on “my experience”, should I say Windows systems are impregnable to malware?

C’mon Tom, I don’t mean to get any deeper into this weird debate, but don’t you think folks whose job is security (like Sophos), know a little better than you and me?

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA