iMac

[yellowtriumph]

We are about to take possession of one of these. I have always been pretty much exclusively a 'Windows' man so have little experience of Mac's and their OS etc.


One of the things I've read about the Apple operating system(s) is that it fairly hack proof and generally less prone to internet/emailing problems as the OS is tightly controlled by Apple with less opportunity for malcontents or external third parties to invade/interrupt or interfere with individual machines. I would like to believe this, but take it with a pinch of salt.


Can I ask what the general feeling is here on the forum with regard to protecting oneself from on-line 'external interference' on the iMac? I was thinking of installing a paid for antivirus app (if such things are applicable to Mac's etc?). Norton has always worked well on our Windows laptop and I use the Norton Identity safe app on it too which I was hoping to install on the iMac so I was hoping to go down that route. Any thoughts appreciate.


The purchase is made, so not a thread discussing the merits of Apple v Microsoft please.

[ExXB]

Here's a PC World (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406379,00.asp) article on the subject.

Personally I don't use one on my iMac - just keep my eyes peeled in the media for reports. The media just goes into a feeding frenzy whenever a new 'virus' or 'trojan' is detected. And Apple's built in protection has worked well for me.

Beware - if you are running Windows, or using MS Office products you are not protected from malware affecting them. For my needs the built in Apple products work just fine.

[yellowtriumph]

Thank you for your input. I will be using Microsoft Office on the iMac so I guess I must give this some thought.


I was interested (confused/alarmed?) by the comments after the review from posters brawling over whether the iMac was vulnerable or not. I guess there will never be a consensus.

[Carrier]

A bit more than an anti-virus app is needed. I recommend you read though this article and implement the precautions mentioned about halfway down.

https://bananas.liberty.me/youre-a-criminal-in-a-mass-surveillance-world-how-to-not-get-caught/

[ExXB]

Carrier,
That article isn't about anti-malware for iMacs. Interesting subject but probably better discussed in Jet Blast.

YellowTriumph look into Macro Viruses for MS Office products.

In today's iteration of the Mac OS, there has never been a (self-propagating) virus. Trojans, which attempt to fool the user into loading the malware, do exist and you need to be careful.

Check your firewall settings (lots of good advice on the Internet, and on Apple support pages).

Create a User ID with no administrator privileges and use that for day-to-day computing. Be suspicious if/when you are asked to enter your administrators password. In the system preferences under privacy there are some settings that shoul be set tightly, for example to allow downloads only from Apple and known companies. An administrator can always override these settings, but it does make one think "should I really be doing this"?

Join the Apple Support Communities. https://discussions.apple.com/welcome Which is maintained by Apple, but it's Apple users who contribute to the discussions. You can learn a lot here.

[India Four Two]

yellowtriumph,

I agree with ExXB's very good advice. I've used Macs for 25 years (since System 6!). I don't use anti-virus software.

Once you get used to the iMac and learn how to use it, I am sure you will enjoy it.

Here is a good place to start: http://www.apple.com/support/osx/

[yellowtriumph]

Many thanks for all these helpful replies. I have fired it up now and am gently probing its capabilities. As our existing Windows machine is still very capable we are going to take it slowly but surely as we transfer over to 'Macland'.


I am giving some consideration to backups etc. I am cautious, probably too cautious, over nefarious scoundrels entering the house and taking not only the iMac but any backup drives or hardware hanging onto and around it. I was hoping to be able to back the whole thing up to the icloud on a regular basis but I gather this is task too far. I was thinking of backing up (with Time machine?) perhaps to a wireless NAS drive that I could hide away in a very unlikely to be found place. I am paranoid I know.


Can the team give me any advice or personal experiences with their failsafe backup procedures? I appreciate the time you've given already.

[Background Noise]

Me too - paranoia that is. I back up to a Time Capsule which, as you say, I would like to hide in the loft or a wall void somewhere. I also periodically back up to an external drive which I keep separate from the computer.

Time machine will allow you to keep backups on several drives concurrently. The only cloud backup I use is my apple mail, contacts, calendar and notes but you can use more - eg photos and documents. Wherever you back up, it is usually only the first backup that takes some time, thereafter it is only the changes that need to be backed up. Time machine keeps adding backups until the drive is full and then deletes the oldest ones to make way for newer ones.

I don't use any anti-virus software but I occasionally scan with a malware checker. I use MS Office, through and annual subscription, which gives 5 installs of the latest versions of either Office for Windows or for Mac, or both, and can also be be used on tablets in addition to the 5 'PC' installations. I use OSX on a Macbook as my main computer but have windows installed in bootcamp on my iMac so that can boot up in either OSX (although it is too old to run the latest version) or windows. I have MS Office running on both partitions.

The main reason I have the windows partition is for some work I was doing using Office. The company reckoned there were odd differences, deep in the formatting, between documents and presentations written in office for mac versus those composed in the windows version.

[ExXB]

Having used both Office for Mac is a poor cousin to Office for PC. I don't think you can write Visual Basic (or whatever MS is using these days). I find that using Apple's iWork applications works for me, and files can be read by PCs using Office. But that's for a retired guy who doesn't write many letters and doesn't open a spreadsheet more than a few times a year.

Backing up a Time Machine can be a simple as making a copy of the sparsebundle file on the time machine. (See here (http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080805230120120)) Also your time machine doesn't have to be physically connected to your Mac. You can hide it in your attic, as long as it's within Wifi range.

Apple's 'Find my iPhone' App will find your Mac as well, and allow you to 'brick it' next time it's connected to the Internet.

[yellowtriumph]

All very useful input - thanks.


Any recommended books for an iMac beginner? The man in the Apple shop thought OSX/Mac for Dummies likely be too simple given the questions I was asking! Retired electronics engineer now, always had a gentle interest in PCs etc, wrote some Visual Basic stuff in the past but not into that sort of thing now. Just general PC work, email, surfing. Might buy myself a Raspberry Pi to play with.


I will retire into the background whilst I give all of this some further consideration. I hope no-one will mind me resurrecting this thread, or starting a new one, in the future when I inevitably go into all this in more detail.

[India Four Two]

I am giving some consideration to backups etc. I was hoping to be able to back the whole thing up to the icloud on a regular basis but I gather this is task too far.Two very strong recommendations.

1. Get an external drive and buy SuperDuper! It is a bullet-proof backup program that does incremental backups, so after the first backup, it is relatively quick. The added valuable benefit is that the backup is a bootable clone of your hard drive, so in the event of an internal disk failure, you can just switch over and boot from your external drive. Ask me how I know and why I recommend it so highly!

2. Cloud backups are easy - for any computer, not just Macs. Subscribe to http://backblaze.com.It gives you the insurance of an offsite backup. It's completely automatic and works continually in the background. A nice feature is that you can recover any file from anywhere, using their web interface. So if you are away from home, you can still access your files.

[India Four Two]

I don't think you can write Visual BasicExXB,

Not true - you can write VB code in Office for the Mac. However, like the rest of the application, it's sufficiently different from the Windows version to be very annoying. What were they thinking of?

[ExXB]

I agree, clone your internal drive daily. I have been using Carbon Copy Cloner for years. First as freeware, then as shareware and now as commercial software (fixed one-off price, not a subscription). In addition to cloning it can also work to schedule backups of specific files or folders (i.e. Documents).

What were they thinking of?

Well, as a cynic, they were thinking they could increase their market penetration to non-PC users while not encouraging their existing customers to move to a (superior :ok:) platform that doesn't use their OS. Office for Mac is not much loved in the Mac community, sorta like kissing your sister.

I don't have Office on my Mac, not for years now, so my memory not perfect.

[India Four Two]

ExXB,

Yes, CCC is a good alternative to SuperDuper!

I've become sufficiently comfortable with Office for Mac that I can do what I need for simple tasks. However, for any heavy duty work, I switch to Parallels or Bootcamp and run the Windows version.

[ExXB]

Books I have used previous versions of 'The Missing Manual' for Mac OS and can't say enough about them.

They are not cheap, but they are good value.

[India Four Two]

yellowtriumph,

I would second ExXB's recommendation. Assuming your Mac is running OS X 10.10, you need:
OS X Yosemite: The Missing Manual

ISBN-13 978-1491947166


By the way, to be taken seriously by Apple geeks, make sure you say 'OS Ten', not 'OS X'! ;)

[ExXB]

But ... If it's El Capitan OS X 10.11 (I hate these names) it would be:
ISBN:978-1-4919-1795-4

Available at the publishers O'Reilly

shop(.)oreilly(.)com/product/0636920036326.do

and likely Amazon, et al.

[yellowtriumph]

Yes, I believe it is El Capitan. With regards to books, are the books you recommend beginners books? They perhaps sound more like 'insider or hidden tips and trips for experienced users. I am not that.

As well as buying the iMac we did buy the MS Office suite for 5 users. Although it seems that I may be disappointed with it my actual use of office is really just limited to email and writing a few documents. I bought the licence for 5 machines since if our iMac experience is a positive one we are anticipating replacing our other windows laptops. What we are really hoping for in the future is a limited number of machines easily staying in sync with one another with minimal user intervention.

[ExXB]

No, they are not books for beginners, or those needing help transitioning from a PC to a Mac*. But they are excellent reference books to have on your desk. Good indexing means you can find relevant information in just a few seconds. But if you have some computer knowledge and basic familiarity with a Mac they should be invaluable. And if you are a bit of a nerd, they can be enjoyable reading as well.

The author, David Pouge, used to write the IT columns for the NY Times and has a way af making complex stuff understandable.

I still find my 'Lion' version (OS X v10.7) useful even though I'm now using Yosemite (v10.10).

*Help for this really isn't needed. Apple's web-site covers all the critical bits. Anyone familiar with a PC will not find it difficult.

Good luck, not that you will need it.

1st tip: Under the Apple Menu (At left on the menu bar at the top of screen), 1st item is 'About this Mac'. Tells you everything about your Mac, including OS.

[India Four Two]

yellowtriumph,

Your posts make me think that you are quite computer literate, so I think David Pogue's book would be ideal for you. Just get the right one for your current OS.

As ExXB said, the Apple website contains a lot of useful information. Here is a good starting point: OS X - Apple Support (http://www.apple.com/support/osx/)

One thing I have found when coaching people in making the change from Windows to Mac OS X, is that they have a "Windows mindset" - not surprising really. Once they get over that, they find that the Mac way of doing things is usually (but not always) simpler and more intuitive than the Windows way.

One example is the built-in Print to PDF functionality, in the bottom left of the Print dialog. I use this frequently.

Another example of Apple's thinking, is that if my iPhone rings, a dialog pops up on my Mac, that I can use to answer the call, using the Mac microphone and speakers.

Regarding Office for Mac. If your usage is not heavy-duty and if you are not constantly switching between Windows and Mac OS, I think you will find, once you have got used to the slightly different User Interface, that it will be adequate for your purposes.

Concerning email, I would recommend staying away from Outlook, which comes with Office and use the Mac 'Mail' app. It's not perfect, but it is well integrated with the OS and with iPhones and iPads if you have any.

PS Two add-in applications that I use and recommend are Little Snitch (https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html) and Spam Sieve (http://c-command.com/spamsieve/ (http://c-command.com/spamsieve/%28) ) - only works with the Mail app.

[yellowtriumph]

A further post since the post above mine mentions staying away from Outlook. I use Outlook on my windows machine as it 'fitted the bill' at the time.


My wife and I are fortunate enough to have a small flat in London as well as a modest house elsewhere and we are not always together at the same time, in the same place. We wanted to be able to share emails as appropriate. In the end I adopted the following solution.


I registered our own website domain (at modest cost) - let's call it www.2016.com (http://www.2016.com). The service provider allows us to have 10 email addresses so I set up: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and lets say [email protected].


On the laptop at home I set up Outlook to send and receive to [email protected] and [email protected] only. At the flat I set up Outlook to do the same for [email protected] and [email protected], for my wife's mobile I set it up to send/receive to [email protected] only.


So you will deduce that no matter where we are, email sent to the address [email protected] is sent/received at both the house and the flat because I set Outlook up not to delete emails from the 2016.com mail server so that downloading to one physical destination still makes the email available at the second physical destination. If, for example, I'm sat at home and some email for my wife comes in to [email protected] that should really go to my wife's mobile then I simply just forward it to [email protected]. I hope you can see that this gives us a lot of flexibility and this set up has worked well for us for many years.


I am hoping to be able to set up the same sort of arrangement using Outlook on the Mac - am I set to be disappointed?


On the other hand, I was sort of hoping that when we buy some sort of additional ipad or other Apple device to replace both windows laptops, that I could set something up on both the iMac and iPad to keep their emails in sync anyway. I would need to keep the www.2016.com (http://www.2016.com) domain because that's the root email address we give out to everyone and have done so for the last goodness knows how many years.


I hope no-one minds me asking these sorts of questions here? The advice given is giving me some useful pointers as to where to go before I set off down the wrong path. I would not like to disappoint Mrs yellowtriumph if I can.

[ExXB]

I found that outlook for Mac was another example of MS not replicating their PC product. It was OK, but it wasn't the same. Kissing your sister.

You can use your @2016.com email addresses in Apple mail without changing anything. You need to setup the account with password etc, but that's a one-off. You can even access such accounts from both your Mac, using mail and your PC using Outlook.

Same with iOS devices. Their version of mail works just fine with non-Apple mail domains. So if you set them accounts from your @2016.com accounts.

To illustrate I have three e-mail accounts ([email protected]) and I access all three from my iMac, my iPad and my iPhone.

I betcha e-mail accounts is covered in the Missing Manuel, it is in my version.

[Background Noise]

You don't need all of that email setup. And I think those are all POP email setups, given your settings comments.

It's all much easier with IMAP email - you can all have all of the emails pushed to every device with no worries about downloading onto one device preventing it being available to other devices. Whatever you do to an email on any one device is mirrored on all of the others, including sent messages. You can do all of that in apple mail.

You could have [email protected] on your devices, [email protected] on all of hers and [email protected] on all of both of your devices.

[yellowtriumph]

I need to transition my email from a laptop with windows to the iMac. One of my requirements is to keep the previous email 'history' if you like from the laptop to the Mac. My hope was to copy over the existing Outlook folder structure and all the associated emails and then proceed from there as my starting point. I don't really want to start from ground zero on the iMac.


I thought this would be a lot easier if I installed Outlook on the new iMac?


BN - yes, it is currently 'POP' etc. I don't know if I even understand the term IMAP (but that is my own personal shortfall and I will have to delve). When you say ...


'you can all have all of the emails pushed to every device with no worries about downloading onto one device preventing it being available to other devices'...


.. what device or service is doing the pushing? As you can imagine my current set up simply routinely goes and sends/receives to my email server or service supplied by my website provider.


I appreciate this is not the ideal point to start from. I hope my questions are proving an agreeable challenge! I don't want to abuse anyone's goodwill and will cease asking if I asked.

[le Pingouin]

You can't directly copy the folder structure and e-mails. However you can export it all from Windows then import it on Mac. There is no requirement to use Outlook for Mac for this but you need a third party app to do it and they all appear to cost.

If you want to use Outlook for Mac:

www.dummies.com/how-to/content/switch-from-windows-outlook-to-outlook-2011-for-ma.html (http://www.pprune.org/www.dummies.com/how-to/content/switch-from-windows-outlook-to-outlook-2011-for-ma.html)


IMAP basically works like this: instead of all your e-mail being stored locally on your computer it's stored remotely on ISP's mail server. The server sends (pushes) the folder structure and e-mail headers (sender, subject, time, etc). When you click to open a particular e-mail it's downloaded from the server to your computer.

Using it requires that your ISP provides IMAP and you may need to enable it (noting some charge extra for the privilege). As noted it has the advantage that every device sees the same e-mail as it's all on the server.

If you've been happily using POP then I'd suggest keeping it simple and continue to do so for now. Migrate the e-mail first and change to IMAP (or not) later once you've settled in. Not that IMAP is complicated or hard, just I'm a firm believer in one change at a time where possible :)

[ExXB]

le Pingouin

I agree going IMAP is the way to go, but I wasn't certain if the domain was set up for it. It might cost more to have their server store the data rather than just relay it.

[Background Noise]

Yellow,

Are you using Outlook or Outlook Express? It is some time ago now, but I used a program called Outlook2Mac (O2M) from littlemachines to transfer my outlook mail to apple mail. You can also do it using Thunderbird. Some info here: http://guides.macrumors.com/Moving_Email_from_PC_Outlook_to_Apple_Mail

There's plenty more on the internet.

[yellowtriumph]

The version of Outlook I am using comes with the Office 365 Home subscription pack for 5 PCs/Macs + 5 tablets. This is the 1 year new or renewal option and I believe as part of the package the version of Outlook is guaranteed to always be the latest.

My domain and email service provider is Fasthosts. I have always found them to be reliable and helpful when I have questions.

Given that my current set up works well, and if I really want to maintain my current folder structure which importantly is different on my 2 laptops in two different locations, then I think it would be best and simplest for me to transfer over my current Outlook email structure on my house laptop to the new iMac here at the house using a suitable program. (The second laptop is at our flat and is not used very often these days and can be left as is for the time being).

That seems sensible to me at this juncture - does the team agree - on balance?

But I would like to ask a few further questions about IMAP. I think I understand it now, in principle everything is held on the remote Fasthosts server.

So, would my local PC/Mac simply have a shortcut on the desktop to then go and open that remote email 'service' where I will see the entire folder structure etc?

if it's all being held on my service provider instead of locally I guess that's where the additional cost comes in - Fasthosts remote server storage space.

With regard to multiple devices having access to the remote email service. If computer A accesses the remote email and there is an email in the INBOX then I presume it would be highlighted. If I read that email then I presume it becomes de-highlighted as per the usual sort of thing. If I then go to computer B and access the remote email, does the 'system' realise it's a different computer and sort of re-highlight that same email on that computer's INBOX because the 'system' knows that that PC hasn't read that email yet?

If I compose and send an email from Computer A I know what I have done - I have composed and sent an email. If someone then logs into the remote email system on Computer B I appreciate the email will be in the sent box. But how does the user of Computer B know that I have composed and sent that email? Does he or she have to go to the sent box and have a look on the off chance, or more likely, the sent box on Computer B will highlight the unseen sent email in the sent box since the system knows that it was composed on another PC (Computer A)and the user on computer B should be made aware of that.

I hope the final question makes sense.

As I said earlier, if you're finding these questions tedious or tiresome do say and I will stop asking. I'm hoping that you're getting the same pleasure out of passing on your knowledge and suggestions as I am to receive them.

[Background Noise]

I also have a fasthosts email account, set up as an IMAP account on several devices. A colleague using the same domain has his set up as POP. There is no additional charge for IMAP on any email service that I have.

Not quite - IMAP emails will be on your device in a similar way to POP emails, but they also remain on the server. From there they can be downloaded to other devices. They will appear as unread on all devices until read on any one, then they will appear as read on all devices.

Same for sending, sent mail will appear in the sent folder on all devices - there will be no notification on the other devices.

This is no problem for personal accounts, as you are likely to know what is going on. For a shared account, the other user will not know that a new message has been sent unless they check the sent box. And they may miss a new message if it has been read by the other party. In both cases though, you can mark the message as unread and that mark will appear in all of the other devices.

As for folder structure, you can have folders on one of your devices, and emails can be moved into appropriate folders, manually or via rules, but that structure will only appear on that device. I presume this is the way it works for you now using POP? Mail moved to a folder on one device will not be moved on another unless you do it manually or have the same rules on both machines?

I have my folder structure set up at server level, with rules to move messages into the right one as they arrive. That structure is replicated on all my devices. Not sure whether you can do that with fast hosts.

PS: I've sent you a PM

PPS: Only problem I have with Fasthosts is that I can't send mail using my ISP's server, so I have to cheat and use someone else's.

[le Pingouin]

You can store mail locally with IMAP but that's a function of the mail client your using rather than a part of IMAP itself.

You just have to get your head around thinking of it all as happening on the server - you're changing what's on the server so those changes will reflected when another device s used.

I had a quick look at Fasthosts and they don't charge extra for IMAP per se, but you need to remember all your mail stays on the server, attachments and all, so a 100MB mailbox won't go far. All depends on the mail you send and receive.

Seeing as you've already paid for Outlook on Mac (presuming you have one of the 5 licences free) I'd use that - just follow the procedure outlined in the Dummies link.

[LlamaFarmer]

I've run MacBooks for the last 10 years now (early 2006 MacBook, late 2012 MacBook Pro which I specced up via the Apple Store website, and a 2011 MacBook Air which I ran alongside both).

Never used an antivirus or firewall on any of them.
Never had a problem as a result.



My original (06) one finally gave up the ghost in 2013 when it wouldn't hold any charge and kept destroying rather expensive chargers.

Even at 7 years old it ran quicker than a brand new Windows laptop I got from work. 7 years unprotected and it had slowed down ever so slightly due to the amount of crap I'd put on it, but never caught a virus in that time.



Everyone else I know with Macs (which is increasing numbers every year, probably 60% of people I know now) don't bother with anything either.

[India Four Two]

yt,

Regardless of whether you continue with Outlook or switch to Mac Mail, IMAP is the way to go, as others have pointed out.

Apart from being able to see your all your email (sent or received) on any device, a big plus is that there is no risk of losing all your email, as happened to me in the past, when I used POP. What I do, when the volume of my mail begins to approach the storage limit at my ISP, is move older mail into a folder on my computer, rather than pay for increased storage space. My ISP, Apple, already has enough of my money! ;)

As an aside, the other day I was browsing in a bookstore and ended up buying "El Capitan - the Missing Manual". I had not looked at an OS X book for years and I was surprised at how many features I was unaware of. Buy it - you will find it very useful.

Even at 7 years old it ran quicker than a brand new Windows laptop I got from work. Talking about speed, I replaced the hard drive on my MacBook Pro with a 1 TB solid state drive (SSD) about a year ago. The performance is staggering compared to what it used to be. I would not buy a new computer these days without an SSD.

[yellowtriumph]

India Four Two.

I can see that IMAP would be a good way to go in the future, but I think I have too much 'invested' in pop/smtp and Outlook at the moment to consider a change. Remember I currently have two different folder structures on two different laptops. As I understand it going down the IMAP route would necessitate a common folder structure - this would not suit.

With my current laptop set up, I backup the outlook.pst file on a regular basis and so I have not had a loss of email 'problem' that I could not get around. I was hoping to find out where the iMac stores the equivalent folder and back that up to an external hard drive - in addition to regular Time Machine backups. Makes sense?

I specified the new iMac to have a 1TB Fusion drive which seems plenty fast enough for me - at the moment anyway!

Will look into the book etc - thank you.

[le Pingouin]

Outlook for Mac doesn't use .pst files - the equivalent on Mac is .olm

The profile is located here for Office 2016 (the "~" in the path is the home directory of the user):


~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile

<http://www.officeformachelp.com/2015/04/location-of-outlook-2016-profile-identity/>

[yellowtriumph]

Very helpful information indeed. I'm hoping to make some progress next week. We've moved house recently and I have to devote a lot of time to that.