So, got a MacBook Air the other day, and have a few questions after a couple of day’s use:

1) Antivirus – do I need it, if so, which freeware version is best, and what other malware nasties out there for Macs that I need to look out for?

2) Am in the process of downloading Parallels and Win7 x64 – anything I need to watch out for. Will be using to use windows-only oft ware I need, and also a last-gasp attempt to connect to work’s file shares over VPN. This appears to be the only way people have made Snow Leopard or Lion talk to our file shares hosted on Win 2008 Server…

3) Any obvious free things to improve my ‘experience’?

Yes you need antivirus.

1) no.

2) I’ve used virtualbox to host Win7 x64 no bother, and it’s free. But if work are paying for paralells crack on…

Surprised you have the file share/VPN issue. I’ve never found something I couldn’t do on a mac that I could do on windows (but the reverse is not true).

3) Perian (video codec pack). Secrets (if you like tweaking settings). Superduper if you want complete bootable backups. Seashore, nice for quick image edits (though TBH you can do most things like that in preview these days). Could recommend other stuff, but it depends what you use the machine for…

There are some nice safari extensions too, adblock, shutup, and click2flash are my “must haves”.

(and yes, I fully expect my comment on 2) to bring the pc vs mac brigade out in force. If I’m bored I may feed the trolls….)

1) Antivirus – do I need it, if so, which freeware version is best, and what other malware nasties out there for Macs that I need to look out for?

If you plan on running Windows on the mac you need to take the same precautions as you would normally do in Windows. You can still pick up all the normal windows virus’s which could kill your hard-drive etc.

As a stand-alone Mac anti-virus isn’t needed.

1) Well, that’s a yes and a no so far – which freeware AV / AntiMalware is best? EDIT: Yes, was planning on Windows Defender and MalwareBytes for the Windows bit.

2) Sadly, I should have asked that question before getting my own card out….

We’re a huge government organisation, and this is a known issue, and apparently includes work-imaged machines on the core network too. They are still on Leopard for this reason.

3) Bootable backup is something that interests me. Having spent the past 15 years fixing windows boxes, I do have an inherent ability to do that. I have no idea how to fix this Mac if it borks, so an easy option would be great.

Question: Now Apple are the world’s biggest company, why aren’t people writing viruses for Macs? Are there just not enough of them yet to make any money out of hijacking them? Is it too hard?

What muffin man said.

VMWare Fusion is better than parallels by the way if you’re paying, but if it’s free then keep downloading…

Don’t know what machine you’ve got, but make sure you’ve got PLENTY of RAM (min 4GB, preferably 8) in the machine as Win 7 X64 needs a minimum of 2GB assigned to it to run anyway, parallels will use a few hundred MB, and OSX needs a bit too. If you’ve got even just 4GB just running one bit of software inside Windows 7 could make the machine quite slow…

Besides RAM is cheap now anyway.

Free things to improve the experience… VLC media player is a good cross platform media player that will play any format so you don’t get frustrated trying to make iTunes or QuickTime run files they cannot. Handbrake is an awesome cross platform DVD ripping bit of software. Audacity is a great bit of cross platform Audio editing and recording software. Oh, and I find Firefox works better on a Mac than PC myself, and personally really don’t like Safari.

1. no
2. dunno, don’t use parallels
3. download applejack and run in after every software update/install and/or run it periodically.

Next question – how the **** do you right-click in Windows running within Parallels in coherence mode????

And very strangely, VPNing in from within the windows VM solves the network access options….

And will enabling Windows updates break it???

Windows updates will work fine.

Right click, I assume you mean on the trackpad? Clicking the bottom right (if it’s setup like that in the system prefs, I forget the default) is a right click, as is a 2 finger click, or a command-click.

Why is it strange that connecting from windows solves VPN issues? No different to connecting from a dedicated windows machine, network wise*

*I know I know, pedants.

I thought it was strange that the networking worked from within a Win7 VM hidden inside a Mac that can’t access the shares using exactly the same network paths. I thought networking stuff was OS independent…

Next question – my 3G dongle will only work from within W7 VM – is there any way to get the share back into OSX so I can use the main machine for the web when I’m reliant on the dongle i.e. away from home?

I would imagine the VPN thing is a software issue. If you know more about the VPN endpoint setup I could advise more… there are various bits of mac software you can use to connect to various bits of VPN kit. Tunnelblick could be a good start if you wanted to play…

What brand/model dongle? I.e. “are you sure?”

It *is* technically possible, but probably a bit of an arseache to setup. I can’t be bothered to explain here, but basically you need to change how the mac/guest os are networked in the parallels settings, and do internet connection sharing from the Win7 guest, and tell the mac in network prefs to connect to it.

Just checked what we use on ours macs and we’ve got Sophos anti virus. There aren’t as many viruses for macs but they do exist and i’ve had one on mine (detected by Sophos). It would be silly not to take precautions.

Will ask local Mac-ites about free Mac AV software. Windows Defender seems to work for my PCs so should be fine for the VM.

The dongle is branded to an Aussie ISP, and they state explicitly that it will not work with Lion on i5 and i7 machines i.e. mine. As I’ll only really be using it to pick up email, and the VPN that won’t work through the Mac, it’s no real bother doing it through windows, especially in ‘coherence’…

Apparently Macs running our organisation’s image really struggle with the network sharing thing. I have no idea why they use AD and MS Server 2008 for an organisation of >6000 users, but there you go…

3) I like Cinch (http://irradiatedsoftware.com/cinch/) as being able to snap windows to half the screen is one of the main things I miss from windows 7.

I’ve got a mac pro at work and self built windows 7 pc at home and to be honest with a few tweaks they’re near enough identical.

Try Launch2Net for your wireless card

3) I like Cinch (http://irradiatedsoftware.com/cinch/) as being able to snap windows to half the screen is one of the main things I miss from windows 7

If you want a free alternative, I have a pair of applescripts that snap windows to one side or the other, and can be assigned to shortcut keys.

I wrote them in < 5mins, as someone was saying how nice the feature of win 7 was, I said “i bet i can write that in 5 mins”. And I did.*

*As you can imagine, this enhanced the usual “smug mac user glow” somewhat. You can probably see me from there.**

**though I write this post on the horror that is a work XP box. It makes me want to cry sometimes.