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Re: [microsound] (OT) mac vs norton??



> i am new with the macs and i am wondering if they have
> the same issues as pc when it comes to mixing any
> norton product and audio. i know norton will, it seems
> randomly, criple many plug-ins or even programs on the
> pc for what appears to be no reason, though i suspect
> there is some sort of .dll conflict happening. does
> anybody have any experience with this and macs? 

Macs don't work that way or use .dlls so the short answer is no.

> i think norton just has issues, period.

Correct. Like the for the PC, Norton is a suite of tools. Some tools are
perfectly good to have, some may do more bad than good depending on your
circumstances. 

Like on the PC, I'd disable active utilities like FileSaver, anything
that auto scans everything, use Norton more as some tools you can turn
to in certain circumstances.

>  the best utility for disk 
> problems I have used is called "diskwarrior".  it's made by a company 
> called alsoft - you can buy it from their web site.  run it on your 
> hard drive once a week and all the little foibles that can build up 
> into a gigantic mess are whisked away magically. 

Well yes and no, Its a great app. The reason it has a great reputation
is that it has repair tactics quite different approach-wise than Norton
meaning that in the #1 panic situation, your disc is suddenly unusable,
it seems to fix that issue more often than Norton.

So in other words it has much higher success than Norton for doing that
(and many times higher success than the Apple Utility - Disk First Aid
or OSX's Disk Utility.) It pretty much does just that one big thing plus
has ability to try to salvage files to another drive which I thankfully
haven't needed to try out. Its not for every situation but the regular
version is great to have (there is a limited version that doesn't do the
trick IMHO also).

I cite the example that Norton Disk Doctor is the only current utility
I've run into that will do a surface scan and map out bad parts of the
drive. Drive10 got me mad the other day when it told me I should just
reformat a drive with some bad sectors and large number and size of
files 

> run it on your 
> hard drive once a week and all the little foibles that can build up 
> into a gigantic mess are whisked away magically. 

Probably won't hurt but it's not a maintanace type program imho, so it
would be unlikely to catch or fix much running it with kind of (in)frequency

> no need for norton's 
> system-takeover tactics.

Agreed, they just lead to real trouble when doing live file processing.
One should selectively install the current apps like Disk Doctor that
are simply apps, not extensions that scan and monitor, definitely don't
blindly install everything.

> acutually with todays harddrives,especially ata100s (the ones with most macs
> for the last 3-4 yrs),there is almost no need to defragment as that can
> create even more problems...

Well now we are talking doing nothing vs Norton Speed Disk. This is a
performance degrading issue, not really a file repair issue. Its not
like a fragmented drive is destined to crash, only perhaps a messier
drive will possibly lead to a messier problem at best. 

>  Got this info from very credible sources,the fact is is that these newer
> > drives actually write implementing correct placement of files and bits.And
> > when utilities are used they can infact disorganize the directories in ways
> > that disruped the patterns in which these drives operated during writing.
> > ...my advice?

If most of the drive space is already used, and you start writing large
files to the remaing space those files will be fragmented no matter what
the drive, AFAIK the newer drives just do their writing more optimally,
conversely software utilities fix existing problems. 

My whole view is that if you have a lot of free space or clear off a
drive regularly there is no need to compulsively run apps to "optomize"
a drive. A smarter approach is just to try to have separate volumes
depending on your work habits, for your apps, for files you need top
performance out of, for scratch files, etc.

On the other hand in circumstance when that isn't feasible, running
something occasionally will help your performance. 
>
> It doesnt hurt to run these utilities,but then again....
> best advice for audio is to leave enough empty space (30%) on the drive to
> avoid congestion and you should be fine,

Correct in terms of fragmenting. The less you fill your drive totally
full the more it will naturally never become very fragmented.

 I don't see any corralation to "crashing" or the original question with
fragmenting except you must have ample extra space on your system drive.
You can risk serious data repair if you always have almost no free space
on the system drive.  Additionally are potentially dangerous problems
when programs automaticly write things and the drive has no free room at all.

> I used to use norton almost every week after sessions thinking that it
> really helped,but when i stopped using for a month due to losing the cd,i
> realized that the computer was running better...maybe just me...

Well Norton has issues with new OSs and in the past new versions of it
were being released that weren't bugproof. 

I'm not that sure time spent running it regularly has any more pro than
con. I do think its important that you do run something that works for
your situation every time say you crash during a write or anytime
something isn't behaving "right" drive-wise. 

nicholas kent
professionally managed macs for graphics since 1990

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