Technology

Parallels Beta 3

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In the week since I first wrote about it Parallels Workstation for the Mac is now on beta3. So far it is shaping up to be a great product. I can’t wait for it to be gold and have the ability to use USB devices. I will wait until a final version before I start making Virtual Machines like I did with VMware workstation, but once it does go gold I will be making a bunch of the most widely used OS’s that I use so I can have them on my Mac. Very cool.

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Parallels

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As if they read my blog last night Parallels has released a beta of their Virtual Machine Workstation for Intel Mac’s. This is the product I have been waiting for. If it works, I will spend the money and buy it. As I write this entry I am installing Windows XP (SP-2) on my Core Duo iMac. So far the install has moved along quickly. That is a good sign, since that is how VMware installs of OS’s go when running from an ISO disk. Since VMware and Virtual PC are my only products I can compare it to I will. Virtual PC always took forever to install on a G4. I know Virtual PC was emulating, and this is a VM. I understand the differences, but I can be thankful for the speed!!!

I get to hopefully play with this once the VM is finished installing. Ironically I took the day off today to relax. Oh well, playing with a new toy or software is sort of relaxing!

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Boot Camp

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Every news site on the internet is talking about Boot Camp. It is an awesome idea. It really is, but since I am very picky I will be honest when I say it is not what I wanted! Really. I think having Windows on a Mac is a necessary evil. I just don’t want to have to dual boot. I have 2 Windows XP desktops at work (as of today, that number does change week by week) to augment my Powerbook for things like MS Access, Visio, Active Directory tools (when I am lazy and don’t want to use remote desktop), and other Windows only software. I honestly don’t use those machines very often. The main reason I use Windows at work is to run Vmware admin tools for my ESX and GSX servers, and Workstation to test desktop software installs. For home use I use Windows for 1 thing (not counting my dvr) and that is Quicken. I can’t stand quicken for the Mac. To dual boot for one or two applications would be a pain.

What would really be fantastic is a virtual machine running in OS X that would load up Windows. Lets face it, you own a mac for reason. I don’t want to deal with Windows if I have to, but I don’t want to run it all the time. Having a virtual machine that you can turn on and do one or two things with, and then turn off would be better to me than rebooting into XP. I tried virtual PC 5, 6, & 7 on the PowerPC, and it was so slow. Now that Apple has an Intel chip a virtual machine could be a viable option. Don’t get me wrong, Boot Camp is a great idea. I just think there are better things to come, I hope!

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Mac Linux Tools

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Yesterday’s issues did have one positive (well sort of) piece to it. I had the need to install a bunch of network monitoring tools on my powerbook. I know that allot of software from Linux/Unix has been ported over to the mac. I have used a bunch of it, but when you actually go looking for stuff and almost everything you try to find has been compiled to work on the mac you have to think, cool!

Some of the new tools on my Powerbook are now: NMAP, XNMAP, Etherreal, MTR, and more. I of course have the Darwin Ports install on the computer, but I honestly haven’t even cracked the surface of what I can run on it.

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Powerbook #5

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Today I got my a new powerbook. I know I just got one back in December but when you get the opportunity to upgrade you take it. Someone in my group was getting a laptop and he was going for a powerbook. He was going to be happy with any Mac laptop so I had the chance to go to the same 12″ powerbook I had but get a bigger hard drive. I figured why not. Now I have a maxed out 12″ powerbook with 1.25 gigs of ram and a 100gig hard drive. I should be ok for a while! Andrew is also happy sporting my old (4 months) 80gig model. This new computer is my 5th (if I counted correctly) 12″ powerbook, and most likely my last since the Macbook Pro’s hopefully will have a smaller model soon.

Moving to this Powerbook was a breeze. I have upgraded mac’s before (as you can tell by the number of Powerbooks I had), but I never used the migration tool that Apple has when you register the computer. This time I figured I would give it a try. Man will I use that tool again. All you do is plug in the old computer to the new one with a firewire cable and it copies anything and everything you want from it. It got all my applications, my user profiles and settings, misc files on the hard drive, and anything else I could think of. The only issue was 3 applications required re-install’s. Besides that it worked flawlessly. And it took about 2 hours to copy 50gigs of data. It was amazing. Yet another reason I am a Mac fan over Windows. Wow, a few years ago I would never have believed I would say that let alone put it in writing.

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Visiting The Parents

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I was at my parents place today to finish my dad’s computer upgrade. My mom had me come out there earlier than I originally planned since she was worried that the work would take too long. Boy was she wrong. Since I did most of the loading of software and moving files at my apartment on Saturday we were done setting everything up in like 45 minutes. I ended up just hanging out in my dad’s La z Boy watching an old Bond film waiting to go out to dinner. Man can you fall asleep in those chairs. I almost did like 3 times, then I couldn’t walk for 15 minutes since my legs where so relaxed (and blood deprived) from being reclined for 2 hours. It was nice and comfy.

We ended up meeting Carrie and Morgan in Forest Hills for dinner at this little restaurant on Austin street. It was decent food and I got to see everyone except for Michael. I am just glad that the whole computer upgrade is completed. I hopefully wont have to worry about that again for another 2-3 years!

I Actually Used This For Years With No Question?

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I can’t believe I actually used Windows without question for years. I just got my dad a brand new HP desktop (he wanted a really small computer and this was the smallest name brand I could find) and I am setting it up for him this weekend. I am taking all his old data and copying it over to the new machine and then setting up all his applications for him. In theory this is not a big deal, but in practice it has been a huge pain. How can a multi billion dollar company like HP build a consumer device like a PC that simply doesn’t work well out of the box? They include a bunch of stuff to try and make it easy for a normal person to get up and running but in practice it has sucked.

My first issue is the fact that HP (not to pick on them since Dell and other do the same thing) put every free game or trial software they could think of on this computer. I had at least 20 programs I had to remove from the computer that would just take up space and memory. My dad doesn’t do his finances on the computer so why would he need both Quicken 2006 and Microsoft Money? The crap pre-installed on the machine is not a huge issue. I have had this problem for years with almost any computer maker.

What I truly don’t understand is the lack of testing of the software build put on these computers designed for the mass market. When I buy a computer and take it home and turn it on, everything pre-installed on it should work flawlessly. it was pre-installed for heavens sake. Why then does a brand new computer freeze up when trying to reboot it, but after 5 minutes it actually does reboot? Why would the built in AOL setup not complete the initial login and crash the machine? Same thing goes for the auto update for Java. I turned the computer on and it asked to be updated so I said ok, then the thing freezes and wont go away from the screen until I rebooted. Does anyone know how to test software builds anymore?

I can go on and on about the problems I am having with a brand new (supposedly clean) windows install but will just say I am baffled. I guess I have passed the point of no return with using my Mac, since I get frustrated every time I try to use a windows workstation. Granted I deal with Windows server allot in my job, it has its issues, but those are totally different from sitting at a windows desktop and working on it. I truly cannot see myself using a windows desktop again if I continue to have these stupid problems every time I try to use one. I am not being a nit pick, and I know what I am doing. It is simply just frustrating to use.

OK, my venting is over. I got AOL to finally work after a reboot (what a shocker). I will continue to setup the machine later. Hopefully the Palm setup doesn’t drive me to the bottle!

As a side note I will say that the HP Pavilion Slimline PC itself is sweet. it is super small for a windows box, packs a decent processor, 1gig of ram, a 200 gig SATA hard drive and dual layer DVD burner. Not bad for under $600. The software is just killing me.

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New Computer Time

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Tonight I went with my dad to Best Buy to get him a new computer. He has been complaining about the Mac Mini I had him try. Turns out not OS X is not for everyone, no matter what good intentions I had! We meet up by my apartment and took a cab to Best Buy. We found the computer he wanted easy enough, but they didn’t have it in stock. We then went to the next Best Buy in Mid town. Turned out they had it in stock so we bought it. Shopping with my dad is so easy. We usually don’t go shopping unless we know what we want, and when we see it we just buy it. If we don’t see it we check one or two other places and then go home. No fuss, no muss!

I will configure the computer this weekend and deliver it to him on Sunday. After we dropped the computer by my place we hit an italian restaurant by my house for some dinner. It was a quick and productive evening. My dad was happy he got a new computer and that it was a quick drive into manhattan and back home again.

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Beware the Ides of March

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Personally I don’t (see title). But the term sounds cool, and most people don’t get it. Julius Ceasar had a bad day on this date in 44BC. Generally this is the first of a 3 day holiday (self proclaimed) for me. It begins with a normal day March 15, that happens to have a cool sounding reference that was used by Shakespeare. Only other significance for me is it is the day before my birthday! Other stuff happened on March 16th. The Wikipedia has yet to list my birth on their page related to this date. I assume it is just an oversight. That is supposed to be a happy day. That is the middle day of this holiday. And to cap off the 3 day gala event is St. Patrick’s. Recently this is the day I can drink to excess claiming it is a holiday, but really because I am a year older. Who am I kidding. I am a light weight drinker anyway!

No major social events positive or negative happened today. Work was busy. See the work blog for more info. I returned the PCI DVR card I bought last week since it was having major issues with interference so sound was terrible. I tried everything I could think of to fix it. I am back down to 1 tuner for the DVR. I am researching my other options now.

Computer Rebuild, Again

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Today I am wiping my Presario desktop. I am moving all my DVR hardware onto it and re-installing the OS. My little DVR machine is fine, but it does not have enough inputs (internal or external). That made it difficult to add extra drive capacity or another TV tuner. Since I am not really using my more powerful Presario desktop for anything other than remoting into it to use VMWare I figured I would combine the two. The hardware should be able to handle both tasks without any problems. It is after all an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ with 1.5gig of ram and 2 250gig SATA hard drives.

I am in the process of installing Windows XP now. hopefully the Beyond TV & Beyond Media install’s go well, and I have no problems with the video capture cards. More news later

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