Technology

VMware on a Mac?

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The rumors are flying that VMware will be announcing something at Macworld this week. Rumors are rumors, but VMware has said they have been testing their product on the Intel Macs. I for one would be very happy with an announcement being a mac user who uses VMware on a daily basis at work. VMware Workstation and VMware server tools running on the mac would give me one less reason to need a windows machine. Well honestly it would really be one less linux machine since I got fed up with my windows desktop at work last week and ended up trying to reinstall windows xp 3 times before giving up and putting Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on my computer.

I will keep my fingers crossed this week!!!

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The Perpetual Upgrade

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Since I am perpetually upgrading I am now sporting a new Apple Macbook Pro. Well honestly it is not mine. it is my new work computer. I have given up the small size of my Powerbook 12″ for the power and the Core Duo intel chip of the 15″ Macbook Pro. It is big, but that means the screen is also big. I am hoping not to carry it home every day like I did with the Powerbook. That may make me not care so much about the size. Every so often I swap back and forth between wanting a nice size screen and a small form factor. Neither are perfect, so I never know what I want. I am at a point where I want a nice size screen so I can work off the laptop anywhere.

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Outlook to the Mac

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Last year I found software that would export mail in my outlook pst files to plain old text and html files. That was great for archiving. I exported everything so I can keep it in a universal format such as plain text instead of being reliant on Microsoft’s outlook pst file format. I was very happen until recently when Andrew showed me O2M. It is a tool that exports outlook pst data into mbox files so I can then import them into Mail or Entourage on my Mac. This is also very helpful since now I can keep all my old mail in the mail program that I actually use. I have been cleaning up my PST files so I can port them over to Apple Mail. My results so far have been great. Well worth the $10 for the tool!

My only problem now is that I have (will have) everything in Apple Mail. I hope there is a tool where I can extract mail from that program and port it to something else? I like having my options open even if I don’t have an immediate plan to move off of Apple Mail.

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The Evil Empire Is Evil, But Has Good Signal

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After an issue with really poor signal at our new office while setting up some gear we have decided to ditch our Nextell’s. I like the direct connect, but having the phones work and recieving email all the time on the Blackberry’s are more important than having a cool feature. So we took the plunge and got Verizon Wireless phones. I personally don’t like the heavy handed tacktics they use to keep customers (2 year deals, and limited time frames to upgrade phones) but their service is still probibly the best in NYC. I finally ported my number from my personal T-Mobile line over and now am very happy with my new Treo 700P on the EVDO data service.

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New Desk Setup

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Now that the iMac is gone I was able to reorganize my desk a bit and get back to 1 monitor. I rewired my desk with KVM cables. I now have my HP desktop plugged back in along with my Macbook on the same monitor. I switched back to a VGA monitor and put away my 20″ Apple Cinema Display. I am hoping to sell the Apple display since it doesn’t work with my VGA KVM. It is DVI of course. Those displays retain their value a bit so I am hopeful I will get a decent amount of cash for it. Now I can plug in up to 2 more computers but right now I only need to plug in 2.

I also cleaned up some cables and did some heavy dusting while I was under my desk. Man the dust accumulates.

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iMac is Sold

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I have completed my sale of my 20″ intel iMac. It didn’t sell on ebay but one of the bidders was local (i do live in the biggest city in the country) and still wanted it, was willing to pay for the reserve and show up to get it. Now that I have my money I will pay for the Macbook I just got!

Before the sale I ran out on this crappy morning for a hair cut. and then ran off to work (see next post)

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54 Wireless Networks

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With my new Macbook I find 54 wifi networks in my apartment (See the first page of them in picture below). it is crazy. With my iMac or Powerbook I found only like 9. The antenna is that much more sensitive on this new Macbook. Now I have to find out how many of them are open with good signal strength. I also need to make sure my own wifi network is not getting bad signal strength because it is sharing a channel with too many nearby networks.

54 Wireless Networks

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New Macbook

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I broke down this weekend and bought a Macbook. I got the black one. I was hoping for a larger hard drive but didn’t want to special order it. I went to the new Apple store on 59th street. They had a ton in stock, or so it seemed. I decided that I do want a home computer even thought I have a work laptop. I also took Danny’s lead and figured why does my home computer need to be a desktop. I love my iMac. It is fast, and has everything I need, but it also has things I don’t need like tons of size! I also don’t like being locked into 1 monitor size. With a portable I can get a larger external screen if I want one.

So with my new Macbook in hand I will be eBaying my iMac. It served me well, but it does have to go so I can pay for the Macbook. I should get a decent price for it since it is in mint condition, with original packaging and an AppleCare.

I am off to take photos of the gear now!

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Useful Mac Applications Part 2

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I had so many new apps that where so cool I had to make a part 2 to my new and notable Mac software.

Skype & Gizmo are both relatively free VOIP clients. Skype is proprietary and very popular, and the Gizmo Project is an open source project. Both allow me to make and receive calls directly from my Mac without a phone. I have had a skype phone number for about a year now, and I just went out and bought the Gizmo number. I don’t use either service as much as I would like, but they both are fantastic. When I travel (not as often as I used to) they are great. I can use my bluetooth headset paired directly with my Mac for a long calls. For $20 I bought a USB handset for Skype that acts like a normal phone handset. It is very cool. Now that both apps are Universal binaries I am happy on my work Powerbook or my home Mac.

Unison is a universal binary Usnet News reader. I go into and out of phases where I use Usenet. I am currently loving Unison’s ease of use. It does bog down my Intel Mac when it is downloading lots of headers, but other than that it is a good all around app.

Rename4mac is a useful program that I have actually been using for a while but I wanted to throw it in. It takes any batch of files and allows you to rename them all in a new format. This is great for me since I can’t stand the format that my digital camera uses.

RDC Menu is a little freeware app that takes Microsoft’s Remote Desktop app for the Mac and lets you access it from the Menu bar. What is really does well is allow you to run multiple instances of RDC so you can have multiple remote sessions at the same time. You can do that with the windows version but until this app you couldn’t do it with the Mac one. For work this is helps out so much.

RPG is a freeware random password generator. It is a universal binary and it even lets you select some characters not to use in its random passwords. For my job it is great to be able to just wip up a few random passwords when I need them. I had a windows app that did the same thing but I finally found a replacement for it with RPG.

SnapNDrag is not as good as snagit for windows (or that is how I feel so far) but it is a great full screen capture program. It also lets you take snapshots of just one window, and more. It is very helpful for documentation. It is a helpful addition to my list of apps.

I will add more as I come across worthwhile software.

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Roundup of Useful Mac Applications

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Every few months I go through a phase of looking for new programs that improve my day to day work experience on the computer. Not sure why I do it in phases, but it always seems when I switch to one program I am getting 5 more. Some end up being really cool and I continue to use, and others are just a fad and I forget about them quickly. Below are quick reviews of the several new applications that are all around great apps!

Growl I something that I installed last year but stopped using it when I switched computers. I guess you can call it a unified application notification system. It gives you alerts and events from several apps as a single system. it can get annoying if you have it notify too much stuff, but once I tuned it I got it working great. I like that it tells me the itunes songs I just started playing, or that I have new email and gives a quick flash of who sent it and the subject.

Rapidweaver is a simple but feature filled web-page and site authoring program for the Mac. Since I started using the Mac I full time over Windows XP I have been lacking a good web editor. I used Dreamweaver for basic page edits, but I never liked it. I always ended up going back to my XP box for Frontpage to do web work. Now Frontpage isn’t that good either but I was used to it, and I didn’t find anything better. That was until I saw a review for RapidWeaver. It does have its limits, but for the home page I have, I was able to redo my entire site in RapidWeaver in a few hours. All 300 megs of photos and all. RapidWeaver is not perfect. I all but can’t use it on my Intel iMac (universal binary version coming soon or so they say), so I use it on my Powerbook. That being said this software was worth the money I spent on it!

HandBreak is a free utility that will take a DVD and convert it for use in iTunes or on your iPod (aka makes a Divix or H.264 format). It takes a while to run, but it works great! I can convert a bunch of DVD’s to my iPod and watch them on the way to and from work!

iSquint is another great program that lets me convert media into Divix and H.264 file formats for use in iTunes and my iPod. iSquint takes existing video files such as MPEG-2, or AVI’s and will convert them. iSquint is fast and easy to setup. With it I can take any TV show I record with my DVR and put it on my iPod to watch later or when I am traveling.

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