Reggie's Ramblings » OSX

My month on OS/X is finished

reggie — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:28:20 +0000

Well, I’ve finished my month on OS/X. It wasn’t really a month but rather a couple of weeks here and there. To be honest I didn’t really hit too many situations where I felt like I needed Windows. I didn’t have good luck with Chicken-of-the-VNC and the Mac version of remote desktop is not nearly as good as on Windows. That being said I love the fact that iCal and Contacts sync with Google.

I’m writing this under Windows 7 but I’m typing it into the web UI. I’ll likely hang out in OS/X a bit more as I have some video editing I need to do and iMovie just blows away any free products on Windows.

My 30 days on OS/X – day 6

reggie — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:32:05 +0000

Well, I’ve only had to run back to Windows once. I have VNC installed on my Windows 7 Media Center computer but somehow I just couldn’t get Chicken of the VNC to work right and we were having a volume issue.

So far what’s the verdict? Well, there are some things I really like and some things I don’t. Here’s a breakdown of the software I was using on Windows, what I’m using on Mac, and if it’s better or worse.

HydraIRC is a great Windows IRC client. On the Mac I’m using Colloquy and I must say I prefer Colloquy. It’s faster to connect and has a better default profile for notifying you when things happen. With HydraIRC you could easily miss a PM. Not going to happen with Colloquy.
Skype is skype
I use Digsby for IM, Facebook, and Twitter on Window. On the Mac, I’m using Adium for IM and Facebook and Twhirl for twitter. This is a push. I prefer how Adium handles conversations but prefer Digsby for twitters.
Use Chrome for browsing on both but I have to say that I prefer Chrome on Windows.
I love how Apple Mail handles mail. The keyboard interface is great and the find is awesome. Much better than Thunderbird. I also love the LDAP integration with Address Book (seeing my co-workers pictures in mail is great)
iMovie is GarageBand is better than anything at the same price on Windows
iPhoto is ok

I still plan on finishing my 30 day experiment. Will I stay on OS/X after the experiment is over? I doubt it. There’s simply not enough ‘can’t live without’ features on OS/X to justify the pain. Ok, back to work.

It’s time for something fun

reggie — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:23:04 +0000

So, a few years ago I had this rule that about every 6 months I would use a version of Linux for a few weeks just to see how it had progressed and compare that to Windows. I can’t really recall when I stopped but I do remember that I really enjoyed having a better understanding of other systems. I think it’s time to do it again. However, this time I won’t be using Linux.

I have access to both Windows 7 and Macs. I’ve been a Windows developer for a long time but with the improvements made in virtual machine solutions I’ve started doing most of my development work in vms. I find it refreshing to keep all my development work sandboxed in a system that I can easily take and rollback snapshots as needed. I recently ran some winsat checks on my native box (a Core i7 rig with 8gigs DDR3 memory) and a virtual machine configured to use all 8 cpus. The results were nearly identical with the virtual machine turning in 95% performance on cpu tests and beating the host system in disk tests (the vm was using a 80gig file as a disk).

So, since the VM is giving me enough performance to do my work I am really free to use whatever I like as a host system. So, here I am preparing to embark on a fun adventure.

I”m going to use Snow Leopard (in 64 bit mode) for 30 days while doing my Windows work in a VM. I don’t intend to run back to Windows for anything during that time as I really want to force myself to use OS/X. During this time I’ll blog frequently about issues I’m facing, things I like, things I don’t like, and work arounds I’ve found.

So, to get started here’s what my day normally looks like on the computer.

Lots of development work on Windows (Visual Studio 2008 and 2010)
IRC/Skype chatting with friends and co-workers
Email with co-workers
Using Google calendar to manage my day to day activities
Editing Word/Excel/Powerpoint documents (these are more rare these days but they do happen)
Watching recorded tv shows from my Media Center HTPC
Watching shows from NetFlix and Hulu
Listening to music from Pandora, Slacker, Sky.FM, and personal music collection
Blog reading/writing
Facebook and twitter’ing

Well, wish me luck.

One of the things OS/X does right

reggie — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 03:09:40 +0000

I’m writing this on a 2008 Macbook Pro that I dual boot between Snow Leopard and Windows 7. I spend most of my time in Windows but occasionally I pop into SL to test something out or use iMovie to edit some video. From time to time, when OS/X boots, you get this nice System Update dialog that explains that some installed software on your system needs to be updated. Here’s a shot of the one I just got.

What’s interesting to notice is that it is listing non-Apple products as having upgrade available. My Epson printer drivers and Microsoft provided remote desktop client software are both listed.

Why can’t Microsoft do this? Why do I have to manually check for upgrades for products like this?

Keeping a system fully updated is the easiest way to keep things running smoothly. Microsoft does a nice job of this with system level patches and hardware components, but it does nothing to help keep my products updated. Windows 7 gets a lot of things right but this one goes to OS/X.