Full time Mac user - sort of
Anyone that has been on this site before will know that I have an affinity for Apple Macs, particularly their laptops. Since moving to Sweden I have now ditched windows machines - full time, almost!
Actually one of the main reasons for getting the new MacBook Pro was that I could run, OSX, Windows XP (or Vista) and Linux/BSD on the same machine. Because of work Windows XP is a major requirement, our software mainly runs on it and a lot of development is done on it and after testing that it ran our OpenGL based VizArtist correctly I knew that it was the right machine to have with 2Gb of RAM of course.
So I knew that that was the right machine, but of course switching using dualboot (called Bootcamp by Apple) can be a major pain, so I turned to Parallels. Parallels allows you to run a virtual machine on top of OSX, but in the latest version is its killer feature - the virtual machine can come from another partition - in this case my bootcamp Windows XP partition. And then it can integrate with the desktop so that you can switch between applications whether they are OSX based or Windows Based seamlessly.
So I get the best of both worlds. Obviously I cant run games using it, but I don’t run games on a work PC. Recommended.
February 14th, 2008 at 4:19 am
Hi Tim,
Long time… Listen, I installed Bootcamp (XP) on a new MacBook Pro and love it! I can’t believe how stable and fast it runs. It looks to do all the things a normal PC can do.
Since you have more experience than I do with the concept, tell me if its worth moving to this platform. What are the pitfalls? I’m looking to move from my Lenovo t60 to the MacBook Pro w/Bootcamp. I plan to work mostly in Windows XP with all the networking stuff… and switch back to OSX when needed. I’ll be working with an External monitor connected.
Is there anything I should know first? Can the MacBook project an image on my external monitor while the screen closed? Can I right click using just the touchpad?
Thanks in advance.
Best,
JR
February 15th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Hi mate,
how goes it?
Glad you are liking the new powerbook. My first recommendation would be to buy Parallels - its like VMWare, but it will allow you to run the Bootcamp partition at the same time as OSX, with some nice features - check it out, I think that you will be impressed and switching between partitions will become tiresome so its a good compromise.
This will allow you to run those bits of software that you need from the Windows world. I guess the network tools you are talking about must be some kind of Microsoft Active Directory stuff, as the networking functionality within OS X is much more complete being based on *nix.
I rarely use any software that needs Windows anymore (apart from our graphic renders, but they need special hardware anyway) as there is good OS X native software for just about everything, and Entourage and Mac Office 2008 is not bad - not as fully functional as the latest Windows Office - but hardly anyone uses all those features anyway.
I don’t know of a way to right-click in bootcamp, I always use an external mouse - its too frustrating otherwise. With OS X you can use the external screen with the lid shut - not sure about when its running Windows.
The main thing that you should know is that there are several apps that you should try on OS X:
Quicksilver - It really makes using OS X much better than using Windows
NetNewsWire - If you read RSS feeds a lot
OmniGraffle - Visio replacement
MacFuse with SSHFS - mounting NTFS drives with read, write. And mounting external servers easily.
TextMate - Good text editor.
There are hundreds of small applications that are really good and really simple to use that are worth checking out.
Oh and when an Apple update comes out (you will be notified via Software Update automatically), wait a couple of days then check to see if anyone has had any problems.
Enjoy!