Go to Bootcamp

Don’t know whether to buy a new WinTel PC or try a Mac? Why not try both?

I have a long history with Apple and Mac computers, ever since I was a kid. As an adult, I waited patiently to get one and now I finally have a Mac Mini, running a dual-core Intel CPU.

The nice thing about it is that you can enjoy both worlds. Using a program from Apple called Bootcamp you can install as many operating systems on your Mac as you'd like. I currently have Mac OS X 1.4.9 and Windows XP SP2. I considered adding Linux, but didn't see the point, as Mac OS X has a UNIX kernel.

Bootcamp made it very easy for me to installl Windows XP:

1. It partitioned the hard disk
2. Created an image disc with all the drivers needed to be installed in Windows
3. Prepared the machine for installation
4. And finally, installed a control panel, in both OSs, allowing easy switching between them.

Of course, the cons are:

1. One OS at a time
2. To share disk space between the 2 OSs, it has to be formatted to FAT32, as Mac OS X doesn't allow writing to an NTFS partition, and XP can only read HFS with the aid of a third party software.

But still, I consider getting my parents a Mac Mini, even just for the form factor and ease of use...

VMWare 6 is in Beta

VMWare has long been one of my favorite softwares for several years now.
The ability to use several virtual machines to test and learn new operating systems, softwares and test scenarios – amazing, and cheap!

VMWare v6 is in beta. I have it installed and it does offer some improvements, especially for 64bit and Vista and for Dual Core CPUs (all of you with D620s :)).
But the most interesting addition I can see is the new scripting language they've added. All the machines are now fully scriptable with a C like language. I can think of several such usages we can utilize.

If you wish to learn more: Release Notes or Download.

BEWARE! It uninstalls V5.5 - but does not harm or change the VMs themselves.

Posted from Word 2007

I decided to see whether I can post directly from Word 2007 (as advertised).

So this is a test blog. If this works, posting will become much easier for me in the future…

Oh wait – it works! Thanks Microsoft, for doing something right :)

7 (Ok 8) rules of support

JoelOnSoftware by Joel Spolsky, is one of my favorite blogs out there,
and I could probaly fill my blog by cross-linking to his - which is not quite original. But this article, is a must read:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html

IIS 7 - start now!

Here's a document on how to start using IIS 7 (currently available in Vista only) and the differences from IIS 6:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/03/IIS7/