Yesterday I’m at a car wash, cleaning the crap out of my car like I have to do before the lads can get in a vacuum and whatnot. The trash in my car usually consists mostly of empty water bottles and the occasional soda bottle. I spend a lot of time in my car and I like to stay hydrated.
Anyway.
A lightbulb appeared. Been awhile since I had one, and it was good. Why not, at the car wash locations, have 2 cans for customers to empty trash? One for trash and the other for recycleables. I’m thinking this is a great idea, the customers would probably love it, and there is a good chance this could be done for the cost of the cans alone and maybe a slight increase in our service costs.
I bring it up to one of the managers who instantly shoots it down.
It just doesn’t pay to have ideas anymore gang. I know I’m going to stop sharing mine.
‘Rents are still here too, which doesn’t help. I need them to leave so I can get some work done. I still have to get the Monday WRR show up, and I don’t know when I’ll have the time to finish it. Not to mention updates to 2 sites I manage and god knows how many stories behind I am at MF. Ugh.
Or, it’s-been-so-long-I-had-to-log-in-again.
The podcast
I’ll start with the latest episode of the w(t)f podcast. It’s actually a week old and the last one I’m going to be doing for a while. I explain it in the show, but here is a short list of reasons:
- Sound quality – I know y’all like the shows from the MINI, but I can’t stand to listen to them myself because I think they sound so poor
- Topic quality – I’m not vain enough to talk about myself on a podcast as the primary topic, which is the direction it was heading in
- Work flow – This show had to be easy. Record, mix down, upload done. While it was easy to do, if I forgot my memory card reader, then the show didn’t happen.
- Consistency – I wasn’t able to come up with a regular schedule for this show. I know, from previous experience, that this is a big deal. You can say otherwise, but you would be lying
I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I really want to do another show, but not in the format that I have just experimented with. I will revist this again at another time, but something with more user interaction and something with audio quality I would be happy with.
w(t)f_ep9: no player. sorry, it sounded chimpmunked.
I’ve also made episode 0 available here as well if you missed it on pownce. You can get it here and you can download ep9 here
iPods and updates
I want to take a minute to thank those of you that contributed to the Lad’s iPod fund! It really meant a lot to him and myself, that there are people out there nice enough to want to help. Thank you!
He thinks that money went toward the purchase of a new bike. ha ha. It’s actually still sitting in my paypal account for 2 more weeks. At which point, I will surprise him with a new one, sort of a back to school surprise. Don’t tell him, ok?
I still have to get another copy of my drivers license. I have had a few automotive issues that needed to be resolved first. I’m hopeful that I will be able to get it taken care of this week. There is an alternate DMV on my way to work that usually isn’t very busy, so I’m going to try to hit them up one day on my drive in.
That’s about it for now. The ‘rents are here until Wednesday, so you know I’ll have something really good to post!
Not very SFW, but if you have spent any time on message boards or crusing through the comments at /. or digg, you’ll get it.
Or Windows vs. OSX Installation
This week the lad managed to get some real nasty crap on his laptop, which used to be my laptop. Anyway, that’s what you get for doing a google search for AIM and installing whatever is linked on the first page of results.
So, yea, spyware and god knows what. When I say nasty I mean nasty. The stuff that doesn’t ever shut off. Well, it does, but then starts right back up again. Also killed his wireless (which is always odd to me…if spyware disables wifi, what’s the point?) which is good so it didn’t spread.
So, for the 2nd time this week, I had to install Windows. I also had the chance to install OSX. As far as the experience, I would have to call it a tie.
When installing Windows it keeps you up-to-date on the process the whole way, from start to finish. It’s pretty quick for the most part and simple. When installing OSX, it seems to take longer because it doesn’t provide any progress indicators, just the apple on the screen for what seems like forever.
Winner: Windows XP
After the install there is a shed load of updates that have to be installed for both OS’s. Windows update has to be run, reboot, run again, reboot again and run once more to make sure you got everything. On OSX you download, install, reboot. It’s about the same amount of files (unless you need SP2 on XP) but without the extra reboots, it’s faster and easier.
Winner: OSX
Once updates are applied, then it’s time to tweak. Install programs, adjust settings and all that. I would say the experience is the same on both, but with Windows you get the added benefit of getting to install anti-virus.
Winner: Close, but OSX but a skoosh
So, I would say the experience is about the same on both, or pretty close to it.
Yes the lad was spoken too. He will ask me next time he needs help getting something downloaded and installed. At least he better!
As you know, I’ve been using VMWare Fusion on the Macbook for a few days to run Windows XP and a few apps I need for day to day work. Of course, I have tried a few other things on it and this is what I think so far.
Installation was easy, installing like every other Mac app out there.
Making the Virtual Machine was equally easy, if not a little time consuming. What it does it put a PC-like environment on your Mac. You ‘boot’ this PC, put in the Windows disc and it installs as if you were putting it on a hard drive. It’s not a normal WinXP install, more like an unattended install. VM knows the hardware running and installs the appropriate drivers for you.
Of course, once Windows is running, you still have to do all the normal things envolved with running Windows. Namely about an hours worth of updates and reboots from MS. But once that is done, it’s exactly like having Windows installed on your Mac.
You can run VM 3 different ways. Windowed (runs like any other app on the OSX desktop), Full screen (no dock or Menu bar, so it’s exactly like Windows) or Unity.
When running in Window mode, screen resolution automatically adjusts for the size of the screen you are using. I find this to be less than useful for doing anything more than command line functions or playing solitare. Also when running this way you loose a large bit of screen real estate to the VM menu bar that sits on top of the window, plus the status bar on the bottom.
When running in full screen mode, it is EXACTLY like being on a windows machine. The keys on a mac keyboard are automatically remapped to work like a Windows keyboard, you have full sound, access to the USB ports, CD ROM drive and iSight camera. In fact, this can throw you off a bit of you connect your camera and expect iPhoto to open, but get a Windows prompt instead. You can turn off the connectivity for the USB/CD/iSight, but default is everything connected.
The Mac also serves as DHCP server for the VM by default. You can also disable access to the network to the VM or you can set it up to use the Windows network stack in bridge mode with the Mac. All of these work perfectly.
Running Unity isn’t that great I’ve found. It is supposed to act as a Window layer that allows you to run Windows programs (actually, anything in the start menu) on the Mac.
As cool as this may sound or look, I have found it to be less than reliable. More than once the Mac gets confused, almost locks up, and then continues. It works, but not as well as full screen or windowed. One thing that is interesting is when you minimize a program, it goes to the dock, which is cool in the most un-natural of ways.
Overall performance so far is great. You are able to allocate as much or as little drive space an memory to the VM as you like. You can even specify 1 or 2 CPU cores, which is nice. I’m currently using 1GB of RAM, 15GB of drive space and 1 CPU. Honestly, it runs as good as it did on my Dell Inspiron, if not a little better.
I’m using the trial version right now, but after I run for a full week I would imagine I’ll go ahead and make the purchase. Once I do that, I’m thinking a Linux VM or 3 might be in order as well.
If you are in need of running Windows but really want a Mac, this is a great way to do it!
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