So I have had my MacBook up for about a week new, and I took it on a road trip. So far I am loving it. This notebook is solid, and the keyboard is lovely. I am also in love with the trackpad. I am not sure if I can go back to a normal trackpad. I find myself trying to click, scroll, and expose on other laptops.
While I am loving the MacBook, I am not sure how I feel about OSX… or really how I feel about the software available for OSX. The iLife software package that comes with OSX sucks compared to the Windows Live package. Lets start with iWeb… who still makes web pages? Everyone blogs these days and Windows Live Writer is the best software package out there. In fact there is no Mac software package that even comes close! This is my biggest compliant for OSX, there is no software free or paid, that come close to Live Writer. Also Windows Live Gallery kicks iPhotos butt. iPhoto is a cutesy kids version of photo management. The tagging and organizational features of Live Gallery set it apart.
I am sure I will find solutions going forward, but it is a learning curve. I still find myself booting back into Vista for blogging.
Here is one of the biggest things I have learned:
– To right click in BootCamp, which a multi-touch trackpad, use three fingers to click instead of two. I took me a long time to figure this out.
Well I had a little trouble with the first MacBook I got. It wasn’t able to read the Leopard Install DVD that it came with. The weird thing is that other computers could read the DVD. The drive in the MacBook wasn’t broken though it was able to read other CDs and DVDs.
I brought it back to Apple store and they gave me a new one. This one was able to read that DVD, as were the other MacBooks in the store. Weird stuff!
Anyhow, I am back up and running. I had to start installing everything from scratch. I have my itunes copied over and Vista installed through BootCamp. Time to rock and roll!
I taped up the Man in a Fur Suit drawing in our alley… just to be random. So far it has been there a week. Either the alley is really safe our the drawing is really bad.
I was having trouble uninstalling SQL server 2005. Luckily I found this help. Turns out it was stupid AOL AIM. UGh!
» FIX: SQL Server System Configuration Checker cannot be executed due to WMI configuration (Error:2147500034)
An updated version of .NET and Visual Studio Express C# 2008 just came out. .NET 3.5 SP1 adds a lot of great features: Better virtualization performance, and the addition of a WPF splash screen among other things. I have also been using VS Pro 2005 C#… which can do WPF, but it is really awkward. The build in WPF designer really sucks and you have to add in lots of stuff to the base install. Anyhow, I don’t use alot of the features that come from the paid version. The express version is a pared down version. The only thing I am missing is the install setup package. I am going to give this one click thing a try.
Download VS Express C# 2008 SP1: here
Do it… and start programming!!!
I have come to realize that all I really use my desktop computer for is storing lots of files. Truth is I do most of my stuff on my laptop. The power supply on my desktop just went out, so I have been thinking more and more about just ditching the desktop and getting a NAS instead.
The big feature for me is having Itunes streaming. Down the road it would be great to hook up a network media player to access files on the server. SlimServer (also called squeezecenter) is a media server that can run on a lot of this NAS device. A lot of them also have this as a built in capability.
Right now here is what I have found:
- HP Media Vault, has Itunes aggregation. Comes with 500gb, can add an additional 500gb
- All of the QNAP servers support Itunes integration. seems to have a large firmware dev crowd. it can run slimserver.
- Synology – really well made and support itunes streaming, and ton of other features. I think I might go with them. They can also run SlimServer. This version has 2-bays and goes for about $299
Just got a new cartoon book: The Cartoonist’s Workbook. Plenty of good material here. Here is my first exercise. I tried to draw a number of different expressions:
I was up in Boulder this week. We got a couple of inches of snow, but it was gone in a few hours. I flew there on Frontier, and flew back the morning they announced Bankruptcy…. luckily no flights were canceled.
