Short time out from my computers...

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Been busy playing with 2 new computers, 3 new operating systems, dual booting the PC with Windows 7, Linux, plus the Snow Leopard on the new iMac.

I skipped the entire Vista experience, and jumped from XP to Windows 7 directly. It's different, but familiar enough that it's not too difficult. Going from XP, I had to do a fresh install. The installation didn't take too long, it's copying the large quantity of files that take the longest amount of time. It crashed once, but that's when I was running a benchmark software (Sandra), and that was the only time. No problem with drivers, but the machine is fairly new.

Second Partition on the same PC, I installed Ubuntu 9.04 workstation, also 64-bit. I am very impressed by the maturity of this distribution (I am sure it's the same for other distros).

I have to say that the installation process might be the most intimidating, but only because I have to deal with dual booting the system; if I am installing only Ubuntu on a dedicated PC, then I have to say the installation process is a lot simpler. You have to partition the drive with the partition utility that comes with Ubuntu first, then Install Window 7, then install Ubuntu. If I have to reinstall, I'll have to read up on it again, it's not something I'd like to commit to memory. The workflow of Gnome desktop is very similar to Windows (much more so than OS X). Many utilities and productivity software are included, which I can get up and run with it right away. Nice.

Without my prompting, it even recognized my network printer, which was cool. It didn't have the right driver from the install, but it wasn't hard to download the right driver from Brother's web site. Installing updates is also an easy process, it works just like Windows, only difference is that it installed 300+ updates, not a process for dial up connection, :).

I didn't plan on purchasing the Mac this past weekend, but when my wife said go for it, heck yeah, ;). The hardware is pure elegance, and super quite, I really enjoy the silent operation.

I haven't been a big fan of all in one systems, but after messing with my new PC a week earlier, with cables everywhere, I decided to go for the iMac. I was thinking of the 21.5 inch model, but she insisted on the 27 inch model, hell yeah! And they always say that size doesn't matter, :). I could operate the system with 1 cord (power), with the use of blue tooth keyboard and mouse, and wireless network. In real world scenario, I have to add cable to attach my external drive, cables for my card reader, and iPod, still a cleaner work space though. Oh, speaking of the mouse, the new Magic Mouse is really cool, but it is a little too "flat" for me; I am used to mouse that I can wrap my hand around it, using the magic mouse a few hours, I find my wrist started to hurt; also, the buttons, I still like a mouse with 2 physical left and right buttons.

Very different world this OS X is. Have to learn a new work flow, I think that's my first challenge.

Next, a few surprised when I was transferring my photos to the Mac. Using existing external drive, I can read files from a drive formatted in NTFS, but can't write to it; I decided to format a second external drive to native Mac OS, so I can use it for my back ups. As for photo software, for now, I will use Picasa 3, which works really well, and available in all 3 OSs. Eventually, my goal is to switch all my personal work to Mac, not sure how long it will take, but it's too much work to try to maintain different platforms.

To keep it on-topic, I have to upload a couple of pictures while learning on the Mac.....