Windows on Mac


Loaded both the Parallels VM as well as boot camp on my shiny new Macbook (Pro). It is a bit disconcerting to run Windows XP on a Mac. I remember why I like OS X so much :-)) Actually both installs went smoothly. The trick to getting Airport to work with Parallells is to select en1. I am still trying to get the two virtual machines to connect to eachother over the network -- while preserving as much of each of the respective firewalls as I can. At the very least I can ping the VM so I am sure that it won't be too difficult to mount the VM drive using Windows Sharing.

Of course this type of activity is old hat in the computer world and for Virtual PC users but to have things work at usable speeds and on a laptop no less is really terrific. Bootcamp is a tad smoother than Parallels but I'm more inclined to use Parallels on a frequent basis unless there is some 3D graphics intensive program that only runs on Windows (I am not a huge gamer).

So what do I need Windows for?

Two things ... firstly, many of the hospitals have chosen the GE PACS ... an expensive system that allows us to view MRI and CT scans across the hospital network, and via a VPN on a browser ... the kicker is that GE in their infinite wisdom have implemented their browser based system such that Internet Explorer (on a PC) is required ... losers ... in any case I need to bring up IE for this application. The other being ...

At this point in time the USB based GPS devices (that have good software) require the PC.

Other than that I don't need Microsoft software for anything.

Having the two OSes side by side on the same machine really shows off how smooth OS X is. Oh and the battery lasts far longer under OS X. Little details like a camera that can sense ambient light levels and properly adjust the screen as well as the backlit keyboard make this laptop a joy to use. Oh and trying to color correct the monitor under Windows is arcane in comparison.

Posted: Sun - April 9, 2006 at 09:34 PM          

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