FUD: Apple User Style

Some called John Pospisil has written an article on his blog jumping on the Vista bashing bandwagon. His article entitled "Microsoft slugs Mac users with Vista Tax" on the tech.blorge.com blogging site is just a load of uninformed crap. From the article:

Mac users wanting to run Vista on their Macintosh will have to buy an expensive version of Vista if they want to legally install it on their systems.

The end-user license agreement for the cheaper versions of Vista (Home Basic and Home Premium) explicitly forbids the use of those versions on virtual machines (ie Macs pretending to be PCs)

This is misleading, the EULA on the cheaper versions of Vista forbids the installation of these versions as Virtual Machines running under virtualisation software such as Parrallels, VMWare or even Microsofts Virtual PC. This relates to ALL platforms that these virtualisation programs support, not just Macs. It does not stop you from installing Vista on your Apple under Boot Camp.

This article is just pure FUD. I am suprised that a "tech" site would even publish something that is so incorrect and misleading. The ensuing arguements on slashdot and even on the article itself are just so funny. People who obviously know nothing about what they are discussing stating opinions as fact. Oh I love the Interweb.

Boot Camp: Windows on the MacBook

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had installed Windows on the MacBook using Parallels, a virtualisation application within OSX. Yesterday I took the plunge and installed Boot Camp. Boot Camp allows you to run Windows natively as a Dual Boot alongside OSX.

Ok, I don't know how good idea this was for Apple. They have made it bloody easy and neat to partition your hard drive and get Windows installed. It was a snap. Once partitioned the Boot Camp Assistant restarted the laptop and the Windows install started. The Assistant even burned a CD of Mac Drivers for when Windows needs to install the strange hardware.

Once all installed I customised Windows to how I like it and I have to say, it runs about 5 times better than OSX running on the same hardware. Firefox starts up in about a quarter of the time, Outlook is practically instant (compared to quite a long wait for OSX Mail). Windows Media Player loads up my entire media library in no time, searching and playing across the network without fault, while iTunes chunks and falters. Photoshop runs BRILLIANTLY in Windows, but is plodding and slow on OSX. All the neat features of the Mac are here: decent hardware, "dual touch" mouse or whatever its called, eject button, function keys and all the crap parts of OSX are gone (Finder is a poor subsitute to Explorer, and the inconsistancy between interfaces on programs).

It runs beautifully. Better than any PC I have ever used Windows on before. I guess all those years of knowing how to write for Intel Hardware really paid off for Microsoft / the rest of the PC community. For those interested the specs of my Macbook are: 2ghz Core 2 Duo, 2 gig of 667mhz RAM, 64mb Intel Onboard Graphics, 120gig 5400rpm HDD.

Will I switch back to OSX? Occasionally, but really: why would I? It offers me nothing that Windows doesn't, I know how to look after my PCs (I don't get viruses / spyware) and there is a much larger software library and better programs for Windows (uTorrent to name but one piece of software brilliance).

Suddenly my laptop is useful.

Mac Whinge #1

Now that I actually OWN a Mac I am officially allowed to whinge about how shit it is.

While the Quartz rendering engine is markedly superior to that in Windows its text rendering SUCKS. It is terrible. Anyone that has used (and tuned) Windows Cleartype on an LCD, particularly on high resolution screens, should agree. Cleartype is far better than what ever Quartz is using.

Fonts that are antialiased on Quartz are shockingly bad, often barely readable, and you CANT TURN IT OFF.

It is a relief to switch to XP in Parallels and see a nice crisp interface.

Boo to Mac