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I found out that VMWare is doing a contest to win a Macbook Air. You need to post a video to YouTube with the tag ‘switchtofusion‘. I decided to do an entry a while ago. However, I have been busy with a lot of different things and was unable to do the wonderful video ’showing off’ what VMWare can do. I am a VMWare NUT, and I LOVE Fusion even more. (It was one of the deciding factors in my going Mac)

In it’s stead, I decided to throw together a quick video of why I switched from World of Warcraft to VMWare Fusion. (I know, I know.. it’s not the same type of app. I just thought it would be fun) Enjoy:

Anyways, I do want to say that I have been a virtualization user for quite some time. From the very early days of VMWare (geez, what years ago). I have tried Parallels, Virtual PC, and a host of others. I have not found anything to work quite as well as VMWare does. I use all of their products, Fusion, GSX/ESX, Server, and Workstation.

I was really happy when they came out with a Mac version, VMWare Fusion. It was very instrumental in my switching over to the Mac platform. I have to say, that I am quite pleased with how it runs. I really like the Unity interface. (See my MacVista post in this blog) I love the seamless integration. It just plain ROCKS!

OK OK, I’ll stop raving about it, I just wanted to share all of this with you.

GO BUY VMWare Fusion! If you don’t have a Mac, GO BUY A MAC, THEN BUY VMWare Fusion!

See more about switching to fusion: http://www.vmware.com/switchtofusion/

I have been a VMWare fan for a long time. However, on the windows platform I found that it was somewhat easier to use the Virtual PC software to meet my virtualization needs. Recently, I switched to the Mac OS X platform. One of the deciding factors for me to do this was that VMWare released Fusion for the Mac.

This is an amazing software, it allows me to run Windows and my Linux distributions within the Mac environment. It extremely stable and very responsive. As shown in a previous post..

MacVista - Mac on top, Vista on the bottom

Here is my “MacVista” screenshot.

I highly recommend VMWare Fusion.

For more information visit:  Switch to Fusion or Windows on Mac

Good Stuff!

Back in January, we started working on a Home Media Center/Home Server configuration. I started moving some of the equipment that was normally found in my home office to the living room.

We started to build this monster machine that I thought would handle everything. Theoretically, it would and could but when it came to practice, it just didn’t work out. Here’s the YouTube of where we started with this thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqcJ45XRNDM

I decided to turn that computer to our media editing machine and it worked fine, but not great. From my perspective, Vista was just not ready to handle the larger demands we were placing on this machine. So, we decided to throw OS X on it. We were quite surprised at how well it worked. So much so that we have decided to move to the Mac platform throughout our household. (As some of you have been reading)

Moving forward, we decided to look into the feasibility of using the Mac platform as our main Media Center that is connected to the living room television. We’re gonna re-configure our big black quad core and set it up and test it. If this works out for us, we’re planning on getting a full Mac Pro and do the same.

Here is the configuration:

Motherboard: Asus Maximus Formula
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Memory: 8 Gigabytes of Corsair DDR2 (4 x 2GB sticks)
Boot Drive: 500 Gigabyte Seagate
Data Drive: 1 Terabyte Seagate
Video: xFx nVidia GeForce 8800GT w/ 512 MB DDR3
NAS: ReadyNAS NV+ w/ 4 x 750 Gigabyte Seagate drives

Operating System: Leopard OS X 10.5.2 via Leo4All (See NOTE)

“Server” Capabilities:

We will configure the DATA drive to do sharing via bonjour and smb to share our data throughout the house computers.

The ReadyNAS NV+ will be set up as our Time Machine backup drive over the network.

We are still looking into several DLNA/uPNP solutions.

This machine will have iTunes library sharing enabled as well.

Software to be installed and configuration:

VMWare Fusion

We will use VMWare Fusion to run various linux and windows VM’s for our needs. The main Windows VM will be running Vista Ultimate and will provide extender capabilities to our Xbox 360’s.

Toast 9 Titanium

We will use Toast with it’s Tivo functionality to pull and archive our favorite TV shows. We will also set up automatic conversion for use on our iphones.

That’s about it. We’re gonna try to do a full video of this when we do it and will add it to the technochubby stuff on YouTube.

Wish us Luck!

NOTE: Yes, we own a full copy of Leopard. We’d also like to point out that this machine is purely for testing. If this meets our wants/needs we will be purchasing a full Mac Pro. (Just like I just finished purchasing a MacBook Pro once I decided the platform was for me)

Also we do own licenses for all the commercial software that we install on our computers.

Well, I have had the MacBook Air now for 1 day. (well, almost 1 day) I like the form factor and the weight of it. It surprisingly fast for what it is. However, for what I do, here are some issues I have found. Read on…

First off, let me start by saying that I do not believe in dual booting. With all the various virtualization technologies out there, I believe one can achieve almost anything they want to do with a computer with one key OS. This is one of the reasons I went with the Mac platform. OS X, to me, is an extremely stable platform and from my point of view, I should be able to run my windows and linux apps all on one machine.

With that said, I don’t think the MacBook Air has enough juice/hard drive space to drive the applications that I want to run. With just a base install of VMWare Fusion and Vista Business 32-Bit and nothing else running. I am using 2o27 MB of ram with 21 MB free. With my base applications installed and the above Virtual machine, I am using almost half the hard drive space already.

For me and for my needs, I don’t think the MacBook Air will cut it. I kinda knew this going in. I was just hoping that I could make it work.

So, it’s back to the Apple Store later today and I am going to look at the 15″ MacBook Pro. From comparing the specifications, I think that’s the one I will be most happy with. (Damn, I was hoping for a good 13 inch Mac)

I don’t want to leave you with a bad impression of the Air. So, I will say the following about it: It’s a great laptop. I would say, for most users out there that want a good very portable laptop the MacBook Air is not a bad machine. As many others have pointed out, it’s a great supplementary laptop. (Which originally was what I was looking for) Supplementary meaning that you do not use the Air to replace your main computer, but use it for quick trips, traveling where you need quick portable access etc.

So, I leave you guys with a couple screenshots of my “MacVista Air”’s Desktop. I have GeekTools running with my console and top on my desktop. The second picture was to show Safari running side by side with Internet Explorer from the Vista virtual Machine in Unity mode.

Yes, I am a big fan of IronMan. Good Stuff!

PS We shot video of the unboxing of the MacBook Air and will upload it to www.youtube.com/technochubby when I get all this crap organized

Quick Edit: Right after I wrote this entry, I found the following article by Eric Benderoff: Apple’s MacBook Air Love Affair in which he sums it all up with “I don’t think I’m ready for the commitment the Air wants.” That there says it all

With the recent release of Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard) and my current frustrations with Vista,  I have decided to take a look at the Mac platform for my production work.

Yes yes, I know that I have been blogging about Linux and it’s variants, but for what I do, I need something that I don’t have to fuss around with much.  I need to be able to edit video and audio.  I need it to “just work”.   Linux is making great strides in multimedia, but from my perspective, there is still too much configuration required to make it work the way I want it to.

Moving forward, I have decided to try OSX out on a “hackintosh” BEFORE I spend real money on Apple hardware. (again, I know this is oxymoronic considering what I said in my last paragraph, but I don’t mind playing with the OS first then getting the hardware properly)  

With all that said, I decided to see if I can get Leopard running on one of my test machines.  Specifically, one of my Toshiba laptops with an AMD processor.  Since I do not trust downloaded software for the most part, I decided to buy a legitimate copy of Leopard to work with.  I figure, if all doesn’t work well for me, I can sell it.  (normally, I would just buy a Mac, but I can’t float the 2,000 for the time being - besides, 150 bux is better than 2k to try it out)  

For yet another piece of irony, from my research so far, I need to have a running copy of 10.4.x to get the AMD patches onto a Leopard install DVD.  (I had to download a copy of this - LOL)  It’s just temporary, but it’s funny to me none the less. 

I am in the process of doing the 10.4.x install now and was bored during the wait so I decided to do this post.  I will post the details of the install if all goes well.

I have been using either Debian or Ubuntu server to run my home server. (I’ll be blogging the final configuration when I get it done)

I kept getting the following error:

Unable to change virtual machine power state: Failed to connect...

It was a fairly simple fix, I just want to blog it before I forget

You just need to install the ia32-libs:

apt-get install ia32-libs

And voila! it works!