Happy conversion to Apple and a question about virtual PC

Hi John

I bought a new 12" Powerbook not 6 weeks ago and it's fantastic! So I'm with you on that one. A truly converted Mac user now. Still keep me PC though for gaming duties, although that appears to be few and far between these days!

I bought VPC 6 a couple of weeks ago so that I could use MS Money. I couldn't find a decent personal money management software for the Mac to save myself.

I don't really understand the technicalities of how it all works but you set up an environment, then load an operating system into it. Very easy - no need to set up a partition or anything. I have Win 98 and XP loaded. They appear to be loaded into "files" which have a virtual size of 15gb. You can set up a virtual PC drive and then have each of the operating systems access them, so you can share files between the operating systems.

Performance on my 12" with 512mb of RAM is OK. Not that great. MS Money is quite slow but I do have Championship Manager 4 loaded into the XP and I can at least play it, albeit slowly. It's always been bloody slow anyway!

Don't know how your .NET stuff is going to work.

I hear that VPC7 is on it's way and will apparently be quicker. I couldn't really wait but you might wish to.

Jay

Glad your still enjoying the laptop!!! I'm hooked as well with the whole apple thing... the trouble is im now going through a naim type upgrade frenzy... iSight, iPod, Airport base station and im even talking myself into digital SLR.. Current mission is to get iTunes playing wireless from my laptop through your old 250! I hope my bank manager isnt reading this...

cheers

Neil

TC --

Presumably you'll be going for a G5 model? Unfortunately VPC doesn't work with the G5 processor (something to do with big/little endian operations). Microsoft have consistently failed to deliver an update to fix this since purchasing VPC from Connectix over two years ago -Hmmmm....

Anyway, latest estimates of VPC 7.0 are "around November"

HTH,

Cheers,

Tim
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Os nid Campagnolo yw hi, dyw hi ddim yn werth ei marcho...

Hawk,
just thought I'd jump in here and tell you I am using iTunes wirelessly from a 12" PowerBook into a 62/140 and it sounds fab, as well as being technically amazing as well. Get the Airport Express now. You won't regret it.

Peter

"as there are some applications that I will need to keep in touch with professionally, such as Visual Studio .NET, and I'd like to remain able to use such software"

If you have any professional interest in VS.NET then you need a PC.

Matthew

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Matthew Robinson:
If you have any professional interest in VS.NET then you need a PC.

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Interesting, what exactly do you mean?
TC, check out this (Google groups). It seems to work, if somewhat slow. IMHO Microsoft will be interested to spread their .NET stuff on other platforms as well, as Mac OS X is a supported OS from their point of view.

"Interesting, what exactly do you mean?"

I mean that if you want to develop software in VS.NET you should do so on a computer that runs the development environment natively. And, further, a professional interest in VS.NET implies (in practical terms) an interest in software development for Windows which, surely, requires a PC for all but the most superficial interest.

Matthew

Erm... you are sure you know what virtual PC is about? It is a processor emulation, not an OS emulation. You still need a Win32 installation to use it. Basically it's the same as vmware, 'only' cross-architectural.

I have developed under vmware a lot (windows crashes bother you much less when they happen inside a vm) and quite liked it (the host was Linux-based).

Emulations are alright IMHO as long as the performance and compatibility are OK. VS.NET is no different to any other programming 'environment' regarding the resources it needs.

The architecture makes no difference, as long as the libraries and executables work (and I don't expect any confusion of data types either, as Windows obviously runs ).

Best regards,

Oliver

I wouldn't develop software under vmware either as its just a whole layer of risk and complexity you don't need and it provides zero benefit. I'd use it for testing and support, that sort of thing but as a primary development machine I think, to paraphrase Larry Ellison, you'd have to be on drugs. FWIW I can't remember the last time any of my Windows machines crashed -- not since the early days of Win2k and 3 or 4 years certainly.

As regards the original quesiton, I am still confused as to how you can have a professional interesting in a Windows software development and compliers but not need a PC (Especially as the questioner already had a PC).

Matthew

Matthew,

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Matthew Robinson wrote:
I wouldn't develop software under vmware either as its just a whole layer of risk and complexity you don't need and it provides zero benefit. I'd use it for testing and support, that sort of thing but as a primary development machine I think, to paraphrase Larry Ellison, you'd have to be on drugs.

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you didn't pay attention; the benefit is using the OS/architecture you like while getting done what is needed.

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FWIW I can't remember the last time any of my Windows machines crashed -- not since the early days of Win2k and 3 or 4 years certainly.

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Agreed, I was talking about NT4.0

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As regards the original quesiton, I am still confused as to how you can have a professional interesting in a Windows software development and compliers but not need a PC (Especially as the questioner already had a PC).

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Perhaps just a matter of priorities.

Hi everyone, and thanks for the replies. Computer time of any description is very limited at the moment due to other activities (mainly involving the new kitchen etc.) but to touch base here goes...

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I am still confused as to how you can have a professional interesting in a Windows software development and compliers but not need a PC (Especially as the questioner already had a PC).

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I currently work as a senior architect for an internet bank, which pays the bread and butter. This is now based on .NET front-tier, Java mid-tier and Oracle back-end (if we leave the mainframe stuff to one-side - not a thing I get into much). Anyway, I also develop bespoke interactive community solutions as a sideline, and have been doing so using vanilla ASP and now ASP.NET.

I wish to be able to continue doing this, but having otherwise no particular interest in any other PC-specific software (e.g. games and such) I am looking for a way to basically ditch the PC in favour of the Mac. I started out my 'wimp' career using a 1st Gen Mac in the eighties, and migrated over to the fledgling Windows 2.0 at around 1990. I've never been truly happy with Windows, yet until recently to my mind the Mac hasn't been capable of 'ousting' the PC from my desktop. However, with my interest in internet development, and the fact that the .NET framework offers a class library which basically abstracts from the specifics of the PC world (from a development perspective - if we leave aside Managed C++ stuff for now) then I can see no reason why Virtual PC can't work for me. After all, if it (i.e. .NET v1.1 or the forthcoming v2.0) runs at all it should run perfectly, providing that Virtual PC does what it claims to, viz providing a virtual machine which doesn't emulate so much as replicate the PC OS of your choice.

My dilemma is that theory is rarely transformed into practise without some compromises, and that's why I asked.

Otherwise, the Mac appears to me to offer:
(1) a better UI experience;
(2) a more reliable OS;
(3) better and more reliable hardware integration, and...
(4) a fresh challenge and a refreshing change.

I could keep my PC laptop or my one of my PC desktops (I have a few, sadly). However, space is the issue and also I'm sick to the back teeth of PC niggles.

That said, I might end up keeping the (PC) laptop and ditching the desktops - but have you ever tried selling or even giving a PC away? I get the feeling sometimes that I'd have to pay people to take 'em....

Anyway, that's all by-the-by. Tim, yes, my eventual plans are to probably buy a dual G5 with one of the big monitors - 30" might be too pricy sadly, but the 23" seems to be a good compromise - but that's some way off. In the meantime, I'll try to offload these desktops...!!!

Thanks, probably won't be back to read replies for a few days hence...

John

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FWIW I can't remember the last time any of my Windows machines crashed -- not since the early days of Win2k and 3 or 4 years certainly.

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You've obviously been fortunate to avoid the atrocious ME or XP versions.

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
FWIW I can't remember the last time any of my Windows machines crashed -- not since the early days of Win2k and 3 or 4 years certainly.

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I've also not had a PC crash in years, including the dozen or so in the office.

My wife has an iMac and it crashes regularily although I suspect much of that is down to an incompetent IT department at her school. Even when it does work it's slow as feck.

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Originally posted by Top Cat:
I currently work as a senior architect for an internet bank, which pays the bread and butter. This is now based on .NET front-tier, Java mid-tier and Oracle back-end

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And a hideous, hideous mess it is too...

I can't get through the day at work without a crash on a PC. Normally its to do with copying stuff onto a Zip drive, we have had the IT department on it for a long time. Usually I get crashes if I have the audacity to cancel a print job, the print spool never clears out and before you know it the whole system has gone boing.

MS word normally crashes around twice a week as well.

This is a relatively new computer around 3 months.

To be honest I am prepared to accept I don't have lucvk with PCs, Sheilas dads will only stay connected for 1 minute when I try and use it, and my step dads freqently gives blue screens of death for what would appear to be no reason what so ever.

Still I don't use them otherwise so good news.

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And a hideous, hideous mess it is too...

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Hey, that hideous mess was there long before I got my grubby mitts on it. As it happens, most internet banks are somewhat messy and patchy by virtue of the various awkward legislative changes that come down every six months or so - mortgage regulation, you name it, it can have massive impact on systems, especially if said systems were designed and developed long before the goalposts moved...

Anyway, getting off the point a bit, I'm enjoying my PB very much and can't wait to ditch the PC gear...

John

I worked on an online PC banking application for a well known Scottish bank (the one based in something approaching a nuclear bunker just outside Edinburgh) in 1989.

It (or at least the PC client) was written in Clipper (i.e. dBase) and you needed a leased line into the bank's X.25 network and a hardware based smart card reader for secuirty purposes.

Matthew

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Originally posted by Top Cat:

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And a hideous, hideous mess it is too...

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Hey, that hideous mess was there long before I got my grubby mitts on it. As it happens, most internet banks are somewhat messy and patchy by virtue of the various awkward legislative changes

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As well as that it was trendy at the time to write absolutely everything in java which meant there were zillions of contract java programmers all working on the project. As many (most?) java programmers are crap at SQL I hate to think what nasties would have been lying in wait as the database grew...

Heh heh, well, you won't be surprised to hear that it's riddled with hard-coded SQL in the mid-tier, no real sensible use of Ora packages and a database structure that's.... urm... colourful.

Me, I'm mainly front tier, so I rarely delve into the realms of the Java MT, though I know the DB design pretty well. However, it all seems to work so I guess that's all that matters.

John

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Originally posted by Top Cat:
Heh heh, well, you won't be surprised to hear that it's riddled with hard-coded SQL in the mid-tier, no real sensible use of Ora packages and a database structure that's.... urm... colourful.


John

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does this mean i should spend all the money from my if account on boys toys.... just to be on the safe side