Free The Animal

In both the laptop and desktop showdowns, Apple’s computers were the winners. Oddly, the big difference didn’t come in our user ratings, where we expected the famously friendly Mac interface to shine. Our respondents liked the look and feel of both operating systems but had a slight preference toward OS X. In our speed trials, however, Leopard OS trounced Vista in all-important tasks such as boot-up, shutdown and program-launch times. We even tested Vista on the Macs using Apple’s platform-switching Boot Camp software—and found that both Apple computers ran Vista faster than our PCs did. (emphasis added) Poor Bill. …Cuz, y’know, if you need a fast machine to run Vista, you’ll need to get a Mac; and if you get a Mac, then ya might as well run the Mac OS.

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Well I just went out and purchased a Time Capsule and it’s working just fine & dandy. Time Machine is doing its thing backing up. This is quite cool. Any and all Mac computers in the house (two currently) will fully back up their drives automatically, completely, wirelessly, in the background. I have an AirPort Extreme Base Station, purchased months ago on the assumption that the USB drive one can plug into it would work with Time Machine as a shared drive. Well, long story short: that was Apple’s plan; but it didn’t work reliably, so they ditched it right before Leopard’s release. I didn’t bother to research before buying, and, oh well; the integrated hard drive is a cleaner solution anyway. I’ll take the AP Extreme up to the cabin where I installed an Apple TV last weekend. We rented, downloaded, and watched three movies in HD. HD downloads take hours on a 1.2 mbps dsl connection, but it did its thing overnight, so everything was ready to watch the next morning. However, I’ll probably just rent in standard def up there from now on. It’s just not worth the money for the higher dsl speed when it’s used…

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And another one gone, and another one gone Another one bites the dust Hey, Im gonna get you too Another one bites the dust Of course, that’s not how Kyle sees it; nor should he. But Gates & Co. sure ought to be taking a look. Make no mistake: it’s one thing for new and/or novice computer users to opt for a Mac, but when longtime power users like myself and Kyle begin dropping from the PC/Windows scene like flies, isn’t it about time to seriously wonder? It’s like this: I’m three months into this experience and I’m more convinced daily it was the right move. Take a look at this. And Kyle has some integration notes here. I’ve been thinking about the same thing in terms of cable/dish vs. “total on demand” for months. As it is, I watch almost nothing live, anymore. I’ve been using DVR, watching when I want and sliding past the ads for a few years. This is the next step. Just pay for what you want to watch, when you want to watch it, all commercial free. This is perfect, in fact, for the cabin. We have no cable or dish, but we do…

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Via Billy, this is just a roar and a half. It starts off quick. I have finally decided to take the plunge. Last night I upgraded my Vista desktop machine to Windows XP, and this afternoon I will be doing the same to my laptop. Good for him. I respect and admire Bill Gates; and what his productive efforts have done for the world should never be taken away or diminished — but goddammit! People are just not going to put up with this crap, and the more used to using computers people get, the less tolerant they are going to be with crap that doesn’t work right. I was discussing this last night with some very smart tech people at a Christmas party at the home of a hardware engineer who’s responsible for in excess of a dozen high-tech patents, mostly in the video space (he is largely responsible for the first mini high-res video screen on the iPod several years back). Think about it. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, everyone thought Apple was insane to not open up their hardware, or at least allow their OS to run on other open hardware. The “IBM” PC…

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In 20 years of using PCs, I never thought to check if there was 3rd-party software that would do something so useful. Apple built it right into the Mac OS. I don’t think I’ve ever run an application full screen — and I want to rip my hair out when I see others do it. Windows… Get it? Well, if not, here; get it:

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