Blogography - Unclean: Installing Vista on a Mac

Blogography ^ | 2/8/2006 | Dave Simmer

[Swordmaker]

This is probably one of the worst days ever, even though I got a new router and have internet access again.

For reasons I won't dwell on, it became necessary for me to have access to Microsoft Windows Vista. My POS Dell PC (which imploded a few months back) didn't seem to want to install it, so I was left with the option of either buying a new Windows machine, or installing Vista on my Mac (something I swore I would never do). Since time was of the essence, and the idea of having to buy a new PC filled me with dread, I decided to just bite the bullet and defile my Mac with Microsoft's latest abomination of an OS...

I used a Mac program called "Parallels" which allows you to run Windows right along with Mac applications on the same screen. It's not the best Windows experience, but it is the most convenient. It allows you to start up Windows and shut it down almost instantly, which is pretty slick. Windows apps even appear in your Dock...

[Swordmaker]

Ping for a good comparison on Vista and OS X on a Mac Book Pro using Parallels...

The graphic should have been this graphic (and may have been fixed by the admins by now)...

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Leonard210]

I'm sorry, which graphic should it be? :-)

[Swordmaker]

I'm sorry, which graphic should it be? :-)

Can't you tell the difference? The 134,231st pixel on the one in the article is the wrong color! Sheesh, I thought it was obvious.

[Swordmaker]

In case you haven't guessed... this is an excerpt... but I forgot to check the "This is an Excerpt" Box.

For the rest of the article.

Why don't these cold medications list a caution label about posting on FreeRepublic when taking them??? Who cares about heavy equipment?

[vox_freedom]

I'm sorry, which graphic should it be? :-)

All of them. :-0
Good post, funny blog...

[Leonard210]

He used the word "elegant" to describe how the Mac handles issues like dialogs but the phrase "well thought out" is more to the point. It's been this way for years and can't be understood by most MS users because they have nothing to compare. Opening up 3 or 4 dialogs to get the settings you want is normal on their machine. Fact is, they may not even look three dialogs deep, they simply call IT. (I know, I know, ya built your own PC, overclocked the processor, and you're not gay...spare us.)

I find XP quite good. A cross between OS 9 and early OS X in many ways, but there seems to be no understanding of "simplify" at MS. It baffles, I tell ya. :-/

[Leonard210]

Please sir, step away from the keyboard. This is for your own good. :-)

[vox_freedom]

Why don't these cold medications list a caution label about posting on FreeRepublic when taking them??? Who cares about heavy equipment?

LOLOL

Swordmaker with his last dose...

[Texas_shutterbug]

My husband has defiled my mac with Vista.

I feel violated.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Personally, I find a lot of the UI portion of the Mac vs Windows Threads rather unsatisfying. This particular author is writing his opinion from a very visceral point of view- without any scientific theory behind his point of view. Correct UI Interface Building is an extremely complicated science/art. Terms such as: "Locus of Attention"; "Learned Helplessness" are very important concepts in designing/developing a good UI. Apple has done a lot of important research in this arena, based on a lot of work by cognitive psychologists in the 1950s -- to answer questions like: How do we perceive information? etc. .. Apple wrote up a series of guidelines which were the bible for all Apple Developers for Mac OS 1-9. Then Apple proceeded to violate their own guidelines with Mac OS X.

Here's a simple example of an Apple violation that ticks me off to this day. (I hate it, I hate, I absolutely hate it) ... Go to the System Preferences. Click on any icon. Watch the size of the Window Change. Click "Show All" Watch the window size change again. Changing window size was absolutely forbidden in Mac OS 9.

Microsoft changes the menu size (Word is a classic example)--but Microsoft has always done this (maybe that's way I've always hated Word)-- but Microsoft has never pretended to be the last answer on UI interfaces.

So, I'm happier if we talk about other aspects of the systems.

[SunkenCiv]

LOL!

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

I use Parallels all the time. Wonderful stuff. Vista, on the other hand...

[George W. Bush]

I'm posting this on several of these MacPing threads for those who haven't seen it. It has to do with virtualization and the upcoming release of VMware Fusion on Mac. Parallels is working on and will probably deliver the same feature set.

The first link is to the blog for the lead developer of VMware Fusion for Mac. He is thanking the person who leaked the video of Fusion's latest beta build. Obviously, he's very proud of what the company is doing.

VMware blog: Double Dragon

And this page at YouTube is the exciting part, showing DirectX games running on the Mac desktop in windowed mode.

YouTube: 3D Graphics in VMware Fusion for Mac OS X

Not only are we going to be able to run Windows apps, we'll be able to run the DirectX games in XP and Vista. And the multimedia apps like Adobe Premiere and others will also work. VMware plans to support DirectX 9 features fully for both Vista and XP.

BTW, this is also good news for the Linux folk.

Of course, the upcoming games with DirectX 10 support are not supported. But then, Vista doesn't support the nVidia 8800 card, the only full DirectX card on the market.

What excites me about this is that so many people who have held back on Mac because they don't want to reboot to Windows to play games (or run a few productivity apps) will no longer have to worry. It will "just work".

Reducing all of Microsoft's consumer and server products to just a set of virtualization clients is the killer app for these new multicore CPUs. And it will bring 99% of Windows apps straight to the Mac desktop. That includes all the Windows programs and games you already own.

No wonder Microsoft slapped a "virtualization tax" on Apple and Linux (and their own users). Yeah, like we're going to let that stop us!

[antiRepublicrat]

Why don't these cold medications list a caution label about posting on FreeRepublic when taking them???

"Oh, it's not the speed really so much, I just wish I hadn't drunk all that cough syrup this morning."

[antiRepublicrat]

Then Apple proceeded to violate their own guidelines with Mac OS X.

Apple did violate a few. Look at Bruce Tognazzini's comments on OS X over at asktog.com. He still considers the Dock to be a "gee whiz" get-them-in-the-door feature rather than something that helps the UI. But Apple still does some things right, like keeping the menu bar in the same place, and using another UI concept, infinite height, extensively.

The biggest Apple advantage is simply in the dialogs. Here's an example of one:

That is the standard dialog a programmer would call, and just define the text and button labels. First, notice "action" text on all of the buttons. They will do what's said on the button, not "Yes, No, Cancel."

Also notice the "safe" button is hilighted and to the right, and the "unsafe" button is off to the left side, distanced from the two safer buttons.

This is by design of the OS, a programmer calls a dialog and this is what it looks like. The incredibly stupid "yes, no, cancel" dialog boxes in Windows are also by design of the OS. Unless you want to take the time to write your own proper dialog box class (which I did), calling a Windows dialog gets you stupid options like this. At most a programmer using the standard dialogs can change the text to action verbs, but the button placement is still equal.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Oh, I absolutely agree. I didn't want to give the impression that Apple doesn't do anything right - quite the contrary - I think overall, they are so much better at UI design and ease of use than Microsoft. But they could be 100% -- and they should be 100% -- they're only 85.8 or so. Microsoft is probably at 63%. Excessive use of modal dialogs really, really irks me with MS. But then again - its Microsoft - what do you expect?