Fred Mastropasqua

This is a great article on why having or adding more memory won’t fix your Out of Memory Exception.   Bottom line.. on a 32bit server you’re site will crash when it hits between 600MB and 800MB.  The amount varies based on what else is going on with the machine.   The solution? Basically, you have to upgrade to a 64bit OS or re-write your application.

Why adding more memory won’t fix your Out of Memory error by Edge

Copied from the article directly, in case it ever goes down.

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Here an interesting case. Consider there 2 scenarios:

Both are running the same website, both have the same amount of users connected.

Now imagine this website has a page to upload pictures, just like any regular photo-album website.

For some reason, at some point the users complain that they see an error page indicating out of memory error.

So, you wonder: How come? they are just uploading a photo to my website, and I still have plenty of memory in my server anyway.

Anyhow, you stop thinking about this and go for the easiest, quick and dirty solution: If the system tells me that my computer does not have enough memory then I just need to add more memory. Right?

And guess what? you still will get the error message.

That's a very common mistake. Having a machine with 10GB of memory does not mean you will have 10GB of memory available. I explain.

It does not matter if your computer or server has 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB or 8 GB of RAM. If your machine is a 32-bit machine it will only be able to see/manage 4 GB. That's mathematics, that's life, that's the way things are and you can't do nothing about it. A 32-bit machine can not do more than that.

Additional memory may increase your system performance, but it won't increase the memory availability. Sure your computer will use less the hard disk for swapping operations and will be able put more stuff in memory and start some programs faster, but 4GB is the limit; after this point the memory management module will start doing disk swap and to use the famous page file.

And here comes more bad news: Your Windows system on a 32-bit machine requires 2 GB allocated only for it.

So, if you have 4 GB installed, effectively you will have 2 GB only for applications; your windows will be using alone 2 GB.

So, what does out of memory means?

Well, according to some people at Microsoft, this limit for an average configuration is reached between 600 MB and 800 MB of utilization. That 800 number is NOT A RULE, is a baseline. Generally speaking the largest majority of configurations with website, .NET and SQL Server database might have a problem around this point. Of course, this can vary from system to system...as a matter of fact a system can be out of memory at just 600 MB.

Yes, it does sounds crazy. You look so happy now that you just bought a 4GB RAM notebook and your computer is breaking with just 800MB, hun?

Here is another point for you. Have you ever seen someone bragging that he/she bought a 10-megapixel camera and now he/she believes their pictures are going to be better because of this?

Well, guess what? Just like the number of megapixels in a camera box does not have much to do with picture quality, RAM memory does not have much to do with hard disk space.

That's a common mistake: People buy RAM as if they were buying a hard disk.

RAM usage needs to me continuous, unlike hard disk. A simple 5MB Microsoft Word document when saved in a hard disk can be split up in hundreds of pieces; When you open this file in memory, the RAM requires those 5MB to be allocated continuously.

Can you see now the reason for the 'out of memory' message?

Yes, it really means 'there is not enough continuous memory to place that file in memory'. Your system might have 2GB of RAM but unfortunately it might be too busy with stuff running and there is no enough continuous memory to put the picture you are uploading.

Yeah, you can not do much but you can buy a 64-bit machine then when you add more memory you can really use it more efficiently. And yes, we have Microsoft Windows systems for 64-bit machines.

If you do not want to buy a new system of upgrade you current server to a better version then you should think other solutions in the business process, such as to avoid users upload pictures with more than 1 MB in size to be uploaded.

.Net Framework, ASP.NET, Computers, Troubleshooting, Operating Systems, Microsoft, IIS And Hosting

Good article on ordering the binding of your network adapters.  You can have your PC make sure it uses Wired over Wireless if you have both, or IP4 over IP6 if you have both.

Source: http://www.techrena.net/windows/view-change-network-adapter-card-priority-binding-order-windows-7/

Article has steps to check the current priority as well.

Changing Network Cards Priority in Windows:

You can change the network card priority in two ways in Windows:

Method #1:

To start with, I’ll introduce you the easier method first:

1. Go to Control Panel > Network and Internet (View network status and tasks)> Change adapter settings and now you will now be in “Network Connections” window.

2. Now press Alt button and a hidden menu will appear beneath the location bar.

3. Under the Advanced menu, click “Advanced Settings”.

4. You can now see the order of preference in which the connections are accessed by network services.

Use “Up” and “Down” buttons to move a network connection either up or down and thus changing the order of priority of connections.

Method #2:

And now let me introduce you the second alternative method, which is a bit laborious when compared to the first one:

1. Go to the “Network Connections” window by following the step 1 as detailed in the above step.

2. Right-click on the network connections for which you want to change the priority order and choose “Properties”. In my case, I wanted to change the interface metric for my wireless network card and hence I will proceed with the changing priority order for Wireless Network Connection under my network connections.

3. Now choose “Internet protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)” and click on “Properties” button.

Click on “Advanced..” button in the IPv4 properties window.

4. Look for the “Automatic metric” option in the advanced TCP/IP settings window.

5. Uncheck against the “Automatic metric” option and enter some value other than 1 in the filed against “Interface metric” (as 1 will always be assigned to Microsoft Loopback adapter always) as shown:

Click OK and close all the windows.

You have now changed the priority of your network card interfaces.

Computers, Microsoft, Operating Systems

Browse the GAC like any other file/folder structure.

You can simply go to,
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion

Create a DWORD value named "DisableCacheViewer" and set it to value 1.

Open another instance of windows explorer, explore to c:\windows\assembly

Computers, Programming, Operating Systems

I've recently switched from the Windows world to the Mac world and recently, a friend of mine purchased a Mac because I had purchased one not to long ago, and as I started telling him the things I thought he should know, I realized everyone switching to Mac from Windows should know. 

I was fortunate enough to have a friend of mine show me what I needed to know about the Mac, coming from the Windows side. All over IM mind you, and maybe a few times using iChat desktop sharing. Many things I'm still learning... this post is not really designed to be an all knowing post, it's more of a, this is the software you might want/need, this is some of the things you should know.. and then the rest let you figure out.

So where to start? I'm going to write this out like I'm telling it to him.

Note: I'm by far no Mac Genius or Guru. I'm a Windows Guru. So please feel free to correct me as I'm sure my understanding maybe off in certain areas, but the end result is the same.

Basic Training

You should visit Apple's site at this link.  Switch 101.  It will go some basics with you but there's a good site out there for it somewhere.

Installing Mac Applications

First thing was to Explain how the Applications work on Mac.

On Windows we're used to going through and Install process and files get installed everywhere... and then later we have to uninstall the applications.  A lot of Mac apps do not work this way, some do.  Mac applications are all contained within a single file. So usually if you download an application or unzip a file you'll find the app file or see the Icon for the Mac Application.   You could run it from this location but that would be like opening an attachment directly from an email, it's not really saved anywhere "officially". It won't save your settings that way.  You need to take that file and put it somewhere else first, usually drag it onto your Applications doc icon, or drop it into a sub-folder in your application folder via the Finder.

Finder is your Windows Explorer, the icon to the far left of the Doc bar at the bottom of the screen.

Some downloads or zip files contain DMG files. This is basically an ISO image or a CD Image.  You double click it and Mac will mount this image on your desktop which you can then open. It will look like a drive.  Once you open it you'll find the application icon or file in the image. Drag this to your application folder.

  DMG File when it's been mounted. (Yee-Haw)

Once you've dragged the application into your Apps folder you can then delete your download. For DMG files you need to right click them and eject. (MacBook, you can use two fingers on mouse pad to right click).  Delete the files then check your Apps folder you should still see the App. Then you can empty your Trash Can.

 Some apps are Packages, these you double click to install from your downloaded file. They all look the same as far as I know. They look like the image here to the left. Most other apps will have thier own icon.

 Other System Installs

At times you may not get an App file, you may get a "plugin" file or  a "prePane" file. These have to go in specific places, usually they will say but for the most part I find...

PrePane files go into: /Users/<UserName>/Library/PreferencePanes/

I've had to put PlugIn files for my right-click menu into:  /Users/<UserName>/Library/Contextual Menu Items/

Free (and some not) Applications To Install

• Adium - Instant Messenger (Like Trillian) – Free

Adium - So first I'd say he needs Adium, so we can get back on Chat. iChat is good, but like most people I use more then just aol (I never use aol) and gmail (I always use gmail) and have accounts on MSN, yahoo, icq etc...

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• Firefox - Web Browser - Free
  FireFox - Yeah Safari's ok, but knowing him, he'll like FF much better. I tried to look for the Mac version of IE but seems version 6.0 was the last version or was it 5.0? Either way, old.

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• Thunderbird - Email Client from Mozilla - Free
  

Thunderbird - Granted there is the built in Mac Email client, sure you can try that. I tried Entourage (MS Outlook for Mac) and I find that it blows. Just don't like it. Thunderbird isn't 100% but it's the best I could find so far and robust with all the mail accounts I have.  If you find better let me know.

Note: Some things to note that frustrated me, is on Windows you can copy paste a webpage right into outlook and it will paste the html and keep the same formatting. You lost this ability with the current version of Thunderbird and any other mac email client I've tried. It doesn't paste URL's or email or images, it sucks in that aspect. I had to install some add-on to copy HTML from firefox and kind of do a work around.

UPDATE: I’ve since stopped using Thunderbird and starting using Mac’s built in Mail program. The more I use the more I like it.

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•  TextMate - Purchase $51
  • A Free Alternate: Smultron

TextMate (or Smultron) - Don't really need this but if you use Notepad as much as I did, or actually if you use Notepad2 as much as I did on Windows, you'll hate Mac's TextEdit program. It's more like WinWord is to windows then notepad.  So I found TextMate to be great. With Syntax formating and coloring.  Smultron is pretty good too, I just liked TextMate better.

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• Overflow - Purchase $15
  • A Free Alternate - Right Click Application Doc Icon, and change to List View. Now looks like Start Menu on Windows. ( lol )

Overflow - This is probably my most used program so far.  As my applications folder got larger I started making subfolders, but then realized I couldn't get to the folders in the pretty grid, icon view. This program kicks butt. I'm able to create categories and drag in my apps into here, once they've been copied to the Apps folder, and find stuff very quickly.  I usually use the Spotlight or Quicksilver (See below) to quickly open apps but sometimes I can't remember the name of an App, so this helps.  I like using this more though.

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• VMFusion - Purchase $80

VMFusion - Ok this is a Must Have item if you're going to run Windows. Don't install this and create a VM Image with it. Instead follow the Apple Steps to dual boot your machine to Windows and Mac (pdf).  Then when that's done, install this and set it up.  The great thing is, it will use your Dual Boot Windows OS for the VM enviornment.  So you can run it in VM or you can boot to it.  You get to have best of both worlds on top of having best of both OS's.   Boot Camp Partition Size? I don't know I went with 40gb because I had to install a lot of work related applications, but you could probably go with 20gb.  Keep in mind you will only use the Windows for running apps really, not for storing all your music, pictures and videos.  VMFusion will allow your Windows OS to see your Mac Files.

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•  FileZilla - FTP Client - Free

FileZilla - Everyone needs an FTP client, I use this on Windows so was inclined to user thier Mac version. Though.. it's just not the same.  I didn't like CyberDuck too much but maybe you will, it's free too.

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• VLC Media Player - Free

VLC - Everyone should have VLC. It plays everything, it decrypts DVD's it plays even Windows Media Center Recorded shows. It makes julian fries!  Without it the world would be a sadder place.  Seriously, this will play things that I couldn't play with "QuickTime".

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• MacTheRipper - Free

MacTheRipper - What PC isn't complete with out a DVDRipper.  Granted I think Mac has one built in, but I've yet to use it honestly.

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•  HandBrake - Free

Handbreak -  is an application that will take that video you have or that DVD video from the DVD ripping you just did with MacTheRipper, and will convert it to many formats to use on your iPhone or iPod or run it on the Mac as a standalone file, or convert to use on the Xbox 360 etc...

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•  Connect360 - Purchase $20
  

Connect360 - This is another of my top 5 apps that I love. Granted this is only beneficial if you have an Xbox 360. It allows your 360 so see your music, photos and videos on your mac. You can choose what to allow to be shared, but it's instant.  It's so fast. On windows you have to go through that pairing process and then Windows has to give that Media Center User access and rights blah blah.  This things you just drag and drop into your Control Panel System Preferences folder and done.

Note: This is a System Preference app, so see above in Other System Installs on where to put the file.

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• KeyChain - Free BuiltIn

KeyChain - Not something you have to download but make use of this app. It's a pretty good app for storing your Passwords for various websites etc. I usually bring it up using Spotlight (See below).  Another alternate if you want more features, which I also like, is KeePassX - Free.

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•  MS RDP for Mac - Free

MS RDP - If you have a Windows PC you'll want this. Remote Desktop Protocol or Terminal Connection Service for the Mac, by Microsoft.

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• Little Snitch - Purchase $29.95
  

Little Snitch - This is one I wanted for reasons I'll keep to myself. You might not need it but it's sort of like a firewall. The mac has something built in, but this is better. It will prevent ANYTHING from getting out onto the internet. It will prompt you for every app, not like Windows and just genericsize everything, but everything.  Then you can block forever or just this time or allow. It's great tool, but not a must have.  I just like to know what my Mac is trying to do, well what the apps are trying to do, and when they want to phone home.

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•  SeaShore -Image App - Free

SeaShore - This is a simple free image editing application for the Mac, a little more robust then using iPhoto. Of course no where near as good as Photoshop but smaller foot print.  There's an app named Gimp too which is more robust then this but I think I had to install it using MacPorts or something can't remember.

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• CrossOver - Purchase $69.95

CrossOver - Now this you don't need unless you have a reason.  I had one and tried it out and it worked great. This application will allow you to install a Windows program onto your Mac and run it nativily, like it's running on your Mac, which it is.  At the time of this posting it doesn't work for .Net apps that require .Net 2.0 though so keep that in mind.  Not sure when the next version is due out. Again, not something I would buy unless you needed it and were too lazy, like me, to boot up your windows partition, VM or no VM.

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•  FliePathToClipCMPlugin - Free Context Menu Plugin
  

FilePath Context Menu Plugin - This isn't really an app, but more of a plug-in on the right click menu.  On windows I'd always copy a path from the UNC path bar like C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc and paste it somehwere for example. On the Mac I lost this ability, the Finder window has a lot of things it needs to make me a happy convert.  So this plugin allows me to right click a file or folder and copy the FilePath to the clipboard, then I can paste it somewhere.  See above under Other System Installs for Plugin install.

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• AppCleaner - Free

AppCleaner - This one is helpful, it will clean up files from Applications you want to remove from your system. Just drag and drop it onto the icon and it will do the rest.

• Mono - .Net Development Program For Mac - Free

Mono - You know I'm not 100% sure what you can do with this. I'm a developer now by trade and I code in VB.Net for ASP.Net apps and I found this interesting but have not messed around with it much.  Seems you can create .Net apps for the Mac after you've installed the framework.

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• Burn - Free

Burn - is free OpenSource CD Burning software.

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Suggestion Apps from Comments and Others

Well the list above is what I could come up with with the aid of a few from a friend that had direcected me in the first place.  Here are some that have been sent to me or suggested after I wrote this article.

From Jeff Coughlin

* AppZapper (removes ALL files for a program - not just the file.app. Works great when you want to use a program with a timed-trial... just use AppZapper to remove the program's attribute file and timer restarts  :)  ).
* Zipeg (really awesome and free compression program - like Winzip, WinRar, and other programs rolled into one. plus supports many more compression types)
* Colloquy or XChat Aqua for IRC usage
* CoRD (free MS RDP program, but so much better than Microsoft's)
* TextWrangler (free text editor. Makes it easy to find and edit hidden and protected files like hosts and https.conf (if you're a web developer))
* Transmit - FTP client software (one of the few programs I've actually purchased... it was just too good to not pay for. $30 USD)
* Shimo - for connecting to VPNs and firewalls (an all-in-one client).  Used to be free, now has a cost. Most people just find the previous/free version.
* Azureus (now called Vuze). A bitorrent client (there are plenty others than are not all into the graphical user interface which most people prefer - I'm just too lazy to research them :) )
* Audacity (free audio editing software for Mac and PC)
* Miro (Win, Mac, Linux) - video rss consumer (pretty cool)
* Mozy (Mac, Win) - offsite/online remote backup system
* NeoOffice - Free MS Office substitute
* OpenOffice  - Free MS Office substitute
* RazorSQL - (Mac, Win) - an awesome SQL management interface (that can connect and interact to many many SQL engines - not free but worth it)
* Toast - for CD/DVD burning and downloading video from your TiVO (there is also a free program out there to download videos from TiVO - just don't recall the name).

Web Developer tools
* Balsamiq - An AIR app (Mac, PC, Linux) for designing website mockups napkin-style)
* Eclipse (multi-platform) multifaceted IDE
* Changes - like csdiff for the PC
* Charles - web debugging proxy (Mac, Win, Linux)

Well, those were a few off the top of my head.  Hope it helps :) - Jeff Coughlin

Finding/Running Applications

Ok so you got a huge amount of apps now in your app folder. Well you can use Overflow, which I listed above. But you should also be aware of Spotlight. Built into the Mac, it's a search all-in-one type program. Press Command (or Windows Key if you on a windows keyboard like me) and Space Bar. Then just type in what you want. So one I use a lot is KeyChain.  That's built in, so try it. Cmd+Space Keychain.   It will show up in the list and just highlight and press Enter.  If you know the name of the app this is the fastest way.  There is also QuickSilver which does a lot more and is more robust, but I just havn't gotten into it as others have.

Other Blog Sites with Good Info From Ex-Windows Guys

http://www.jeffcoughlin.com/blog/

http://www.davidhayden.com/blog.aspx

Summary

Well that's about it for now.  Hopefully this helps my friend out with what he needs to install to get going.

Apple/Mac, Computers, Software, Training & Learning, Microsoft apple, macbook pro, microsoft, software

Ok so I was disappointed with my Mac's HD capacity.  Granted you can get a 300GB HD installed in your MacBook but it's slow. 4200 rpm's come on.  I've used laptops where all the hardware was fast and the bottleneck was the slow drive.  So I went with the fastest drive they had, 7200rpm, but it was the smallest 200gb.

Then I made my 32GB windows partition and quickly I was running low on space on that drive as I installed all my work related software on the vista partition.  

So I wanted to upgrade the hard drive in the laptop.  Even though I've built my window machines for the last 15 years i've never really upgraded laptops before.  I've done repairs on them, but that was swapping out faulty parts for exact replacement, and I know nothing about Macs.

So I did some research out of curiosity and found this great post by Jeff Coughlin at http://www.jeffcoughlin.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/9/26/Upgrade-Hard-Drive-in-a-MacBook-Pro  

He's already done the research on which hard drive to purchase, the WD3200BEKT.

So I followed his steps.. 

Well almost.  See I have VMFusion running my Vista partition, so I installed WinClone and made an image of my VMFusion parttion and saved it to my Documents folder.

I'm running a MacBook Pro 17" screen with a 200GB 7200rpm drive. OS-X Leporad, and 32GB Partition to Vmware Fusion running Vista 32 bit Ultimate.  

Now, note here I was so excited to swap out my drive I just did it. Then delt with the VM partition afterwards, and ran into problems trying to boot my VMFusion vista partition, but the Mac portion worked out great.

So I then ran BootCamp again on Mac and partitioned 50GB for my Windows OS.  Once that was done I ran WinClone and restored the img I had taken before of my bootcamp partition back to the new partition.

The first time I went to load my Virtual Vista Machine with VMFusion it I got an error..

Cannot open the disk '/Users/Mastro/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/%2Fdev%2Fdisk0/Boot Camp partition.vmwarevm/Boot Camp partition.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

So I tried what it told me to do, I deleted the hard drive in the vmfusion settings for that virual machine and readded it.  Then I tried to boot the virtual machine. It didn't give me an error but it booted and couldn't find a bootable drive.

Ok so then I deleted the whole virtual machine in VMFusion, since my data was on that partition, this seemed safe to me.  I closed VMFusion and went to /Users/Mastro/Library/Application Support/VMware Fustion/Virtual Machines/ and deleted the "Boot Camp" folder.

VMFusion still saw my Boot Camp partition but as new now so I tried to run it and got the following error.

The Boot Camp partition is not prepared to run as a virtual machine. It appears that Windows did not shut down cleanly the last time it was used.

Notice the rest of the msg below the error, Restart to Windows, etc.. basically that's what I did and it worked great. Took awhile because windows had to run CHKDSK and re-allocate the free space and fix the indexes.

I'm sure there's a better way to go about it, but maybe not. This is how I did it, and it's working great.

Jeff's steps worked great for the Mac, so I took his steps and added the extra steps to handle the VMFusion aspect.

 Parts I ordered:

• Thermaltake BlacX N0028USU External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure
• Western Digital WD3200BEKT 320GB Scorpio Drive
• Phillips #00 Screwdriver
• T6 Torx Screwdriver
• Spudger

Software I Used:

• Carbon Copy Cloner v3.1.1
• Winclone v2.0.9

Jeff's Steps in Blue
Fred's added Steps in Maroon

1. Researched some hard drives and chose the Western Digital WD3200BEKT drive for it's overall balance of speed and power consumption (speed being the more important factor for me). Suggest: Newegg.com or Amazon.com.
2. Ordered the enclousure (think Jeff already had his) and the tools. Yeah I'm sure I already had what I needed, but I didn't want to take any chances.
3. Installed WinClone and made an Image of my 32GB VMFusion partition, I saved the image to my ~/Documents folder
   
4. Shutdown all programs on my Mac and disconnected from the web (don't want some auto-update running by mistake)
5. Mounted the new drive to the Mac (now in the enclosure unit) and formated it (use "Applications >> Utilities >> Disk Utility". Select the new drive (which shouldn't be formatted yet if new) and choose "Erase" with the default setting of "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)).
6. Used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the data and make the new drive bootable (took 3 hours)
7. Shut down Mac and installed new HDD
8. Booted up Mac with new HDD (it was a slow bootup the first time - see next step)
9. This next part I couldn't find documented anyhere on the web. I just happened to catch some guy talking about it in a forum after having slow bootups from my recent restore.
   • Go into "System Preferences >> Startup Disk", select the new drive, and restart (your bootup will be much faster now).
10. So I booted up to the Mac the second time after step 9 and then I loaded Boot Camp and created a new 50GB partition for my Windows OS, and I did not reboot, I choose Install later.
11. I loaded WinClone and restored the img I had made in step 3 and restored it to the new parttion made by boot camp.
12. I tried to load my VM and got Error #1 so I went to my User's folder and then to ~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fustion/Virtual Machines and I deleted the "Boot Camp" folder.
13. I tried to load VM again and got Error #2 and then went to System Prefs > Startup Disk and set Windows as the startup OS and Restart
14. When Windows starts to boot let it run CHKDSK.. Stage 1 of 3 went quickly. Stage 2 of 3 took about 45 minutes.  State 3 of 3 took another 45min and even looked like it was hung up at times, but it finally finished (1.5 hours total)
15. Once I was booted into windows and logged in, everything looked great.  I went to Control Panel and to Boot Camp for windows and changed my startup back to Mac and rebooted
16. Once the Mac booted (took like 4 seconds :p ) I was able to load up VMFusion and run my Vista virtual machine. It wanted to reinstall the Virtual Machine Tools but that's fine, I did that and rebooted the Virtual Machine.

And that was it.  I would say it was really easy, esp Jeff's steps with the Mac, if I didn't have the VM partition, the whole thing (minus the cloning time) only took like 10minutes.

Total time with cloning time and CHKDSK waiting time.. took maybe about.. 5 hours. But that's 3 hours of cloning time and 1.5 hours of waiting for CHKDSK time. So really only 30 minutes of my time was used.

One thing that seemed to throw me off was that the Mac only seemed to register 297gb of space vs anything close to 320gb, must be how it allocates space or something, anyone know?  

Well now I have 18gb more space for my windows partition  (50gb) and like 100gb more for my mac, since the 32gb used before was freed up.

Hope that helps someone else down the road.

-Mastro

Apple/Mac, Computers, Operating Systems apple, macbook pro, hardware

Ok I've been on the Windows side of things for.. since the MS-DOS days. Windows 3.1 etc...

I've always hated Macs, why? Because you couldn't run Window apps on a Mac. Because I never saw the need to have a Mac when a PC could do everything a Mac could do, even graphics wise, if you'd just buy real/decent hardware and not try and get some $800 sale computer to do your graphics.  If you had comparison apples to apples hardware then I figure you were good to go.  Also for 10 years my primary job was Windows Network Engineering, so of course I am way biased.  

Then I started to develop, on the side at first, VBA, VBScript, Classic ASP, .NET 1.1, .NET 2.0... and Visual Studio's of course doesn't run on Mac....

Until Mac went Intel.  

Now that Mac is on Intel hardware the world has opened up.  You can now run Vista, XP OS on Mac pc.  You can get VMFusion and run it in "Unity" mode which runs your Window Apps on your Mac!  Crazy Stuff.

So I heard anyway.

Then my good, online friend, Mindshadow2k, kept hounding me how good the iPhone was... blah blah blah, does this and that.  I didn't listen at first, but then I kept seeing the commercials, and would take a stroll through the Apple store...  and finally started listening.

So I got an iPhone 3G...  and wow, I was blown away and how user friends and intuitive the OS was. Way more then my Windows Mobile Phone.  

I was so impressed that I started looking at the Macs.  If the iPhone is this good, I wondered what the Macs were like.

So again with Mindshadow2k, dumping hints into my ear, and with the desire to start developing iPhone apps and try and make some side money, I finally went and got a MacBook Pro.

I've installed Vista via BootCamp and running VMFusion, and I love it!

I can run all my window apps and all my mac apps (not that I really have any mac apps other then iPhone SDK).

The Mac boots up faster then I can reach over and turn on my windows machine.  It shuts down just as fast. It's amazing!

Well there you go, I'm tired of typing, well not really, I'm distracted easily :)

Apple/Mac, Computers personal, about me, apple, macbook pro, windows, microsoft