The Many Faces of Mike McBride

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Monday, October 06, 2008

VMWare Fusion 2.0 Bug?

I installed the upgrade to version 2.0 of VMWare Fusion a few weeks ago, and it seemed like there were no problems. Today, I realized there is one problem. Seems that whenever I let the VM go into a suspended state, and then restore it from that suspended state, the video slows down dramatically.

Now, let's be honest here, I didn't notice this because I don't generally use that Vista VM enough to have it go into a suspended state. Generally, I start it up, use Windows for what I need it for, and shut it back down. If I need to do extensive work in Windows, I'll wait until I'm home and use my desktop for that, unless I'm traveling or there's some other reason why I'd use my laptop instead.

So it doesn't really impact me all that much, and it wasn't until today that I thought to actually see if I could repeat the slow down. Indeed, I can. Start up Vista, suspend the VM state, restore it, and then start a game of Free Cell, which shows me right away how slow the graphics are, as it slowly deals out the cards from the deck.

Of course, like any good Windows machine, virtual or otherwise, simply restarting the guest, fixes the problem. ;)

Labels: Mac, Tech

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Sunday, August 17, 2008

VMWare Fusion Small Complaint

Rob Fahrni's post wherein he lists one small complaint about Fusion reminded me that I've been meaning to write about my own, small, complaint.

As much as I love Fusion, and I love being able to flip back and forth between OSX and Windows on my Macbook, I have discovered one area where, on a laptop especially, VMWare Fusion has a bit of a hiccup.

It's in the area of moving between networks.

Typically, I can go from home, to a coffee shop, and leave the Macbook in stand-by mode with the programs that I'm going to be using open. (Especially useful when meeting someone for lunch to share some information.) Upon being roused, Airport will find the new network and connect, and I can continue right where I left off.

However, if I'm using Windows to show off some stuff that has links in it, the bridged networking in the VM doesn't pick up any change in the network. It bridges the network connection with the host machine when it starts, and seemingly, not again. In order to get it Internet access, I have to disable and enable the network adapter and I've found in some cases, even that doesn't get me connected, I have to shut down the VM and start over after connecting to the new network in OS X.

Like I said, it's a small complaint, simply because it's not something I'd run into very often, but it is annoying. Since network-switching on the fly works on a Windows laptop pretty well, most of the time, and it works on OSX, I can only assume the catch here is bridging the new connection to the VM is problematic. It'd be nice if it wasn't.

Technorati Tags: VMWareFusion, WirelessNetworks

Labels: Mac, Tech

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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Little Mac Help?

Can anyone point me to a tutorial on using a projector with a Macbook Pro? I've done it a couple of times, and have managed to get what I need each time, but I suspect it's been a lot more aggravating than it should have been. I haven't found anything like the Fn-F8 toggle on our Dell laptops at work, which is simple enough. The Mac hasn't been that simple for me, so I'd like to do some research and figure out what I am missing.

Surely I AM missing something, right?

Technorati Tags: Macintosh, projectors, presentations

Labels: Mac, Tech

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Tuesday, May 06, 2008

VMWare Fusion beta 2.0

Multiple displays with your virtual machine, and better 3d acceleration?

I might have to check that out when I get home from this trip! Anyone already got it installed?

Labels: Mac

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Monday, April 14, 2008

It's the little things

Switching (well sliding I still use Windows quite often) to the Mac has been a pretty good experience for the most part. Of course, anytime you start using a new OS, there are always a million little things that you don't realize are different until you get hit right in the face with them.

That was the case the other day when I decided to try and use Apple Mail to handle my Gmail through the IMAP interface. There's a little setting in the Accounts tab for IMAP that saves draft to the server by default. That's all well and good, but given the way I use Gmail, it was a bad idea. It seems that the POP3 interface with Gmail that I use with my blackberry, would see each new saved draft as a new message and push it out to me. So, in the course of crafting a 3 line reply to a message, my blackberry went off 5 times, each a new saved copy of the draft.

Unchecking the option in Apple Mail changed he behavior, but again, it wasn't something I was familiar with, and I had to spend some time tracking it down. That's the price of using different systems, but oh well. There are worse things. :)

Labels: Mac

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Color me Impressed

Well, you all already know how impressed I've been with using VMWare Fusion on my Macbook for those times when I need to dip into the Windows world for something, but today I really stressed out that virtual machine and it handled it like a charm.

The basics, I had to dump a series of Excel spreadsheets into one sheet, so that I could use the magic of COUNTIF and SUMIF to match data across all of them at once and get a sum. Unfortunately, putting all of them together left me with over 300,000 rows, which our Excel 2003 at work just wasn't going to deal with. So I fired up the Macbook and the Vista VM with Office 2007 on it, and hooked up an external drive to it with all that spreadsheet data. I then proceeded to build that 300,000 row sheet and then do my counts and sums. You'd think working in a spreadsheet with 300,000 rows on a virtual machine running off a laptop would be painfully slow, but it really wasn't, at all. The only time it paused was when I asked it to calculate the sums of 2000 records all at once, but let's face it, any machine would pause for that, virtual or not!

In short, I love being able to do something that resource intensive and still have OS X running stuff at the same time! It's quite awesome.

Before anyone asks, or calls me names, I am aware that I probably could have done this same processing in Numbers just in OS X, but it needs to get done, and get done correctly, and I haven't been around the block enough with the iWork suite to feel like I could have gotten it done very quickly, so Excel was the choice for me, at least this time.

Technorati Tags: VMWareFusion, Excel, Office2007

Labels: LitigationSupport, Mac, Tech

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Thursday, April 03, 2008

Win a Macbook Air

I got an email from the VMware Fusion team today, letting me know about their "My Switch to VMWare Fusion" contest. All you folks who've been looking for a reason to use the video tools on your Mac, well how's about a chance to win an Air? (Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with VMWare, I just really like using Fusion on my Macbook!)

My Switch to VMware Fusion

The VMware Fusion team is proud to announce a new video contest, entitled ?My Switch to VMware Fusion?: http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/switchtofusion/video-contest.html
As part of our new campaign (http://vmware.com/switchtofusion) encouraging Mac users to switch to VMware Fusion for Windows on Mac, we are kicking off a video contest wherein users who have already switched to Fusion pull together a 60 second video on why they switched to VMware Fusion to run Windows on their Mac, and post it on the web.
There?s no better spokesperson than happy, delighted customers, which is why we see this customer validation as central to our campaign. Marketers can say all kinds of things (trust me, I know), but unvarnished peer references really count.
The great thing about the Mac, is that it has all the tools to make a great video documenting a ?Switch to Fusion? from iMovie, to the iSight, and so on. The VMware Fusion team has pulled together all the necessary resources in an easy ?how-to? tips and tricks document on the video contest page.
When they?re done, all participants have to do is submit their finished work via the online form on the ?Switch to Fusion? video contest page. We?ll be blogging them as they come in: http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/switchtofusion/
T-Shirts for All! And a MacBook Air for one!

In thanks, every single participant will get a VMware Fusion team t-shirt exactly like the team had at Macworld, and a ?My Mac Loves VMware? bumper sticker. All they have to do is submit their work on the video contest page!
What?s more, one lucky videographer whose video best demonstrates why it was important to switch, why Windows on the Mac is important, and does it with the highest production value, will walk away with a fully tricked out MacBook Air, complete with VMware Fusion and a copy of Windows!
Blogs too!
Not into video? That?s ok. Users who simply blog about their ?Switch to VMware Fusion? will get a ?My Mac Loves VMware? bumper sticker, and the best story of a Switch to Fusion will get a shiny new iPod touch. Can?t run Windows on it, but it?s still cool!
Why This; Why Now?:

A perfect storm of events has come together to make now the perfect time to Switch to Fusion, and there?s no better spokesperson for this message than our fabulous users who have already made the switch.

The Market Has Spoken: The software had been garnering critical acclaim in the market, from bloggers, to review sites, and more. We?ve pulled all this information together on the ?Switch to Fusion? minisite: www.vmware.com/switchtofusion . The upshot is: we?ve been on the market for a little over seven months, and consensus is that VMware Fusion is a fast, stable, and powerful way to run Windows on your Mac, and like your Mac, ?just works.?
Thousands of users have already switched to VMware Fusion, and there?s no more credible source of advice than a peer. That?s why we want to encourage our awesome user base to share their experience more broadly!
Switching Tools: VMware Importer for importing Parallels and Virtual PC-based VMs is available as a free download. Just drag and drop your current Parallels or Virtual PC VM onto the utility, and it will create a new VM that is a perfect copy of your old one, ready to run on VMware Fusion.
Competitive Rebate: Users in the US and Canada who buy VMware Fusion, and submit proof of ownership of Parallels or Virtual PC can get a $30 rebate, bringing the cost of VMware Fusion down to $50?the typical price of an upgrade!

Technorati Tags: VMWareFusion, MacbookAir, Contest, Video

Labels: Mac

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Monday, March 24, 2008

Coming out of Hibernation

It just occurred to me that I never posted something about my Macbook Pro that impressed me mightily, and which I've taken advvantage of a few times over the last few weeks.

Yes, the simple act of closing the lid on the Macbook, putting it in my backpack, taking it out later, hitting the space bar and having it pop up exactly where I left it. A hibernation mode that works the way it's supposed to!

I've owned a couple of Windows laptops, and supported dozens of others, and I have never seen this work the way it was supposed to, until now, on a Mac!

Technorati Tags: Hibernation

Labels: Mac

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

Virtual Worlds

One other note about the training, I used my Macbook Pro for the presentation. I was curious to see how it would work out. Obviously, I needed my Windows Virtual Machine to run Summation, but once I got through a little hiccup connecting the MBP to the projector over in our training center, (oh ok, mirror the displays, that works better.) the rest of it ran without a hitch. In fact, with the VM window maximized, no one even noticed a difference, despite the Mac Menu bar being visible.

One person who did notice was our training coordinator when I first went over there and he was helping me get setup. He asked why I went with a Mac. My reply? Now that they're using Intel chips and I can use VMware Fusion to load a Windows VM with all of the Windows tools I still need to use, I chose a Mac because I could. :)

Labels: LitigationSupport, Mac

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Thursday, February 07, 2008

VMWare Fusion Blog

Hmm, I write a pretty positive review of VMWare Fusion, and I get a thank you email from Pete Kazanjy, Fusion Product Marketing Lead. Then, in a follow up, he lets me know about the Team Fusion Blog.

So, if you're interesting in keeping up with the latest Fusion news, check it out.

Technorati Tags: VMWare Fusion, Blog

Labels: Mac, Tech

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Monday, February 04, 2008

VMware Fusion

I spent a good part of the Super Bowl setting up a Virtual Machine with Windows vista on the Macbook Pro. The setup was actually pretty easy. The one complaint I had was that even though the easy setup program when you start the VM asked for the Windows Product Key, when I went to Activate Windows, the product key didn't match. Strange. I was able to activate it by retyping the product key, so it should be no big deal, but I dislike retyping things. :)

After that I got the OS updated, put in a few more programs and watched the end of the game. Today, I finished up, getting Summation installed, and after some struggles, finally got the VPN client connected to work. (Note to self, make sure the VM is using Bridged Networking instead of NAT, apparently that matters with the VPN software!)

I really can't complain, I'm loving running Windows and OSX at the same time. I love being able to explore Leopard and learn about using it, while still having access to the Windows stuff I need. Just plain awesome!

Updated: One other thing, when I put the VM in Unity view, where the Windows Start button sat down alongside the OS X Dock, and I could launch programs from either place, and each program I opened in Windows minimized to the dock as a separate window, it blew my mind a little. But in a good way.

Technorati Tags: VMware Fusion, OSX, CTSummation, VPN

Labels: Mac, Tech

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Saturday, February 02, 2008

Proof and the compulsory fanboy photo

Here's something I'm sure some people never expected to see me working on...

So far, so good. I'm not having too much difficulty getting things setup the way I like, and I've been pleasantly surprised by silly little things that are just nice. For example, the fact that the power cord is magnetized on the end, so I only have to get it close to the connector on the laptop. For some reason that seems pretty cool to me. :)

I am not overly impressed with the touchpad, but I generally dislike touchpads anyway. Luckily, my MS wireless mouse works just great!

Once I have the OSX side setup the way I want, it'll be time to get VMWare Fusion and get a Windows VM setup. Responses on that last entry seem to favor just using a VM instead of Bootcamp so far. Thanks for the feedback!

Technorati Tags: MacbookPro

Labels: Mac, Photography, Tech

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Friday, February 01, 2008

First of many Mac questions

OK, so the Macbook Pro arrived today and I've been spending a good part of the evening downloadng updates, getting some tools and generally getting it setup the way I like. One of the projects I'm going to start on soon is getting Windows to run for those things that I simply need Windows for, like our work VPN. My question is, what do you guys recommend, creating a Windows partition using Bootcamp and then pointing VMWare Fusion to it, or just creating the VM in Fusion and calling it a day on Bootcamp. Which gets better performance, and which is easier?

How do you have it set up?

Labels: Mac, Tech

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Sunday, January 27, 2008

I feel a little dirty

After years, and years of making my living supporting, and working with, Windows PC's I ordered a Macbook Pro to replace my aging laptop this weekend. There's no hope for me now, is there? I'm doomed to be a fanboy and have a Steve Jobs crush, aren't I? ;)

OK seriously, one of the first things I'll be doing with the MBP will be using Bootcamp to setup a Windows partition, (I need to use a Windows VPN client for work, and the Summation software I am now certified to train on both internally and freelance, won't run on the Mac.) and my main desktop at home will still be my Windows machine, so let's not get carried away. Still, I'm excited to see what the Mac can do as my laptop.

So, now that I'll be getting my hands on my own Mac in a week or so, what are the must-have downloads I need to get? I already know I'll be hitting Firefox, but what else do you guys recommend? I figure I need an FTP client, blogging tool, and pretty much anything else I'd use while on the road. If you were getting a new Macbook, what would be the first things you'd download?

Technorati Tags: MacBookPro, Apple, Freeware

Labels: Mac, Personal, Tech