I bought a Mac, yea, I did

It's been a long time in the making, but I finally bought a Mac as my primary computer. An iMac to be exact. One of the deciding factors was the availability of an outstanding piece of software called Parallels. As much as I want to be a Mac only user, some of my work requires windows only applications. So I needed some way to use these application but still use a Mac.

It was quite easy to set it up. After I downloaded BootCamp from the Apple site, I created a new partition to install Windows XP on. Caveat; you must have a licensed version of Windows XP with Service Pack 2. I do, so I moved on. the 32GB partition should be plenty for what I need to do.

Once I went through the 4 hour Windows XP install (it sure seemed that long), I downloaded Parallels. The version I looked at was Parallels Desktop for Mac, and downloaded the trial version. I know I'll purchase once I've gotten everything to work. The process was so easy it almost hurt. It recognized my BootCamp partition and created a virtual desktop running Windows XP accessible right from my Apple desktop. Later my brother showed me how I could basically run windows applications in little virtual windows, using Coherence, that looked like they were running native to the Mac OS. Very cool. That alone made the $80 price tag easy to swallow.

Now, I've got everything running, loaded my windows applications, gave the Parallels process 1GB of memory, 1GB to the Mac and we are off. Things are running pretty well. So, if you have a daily need to run Windows applications, then I suggest Parallels. It is well worth the money. If you don't need to run Windows applications, then all the better.

One interesting side note. Once you install BootCamp and go through installing the new OS, for some odd reason the Mac defaults the boot order to the new partition. I wasn't given an option to pick, it just set it for me. You would think that an Apple product would keep the default boot partition to the Mac OS, but it didn't. I had to go into the system preferences and change the boot order. It was pretty easy, but at first I thought I had installed windows over my Mac OS.

Oh, and one other little caveat; when Windows is installing and wants to know what partition to install on, I was presented with 5 partitions. I'm not sure what they were all for. I had a C:, D:, E:, F: and a G:. Most were small but two were about the same size as what I had requested. The logical choice for me was C: since I figured thats what Windows would be looking for. I guess my choice was right.

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Twitter archive #1

Thank you LauraMoncur for giving me the idea to archive my twit entries. It would be nice to have a setting that just sent them as a post to your blog each day. How freaking cool would that be?

• If u are going to blog a 'how-to', give us some meat not 10 lines of crap


• Stupid train is blocking the intersection


• Victor Wooten @ the Depot in Salt Lake City April 28


• watching a guy aerate my lawn, don't get in his way, ouch


• Day light savings really sucks


• trying to get a replacement for my dead Tmobile MDA


• my resume doesn't tell the whole story, let me say it in person


• is it wrong to twit at church?


• @ewanspence too much PSP


• It's freaking raining in Salt Lake City... arrgh.


• My T-Mobile MDA just died. How will I ever know whats going on? Quick, off to a T-Mobile store.


• saw the movie 300 a few hours ago, awesome.


• I'm mind mapping new websites. this ought to be fun.


• @lauramoncur: don't forget to tip the driver... hehe


• NASCAR, Las Vegas, warm weather... should be an awesome weekend


• SVN totally rocks!


• @lauramoncur: There should be plenty of places for hot Mexican. Be sure to stop by the Great British Booze-up and meet ewanspence


• iPod crash, reset... No


• Windows on a MAC is like jelly on peanut butter


• I need a great video camera for vidcasts, anyone have a suggestion?


• I did it, I'm now a full fledged MAC owner. Let the fun begin.


• Ewan I'm jealous I want all those cool toys


• Should have never had that last slice of pizza.


• Hey Ewan, have fun at SXSW.


• What do you do first thing in the morning? I MUST have the largest diet coke I can purchase with the change in my pocket. rev rev...


• Recording The Jazz Show #21, jazz.thepodcastnetwork.com


• Trying to figure out why I can't hit a web site on a local port... Dang Django


• writing code in Python / Django

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FlexMail 2007, we’re done

Today is the last day I use FlexMail 2007. I've tried twice to use this application and both times it's failed miserably.

The first issue, I turned on my MDA and all the email accounts were gone, and I couldn't figure out how to reconnect them. All the data was on my storage card, but to no avail. Started over by adding all the mail accounts again.

Today, I started reading mail and data just started disappearing. The message body, the header, everything.

I'm not sure if this is a removable storage problem, but its a major problem.

Next step, write my own. There aren't any mail clients for Windows Mobile 5 except FlexMail 2007. I can believe that is true, but it is. If I'm wrong, please leave me links to these web sites.

[P.S. Scratch that, I'm pissed. I paid for this software. I wonder if the company did any QA at all. It's a simple set up. Windows Mobile 5, 1GB MiniSD. Come on, the quality of this software sucks. I'm tired of software companies allowing end users to be their Quality Assurance.]

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Calling all NASCAR Fans

OK, so I need a co-host for the NASCAR Race Day Podcast. This is a media event that I have wanted to make work for a long time. I'll do it solo for now, but I really would like to hook up with another NASCAR fan to really make the show rock. If you are a podcaster already and would like to take on an additional show, let's talk. If you are a crazy NASCAR fan, love to talk about the sport and would like an opportunity to share your enthusiasm, let's talk too. Thanks for any support.

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The Jazz Show #21

Visit the website, jazz.thepodcastnetwork.com or stream it below.

[audio:http://jazz.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_thejazzshow_20070306_21.mp3]

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