TidBITS#825/10-Apr-06
=====================
Apple last week released a public beta of Boot Camp, which
enables owners of Intel-based Macs to install Windows XP on
a separate partition. Mac users and the press went crazy about
the possibilities, which we cover in detail in this issue:
Adam looks at Boot Camp and some of its implications, while
Robert Movin returns to discuss virtualization, or running Windows
within Mac OS X. Also in this issue, Matt Neuburg raises a sign
for Pacifist, and we point you to several fun articles about
Apple's 30th anniversary.
Topics:
MailBITS/10-Apr-06
Pacifist Still a Winner at 2.0
Apple Opens Boot Camp for Windows Users
WinOnMac Smackdown: Dual-Boot versus Virtualization
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/10-Apr-06
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Copyright 2006 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license
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MailBITS/10-Apr-06
------------------
**Macworld on Apple's 30th Anniversary** -- Our friends at
Macworld have been busy with features celebrating Apple's
30th anniversary, and two of our favorites were their look at
Apple's 30 most significant products and a hilarious timeline
of important events in Apple's history by John Moltz of Crazy
Apple Rumors. If you've started paying attention to Apple only
recently, these two articles will give you a grounding in some
of Apple's more distant past, and for those of who have been
around for many of these years, reading the articles is a nice
trip down memory lane. [ACE]
<http://www.macworld.com/2006/04/features/30applelist/>
<http://www.macworld.com/2006/04/features/carstimeline/>
Pacifist Still a Winner at 2.0
------------------------------
by Matt Neuburg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
If I had to name one utility no Mac OS X power user should be
without, it would be Charles Srstka's Pacifist. Well, okay , it
might be Alsoft's DiskWarrior. But then Pacifist would certainly
come in second! In simple horse-race terms, counting the number
of times each program has rescued me in a tight spot, it would
be a photo finish.
<http://www.charlessoft.com/>
<http://alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/>
In simple terms, Pacifist lets you look inside .pkg files.
A .pkg file is the sort of thing you double-click to start up
the Installer utility; in fact, you might well think of it as
being, itself, an installer. The trouble with such installers
is that you may not know what they will put where, or you may
not be given enough choice about which of its contents you want
installed. With Pacifist, you can browse a .pkg file as if it
were a folder; you can see its contents, learn a lot about what
it proposes to put where, and extract individual files.
To give a practical example, just last week I saw a note on a
Usenet newsgroup from someone who had somehow damaged his copy
of iMovie. Following advice from other readers, he found iMovie
inside a .pkg file on one of his system installer disks, and was
easily able to extract it to his hard disk without running the
installer.
Pacifist can also read Receipt files (lists of what was
installed where, left on your computer by the Installer), and
thus can verify that things are properly installed, with correct
permissions and so forth. A nice use of this feature is Pacifist's
capability to tell you where your .kext files came from (choose
Display Kernel Extension Report from the Pacifist menu). A .kext
file is a kernel extension; these files are crucial because they
modify the operation of Mac OS X at a low level, so a buggy one
can cause things to go mysteriously wrong. In this way, I see
instantly that I have just two .kext files that weren't installed
by Apple, and I know what both of them are for, so all is well.
What has always most struck me about Pacifist is its generosity.
It does something difficult and technical and makes it easy and
safe, along with a crystal-clear interface. Despite all the work
that must have gone into writing and testing and maintaining it,
Pacifist 2.0 is still just $20, and is true shareware: if you
don't pay the fee, the only penalty is a nag screen at startup.
This new version, besides fixing some bugs, adds full Tiger and
Intel support, and allows reading of additional file formats
(including .dmg). For registered owners of an earlier version,
this upgrade is free.
Apple Opens Boot Camp for Windows Users
---------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
No, it's not April 1st, but yes, Apple Computer has just released
a public beta of their Boot Camp software, which enables users
of Intel-based Macs to install and run Windows XP. (Lest you see
this as a sign of the apocalypse, remember that Apple sold DOS
cards for Macs in the distant past to enable them to run PC
software.) If you want to install Boot Camp and Windows XP,
you won't need to mess with your Mac data at all, though you
will need sufficient disk space for a Windows XP partition.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/>
Boot Camp technology will be a feature of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard,
perhaps under a different name, but for now, you can use this
beta to create a dual-boot system, switching between Mac OS X
and Windows XP by holding down the Option key at startup and
selecting the appropriate partition. The startup choice can
also be set through a modified Startup Disk preference pane
that Boot Camp installs, as well as a new Control Panel found
in Windows XP after Boot Camp installs drivers and extensions.
Clever hackers had already managed to get Windows XP booting on
Intel-based Macs - and won nearly $14,000 in private money by
figuring it out - but the process is much harder than what Apple
developed. Boot Camp provides a graphical assistant that walks
the user through creating a second partition for Windows, burning
a CD with the required Windows drivers (for your Mac's graphics
card, wired and wireless networking, audio, Bluetooth, keyboard
Eject button, and Brightness control for built-in displays),
and installing Windows from the Windows XP installation CD.
Take special note of the partitioning process: You don't need
to back up all the data on your hard disk, reformat the disk,
repartition it with appropriately formatted Mac and Windows
partitions, and then install Boot Camp. Rather, you simply use
the Boot Camp software to create a dynamic logical partition
that appears as valid as any previous statically created
partition. This is possible only under Mac OS X systems using
Intel Core processors using what Apple describes as a GUID
Partition Table (GPT) using journaled HFS+ as the filesystem
option. Our colleague Dan Frakes noted that "resizeVolume"
is now an option for the command line diskutil Unix utility
that's part of the Mac OS X 10.4.6 update. Diskutil mirrors
the graphical Disk Utility application for most features.
In an interview with TidBITS Contributing Editor Glenn Fleishman,
Apple product managers wouldn't provide additional detail on
this dynamic partitioning, but confirmed that it was new.
Your Mac volumes can be seen by the Windows system and vice-versa.
For Windows partitions, you can choose to create either an old-
style FAT32 volume, which can't create files larger than 4 GB, or
new-style NTFS volume. NTFS has fairly sophisticated capabilities,
including journaling - keeping a running record of changes to a
volume that can be recovered even after a crash, just as newer
versions of Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X 10.3 and later. But only
the uglier FAT32 format can be read and written under Mac OS X
natively; NTFS volumes mount read-only.
Mac volumes under Windows appear only if you install third-party
software, such as MacDrive 6, which the company has already tested
and found perfectly good performance with a Boot Camp
installation.
<http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/>
Although Boot Camp's dual-boot capability is a first step,
virtualization (running Windows within a window, or even running
a Windows application as if it were just another program, in the
way that Classic runs Mac OS 9 applications) would seem a much
more desirable goal, since you wouldn't have to leave Mac OS X
to run a Windows application. Virtualization also promises speeds
comparable to native operation with the safety of running Windows
in its own cage that can be restored to a base point - as in
Microsoft's Virtual PC - more easily than a separately bootable
Windows partition. Along with the open source Q project, at least
three firms are working on virtualization software, including
Parallels (whose public beta was released last week) and two
others that aren't yet public with their plans. Microsoft may
also update Virtual PC for Macintosh, but currently the company
has not released any information on its plans. See "WinOnMac
Smackdown: Dual-Boot versus Virtualization" later in this
issue for a comparison of dual-boot and virtualization
options available today.
<http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/>
Virtualization may be further than Apple is willing to go,
though, given that it could conceivably make developing software
for Mac OS X less attractive than writing for Windows, which would
then be a least common denominator. In particular, game developers
would be unlikely to port their games to Mac OS X if there was
no downside to writing only for Windows; the companies that would
be hurt would be those that actually create the ported versions.
I can't see users having any problem running games in Windows
given that most games have their own custom interfaces anyway;
it's not like anyone would notice if a game running in Mac OS X
was really a Windows application as long as its performance didn't
suffer. That said, I could easily imagine Boot Camp being built
into Leopard in such a way that you could switch between Mac OS X
and Windows XP much the way Fast User Switching works now.
To run Boot Camp, you need an Intel-based iMac, Mac mini,
or a MacBook Pro with the latest firmware updates; Mac OS X
10.4.6; at least 10 GB of hard disk space; a blank recordable CD;
a printer (Apple says about the setup instructions, "You'll want
to print them before installing Windows, really."); and a bona
fide installation disc for Microsoft Windows XP, Service Pack 2,
Home Edition or Professional (multi-disc, upgrade, and Media
Center versions won't work). A full copy of Windows XP Home
Edition runs nearly $200; Professional, nearly $300. Apple is
explicit about how it does not sell or support Windows, and thus
you'll not only need your own copy, it's up to you to make sure
it's appropriately patched and protected against the panoply of
Windows malware. That means installing a robust firewall, anti-
virus software, and anti-spyware software. We recommend Zone Alarm
by Zone Labs for some of those functions; the company sells a
bundle that includes components it doesn't make itself. Google
also provides Google Pack, a collection of helpful free software
for Windows that Mac users interested in playing with Windows
might use as a starting point.
<http://zonelabs.com/>
<http://pack.google.com/>
Interestingly, the license for Boot Camp is good until 30-Sep-07,
so we can be pretty sure that Leopard will be out before then.
The license also says that you're allowed to use Boot Camp purely
for evaluation purposes and - amusingly - that it "does not
permit the Apple Software to be used in a commercial operating
environment where it may be relied upon to perform in the same
manner as a final-release commercial-grade product or with data
that is not sufficiently and regularly backed up." So what's
Apple going to do, sue you if you happen to use Boot Camp in a
"commercial operating environment"? You'd be dumb to rely on
public beta software in such a situation (and it's perfectly
reasonable for a license to warn you that you're using the
software at your own risk), but methinks Apple's lawyers were
a bit overzealous during some of the writing. But whatever you do,
be sure not to use Boot Camp to run your nuclear reactor, airplane
navigation system, air traffic control system, or life support
machine - the license is clear about how Apple doesn't intend Boot
Camp to be used anywhere where a bug could cause death, injury,
or severe physical or environmental damage. Playing Solitaire is
probably okay, and Outlook will likely cause only the mental part
of environmental damage.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/terms.html>
Lastly, on our staff mailing list, Apple's choice of the name
"Boot Camp" prompted Geoff Duncan to riff on the notion of a
stereotypical Army drill sergeant addressing a fresh crop of
Windows switchers. We couldn't resist sharing. Enjoy!
"Think you're good enough for this computer, MAGGOTS? You are
NOT! Did you HEAR me? You are NOT good enough for this computer.
The only way - and I repeat, the ONLY way - you simpering short-
haired pencil necks will be good enough is if every REAL computer
user on this planet were abducted by aliens!
"WHAT?! You think that's FUNNY, Windows-boy? When I WANT you
to laugh, I'll make a cute sound!
"Now then, since you WORMS are all we've GOT - " (Paces the line.)
"What does Control-Alt-Delete do?"
THERE IS NO ALT KEY, SIR!
"I can't HEEEAR you!"
THERE IS NO ALT KEY, SIR!
"Where is the menu bar?"
TOP OF THE SCREEN, SIR!
"What are computers for?"
BUYING MUSIC, SIR!
WinOnMac Smackdown: Dual-Boot versus Virtualization
---------------------------------------------------
by Robert Movin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Back in the days of yore when I wrote "From iPod to MacBook Pro:
A Switcher's Tale" (you know, a month ago) I described how my
primary personal justification for investing in a MacBook Pro was
the possibility of eventually running Windows on my Mac desktop.
I'd be able to work in the wonders of Mac OS X while still being
able to access my corporate applications keeping me chained to
Windows. I even predicted (boldly, some readers said), that it
would be only a matter of months before we saw Windows on Macs.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08455>
I was wrong. It was only a matter of weeks.
Since my earlier article there's been significant progress in
the field of running Windows on Intel-based Macs. Around the
same time, a pair of hackers won nearly $14,000 for producing
a repeatable method of dual-booting Windows on a Mac, and a
universal binary version of Q emulation software appeared,
enabling users to run Windows and Unix variations in emulation
windows on the Mac desktop. Then, before the ink was dry on
that $14,000 check, Apple released the Boot Camp beta version
for official dual booting (see "Apple Opens Boot Camp for
Windows Users" earlier in this issue).
<http://onmac.net/>
<http://www.kberg.ch/q/>
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/>
It seems obvious that much more emphasis is focused on enabling
dual booting over virtualization. Apple considered it important
enough to dedicate resources to it and to release beta software
while over 850 companies and individuals donated hard cash to
the effort. But I see dual booting Windows on a Mac as merely a
temporary solution, one that will fade to minor importance as we
get full virtualization running in a hypervisor environment on
Macs. Instead of exiting Mac OS X, rebooting and loading Windows
XP (which will take longer than the current 23 seconds to boot Mac
OS X on my MacBook Pro), running whatever application you need and
then shutting down and transitioning back, you'll be able to run
an instance of Windows XP within a window in Mac OS X, with very
little performance degradation and support for nearly everything
you need. Heck, I'm running a slightly crippled version of that
exact scenario right now! But before we pit dual booting and
virtualization in mortal combat, it's important to understand
what virtualization and emulation are, what obstacles they face,
and the potential long-term benefits.
**Defining Our Terms** -- In short, a "hypervisor" is
virtualization software that makes it possible to run multiple
operating systems on a host computer. It does this by emulating
a hardware environment for the guest operating system to run in,
and we call this a "virtual machine." True hypervisors layer
themselves between the host operating system and the physical
hardware to maximize performance by minimizing any layers between
the virtual machine and the hardware underneath.
Now for the long version. "Virtualization" is a bit of a loaded
term with a number of potential meanings, so we need to narrow
the field down a bit. For the purposes of this article I'm going
to focus on virtual machines and application virtualization,
and I apologize in advance for grossly oversimplifying. Whenever
you abstract something, which means having some bit of code
pretend to be a piece of hardware, it's a form of virtualization.
In fact, you're already using quite a bit of virtualization
technology on a modern Macintosh. Virtual memory is perhaps the
most obvious use of virtualization - it uses space on the hard
disk to simulate RAM. Multiple partitions on a single physical
hard drive, disk images, a single partition spanning multiple
physical drives (like a RAID) and even your iDisk are all
virtual disks. The Java programming language is built on the
concept of programming applications to run in a Java virtual
machine - a software environment abstracted from the physical
hardware of a system. Even those nice Flash animations use
application virtualization.
"Emulation" is closely related to virtualization. With emulation
we use software to emulate the response of incompatible hardware.
The most well-known example of this is of course Virtual PC, which
enables a PowerPC-based Mac to run Windows software by emulating
the x86 hardware. Rosetta is also emulation software - when a
PowerPC application runs on an Intel-based Mac, the Rosetta code
translates instructions for a PowerPC processor into instructions
for an x86 processor, then translates the results back to the
application. That's why PowerPC applications run slower in
Rosetta - every instruction to the CPU must be translated in
both directions. Another, more entertaining example of emulation
is MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), which is software
that emulates arcade games and gaming consoles so you can play
old arcade games on your computers.
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx>
<http://www.apple.com/rosetta/>
<http://www.mame.net/>
But the most exciting area of virtualization (and emulation)
today is virtual machines and hypervisors. This time we're not
talking about the limited application environment of a Java
virtual machine, but running a complete host operating system
within another operating system. The most famous examples of
this are VMWare, Virtual PC for Windows, QEMU, and Xen. Each
operates a bit differently, but all essentially create a virtual
machine into which you can install a different operating system,
regardless of the host hardware and operating system (as long
as it's supported).
<http://www.vmware.com/>
<http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/>
<http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/>
<http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/>
We call the software that manages this process a "virtual machine
manager" or "hypervisor," the system running the virtual machine
the "host operating system," and the system running inside the
virtual machine the "guest operating system." Thus we create
a virtual machine by emulating the hardware needed for the
guest (that's what hypervisor software does). This leads to
some interesting results. One of the best results is that
virtual machines are portable, since they aren't tied to the
host hardware. I have a couple of Windows XP virtual machines
in various stages of patches that I move from computer to
computer merely by copying the image file over. In an enterprise
environment this means you can have highly portable standard
images, which is nifty if you manage a lot of servers. We can
also run multiple virtual machines at the same time on a single
system, in some cases emulating entire networks with workstations
and servers. I've run up to three virtual machines in VMWare on
my Dell Pentium 4 2.4 GHz computer and the biggest limitation
is memory.
Of course, that's not the case with Virtual PC on a Mac,
where Windows performance is, frankly, mediocre at best.
The performance problems stem from having to emulate the x86
processor architecture on top of Mac OS X while running a virtual
machine. We're talking multiple layers of translation here and
a layer of emulation across two operating systems and different
hardware, which is not the best combination for good performance.
But those of you who may have also run VMWare, Xen, or QEMU on
x86 probably noticed much better virtual machine performance.
That's because those tools play tricks to minimize the
translations needed and allow processor commands more direct
access to the hardware underneath.
VMWare tends to pass CPU calls directly to the processor
while emulating the rest of the hardware environment (video,
peripherals, etc.) that might change from system to system.
Thus we eliminate much of the translation (and some of the
emulation) needed and our guest operating system runs at near-
native performance. These benefits don't translate for system
components that are fully emulated, like video cards, so VMWare
is more suited for business applications than the latest version
of Unreal Tournament. Whereas VMWare is commercial software
dedicated to the x86 architecture, QEMU is open source and
capable of emulating and running on a few major hardware
platforms, including PowerPC-based Macs. In some cases, and now
we're back to x86, programmers developed accelerators similar
to VMWare to speed up performance by skipping some of the
translation. Xen, another open source virtualization tool,
takes it a step further and relies on highly optimized guest
operating systems to achieve essentially native performance.
**Into the Ring** -- Back to the smackdown. Now that Macs run on
Intel x86 processors we have two options for running Windows.
We can dual-boot the machine and just run Windows natively, or we
can run Windows in a virtual machine that's running in Mac OS X.
Each has advantages and disadvantages, but my preference is
virtualization, and I have it running today.
My goal is to use my MacBook Pro as my primary system when
I travel, which means running just a few Windows applications,
including our corporate VPN, corporate dial up networking, and
Outlook (I need to keep my .pst files, so Entourage isn't an
option). I'd rather run this within Mac OS X if possible, but
dual booting will at least buy me time. I first looked into the
dual-boot process published by OnMac.net, but it was pretty
labor-intensive and prone to error. I figured I could always
come back to it if necessary.
Luckily, Apple's public beta of Boot Camp is an official, user-
friendly, dual-boot installer and manager. As many of you know
by now, the Intel-based Macs use EFI (Extensible Firmware
Interface) instead of BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) for
the firmware, but EFI works only with Mac OS X for now (Windows
Vista will support EFI too). Thus, creating a dual-boot Mac is
not as simple as installing Windows and Linux on the same PC;
we need some sort of emulator to pretend to be BIOS and allow
the operating system to load. Boot Camp seems to do that
seamlessly along with repartitioning your hard disk on the fly
and creating a CD of drivers for all the nifty Mac hardware
that's not yet supported in Windows. Simple, easy, reliable,
and not all that interesting for me personally, especially since
none of my half-dozen Windows XP install CDs meet the Service
Pack 2 requirement. (If you're in the same situation, it is
possible to build a Windows XP SP2 installation CD from the
original XP CD and the downloaded service pack, assuming you
have access to a Windows machine and some technical chops.)
<http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp>
So I decided to move on to virtualization. The open source QEMU
can now run on either PowerPC- or Intel-based Macs, and there
is a wonderful Mac OS X port of QEMU called Q, with all sorts of
Aqua goodness. QEMU on a PowerPC-based Mac suffers from the same
performance limitations as Virtual PC but theoretically could be
enhanced on the Intel Core Duo Macs for greater performance.
My initial attempts at using Q gave mixed results. I downloaded
and installed Q as instructed. First, you're supposed to create
a disk image to install your new operating system. Then you
have to launch the virtual machine and tell it to boot off your
installation CD, just like installing on real hardware. I inserted
my old Windows XP Service Pack 1 CD into the MacBook Pro, launched
Q, configured it to boot on the local CD-ROM drive and... nothing.
Reading the support forums confirmed that I was doing everything
exactly right. So I tried creating a disk image of the Windows
install CD and using that instead and... nothing again. Frustrated
to no end, I tried a good old fashioned reboot, launched Q again,
and it all just worked. I was up and running and the install
process was no different than any other time I installed Windows,
although it slogged like using an old 386 processor instead of
a Core Duo. The install completed normally, I switched Q to boot
off the virtual hard drive instead of the system CD, and there
it was - the Windows login screen on my Mac desktop.
The first thing I tried to do was install our corporate VPN
client (like many businesses we don't use standard IPsec for
manageability and security reasons). This is the single most
important step to meet my goal of shelving my corporate PC.
Unfortunately, I encountered a fatal memory error that wouldn't
disappear after multiple reboots. Upgrading to Service Pack 2
didn't help, nor did creating a Windows XP virtual machine in
QEMU on my PC (in fact, the version running on my PC crashed
even harder when trying to run the VPN client).
Without our corporate VPN client, my Q experiment was essentially
a failure, though I went on to install Microsoft Office and test
Outlook. Everything worked fine, if slowly. I could transfer files
between Mac OS X and Windows easily with a shared folder, access
the Internet, and install software - just not all software. I've
used a fair number of virtualization packages and while Q is slow,
it's usable in a pinch. Barely. That will change, of course. A
group of QEMU programmers are feverishly working away at kernel
extensions to provide the Mac version with the same speed benefits
as running on Windows.
But last week saw more than just Boot Camp, since Q was joined by
another virtualization program, this time from Parallels Software.
The public beta of Parallels Workstation 2.1 for Mac OS X promises
near-native performance for any version of Windows (not just XP),
any Linux distribution, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2, eComStation,
or even MS-DOS.
<http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/>
I have now completed installation and testing of Parallels
Workstation with a Windows XP virtual machine. I'm happy to
say that with it, virtualization is real, - and really fast -
on Intel-based Macs today. Parallels Workstation installed without
a hitch, and I quickly created a Windows XP virtual machine. I was
able to patch it to Service Pack 2, and it accepted my corporate
VPN. I'm now happily connected and running Outlook as if I was
on the corporate network. And did I mention that it's fast?
Taking advantage of Intel's Virtualization Technology results
in extremely solid performance that's faster than VMWare on my
PC and possibly faster than my work PC. While I haven't tested
advanced graphics yet, I think it's safe to say that thanks to
Parallels, we have full virtualization on the Mac with better
performance than some PC solutions. Heck, I've even already
filled up my virtual hard drive with the Windows software I
need to use on a regular basis.
**Pick Your Poison** -- For those of you thinking of running
Windows on your Intel Mac, here's a rundown of your options
with my personal recommendations.
* If you are interested in gaming or other high performance
software, or need immediate full support of Windows, go with
Apple's Boot Camp. You'll need to reboot to switch between Mac
and Windows, but it works and will always be the best option if
you need to push every bit of performance out of that video card.
* For those of you, like me, that just need a few Windows
applications to get your job done and don't feel like rebooting,
virtualization is the way to go. Parallels seems rock solid, but
if you want open source, Q should offer respectable performance
in the near future. I expect to see additional offerings from
VMWare, Microsoft, and possibly even Apple down the road.
What does the future hold? While virtualization is here today,
it's not inconceivable that we could see Rosetta for Windows on
a Mac in the more distant future. This would mean that instead
of running Windows inside a window, you could run an individual
Windows application much as you do with Classic
applications on PowerPC-based Macs today.
I don't see this as a priority for Apple, but there are no
technical reasons why it shouldn't be possible. It's a difficult
problem, and I'm not sure it makes business sense for Apple,
but it's been done to a certain degree already on Linux with
the WINE project (which isn't emulation, but implementation of
Windows APIs).
<http://www.winehq.com/>
One thing is certain: Windows and Macs are much closer than they
were a few months ago. And maybe, just maybe, we Mac types will
be able to use our favorite computers at work without battling
corporate IT.
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/10-Apr-06
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The first link for each thread description points to the
traditional TidBITS Talk interface; the second link points to
the same discussion on our Web Crossing server, which provides
a different look and which may be faster.
**Whither Eudora?** News on development of the Eudora email
application has been pretty quiet lately. Is it time to switch
to Apple's Mail? (3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2954>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/786/>
**Rough numbers of Mac users** -- How many are we? And where do
you go to find this sort of information? (8 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2955>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/787/>
**Comparing Business Card Design Software** -- Joe Kissell's
article comparing Business Card Composer and SOHO Business Cards
yields readers' experiences, plus an inexpensive method of
avoiding smudges on home-printed cards. (9 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2956>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/788/>
**Where does iWeb save its files?** Apple's Web design component
of iLife '06 doesn't make it easy to locate your files in the
Finder, as a reader discovers when trying to combine two sites.
(4 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2958>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/789/>
**RSA Anti-phishing** -- Readers debate a proposed method of
trying to stop phishing scams. (6 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2959>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/791/>
**Boot Camp enables Windows XP dual-boot** -- Last week's release
of the Boot Camp beta prompts plenty of discussion. (34 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2960>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/790/>
**Windows via virtualization** -- Readers theorize about whether
Apple's next move after Boot Camp is being able to run Windows
within Mac OS X (see elsewhere in this issue for much more
information). (20 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2961>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/792/>
**Apple Just Saved Me $1000** -- Jeff Carlson's ExtraBITS post
brings some focus on the importance of industrial design to
Apple's success. (2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2962>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/793/>
**Crossing platforms with PowerPoint** -- Tips on making
PowerPoint presentations work under both Windows and Mac OS X.
(1 message)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2964>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/795/>
**On partition wrangling** -- Boot Camp can dynamically partition
a hard drive without requiring that you erase and reinstall the
operating system, but can you go in the other direction to combine
multiple partitions into one? (2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2965>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/796/>
$$
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