Lewies Blog

So a long time ago, I got an old used Mac G3 off of eBay for under $200. It was great for an intro to the Mac world. I learned how to communicate between windows and mac computers over my network. I was able to remotely see my Mac desktop from my windows PC. I even set it up with SETI to search for aliens. However, there were problems.

First, the OS version that was loaded was a bit old. I couldn’t install Mono so that I could run programs built on the .Net platform. In my real life every day job, I program software and websites using the .Net platform, which mono emulates. I really wanted to be able to create programs that run on both Mac, Linux, and Windows platforms just to be able to understand the basics of how that could be done.

There were many other problems, but the most recent was devestating. For some reason, I can’t get anything to work. It’s weird. With windows, something like this would just result in me reinstalling the operating system. The problem is that I don’t have any disc’s to do this on the Mac G3. It came with no software at all.

So let’s fast forward to today. My computer, is getting old. I just recently got a bonus in my paycheck that puts a new computer rite in reach.

The new Mac’s now run on the Intel Core Duo chips. Not only are these chips cheaper then the old Mac chips, but they are faster, and … you can run Windows on the same machine using something called Boot Camp. The MacBooks have my eye. They are very thin, have most of everything i want built into them. There is the built-in camera, cd burner, wireless network, blue tooth, etc.

I’ve been talking with other people within SecondLife who are Mac users. People say to wait until after the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Steve Jobs is expected to get up and announce a few new gadgets and this could include a new line of MacBooks. In fact, earlier this week, Intel announced its new line of Intel Core 2 Duo Processors. Maybe some new MacBooks will come out with the new processors.

My main beef with Apple is that I can’t install Mac OS X on a intel-based PC. The computer itself has to be from Apple. I’ve heard of rumors where people have successfully installed Mac OS X Tiger on a PC, but they had some tough constraints. One person had to match a motherboard with chips close to the ones found on the Apple computers. Also, each time Apple releases updates and patches, you have to worry that they’ll add something that makes it impossible to use the OS on your PC until a hack is found for the updates.

If Apple just allowed there operating system to run on any PC, I imagine they would get out a few more sales.  I would be one of them, wanting to install it on a few more computers I have along with Boot Camp.
So anyway … I’m just waiting for Monday to see what is announced.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 5th, 2006 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Computers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.