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proof of fairness
last week, i ranted about the incomprehensibility of trying to make Windows + VMWare Fusion "just work." desperately needing a final solution to my problem, i broke down and did something i thought i would never do: partitioned my hard drive, and installed Windows via Boot Camp.
for the uninitiated, Boot Camp is Apple's neat & clean solution for Mac users in the Intel age to install Windows inside its own little box, away from OS X.
VMWare left a pretty unsightly mess on my hard drive, so after a whole lotta' haranguing and a thorough 10-hour disk defrag (thanks also in part to the massive amount of video work i've done on my MBP), i was finally ready to get Boot Camp rolling.
install was pretty brain-dead simple: once BC properly partitioned my hard drive, i popped in my (legit) install disc of Windows 7 (64-bit) and let everything just run. after initial installation, i swapped out the Win disc for my Snow Leopard disc to finish installing appropriate drivers. its still quite impressive how fast Windows 7 flies on this machine, particularly when its not sharing resources when its installed in a virtual environment.
so today was the big test: we were gonna attempt to stream our office lunchtime Advent Devotional (the purpose for this entire experiment). first step: connecting to the wireless network. if you'll recall, this was probably the biggest headache from my last post. perhaps its a difference between XP and 7, but once i got past a small hiccup and let Windows "figure it out," i was on the network, full-on. next came the streaming, which required connecting the camera. this was the second biggest headache from my last experiment, so my hopes were low, but amazingly, everything connected just as it should have. and then when it came time to air, everything went surprisingly well. my only quibble was with the Adobe FME software: although it said it was producing an archive file of the taping in FLV format, the final product wound up being corrupt and unusable.
hrm.
anywho: there it is. i had a reasonably good experience within a full workload with Windows 7. a couple of problems:
- trackpad sensitivity- WHOA. tracking is crazy and there's little to no room for error when navigating around. i can't seem to find the Control Panel to fix this.
- battery life- this one i can't make sense of. my battery life goes down the toilet when i'm in Windows. odd, considering after about 10 minutes of yawning at the eye candy of Win7, i switched all of it off.
so there you go. i still would never trade the user experience of OS X for Windows 7 and booting back into OS X feels like i have breathing room again. but in a pinch, and when needed for the random MS Publisher file or Powerpoint 2007 creation, i think i'll be fairly comfortable.
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indirect love letter
we've this seemingly simple video streaming we're trying to accomplish at work by Monday. it requires the use of Adobe's Flash Media Encoder. oddly enough, this software only exists for Windows. there's a private beta available for Mac (version 3.1), but you have to apply for inclusion in testing (which i did... still waiting to hear back).
[anywho]
so i pulled out my trusty copy of VMWare Fusion and fired up Windows XP. installed the FME; fine. connected camera (Canon GL2).
nothing. apparently there's something wonky when connecting FireWire 800 devices to Windows XP SP3, blah blah blah. i read through support documents for nearly an hour and never found a working solution. remember, i'm running in a virtualized environment, so things can get admittedly tricky. so i hunt around for a PC in the office with a standard 4-pin FireWire input. we have none. and since everyone is on laptops with docking stations, a cheapy FW upgrade card is out of the question.
well... crap.
so i call my dad and ask to borrow his ginormous 17" Dell laptop that has FW input. install FME on there, connect camera, BAM, everything's working... except for the network connection. the laptop found the wireless network, but it can't get an IP address. won't resolve. nothing.
call our IT guy. he's a great guy with a ton of know-how and is really, really nice. he's great to work with. but we start talking about how to resolve the connectivity issue and whoooooaaaaalolwhut? all sorts of of talk about getting a static IP address, resolving services, etc., etc. still, nothing works. i have a conference call with our video guys to walk me through the steps of setting up the live stream.
i panic a little, but remember i can create shared internet connection via my work MacPro. i connect the Dell to that, and i'm online... but at a pretty slow speed (meh).
its enough to get me through the video/phone conference call, but not enough to stream video, by a long shot.
so i decide to bite the bullet and purchase an upgrade to Windows 7. i've been using it for quite awhile now and was honestly surprised at how decent an OS it is. upgrade purchased, downloaded... multiple attempts at install FAIL. i go through the process of trying to use a USB drive as my install disc (per MS's instructions) and for some reason VMWare will only recognize an incredibly small portion for use, not nearly enough to install the upgrade disc on.
i phone a friend for a blank DVD to burn the upgrade on. disc burned, error message abound about everything. hour and a half later, i find the setting in VMWare to boot from an optical disc (slightly embarrassing, but there's nothing in the manual about it, nor was their online help any good to me). boot from disc, and...
Windows 7 upgrade can't find my hard drive. can't. find. the hard drive. this i blame on VMWare as their support documents only cover upgrading from within Windows XP and not directly from a bootable DVD. i've called Microsoft and cancelled/"returned" my Windows 7 upgrade order and now i'm back at square one.
for poops & giggles, i test out QuickTime streaming server with the camera. zero configuration, zero mess. also, from day one, my MacBook Pro has worked flawlessly on our office wireless network.
if you know me, you know i'm not the typical person you can shove into the "you only think Windows sucks because you're an idiot user" category. i was raised on Windows; its how i learned computers in the first place. i know what i'm doing and usually know how to worm my way around inside that environment. but this was just a flustercluck of epic proportions. blame goes to both Microsoft and VMWare for sucking (MS primarily for the incredulity regarding the wireless network and FW800 wonkiness, VMWare for lacking thorough support documentation).
dear Apple & MacBook Pro: i don't know what i would do without you. i still have to figure all this out and get it working by Monday, but i have never ever ever ever had problems of this scale with you.
