My Mac Experience

By StandingInAlley
in Apple (macOS)

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Grand Master

Chicane-UK Veteran

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I chopped in a PC and a Mac Mini a few months ago to buy myself an iMac.

Aside from the poor video card onboard, i've been very happy with it. The only 'quirk' i've had to far was the system just not wanting to wake from sleep (about a week after I got it) no matter what keys / mouse buttons I pressed. It even ignored the power button so I had to resort to pulling the mains. It's been fine ever since that!

Leopard is just superb. Truely. One of the best operating systems i've ever used - I never struggle to find the functionality that I want and it never does ANYTHING that makes me raise an eyebrow and speak nasty words back to the computer, like Windows was increasingly making me do.

Rock on Mac!

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sourc3

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Hey there,

I am a long time windows user, lately however I've been thinking about getting a MBP and using vmware for development (I develop on Windows Servers). I think some of you might be able to answer the questions I have:

  1. How is the performance when running Win 2003 server or XP on a virtual machine on Mac? Parallels or Fusion, which one do you use?
  2. Is there a new MBP hardware upgrade in the near future? I have read in a couple places about this, obviously if it's in the very near future, I'd rather wait 1-2 months.

Thanks

Mentor

The2

Posted
Posted
Hey there,

I am a long time windows user, lately however I've been thinking about getting a MBP and using vmware for development (I develop on Windows Servers). I think some of you might be able to answer the questions I have:

  1. How is the performance when running Win 2003 server or XP on a virtual machine on Mac? Parallels or Fusion, which one do you use?
  2. Is there a new MBP hardware upgrade in the near future? I have read in a couple places about this, obviously if it's in the very near future, I'd rather wait 1-2 months.

Thanks

Why use vm's, you could use native install of windows server/xp

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sourc3

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Why use vm's, you could use native install of windows server/xp

I use most of my time developing software, if I were to use bootcamp and install XP directly on the hardware I would be spending most of my time in XP/Win 2003 which would defeat the purpose of me getting a mac. I want the mac to use OS X.

Grand Master

Chicane-UK Veteran

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I don't use either personally but i've heard very complimentary things of both Fusion and Parallels and the performance they offer.

Why use vm's, you could use native install of windows server/xp

If he's doing OS development then stands to reason he wants to sandbox them so would still need a host OS to then stick additional VM's onto?

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sourc3

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I don't use either personally but i've heard very complimentary things of both Fusion and Parallels and the performance they offer.

If he's doing OS development then stands to reason he wants to sandbox them so would still need a host OS to then stick additional VM's onto?

I am not doing OS development per se, but I work with .NET and IIS, Active Directory etc. Long story short, I have to run the entire suite of windows applications to develop. I want to be able to use Visual Studio and all of this on the laptop, and have my Mac OS X on the attached monitor at the same time, such that I can browse/chat/check emails/listen to music on the OS X while still doing development in Windows in the VM.

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1759

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I am not doing OS development per se, but I work with .NET and IIS, Active Directory etc. Long story short, I have to run the entire suite of windows applications to develop. I want to be able to use Visual Studio and all of this on the laptop, and have my Mac OS X on the attached monitor at the same time, such that I can browse/chat/check emails/listen to music on the OS X while still doing development in Windows in the VM.

Use Fusion, just rememeber to max out the RAM then.

Grand Master

Cara Veteran

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I am not doing OS development per se, but I work with .NET and IIS, Active Directory etc. Long story short, I have to run the entire suite of windows applications to develop. I want to be able to use Visual Studio and all of this on the laptop, and have my Mac OS X on the attached monitor at the same time, such that I can browse/chat/check emails/listen to music on the OS X while still doing development in Windows in the VM.

Download the trials of both VMWare and Parallels and see which one works best for you, they both provide the ability to do what you're wanting. :)

For what you're doing I might suggest throwing as much RAM as possible at your VM as well, out of the 8GB I have on one system I drop 4GB into my Windows VM to insure that I don't have any shortages there. :)

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StandingInAlley

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I am using Vmware Fusion and running Windows Xp on it. Just allocated 300mb of ram but thats because i just mirc and ftprush on it.

We need a decent Msn Messenger for Mac. I kinda agree to this. Adium is nice and all but

a) I can't display my personal message

b) I can't see other persons msn message status

Grand Master

PNWDweller

Posted
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I have tried all three VM solutions that I am aware of for the Mac. While they all do the same thing, the main deciding factor for me is the integration mode where they integrate the windows from XP or Vista into the Mac's work environment.

VMWARE Fusion:

Fusion mode is great in the fact that it doesn't show the windows task bar. A big plus for.

Parallels:

Their integration mode is fine, but shows the taskbar. - You can autohide it or tweak Windows to remove it.

Virtualbox:

Same as Paralells as far as the integration mode.

Grand Master

Cara Veteran

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I have tried all three VM solutions that I am aware of for the Mac. While they all do the same thing, the main deciding factor for me is the integration mode where they integrate the windows from XP or Vista into the Mac's work environment.

VMWARE Fusion:

Fusion mode is great in the fact that it doesn't show the windows task bar. A big plus for.

Parallels:

Their integration mode is fine, but shows the taskbar. - You can autohide it or tweak Windows to remove it.

Virtualbox:

Same as Paralells as far as the integration mode.

You can turn off the Taskbar in Parallels. :)

Grand Master

Chicane-UK Veteran

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One thing to bear in mind is that you can only put 4GB of RAM in most Mac's apart from the Mac Pro (I think) - sounds stupid but if you're using Virtual Machines, that might not be enough :(

Community Regular

wase4711

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Thanks for the replies. It looks like I will have to get 4gb of ram on this machine. Can anyone confirm that new macbook pros are on the horizon? (Drastic hardware changes)?

As secretive as Apple tends to be, the only person on this forum that might even have a clue would be Cara...

Grand Master

Chicane-UK Veteran

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Yeah - really no way of knowing whether updates are on the cards other than guesswork :( There have been new Macbook Pro enclosure pictures leaked so they certainly seem to be in development!

Proficient

Cadium

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One thing to bear in mind is that you can only put 4GB of RAM in most Mac's apart from the Mac Pro (I think) - sounds stupid but if you're using Virtual Machines, that might not be enough :(

I believe that the Santa Rosa chipset used in all MacBook Pros from late 2007 onwards allow up to 8 GB of RAM (keep in mind that 8 GB of DDR2 SODIMM's are still pretty expensive at this point), however I am not sure if there are any limitations in the hardware (or possibly in the EFI firmware) that would limit the machine to 4 GB of memory. Cara, would you be able to provide any clarification on this?

Grand Master

Chicane-UK Veteran

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Just FYI sourc3, this was on Mac Rumors this morning..

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/18/apple-...tebook-refresh/

To be honest there is NEVER a good time to buy Apple hardware. When it's brand new it often has a few quirks / bugs and when it's matured it's always at risk of getting the chop and getting replaced. And because Apple have no public roadmap your guess is as good as anyone elses when that might be.

I'd say just get it and not worry about being on the bleeding edge. My iMac came the DAY they updated them a few months back but I was happy enough with it as it was :)

Experienced

kaiwai

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As secretive as Apple tends to be, the only person on this forum that might even have a clue would be Cara...

I doubt it; from what I understand, there are only a small number of people who know when the refreshes come through - even the resellers alot of the time are left out in the dark. I've got a few mates who work at the reselling end - and normally I get a heads up on what is happening; all they know is whether or not they can order something in.

Experienced

kaiwai

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So you're an advocate for segregation, eh? Maybe Quillz found the post the same way I did... It's on the front page recent post list.

No, the fact that I don't go into the Windows part of this forum and jab people in the eye with my ego. Its called giving people their 'space'. The whole point with the seperation is to avoid conflict between Windows, Linux and Mac advocates.

As I said, I don't go into Windows forums jabbing people in the eye - could Windows users therefore do likewise in the Mac forums.

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sourc3

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Yes, it looks like I'll end up getting a MBP 2.4 gHz and actually install the 4gb ram myself. Does this void the warranty?

Thanks a lot for your replies. I checked the mac rumors site and as the site name suggests, it just looks like a rumor. Although I'm wondering how MacBook PRO can be any more aluminum that it currently is? Am I missing something?

One last question to current MBP owners, how is the battery usage? I looked at the apple store specs, but I bet those numbers are just idling the computer not real usage.

Thanks again.

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