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December 28, 2005

Second day with OSX on my P4

I have spent most of this morning using OSX and trying to 'understand' it. So far, I have determined that Skype just isn't going to work and I am guessing it is because I am using the OSX Intel Developer release. I have had successes though. I installed MSN Messenger and Windows Media Player fine, but it is funny that I am using Apple's OS but some of the first programs I need to install are Windows applications.

Messenger has a really nice GUI, even better than the Windows Messenger Live BETA I am running on XP. And Windows Media Player for Mac played my OSX video perfectly, another it did crash once as I tried to resize the window. While making that video I had terrible trouble getting a good quality image with a small file size when I tried to export it to DIVX or Quicktime so that was my reason to export it in WMV but I am happy that Mac users could view it, but I am not sure if Linux users can. (Video exporting and a common file format is a topic for another day.)




Proof of my install


I got the Firefox install sorted out.


Windows Media Player and MSN Messenger


One big failure I had with OSX was trying to install OpenOffice. The installer would run and seemed to almost complete but it would just get stuck on installing a script file, so I had to cancel the installation. I managed to work out the keyboard combination (thanks Google) so that I could capture screen shots and took a few, however, I could not work out how to resize the images in iPhoto, so I will have to resize them and post the screenshots when I am back on Windows.



Looked like the install would work, but stalled soon after.


Trying out Nvu which I heard about from StepOnePro.com another IPTV show.

My final thought of today is could/would I move to OSX permanently or at least make it my second OS. At the moment Fedora Core is my second OS as I have a spare AMD based PC to use it on, if I want to use OSX I have to remove the XP hard drive from my P4 and insert the Mac one. The PC is a slim line desktop PC so has no space for both drives. One possible possibility is that I install OSX under VirtualPC, but I fear it would become too sluggish to be useable. My one big tie to stick with Windows is Outlook but if I could setup Exchange correctly I could have my Outlook via Outlook Web Access and then I could be completely platform independent. So would I make the switch?? If I had the money for a dedicated OSX PC or a genuine Apple PC then I would probably switch, but for now I think my time is better spent learning Fedora Core as I already have a separate PC for that.

(This post was initially posted using OSX and Safari, but images resized, posted and article spell checked on XP)

Posted by The Technician at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2005

OSX running on Intel

A while ago I posted about a tutorial on i-hacked.com about how to installed Mac OSX on Intel hardware, well just to test and evaluate the Apple OSX Operating System, I followed the instructions, obtained a copy of the OSX for Intel DVD and installed it perfectly on my Intel based P4. This was one of the ultimate W?BIC! things to do. It has been very interesting getting used to this new OS which coming from a completely Windows background seems totally different to me.

Here is a short video of my experiment and my initial thoughts. OSX On Intel Video (27mb)

Posted by The Technician at 10:47 PM | Comments (0)

December 26, 2005

How Fiber Optics are made

Makezine.com had a link to a video that shows you how Fiber Optic cable is made. The video is produced by a company that produces the cable and also employs the three engineers who invented Fiber Cable. In Cisco CCNA Semester 1 you learn all about Fiber Optics so this video should be of interest to any one studying CCNA.
Cool Stuff Being Made: How Fiber Optics are Made

Posted by The Technician at 11:13 PM

December 05, 2005

LabRats.tv - IPTV targeted for novices

The list of available IPTV shows gets bigger and bigger and the newest one I have discovered is called LabRats. Unlike most of the other IPTV shows which are producing content for the more techie viewers with segments on wardriving and case mobs, LabRats are producing show targets more towards regular computer users. In the episode (Number 6) they explained about using a router to share your internet connection on a home network. The shows are very well produced and at 15 minutes duration you can easily find time to watch them.

Posted by The Technician at 09:00 PM | Comments (0)