Why My Next Workstation will be a Mac January 16, 2011
Posted by jimintriglia in Apple Mac, Personal Computing.add a comment
I decided last week that it was time for me to upgrade to Snow Leopard, the current version of Apple’s operating system for the Mac. I visited my local Apple store, purchased an upgrade disk for $29, and then returned to my office to begin the update process.
In running a preliminary check of my MacBook Pro’s file system via the disk utility, I discovered that the S.M.A.R.T. technology integrated into my Mac’s hard disk was reporting that the drive was failing.
Not a good thing.
I would again have an opportunity to see if my investment in the AppleCare Protection Plan would pay off, as it had in the past. I also would find out whether my primary backup software application, SuperDuper!, would deliver on several features that I would now rely on to get me back up-and-running on my MacBook laptop.
One call to AppleCare support confirmed the diagnosis of a failing hard disk. The Apple representative made an appointment for me at a nearby Apple store Genius Bar to have my laptop repaired. Two hours later, on my lunch hour, I was exiting the Apple store with my repaired laptop in-hand. An Apple store Genius replaced the failing hard drive with a brand new replacement drive. The whole laptop repair affair at the Apple store took less than 20 minutes, leaving me time for some lunch before heading back to the office.
Later that day, my MacBook successfully booted off my external Lacie drive, quick and easy. I fired-up SuperDuper!, chose the restore all files option, and less than two hours later, I had my MacBook Pro up-and-running again, just the way I left it when I did a full backup that morning.
The update to Snow Leopard took an hour and a half, with absolutely no issues. I spent the day that followed my MacBook repair doing productive work on my MacBook. A productive day of work on a laptop that just experienced a serious hardware issue, a complete restore of two years worth of application software, configuration settings and restore of all personal and business data, in addition to a successful update the operating system, to boot (no pun intended).
Any wonder why Apple stock closed at $348.40 per share? Will it come as a surprise to anyone I know, when the next desktop workstation I purchase will be a Mac?
OpenOffice v3 for the Mac: Alternative to Apple Pages June 27, 2010
Posted by jimintriglia in Apple Mac, Freeware, Open Source, Personal Computing.Tags: Open Office v3
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I do a fair amount of writing each week, so I’ve come to appreciate the power of a capable word processing application like WordPerfect or Microsoft Word. Since switching over to my MacBook Pro a little more that a year ago, I’ve been enjoying Apple’s Pages Word processing program.
Unfortunately, Pages does not offer some of the features that I need to publish the kind of articles that my readers expect. For one thing, the inability to add a caption to a inserted image still has me wondering what the marketing folks at Cupertino believe about the needs of their users.
Before heading off to search for a better Mac word processing application from a third-party provider, I decided to look-in on Open Office. Much to my surprise, OO Suite has a release for the Mac, and it appears to rock. Did I mention the cost is free?
Yes, I will still be using Pages for assignments that require a “light” word processing application. I also will make good use of Microsoft Word 2010, which was just released as part of the 2010 Office Suite package.
I’m still partial to using Open Office v3, since my other computing platform is Linux. No shortage of word processing applications in my home, to be sure.
Camtasia vs Screenflow: Battle of the Screencasting Platforms June 11, 2010
Posted by jimintriglia in Apple Mac, Communications, Education, Screencasting.4 comments
After sorting through a dozen or so screencasting applications for the Apple Mac platform, I’ve settled on Camtasia for the Mac, with Telestream’s ScreenFlow running a close second. My principal goal was to find a screencasting application that would enable me to create scripted screencasts, in addition to “quick and dirty” narratives that I could embed in various media.
After working with ScreenFlow for several days, I found myself growing frustrated with the lack of basic tools, such as being able to add simple pointer graphics to my screencast during post-production editing. I also had difficulty editing audio tracks, and resigned myself to the fact that I would likely have to record audio separately via applications like Apple’s GarageBand or Audacity if I decided to go with ScreenFlow as my screencasting tool.
Camtasia for the Mac seemed to be a more polished application as compared to ScreenFlow, which I would expect, as the Microsoft Windows versions of Camtasia products have been in development for years. ScreenFlow appears to have a better community of users willing to help each other, even to the point of developing free add-on tools and providing feedback on community members screencasts. Camtasia for the Mac crashed several times on my MacBook Pro, something I do not expect Mac applications to do. On the positive side, my recent work was saved, so the only time I lost was in rebooting the application.
There is much discussion on the web and on Youtube as to whether Camtasia for the Mac or Screenflow is best for professional and business screencasting. Here’s one review of Camtasia from a user that uses Screenflow:
Don McAllister‘s Screencastonline is a great example of the power of educational screencasts. I’ve used several of Don’s screencasts to preview applications that are of interest to me. Last year, I previewed Don’s screencast of OmniFocus, and decided to purchase the software for my Mac and iPhone. Not only did his screencast review of OmniFocus provide enough information for me to make a purchase decision, I learned enough from the screencast to begin using the application as soon as I downloaded and installed the package. (Don uses ScreenFlow for capture and assembly edit; Final Cut Studio for final production editing.)
I’ve still got 25 days left in my Camtasia free trial evaluation, which I’ll put to good use in testing other applications that I have in mind. Screenflow offers a free trial download, but I the heavy watermarking gets in the way of evaluating finished screencasts. Telestream should consider eliminating the watermarking to better compete with Techsmith’s Camtasia, or at least make the watermark more transparent, so prospective customers can better evaluate the video capture quality.
Next month, I’ll share with you whether I decided to purchase Camtasia for the Mac or Screenflow. Please post your experience with either application, especially if you have evaluated both products.
Virtualization Software Provides Flexibility and Value December 13, 2009
Posted by jimintriglia in Apple Mac, Computer Science, Personal Computing.add a comment
Many information technology development professionals involved in application development, sport more than a single computing platform on which they develop applications. Typically, developers may developed applications residing on operating systems developed by the Open Source community (Linux CentOS, Ubunto) and proprietary worlds (Microsoft Windows 7 and Apple Mac (OS/X).
Each computing platform has it’s strengths and weaknesses. Rather than choose one over the other, IT pros often integrate all of the platforms around a network infrastructure, so we can pick and choose a computing platform based on what is best suited for the job at hand.
When I made the switch to my Macbook Pro laptop, I chose VMWare Fusion v2 software to provide me with the ability to run all of my Microsoft Windows and Linux-based applications on my Mac. This proved to be an excellent choice, as Fusion software has been a rock-solid performer.
As a career enterprise application developer, I prefer system and software development tools that have as their foundation a UNIX-oriented operating system. At times, this choice is more about community rather that capability; my preferences and those of my customers are satisfied by solutions that are best developed, implemented and managed via *NIX platforms.
When I began to design a new environment for a web-based application development project, I chose LINUX as the base operating system for my development, test and production servers. I also chose to equip some of these servers with virtualization software, so I could access legacy Microsoft WinXP applications on the same server on-the-fly.
VMware Workstation 7 appears to be a good choice of virtualization software for running a variety of operating systems on my Linux servers. I’ll provide feedback on my experience with the latest release of VMware Workstation as soon as I complete building a new server that will host VMware. A word of warning on VMware’s 30-day trail offer: do not go through the process of downloading the trial software until you are ready to install and evaluate the software. The clock starts ticking on the trail period as soon as you submit the trial offer web form. Contacting VMware to request extension of the trial period have gone unanswered (so you may want to try what I suggest in the next paragraph).
An associate tipped me off to VirtualBox OSE, an Open Source alternative to VMware, provided by Sun Microsystems. I successfully installed VirtualBox on a test Ubuntu Linux-based server, so I could access a Microsoft Windows XP environment. VirtualBox installed without a hitch, thanks to the quality of the latest Ubuntu v9.x desktop release. I now have the capability of accessing all of my M$ Win/XP applications on my Ubuntu Test desktop workstation.
All-in-all, I’ve found virtualization software provides great value for developers from the perspective of hardware cost savings, productivity and ease of maintenance of development, test and production environments. Looking forward to working with new virtualization models for developers as they become available.
Review of Parallels VM for the Mac February 26, 2009
Posted by jimintriglia in Apple Mac, Microsoft Windows, PC Security, Personal Computing.1 comment so far
Cameron Sturdevant of eWeek has written a review of Parallels VM software for the Apple Mac. I chose VMware for my MacBook Pro with no regrets; I’ve been running my Microsoft Windows XP applications flawlessly under SP3.
If you are a fan of Acronis True Image and Kapersky virus/firewall software, the Parellels software may be a better deal as compared to VMware. The license fee for both the Acronis and Kapersky software is included in the cost of the Parellels software.
I’ve used Acronis for many years and Kapersky Internet Security 2009 to protect all of my home and business PCs with excellent results.
