OS Virtualization on a Mac: Parallels vs. VMWare

Now that Apple's computers use Intel processors like the rest of the desktop computing world, it's become easy for Mac users to run other operating systems in tandem with OS X. Sure, PowerPC Macs can dual-boot certain Linux distributions that distribute a compatible version, but a lot of Linux software packages are written only for Intel's x86 platform.

With the change in processor architecture, a Mac can run all the mainstream desktop operating systems... including Windows, if you want. In fact, you no longer even have to reboot the computer to switch the running OS; virtualization software is now available to let you boot a virtual "guest" system within your OS X "host."

The two competing commercial programs for virtualization within OS X are Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion. (There are a few free-software alternatives, but I haven't successfully used any of them.) It seems that VMWare and Parallels are both very good at what they do, and they seem to be playing a constant game of leapfrog such that "who's better" is constantly switching sides.

It was really hard to make a distinction between the two, but after reading an intense comparison on MacTech.com I discovered that:

• Parallels is a little bit faster than VMWare


• However, the faster the "host" Mac, the less speed difference there is between them


• VMWare is much better at virtualizing operating systems other than Windows (i.e. Linux)

Since I have a fast, recent Mac, and I plan to run a lot of Linux virtual machines, that clinched it for me. In fact, I ran into a poll on MacResearch.org that showed that people virtualizing Windows tend to go for Parallels those running Linux VMs tend to go for VMWare. Since my primary application will be Linux virtualization, I bought VMWare. I tested it before I bought it, and it's been running the latest version of Fedora (one of my favorite Linux distributions) just great. It also looks like I'll have plenty of cool features whenever I decide to start virtualizing Windows.

And, since I bought in 2007 (December 31, but it counts), it looks like I'll be able to take advantage of a $20 VMWare rebate as well. The website says it'll take a few days for my order to be fully processed and for my rebate eligibility to be verified, but it looks like it will go through.

Quote of the day

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."

-Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788-1860)

Google Reader, again (UPDATED)

It's been a long time since I last tried using Google Reader to keep track of news and blogs. There have been a lot of new features added since then, so I'm going to give it a go once more.

I imported all my feeds in from Bloglines, and the first thing I noticed is that Reader still timestamps items by when it reads them, not by the post time given in the feed. Since Reader only goes out to check your feeds intermittently, you end up with "clumps" of items posted between checks that are all given the same date and time. There's a great post about why this is bad here.

This was one of the reasons it didn't work out for me last time; hopefully it either doesn't bother me this time or the behavior is fixed to work more intelligently. Anyway, here goes...

UPDATE: I've already seen that the behavior has indeed been fixed to work more intelligently. The issue raised in the post I linked to above has been resolved, keeping items in the correct order even when a group is all grabbed at the same time. However, it would still be nice to see items timestamped with the actual <pubDate> from the feed and not Google's "scrape time." The only other issue I had in previous Reader attempts was seeing how it treats feed items that have updated or changed. There doesn't seem to be a per-feed setting for whether to show the item again when there's a new version (there is in Bloglines, which is a feature I really liked), so I'm still not *quite* sure whether Reader will stick with me this time.

Google Reader

P.S. Mihai Parparita, this one's for you.

Here comes another bubble...

Thanks, Ze... this is great!

xkcd... still great

This is from Monday, but despite being a few days old it's still pretty awesome. As usual, the punchline is actually in the mouseover text.



xkcd - Success

I bought a new iMac!

I have been saving up for a new computer for a while, so with Apple's Black Friday discounts today I went to their store and bought one. It's a 20" iMac with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, which needless to say is a huge improvement from the three-year-old Powerbook that was previously my main machine. The new Mac will be even speedier when I increase the RAM, but I didn't want to pay Apple's outrageous charges so I'll be getting that upgrade someplace else. Still, the 1GB of DDR2-667MHz memory that came with it is nothing to sneeze at.

Apparently the two Apple Stores I usually frequent were very busy today, but luckily I was at Apple's retail Web site before I went shopping and I discovered a new little-known location not far away; I went there (at about 10:30am) and had no wait whatsoever.

It came with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) pre-installed, but a 10.5 (Leopard) DVD came in the package so I could immediately upgrade to the newest operating system. They must still have a backlog of 10.4 machines that were already assembled and packaged. I didn't have any personal data on the computer yet, so I completely wiped the hard drive and installed 10.5 rather than upgrading.

I'm really enjoying it, and I'm trying to stay with the bundled software and hardware as much as possible. I'm still using the Mighty Mouse, iChat, and Spotlight instead of the replacements I had in place on the old machine. However, Safari just wouldn't cut it for browsing and I already installed Firefox.

Anyway, I'm rambling now (if I wasn't in the first place; this is a personal blog after all), and I should probably get back to playing with the computer. And maybe eating. Between going to the Apple Store, cleaning my office to make space for the new computer, and setting everything up, I just realized a little bit ago that I forgot to eat anything. Dinnertime!

Apple retail stores revamp for holidays - Yahoo! News

Finally...

Well, after three and a half years of running this blog I finally bought a real domain name: augmentedfourth.com. I might have bought it two years ago; however, right when I was considering it, somebody called the Augmented Fourth Brass Quintet bought it and put up a static page that never changed through the entire two years of ownership.

My blog isn't actually hosted at my new domain; going there in your browser just redirects you back here. However, I do keep a server there for files and other miscellaneous personal use... for instance, you can download MP3 files of my college composition recital (I know, it's more than four years old and I should probably record something new) at http://augmentedfourth.com/media/why_not.zip. Also, if you download that, make sure to use your MP3 player to look at the "lyrics" I've embedded in the files; while there aren't really lyrics to most of the pieces, you can see my Program Notes from the original performance in there.

My new URL!

Geek Code update

Well, since I've been an IT professional for more than 2 months now, I figured that it's time to update my Geek Code (seen at the bottom of any page of my blog). Here it is for those who don't like scrolling:

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GIT/MU d+(-) s:+>: a-> C++> ULXB++++$ P+ L++ E--- W++ N o++ K? w-- !O M++
!V PS+ PE+ Y PGP- t- !5 X- R- tv+ b++ DI++ D--- G++ e++(*) h--- r+++
y+++(?)
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

(my geek code decoded)

Translating thought to sound

Eric Ramsay, who has been conscious but paralyzed for eight years (and thus unable to communicate), will soon be able to "speak." Neuroscientists have been able to decode the electrical pulse information from the speech area of his brain, and hopefully soon their computer will ba able to decode that information to recreated the sounds Mr. Ramsay is attempting to convey.

BBC NEWS | Health | Paralysed man's mind is 'read'

A Coded Musical Message

It looks like I've found the perfect story to take me out of my blogging hiatus. It's about Giovanni Maria Pala, an Italian musician and computer technician who proposes a very plausible theory that there is a musical composition hidden in Da Vinci's much-lauded painting of "Last Supper."

Come on... it's a guy who's both a musician and a computer tech, and he spent four years solving a pictographic/musicological puzzle. If I lived in Italy, I'm sure I would have been helping the guy! The composition is found by overlaying a musical staff on the painting and treating the pieces of bread and the human hands as musical notes based on where they fall within the staff (here's a photo from the Associated press, though I bet that link will be dead in a week).

I find it odd that he didn't also include the wine glasses as musical notes, given that both wine and bread are still used today in churches as they participate in the sacrament of Communion that celebrates the Last Supper. However. I suppose Pala's book ("La Musica Celata" -- "The Hidden Music") probably serves up some explanation regarding what led him to choose only hands and bread.

Unfortunately the AP article draws a lot of parallels to the pseudo-thriller The Da Vinci Code, but in any case the actual story being covered here is very interesting. I don't think Pala's book has been translated into English, though I'd probably read it if it were. I suppose I can get a friend who lived in Italy for a while to read it and give me the "executive summary"...

Leonardo painting has coded 'soundtrack' - Associated Press