OK, 1st, don`t flame me just yet for writing such a blasphemous title. Also note that I recently converted my main machine from XP to OSX and mostly love OSX as my OS.
I have been curious of running Vista Ultimate on my new iMac Core 2 Duo 2Ghz since I brought it home about a month and a half ago. This weekend I decided to install Bootcamp and put Vista on my Mac.
My first feeling was: Man Vista take a while to boot compared to OSX. And the numbers speak to that:
Booting OSX: 14 sec
Booting Vista: 29 sec
Vista takes twice as long to boot than OSX…
The next thing I did was install Firefox 2.0. I was blown away by how fast it loaded on Vista:
Starting Firefox in OSX after reboot: 5 sec
Starting Firefox in Vista after reboot: 1 sec
Ouch! OSX takes 5 times longer to load Firefox! Part of the difference can be explained by Vista doing some fancy pre-fetching and caching here. So how does OSX compare when starting Firefox a second time:
Starting Firefox in OSX a 2nd time: 1.5 sec
Starting Firefox in Vista a 2nd time: less than 1 sec
This is better but OSX still takes about twice as long as Vista… but at that speed you don`t really notice the difference unless you benchmark it ;-).
What about file system access then… The biggest thing that jumped at me during my benchmark was how long it took to write a 256MB file to my 1GB USB Stick:
OSX: 70 sec
Vista: 36 sec
No, this is not a typo. OSX is really slow at writing on my USB stick. It takes about twice as long as Vista! This is really strange. I repeated the test many time and every time I got around 70 to 72 sec for the file copy. Could it be that Mac drivers for USB are not as efficient as Vista?
The rest of the file access is much more comparable between the two. Here is a list:
Copy 256mb file from USB to HD:
OSX: 43
Vista: 42
Copy 256mb file from hd to same hd:
OSX: 11
Vista: 11
Copy 256mb file from HD to SMB:
OSX: 25
Vista: 25
Copy 256mb file from SMB to HD:
OSX: 26
Vista: 22
The only difference worth covering is the SMB file copy to the HD. OSX is marginally slower. OSX is about 15% slower than Vista.
Those benchmark certainly can`t nominate a winner but raised a lot of questions in my mind as to which OS feel/is the fastest on the same iMAC hardware. Right now I have to say that Microsoft appear to have the lead when doing network SMB file copy and writing to USB Memory Stick.
Vista is also much faster are starting application after a reboot. Vista is benefiting from some nice technology that are not as efficient in OSX: SuperFetch and ReadyBoost. I hope OSX add/improve those in 10.5.
For example, when I insert my USB Memory stick Vista ask me if I want to use it as a ReadyBoost device. Enabling ReadyBoost appear to make a big difference in overall system responsiveness… It is hard to qualify but Vista feel twice as fast as with it.
Share in the forum what is you own experience with Vista on you iMac. Note that the forum requires me to authorize new users… too much SPAM bots around. So be patient if it take a few hours to get the full forum access
Shane is a 7-year-old boy from Ottawa who has been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and is fighting this at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). According to the The Ti-Loup & La Poule Foundation (go here for an explanation of the name), Shane’s story is heartbreaking:
"At almost 5 years old Shane was diagnosed with A.L.L. After 1 month into the treatment he was in early remission, meaning there were no cancer cells in his blood. Shane’s family was very pleased with the early results, but his protocol called for 130 weeks of treatment. Then on July 6th, 2006 Shane relapsed after completing 108 of the 130 weeks. It was a shock to everyone including his doctors. Shane may have to undergo a bone marrow transplant down the road, but the good thing is that his brother Jacob is a match. Presently, there is no sign of cancer in Shane’s system since relapsing."
They say his only "dislike" is "being in the hospital for long periods of time."
Shane is going to be 8 soon and would like to receive as many birthday cards as he can for his birthday. Its a pretty simple request and it would mean a great deal to this little boy. One of our local Ottawa radio stations is organizing drop offs around the city. Andrew Anderson at Bound By Gravity would like this to spread to the rest of the country. I say we spread it to the rest of the world.
Anyone reading this, no matter what your country, please send a card to Shane at:
SHANE
C/O KISS FM
2001 Thurston Dr.
Ottawa ON
Canada
K1G 6C9
Any bloggers reading this, please spread the word. Blog it and do it.
Let’s make Shane’s dream come true. Let’s make it better than he imagined.
Update:
Shane received a card from Dr Phil and The Prime Minister of Canada
In addition, the troops overseas signed a flag and each one of them sent a card.
Mac Intel users, rejoice! Joost for Mac Intel is now available in beta version. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it. With the help of a handful of great people, we were able to leverage both the tremendous work done by the Client team for the Windows version as well as the cross-platform power of Mozilla. As a result, we have a Mac version that looks very much like Joost for Windows, while behaving very much like a Mac application.
Many thanks to our courageous alpha-testers who provided useful feedback and helped us squash the last few serious bugs. Still, let me remind you: it’s a beta. There are a few bugs left (read the release notes). And please report any new bugs you find. We’ll send t-shirts to the submitters of the best bug reports!
"
I am still looking for an invite. Send one my way if you have one. I would love to beta test the mac client: bmaltais@gmail.com
I am currently attending the RSA Conference 2007 in San Francisco. Not much time to write right now but I will certainly write something up about the event.
I think I will take a different approach. The security aspect of the conference have been covered over and over. What I will report on is the fun side of the conference… being the vendor’s sponsored party that took place during the conference. I will provide a detailed review of the one offered by ChosenSecurity, Symantec, Microsoft and RSA.
Under Windows you can easily assign a drive letter to a network share so that every time you login to your account you will have readilly access to it.
There appear to be no such thing under OSX. I have been digging at the problem for quite some time since I switched to OSX. I can now give you the solution I found to work the best. It is not trivial but with the help of the screencast it should prove rather easy.
Method 1: Using Apple Script
You can watch the following screencast to learn how to use Apple Script to do it:
Refer to the section below for some written details on the process:
1. Fire up Apple Script
2. type volume mount "smb://server name/share name" for each share you want to automount (note the quotes around the smb:// section. You need those or the script will fail.). For example, in my case:
mount volume "smb://nas/share"
mount volume "smb://nas/bernard"
mount volume "smb://nas/mp3"
mount volume "smb://nas/photo"
3. Test the script by clicking "Run"
4. Save the script as a script
5. Save the script as an application
6. Add the new Apple Script application to your System - Accounts - Login Items
Method 2: Using Automator
You can watch the following screencast to learn how to do it:
Refer to the section below for some written details on the process:
1. Open the Finder
2. Click on Network
3. Click on workgroup name (maison in my example)
4. Click on server name (nas in my example)
5. Click on "connect" button.
6. Take note of share names and network server name on a piece of paper
7. Open Automator
8. Click on "Finder" under Library section
9. Click and drag "Get Specified Servers" into rightmost screen section
10. Click on the "+" sign in the "Get Specified Servers" window
11. Type "smb://server name/share name" in the Address: field and click "Connect" (smb://nas/mp3 in my example)
12. Repeat step 11 for the remaining shares you wish to automount
13. Click and drag "Connect to Servers" under the "Get Specified Servers" section
14. Click the "Run" button to test your workflow
15. Save your workflow as a Workflow and Application
16. Add your new Application to your System Accounts Login Items
