macosx « Irfan’s Corner on the Web

1Jun/080

The Joys of Mac OSX Applications

Its been quite a while since I've switched to the mac, and one of the most consistant things that impresses me are the applications on the mac.Recently I came across Papers, which I would recommend to every PhD student. Papers is a like an iTunes for your research papers. It integrates every concievable index you would like to use: Google Scholar, ACM, IEEE, CiteSeer etc..You can search for related papers, and add them to your library in a snap. Additionally, if you cant find the pdf of your papers, you can just press Google, and it will google the pdf for you.There are just so many highly useful features in Papers that it would take me a while to list them. Now having all those features is actually no big deal, what is a big deal, is the interface, which blends with the Mac OSX environment. The application uses native leopard GUI features which make the application very very appealing.
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Filed under: apple, macosx, software No Comments

13Apr/080

Certain Application cause keyboard unresponsiveness in Macbook Pro

I recently bought a Macbook Pro. I installed tons of applications on it, and suddenly I realized sometimes the keyboard became unresponsive, and even the the caps lock button won't light up, it was as if the keyboard was not powered up or connected. This of course was a severe problem and it has been widely reported.

After discussions with a friend who had bought the same model we identified certain applications which could be causing this. I removed VMware Fusion as a result. The problem became worse. In previous episodes of keyboard unresponsiveness I could simply restart and the keyboard was working. In the thread some claimed its a hardware problem but that was definitely not the case here. Because in one such episode where the keyboard became unresponsive, I plugged in another keyboard via bluetooth and strangely enough the same keys which were not working on the Macbook Pro keyboard were also not working on the wireless keyboard. Certain keys were working in both like F1-F12 keys.

So I reinstalled Leopard and did not install VMWare fusion so far the system has been working normally. I'm not sure if the problem was caused by VMware Fusion or some other software I had installed in the previous setup but removing it worsened the problem which might be a strong indicator that Fusion has some role to play in this. I hope to try out an update of Fusion.

Tagged as: Leopard No Comments

8Apr/080

Convert your VMware, Virtual Server/PC images to Parallels using the Parallels Transporter

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I've been a long time user of VMware, on the mac I believe Parallels coherence mode gives it a leg up on VMware, so I prefer it on the Mac. However most of my virtual machines are in VMware format. I googled up various solutions which included using Qemu to convert them into raw format, using some commercial tool and so on. But Parallels itself offers a solution which does not seem to be well documented.

I found it here.

1. Open Parallels Transporter in the Parallels directory

2. Choose Express, Whole virtual computer and point it at your vmware file

3. When it is done - check your disk space (it defaults the outputted files into your /application/parallels/ directory)

4. Open the new image with Parallels, ignore Windows errors and force install the Parallel Tools

5. Done - enjoy your images in Parallels

Tagged as: Parallels, vmware No Comments

8Apr/080

Switched to the Mac!

Its happened! I finally completely switched to the Mac. I was a linux user for more than 8 years so what factors drove me to the Mac?

1, Unstable hardware support in Linux: Don't get me wrong, linux has come a long way in supporting all kinds of hardware. Initially I was a slackware user and always loved to hack my way round, but as I progressed in my studies I realized that I didn't have the time anymore to hack around my system and I should settle for more mature distributions, for a long time I used OpenSuse 10.1/10.2, to me 10.3 is very disappointing so I switched yet again to Ubuntu, which I used till I switched to the Mac. It almost always doesnt support the latest hadware, like the Ipod Classic 6G, initially setting up widescreen resolutions was a challenge and there was this weird problem with linux on the Dell Inspiron where the sound would not be directed to the headphone when one was plugged in rather it would continue to the main speakers. I bought once a webcam, only to find that the linux driver was not available and I had to do some hacking to find what chip it used then I downloaded the appropriate driver however it would show very crap quality where-as in windows it worked perfect. Then I had problems with my scanner, xsane sometimes worked with it sometimes it didnt, Windows always did. Always when I had to setup a dual monitor in the workplace or home, I always had to hack the X config file because even the most popular distributions like Ubuntu 7.10 couldn't do it out of the box.

2, Software: This is the main reason why I switched. I'm a PhD student and I often require access to MS Word for peer reviewing documents and Adobe Professional aswell as Mathematica. OpenOffice has still a long way to go, and I simply hate the way OOo shows changes and comments in documents. The balloon style display in Word is so much more convenient. Initially I used to have a dual boot setup, but since Linux distributions became more and more mature, I could compeltely throw out windows, and run it in VMware for all the software I required within the Linux environment, this setup worked for me right form my undergrad. I also had to keep Windows around for drivers for my cellphone, iTunes, camera etc...

I first explored the mac on my pentium 4 machine, which I documented here. Now I have purchased a Macbook Pro. There were several factors which pulled me to the other side aswell:

1, Leopard: I had seen screenshots and reviews and used Mac OSX 10.4 and I knew that I would love the OS. I could access all open souce software from the Open source world at the same time have access to MS Office:mac. I am so much more productive in leopard, it deals with so many things automatically, and features such as Folder Actions, Automator are simply God sent. Leopard also seamlessly works with all my hardware and it also does dual monitor very smoothly without any manual configuration supporting supporting native resolutions in both screens. Often in Linux I ended up with identical resolutions in both displays ending up with inferior resolution on the external monitor.

2, The Hardware: The Macbook Pro, is a beautiful piece of hardware. Most laptops you get from other vendors are filled with stickers and license keys and tag and misc on the back side. But the Macbook Pro hardly has anything on the backside, ad there are no stickers, rather a smooth surface. The features of the hardware like backlit keyboard, excellent screen, which is waay more brighter than my previous screen and has more resolution, also the superior hardware specs of the new Macbook Pros are simply worth buying.

3, The Software: The Mac to me is the perfect compromise between windows and Linux. It has all the stuff I used in Linux and it has also all the stuff I use in Windows, all in one environment without the need for any kind of virtualization. Talking about virtualization, I simple love Parallels and its coherence mode. It completely integrated into the MacOSX environment, clicking on files supported by programs in windows in Finder, the appropriate windows program would fireup. I also note the software for the mac is generally of higher quality then for opensource or windows.

I'll follow up this post with a post on what thinks Linux distribution should 'steal' from Leopard.

Filed under: macosx, software No Comments

19Mar/0713

MacOSX finds its way onto my Desktop!

[digg=http://digg.com/tech_news/Linux_user_dumps_Linux_for_MacOSX_highlights_reasons]

I've been a Linux user for years now, I've been around since kernel 2.2.x. What I always loved about Linux is the openness, before Linux I was a windows users, and I wasn't learning much about computers because everything I used was closed source hence knew nothing about how they were made, I programmed in Visual BASIC 4.0, and thought I was the ueber-geek! LOL! Since I switched to Linux my knowledge about computer systems has multiplied, Linux is such a great learning platform, and now it has become increasingly mature to be used on Desktops.The latest distros like OpenSUSE 10.2, ubuntu etc are mature enough that they can be installed in laptops without a single hardware not being supported!

Recently I saw a Google TechTalk on the MacOSX Automator, I loved it! MacOSX Automator is an extraordinarily powerful tool which can automate workflows and not just replace scripts but also extend them (scripts can be integrated into MacOSX automator workflow). From that moment I thought I would give MacOSX a try. Although MacOSX Automator doesnt do anything which you can't do with scripts, but I loved the simplicity of the tool. In Pakistan Mac machines are not sold. So I had to go along with MaxOSX86, I downloaded a torrent for 10.4.8, and try to install it always kept restarting, I downloaded another torrent for 10.4.6, that worked!

So here is my take of MacOSX, from a Linux users perspective:

1. MacOSX has a powerful GUI and a powerful Shell

Linux has a powerful shell, and I love that, because the shell provide you complete control over the system. However, although they've made huge progress, Linux GUIs so far can not beat MacOSX's GUI. I really love the minimalist approach. Windows applications are overloaded with options and menus, unfortunately Linux applications have followed suit, however in MacOSX applications, you won't find this bloat, the menu bar on top of the window is context sensitive, and the menu options change with applications, I really like this approach.

MacOSX draws from the strength of open source, it integrates the BASH shell, and runs on the freebsd kernel, its shell programs are 90% similar to that of Linux. So MacOSX is sort of a mixture of fully GUI based Windows and Shell based Linux, and the mixture is a powerful OS, which can be used for both productivity applications like office etc., and hardcore programming and geeky stuff (MacOSX 10.4.6 ships with python, perl, php, nearly all open source software which is available for Linux can be compiled for MacOSX86). I feel that Linux users can take immediate advantage of MacOSX, whereas Windows users would have to take some time out to adapt to the OS.

Linux users have been whining since long for office productivity applications like Photoshop, Office etc. The real good thing about MacOSX is that all these application are available on it, if you have the money that is! OpenOffice.org is cool, but to be honest, I do all my writing in MS Office 2007 on Windows XP, which I run as a VM in VMware on my notebook.

2. MacOSX86 has surprisingly good PC hardware support

Before installing I thought that I might run into hardware problems, as MacOSX86 can not be expected to work natively with PC hardware, but I was in for a surprise. I tested the following: A BenQ Scanner, Canon Printer, USB external storage, Sound etc.., every single peace of hardware worked with minimal configuration, most of it without any! I recently tested Windows Vista, and I was disappointed to find that it didn't support the Intel 865 motherboard! There was no sound available, as the driver for the Intel 865 was not available either from the Microsoft Website or the Intel one!

3. Software installation is extremely Easy!

Traditionally the only way to install software in Linux was to compile from the sources, recently package managers have become increasingly more user friendly, and in opensuse 10.2, I rarely find myself compiling from the sources. YaST handles everything automatically, just add the installation sources, and click on what you want! In MacOSX software installation goes something like this that you mount some image (it mounts itself), and drag the application to the Application folder or to the desktop, it copies something and done!

These are the top 3 reasons so far, I'll keep adding them as an when I come across them. Now surely some Linux geek will come by and say that MacOSX is evil, because its proprietary, well the entire OS is not! The kernel is based on an opensource kernel, it integrates a lot of opensource software, and you can run any opensource software on it as desired. Compare this with current Linux distros, there are a few distributions which do not come packaged with some sort of proprietary software, OpenSUSE 10.2, tries to avoid it as much as possible but still upon install it prompts 3-4 times that you are about to install a non-opensource software and asks if I agree with the license, of course I do, I don't have any choice!

Since MacOSX supports all my hardware on the desktop, I have no reason to install any other OS (It replaced OpenSUSE 10.2, as my desktop OS, opensuse 10.2 however remains on my notebook). MacOSX poses a threat to not just Windows, but also to Linux because it has all the things people love about Linux (except the freedom) Apple should promote MacOSX86, while the Open Source community should learn from it and see what people love about it and emulate it, rather than emulating Windows.

Filed under: apple, macosx 13 Comments

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