How Do you Run Windows on your Mac?
Apple has always tried to sell their computers. They wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t.
Recently, they’ve been pushing the idea that you can run Windows on your Mac. Very few people actually do this, however it’s a comforting thought. For those of us who actually do need to run Windows programs on our Mac, we have a couple options.
For about six months I used a piece of software called Boot Camp that was included with my Mac to do this. The way it works is to emulate BIOS so as to allow Microsoft’s Operating System to start on Intel’s EFI which Apple uses in their computers. You have to partition out a section of your disk to do this though… I found that this could be dangerous, and I have never had a good experience with partitioning.
So, I looked for another solution. I found something called : An open source project dedicated to this issue, which allows one to run . I used it for a little while but then found it was too slow.
I continued my search and found two pieces of software: VMWare Fusion and another called Parallels.
I tried out Parallels and it did a few things I didn’t appreciate.
1. It seemed very slow to install operating systems.
2. Some of the I/O Drivers provided were slightly buggy.
3. (This is the clincher) I decided to see how it would do porting my Boot Camp Partition. After it “succeeded” My Mac wouldn’t boot in Windows or OS X. Somehow, in some way it had corrupted my partition table.
So, my stint with Parallels didn’t work out. For some reason, I didn’t think VMWare Fusion could do much better so I went back to Boot Camp. Then, I was watching Chris Pirillo’s Live Stream and he was recording a video about how he runs windows on his Mac. He used VMWare Fusion. I pay close attention to people like Pirillo and Leo Laporte so I decided to give it a try. After all, what was I going to lose on a free trial?
I downloaded Fusion and found that it did live up to it’s promises! I was amazed.
So amazed, that when I was told to create an ad for anything I wanted as an assignment, I decided to make it in relation to Fusion.
Here’s what I produced:
-Zane
I tried out this
Get an Applications Dock Icon to Go Away!
Ok, there are some applications that you just wish didn’t have a dock icon. One of those apps for me has always been Awaken by Embraceware. The things dock icon really doesn’t do anything to benefit me. So why have it there? I found a way to get just about any applications dock icon to run along like a good little icon. Just bear with me:
So this is the thing that I had sitting there, the Awaken Dock icon.
It was not adding any functionality to the program, so why was it there?
I decided to put a stop to it.
So, what you’re going to need to do is this:
1. Open the app that you want to modify in the finder. You can do so easily by right clicking it in the dock and choosing the “Show in Finder” option.
2. Right click the application and choose “Show Package Contents”.
3. Double-click Contents and then right click “info.plist”. Choose “Open With” and then select “Other”.
Then, what you’re going to do is search for textedit and open up the “info.plist” file.
4. Now’s the time when things get a little trickier. Which is why I recommend copying and pasting the application in it’s folder to create a backup.
5. Now press Command+F and search for “NSPrincipalClass”
6. You should find an exact match in between “[key]“. Straight after that, on the next line, paste the following:
[key]NSUIElement[/key]
[string]1[/string]
7. Now, align all the text, make sure that nothing else is out of hand, and it should end up looking like this:
8. Press Command+S to save the plist and then open up the application. Voila! No dock icon.
This should work with any application, but there are some applications like system preferences. You can fix those up with a terminal command, if you want to know how, you can email me: helpmetechshow@gmail.com but I think this should settle most people for now.
*Note* I substituted the regular triangular brackets:
with the square ones for the purpose of the post, because obviously websites think they’re for html.
Watch the video for a step by step tutorial!
-Zane
Use Mac OS X Spaces without a Keyboard!
Are you getting sick of going Cmd-Arrow to get around Mac OS X Spaces? Well I was too, so I sought a competitor. Enter Warp, and show your mouse a little love. Just download the Warp Preferences Pane from ksuther.com and you’ll be set. It allows you to set many things, from the option to see a preview of the next space when you move your mouse to that corner/edge and then click to switch. Or even just to mouse between them in a very efficient work flow. You can set the delay for activation and even use a modifier key to activate it. Check out the video for more:
Introduction to Virtual Machines
Virtual Machines are very useful, for a variety of different reasons. One reason could be for security experts who want to hunt the internet for exploits or search programs for possible ways for hackers to infest a system. Home users can also use these, perhaps for fun or use them for everyday use.
The way the Virtual Machines work is that it will use your existing hardware to input into the virtual machine. You can throttle how much RAM on your machine you want to use, among other tweaking areas which we will cover later on in the virtual machine series.
Once all the configuration is done you simply pop your install disk (whether it be a Windows or Linux OS) you set the hard drive size and install like a normal operating system.
So if your interested in Virtual Machines check out these applications:
Parallels