green eggs and DAAAAAMN! from Woods on Vimeo.

I still can’t get over how good this is. I think I’ve played this over 100x already in the last few days.

Sun’s Virtual Box allows you to run x86 OSes inside MacOS.  This isn’t something new or revolutionary.  I’ve

been using Parallels since day 1 and have had relatively smooth sailings since.  What’s different about Virtual Box is that it’s open source and free to use.  We have a intel based mac-mini here so I decided to give it a whirl.  Here’s are my initial impressions

1. Installation:  A breeze.  I popped open the DMG and installed.  The process was quick and when asked to pop in a Windows install disk, it did the rest.  The only problem was…I was installing Windows.
2. Speed:  It’s not too shabby.  I haven’t used VMWare but compared to Parallels 3, Virtual Box seems to hold its own quite well.  Not to mention it only took up 50ish mbs on my comp.  It’s got a small footprint and wasn’t too resource intensive.  It can only get better in subsequent versions I imagine.
3. Stability:  No crash, No spinning beachball, No disappointments
4. Price:  It’s free.  Can’t beat it.
5. Features:  It has the basics of what I need.  It handles HD size, memory usage, hardware mounts, and more.  The only thing I’ve noticed so far that’s missing is the ability to use an existing Boot Camp partition for virtualizing.  Hopefully it’ll be in the next version but I’m not holding my breath.

The quick summary:  After spending about 1/2 hour doing the setup and install, it seemed quite quick and relatively easy to use.  If you’re a light Windows user or work for a dev shop that has to test on Windows browsers, this free alternative solution seems like a real bargain.  Grab a copy at http://www.virtualbox.org

Apple:  You’re on my ****list till you get these issues fixed and add some enhancements…

1.  Slow 3G network.  It’s nowhere near the speed that was promised.  This is an opinion more than anything else as I have not tested this scientifically.  There seems be a slight boost in speed compared to the original iPhone, but not much.  I blame this part mostly on AT&T.

2.  Sluggish UI:  I understand with the launch of iPhone Apps that there will be some issues but the whole experience is reminscent of when I used to own a Treo.  The old iPhone had a snappy UI.  Version 2.0 crawls.  Opening up SMS takes 10 seconds.  Contacts (a relatively new app) made me think my phone had froze…also about 10 seconds.  These are just the Apple made apps.  Don’t get me started on third party apps like AIM.

3.  Battery Life:  This is where the iPhone is really terrible.  My new iPhone didn’t even last a day.  I’ve disabled 3G during various parts of the day and turned off wi-fi and bluetooth and still it died.  Something needs to be done about this fast.

4.  GPS:  I don’t know what happened here besides the fact that the GPS could not locate me in various locations around NYC.  I had sporadic success in midtown.  I had no luck in the Financial District at all where I did when I had the original iPhone.  Guess aGPS works a bit better.

5.  App Store/3rd Party Apps:  some of the apps are working but those that don’t require a redownload and reinstall.  That’s fine if at the end it works.  Sadly it does not.  AIM for example does not.  It says that I’m online but buddies do not show up in the buddy list.  I’ve Googled around and was told to install from iTunes App Store instead of installing from the iPhone.  Regardless, this is a terrible UX.  A message to the 3rd Party Developers out there:  Shape Up!

That’s it with the rants.  I’m done for now.

I will say that there are some bright spots to this phone like the Remote app.  It’s super well done.  I just hope that Apple can put that polish on this phone that it sorely needs through a firmware update very very soon.

I’m a little late on this, I know…but it’s super funny.  Browse the related videos.  Lipgloss and Bleeding Love are brilliant.

There are times where I find Microsoft to be quite funny. Here’s an excerpt from their site on why they’ve decided to stop selling XP:

“We’ve spent more than a year consulting with our customers and industry partners to ensure that we’re doing the right thing. We understand that not everyone may agree with our decision—just as not everyone was happy to see Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows ME retire (OK, perhaps not ME).”

I have to agree. I don’t miss Windows ME one bit.