MacAttack at Microsoft's TechMentor and VSLive events...

wbruce — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:16:00 GMT

Among the many regular events that I find myself attending are Microsoft's TechMentor and Visual Studio conferences. These are usually held in wonderfully tropical cities where you can be cruelly trapped in windowless conference rooms for hours on end. As I write this post, I am on a brief break from a session on the evolution of Microsoft PowerShell and the nitty-gritty of modifying outputs for redirection, while just 30 feet away, a slight breeze is forcing the many palm and fern trees dance seductively around the pool. It is 82 degrees out there and the water is probably just the right temperature.

Meanwhile, back in Nerdville it is a cool 68 degrees with a steady deluge of PowerPoint slides. What is quite interesting is the choice of laptops among the attendees and more so among the event staff and presenters. Many of them are using Macs! Even the event registration is being done on Mac hardware. All are either using BoodCamp or VMWare Fusion to run Windows on them, but the choice is clear that Mac is preferred for the moment. This was not what I expected from a Microsoft conference, but I see it as a good sign for the industry.

What's that? A Mac at the APA?

wbruce — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:28:00 GMT

Yes, it is true. I have been using a Mac for a couple months now. Those of you who know me well enough will be familiar with my long held disdain for many Apple products, but over the past year, I have been (finally) won over. I started with the iPhone last spring.

After nearly convulsing from seeing Dr. Hales with one and the thought of trying to make it work with our systems, I was swayed by the simplicity of many of the iPhone's applications. True, it is woefully inadequate for business email for the time being and its best feature (a large crisp display) is also its worst (it smudges constantly). On the other hand, the Google Maps application and a few other widgets are head and shoulders above anything on Windows Mobile. So I eventually made the switch and bought the iPhone and after a few futile attempts at getting it to work with our servers, sufficed to use GMail as a forwarding service. Otherwise the phone is great.

It is possible that the positive experience with the iPhone opened my mind a bit, but I also credit Apple’s move to Intel and the improvements in Mac OSX 10.5 for my eventual purchase of a MacBook last December. After a few days, I realized that I was not plagued by the deep-seated frustration that accompanied all my previous attempts at using Mac computers had brought. What helped is that I was busy working extensively in Linux for an APA project and found that the consistency in the Mac console with that of Linux was quite refreshing. Afterwards, I passed the MacBook on to one of my staff and purchased a MacBook Pro that I now use almost exclusively.

Since then I have adopted the use of VMWare Fusion to run the Windows Apps I need in a virtual machine. So, I am now a full convert. IT has now started using Macs more and we are evaluating them for potential use in specific areas of Publishing. A brave new world indeed.

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MacAttack at Microsoft's TechMentor and VSLive events...

What's that? A Mac at the APA?