October 15, 2007 by Santaduck.

I have my vista laptop (and xp box) networked into my Mac OS X network on my Airport Extreme. I finally got both XP and Vista machines on the same “WORKGROUP” (by changing XP from MSHOME to WORKGROUP). And my Vista machines could access my Macs, and vice-versa.

However, here I am a couple Vista updates later in mid October 2007, and my saved passwords no longer work: I can’t access my Macs from Vista. The old saved passwords simply don’t work. These used to be of the form:

MACHINE\USERNAME (or machine\username)

For example, say my Mac is named “NORTHPOLE” in the Computer Name field of Sharing in System Preferences, and say my username is rudolph.

My login from Vista would be: NORTHPOLE\RUDOLPH
My password would be normal.

Well it was no longer working. I even tried the same via typing in my IP in the Network App in Vista: \\10.0.1.xxx\NORTHPOLE, then trying the same login.

Well I finally figured it out. Now it requires a MIX of caps and lowercase. The machine name must be caps, and the username (which goes to the Mac OS) must be lowercase.

So, in the above example, the correct login would be:
NORTHPOLE\rudolph

Go figure.

Posted in Vista, Windows, networking, OS | No Comments »

July 1, 2007 by Santaduck.

Like many of you, I live on both sides of the fence. I’ve had Apples through the ][+ and SEs and PCs since the original 8086 and XT.

Currently I have a Peecee, specifically a Compaq laptop. However I <3 the Apple GUI.

So I wanted to share one teeny Apple-like tweak that gives me pleasure on my Peecee, a Dashboard jury-rig. If you have a Compaq, you may very well have those “One Touch” buttons along the top. I have one of these buttons set on something like Exposé. XP has a “show desktop” function, and that’s what I’ve set it to; it’s not exactly the same, but the essential gestalt gut feel of it is the same: If I’m sick of overlapping windows, I just reach for a physical button, without thinking, and they are gone. I push it again, and the windows are back.

To set it, do the following:
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Hardware, OS | No Comments »

June 13, 2007 by Santaduck.

The fallout for Safari’s uber-beta-ness is beginning. Many recent articles have centered on security vulnerabilities. I will for now assume these have a high priority within Apple and will be largely plugged. Usability issues are more problematic, and are the major blocks for adoption by the vast target userbase, who are not necessarily power-users, but more powerfully are creatures of habit.

Ryan Paul of arstechnica had a great read on Safari beta here. As for usability, I’ll cite two of his gems:

1) Safari’s window resizing is, like OS X, only by the bottom right corner only. Apple, don’t highlight the quirky limitations of your OS!

2) Moving through tabs is not adjustable, and is permanently mated to the idiosyncratic CTRL-SHIFT-] and CTRL-SHIFT-[. I really dislike this on OS X, and I dislike it in Windows Safari as well. Why not use the now-standard CTRL-TAB? At the very least, let the user set it.

Anyways, read Ryan Paul’s article, he has an incisive commentary on Safari’s stubbornly alien use of anti-aliasing technology as well.

And why is Safari on Windows now anyways, furthermore why is it such a barely-developed version, unlike OS X for Intel which was polished on launch because of years in development? For the record, my money’s on the hypothesis that the decision to port Safari was a recent one– actually the FULL measure of the decision was to sell Apple computer hardware with Windows pre-installed, but with Apple apps instead of bloatware. If true, the engineers in Cupertino are currently scurrying in secrecy to cobble together an iLife for Vista: iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, Garageband.

Posted in OS, Safari | No Comments »

April 21, 2006 by Santaduck.

Robert Cringley, host of PBS’s Electric Money and former columnist for Infoworld, wrote today in his blog regarding the relationship between OS X and Windows.

One of the most attention-grabbing topics was the possibility of running Windows applications on Apple Macintoshes, without installing Windows XP, and without Windows virtualization:

“I also believe that Apple will offer in OS X 10.5 the ability to run native Windows XP applications with no copy of XP installed on the machine at all. This will be accomplished not by using compatibility middleware like Wine, but rather by Apple implementing the Windows API directly in OS X 10.5…

‘m told Apple has long had this running in the Cupertino lab — Intel Macs running OS X while mixing Apple and XP applications. This is not a guess or a rumor, this something that has been demonstrated and observed by people who have since reported to me.

Think of the implications. A souped-up OS X kernel with native Windows API support and the prospect of mixing and matching Windows and Mac applications would be, for many users, the best of both worlds. There would be no copy of Windows XP to buy…”

Cringley begins by thinking through Apple’s strategy regarding Windows, given its latest moves. He comes to his speculation based upon Steve Jobs’ 1997 $150M deal with Microsoft, where Apple may have obtained some legal rights to the Windows API, which could enable Windows apps directly in OS X.

Granted, Cringley simply makes several speculations and offers these all up as possibilities to think about, but the legal issues and the impact on users as well as the future of Apple are far-reaching.

Read more here: Robert Cringley PBS blogarticle

Posted in OS, Apps | No Comments »