Bootcamp Part 2

Well ... all I can say is ... so far ... it works. Rather anti-climatic really.

Last night I loaded the MS Office suite, Adobe Acrobat Standard, Dolphin EaseReader and Dolphin Producer onto the Windows 'side' of the system. Once I got past the usual need for updates and setting things the way I like them I did a quick trial with Producer and EaseReader and they worked just fine. In fact, they worked better than on any other system I have used previously. I assume this has to do with the 2GB or RAM and wikked fast processor of the MacBook Pro. Next up is using Producer to create and then burn a DTB onto a CD-R.


One issue I have run into is that I am using a Dell install disk for Windows and it apparently knows it is not running on a Dell PC. I am going to try and pull the Validation Key off one of the newer workstations in the office and see if that works. If that doesn't work, I'll just put up with the system telling me I have '-30' days left to activate and make sure I get my trials done before then. It's not like I get to keep the machine. It could also have something to do with Microsoft getting wise to piracy issues. Check out this forum on Ars Technica for more information.

Now I just have to hope that upcoming students have Intel Macs and either are willing to or have already Bootcamped them with their own copy of Windows. I may be willing to purchase a departmental copy for this purpose - it would not be the most expensive software purchase I have ever made to benefit students. However, I do not want the liability of messing around with a students personal computer. Maybe I'll just recommend they perform the BootCamp.

I received feedback on yesterdays post from a friend of mine who informs that one can also install Linux on the MacBook quite easily, for a triple-boot system, for those desiring to compare the three side-by-side with the same hardware / software. He also provided an update on OpenOffice:

A final note on OpenOffice: be sure you download the Intel Mac version for the OS X part of your MacBook. It's a beta release right now, but I've only found a few minor bugs, and it runs at least threefold faster than the Mac PPC version (personal testing, not advertising hype). OpenOffice is currently not as smooth on Mac as on Windows, as you noted, mainly because the Mac version actually isn't completely ported yet. You're looking at a hacked solution on XWindows right now, but a fully native version is in the pipeline.

In response to my earlier posts, he attempted to steer me through Mac access. "For a better starting point," he writes, "don't turn to the individual applications first for accessibility, try configuring the system [as a whole] to provide these services. That's different from the way things are done on Windows." He has a good point there. I dig deeper into the Universal Access commands of my current machine and see if things work better by more 'universal' approach.