VMware Fusion does not play well with a Wacom tablet

Posted on By Mark Wilson

VMware FusionI’ve spent a good chunk of this evening trying to build a Windows XP virtual machine within VMware Fusion and struggling to direct any keyboard input to the VM. Eventually I found the answer on a VMware forum thread but, as you need to be logged in to view it, I’m reposting the solution here…

Quoting from the forum thread:

“It transpires that Fusion really doesn’t cope well with my having a Wacom device attached to the system. Unplug that – and everything starts working fine!”

Thanks to leE_b for that fix.

Flash Earth

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Many people are familiar with Google Earth and others may use Microsoft Virtual Earth but Paul Neave (who describes himself as a “serial flash fettler and interactive designer”) has produced a great mash-up of zoomable images from all the major aerial and satellite photograph providers called Flash Earth (alongside some other cool stuff on his website).

Flash Earth

One of Flash Earth’s strengths is the ability to switch between services on the fly as I’ve found that some services have better images than others (e.g. Microsoft gets closer to my home, but Google has higher resolution images of some neighbouring towns). Best of all, although Google Earth and competing products have additional functionality (for example, 3D viewpoints), Flash Earth doesn’t require any client software (aside from the Adobe Flash Player, which is a common browser plug-in) – of course, Windows Live Local offers a similar service, without using Flash and including additional functionality, but it is limited to the Microsoft mapping and imaging data.

It’s also worth noting that the images served by these services are not completely up-to-date. Based on new developments where I live and work, I’m guessing that the aerial data which Ask, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! serve is approximately 4-7 years old (which service is more recent does vary though, according to the area being viewed) but Microsoft’s mapping data is more current than their images, which results in some interesting roads shown across fields in the hybrid view!

I should add that this blog post comes with a warning – browsing the planet looking at aerial photographs can lead to many wasted hours (and much lost sleep)… as I found to my own detriment last night!

Will VMware achieve fusion?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

VMware Fusion bannerOver the Christmas break, one of the things I began to look at was VMware’s virtualisation for Mac beta product (codenamed Fusion).

Regardless of the somewhat dubious choice of codename (some might say unimaginative – why is it that every company seems to have a product or project about joining things up called fusion?) this is an exciting new product because it brings cross-platform virtualisation to the Mac (previously VMware products either used a proprietary kernel or were hosted on either a Windows or Linux platform). Until recently, Mac users had a choice of Microsoft Virtual PC, Parallels Desktop, or the open source QEMU (with the QemuX front end) but the product of choice for many seems to be Parallels Desktop and Microsoft’s departure from the Mac virtualisation marketplace (combined with a surge in Mac sales since Apple’s switch to an Intel processor platform) seems to have spurred VMware into taking their place and so far the results seem impressive.

Although many cite Parallels as the virtualisation product of choice on the Mac, many of the comparisons I’ve seen have been centred around two totally different technologies for running Windows on a Mac, comparing Parallels Desktop (virtualisation) with Apple Boot Camp (dual-booting). Even though the recent Parallels beta has taken a huge step with a feature called coherence, that allows the Windows desktop to be hidden so that Windows applications appear to be running within Mac OS X (yes, really!), the major advantage to me of using a VMware product is being able to take a virtual machine and run it on any platform.

I’m not sure how VMware are planning to position this product – it offers far more than VMware Player, and seems to have a lot in common with VMware Workstation (although as it’s a beta product, it’s too soon to see how closely matched the feature sets are); they’ve also yet to confirm whether or not this will be a free virtualisation product (I suspect not). I’ll be watching this space and once I can provide full VM portability between the Linux notebook I use for work and my Mac at home (the release notes for the current beta download state that “Virtual Machines created with this beta release of VMware Fusion for Mac should not be used in production, and should not be shared for use in other VMware products”), I’ll be able to work on my 20″ monitor from the Mac and free up some more desk space where the laptop currently sits. If VMware can also provide an equivalent of Parallel’s coherence functionality then they truly will achieve fusion.

Free backup software for Mac OS X

Posted on By Mark Wilson

A couple of years ago I suffered a hard disk failure and I was very lucky to retrieve most of my data from other sources. That should have taught me to keep backups but I’m still not as good as I should be. My work laptop is hardly ever backed up (but most important items are also available in my e-mail) and I should really do a better job with my server at home (although most of the data is software that could be downloaded again). What really worries me is having to re-rip my iTunes library (and re-purchase tracks bought from the iTunes store) or, even worse, losing my digital photos (some of which are irreplaceable images of my family) and so I really must make backups of the data on my Mac.

One of the failings of Mac OS X is a lack of built-in backup software. Actually, that’s not true – there are standard Unix utilities such as rsync and Apple does provide advice for how to back up and restore your files but if you want to use Apple Backup, then you need a .Mac subscription (I believe that software like this should really be included with the operating system).

Thinking that there must be plenty of people who have experienced this issue previously, I went googling for free backup software for the Mac and found a list of backup programs courtesy of Pure Mac. First of all, I tried SmartBackup, which looks great, but it also costs $19.50, and whilst I’d be happy to part with cash for something if it really hits the mark, as I mentioned previously, I could script something from the command line for free. Another option was RsyncX, but this will not run on Intel Macs, so I got looking at automated backups using rsync. Although rsync is incredibly powerful , it was looking as though it would take me some time to work out exactly what I would need to back up (although Pete Freitag’s article on how to backup your Mac incrementally over ssh looked useful), until I stumbled across rsyncbackup – a set of scripts with documentation, designed to simplify setting up an rsync-based backup routine.

In the end, I settled on the easy option – using a program called iBackup, which is free for personal and non-commercial use and seems to do everything that I need it to. It’s pretty basic but all I really need is to make regular copies of my data to a second external hard disk. iBackup supports scheduled backups using multiple backup profiles and features a system of plugins to back up application settings. Above all, it’s easy to use (although it doesn’t run as a service so needs to be running for anything to happen, although it can be minimised).

Of course, I still need to back my photos up to DVD from time to time and store the media off-site (in case I have a fire or something else that wipes out the Mac and both my hard drives) but at least I now have some protection against losing those essential family photos.

Belated birthday wishes to Microsoft Windows

Posted on By Mark Wilson

It’s my first day back at work after the Christmas holidays and I’m catching up on my administration. Whilst working through a pile of unread IT news I realised that late last year, in amongst all of the Windows Vista launch news and comment, I missed Windows’ 21st birthday. Whilst I don’t intend to turn this blog into a history of personal computing, I’ve previously noted significant anniversaries (35 years of the Internet, 30 years of Microsoft, 30 years of Apple, 15 years of the world wide web and 25 years of the IBM PC) and as Microsoft Windows has had such a huge impact on my computing life it seems that this is another birthday that should not pass un-announced. For those who are interested to read why this is so significant, Martin Veitch wrote an interesting article about Windows’ 21 eventful years in IT Week recently.

A lack of business intelligence

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Earlier this year, Nationwide, the UK’s largest building society, suffered a massive data theft when a notebook computer was taken from an employee’s home.

At the time, questions were asked about how such things could be allowed to occur but, to be fair to Nationwide, it is common practice for unencrypted data to be stored on company laptops away from the office (I have never been required to encrypt my data and I work from home routinely). Furthermore, the laptop was stolen in a domestic burglary – we are all told not to leave our laptops in the car (which in my case is another company-owned asset) so within the home is probably the safest place for the computer to be stored when away from the office.

To my mind, the biggest issue is how it took so long for the issue to be disclosed, with millions of customers’ identities potentially compromised (although Nationwide stresses that the data was “to be used mainly for marketing purposes” and “did not include any PINs, passwords, account balance information or memorable data”).

Two of my family members are Nationwide customers and earlier this month we received letters warning us of the potential issues, along with advice from the UK Government Home Office and Nationwide on protecting our identities; however, I was very amused by the letter to my two-year-old son, which began as follows:

“Dear Mr Wilson

THIS IS IMPORTANT – PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND SHOW THIS LETTER TO YOUR PARENT OR GUARDIAN

Earlier this year a laptop computer belonging to the society was stolen…”

The letter was sent to a toddler! How many 2-year-olds do you know who can read a letter and follow the advice to show it to a parent of guardian? All the other communications from Nationwide about his account are addressed to my wife – so why write directly to my son this time? They noted that he was a minor and warned him to show the letter to his parent or guardian but surely their software can cope with a simple date of birth check and establish that this customer may be considered too young to read!

Leaving aside Nationwide’s lack of business intelligence, let’s hope that they have learnt from this massively public loss of data (and the expensive clean-up operation); however as computer users we can all benefit from their unfortunate experience and make sure that our data is secured by more than just a username and password (which provides no protection at all if the operating system can be bypassed and the disk accessed directly). Windows XP and Vista both support disk encryption (as do many Linux distributions and Mac OS X) and it’s worth investigating the use of this technology, although there are complications around key recovery that need to be considered before jumping straight in.

Upgrading my Mac to run Vista

Posted on By Mark Wilson

“Hah! How can installing Windows on a Mac be an upgrade?”, I hear you ask – surely that’s tainting all that Apple wholesomeness with a BSOD-inducing, spyware-ridden, unreliable piece of software – at least, that’s the impression that you will get if you listen to Scott Bourne…

Back in the land of all that is operating system-agnostic, my Mac has been running Mac OS X (most of the time) and Windows XP (a fraction of the time) since the end of July and, as it’s the most advanced piece of PC hardware that I have, I decided to upgrade my Windows partition to Vista. The first thing to note is that Apple only supports Windows XP SP2 for Boot Camp (although others have managed to use alternative operating systems successfully), but then Boot Camp is also beta software (i.e. with limited support) so, not to much to lose then!

I booted into Windows XP, inserted the Vista DVD and ran the upgrade advisor (third time lucky as it first insisted that I install the Microsoft XML Parser 6.0 and then the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0) after which was very pleased to see that my hardware would run Vista Ultimate with all the 3D effects so I could finally experience Aero glass first-hand (I’ve seen it demonstrated but all the PCs I’ve run Vista on up to now have had low-end onboard graphics cards). The upgrade advisor warned me about a few devices for which it didn’t have drivers (SigmaTel High Definition Audio Codec, Apple Built-In Bluetooth and Canon CanoScan N650U/N656U) as well a couple of applications that may have problems post-installation (Symantec AntiVirus Client and Windows Messenger) but as there were no show-stoppers I went ahead with the upgrade (Vista also gave me the option to perform a clean installation, but I figured upgrading from an existing Windows XP installation with all the correct drivers would be a good starting point).

The upgrade itself was smooth and after a while I had a running Windows Vista Ultimate Edition system (not yet activated). As could be expected, Windows wanted to locate some missing drivers, but strangely they weren’t the ones previously identified by the upgrade advisor: firstly there was my Nikon LS4000ED film scanner (for which the Windows XP driver seemed to work); and another device that stopped working during the upgrade was my graphics tablet, although Wacom has a beta driver for Windows Vista that was easily downloaded and installed, following which the tablet PC input panel appeared. More worryingly, Mediafour MacDrive 6 stopped working under Vista so I have no access to non-Windows partitions and, annoyingly, there was no mention of this from the upgrade advisor, nor does a search for “vista” on the Mediafour website turn up any results (I have since opened a support request and been referred to an article which states that Vista is not supported – apparently that will be in MacDrive 7 next year, and will cost me some more cash). Although I was able to work through the driver issues (if not the MacDrive application issue) I have to question exactly what is the point of an upgrade advisor that doesn’t identify all the likely issues?

Because I had upgraded from a working XP installation that was using Boot Camp v1.0.2 drivers, most of my Mac hardware was recognised by Windows (and Vista was even able to find a driver online for one device that hadn’t previously worked – the Infineon Trusted Platform Module). Even so, more recent versions of Boot Camp provide additional device support – like being able to use F14 for PrtScr – so I decided to upgrade the Apple Keyboard driver. After creating an updated driver CD using the Boot Camp Assistant v1.1.2 under Mac OS X, Tim Gaden’s article on wrangling Boot Camp v1.1.2 drivers into Windows Vista guided me through extracting the driver files to a location on my hard disk (“D:\Install Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP.exe” /A /v), from where I was able to locate the Apple Keyboard driver (in locationofextractedfiles\program files\Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP 1.1.2\Apple Keyboard\) and run the setup wizard. Tim’s article was written for Vista RC2, but I can confirm that the same fatal error occurs with the RTM build (build 6000) if the /a /v switches are not used to extract the setup files and run them individually.

Feature transfer error: Error -1603 Fatal error during installation

Once the Apple Keyboard driver was properly installed, I could use the extra function keys but as the UK Apple keyboard lacks a # character, I couldn’t type # directly (Alt+3 no longer works) although Alt+035 does the trick (note that the 035 must be typed on the number pad, not using the numeric keys above above qwertyuiop).

There were still a couple of devices with warnings in Device Manager – no driver seems to be available for the performance counters (at least that’s one step ahead of the Windows XP installation which simply referred to this item as a PCI device) and I have a USB Human Interface Device for which the drivers won’t start (hardware ID USB\VID_05AC&PID_8240&REV_0110 – this was also unrecognised under XP and 05AC denotes Apple but I’m not sure which device 8240 relates to). Sadly, the Apple remote still doesn’t work – a shame really as I much prefer Microsoft’s Windows Media Center to Apple’s FrontRow.

During the upgrade, I also noticed a nice feature as I held down the Alt/option key on each reboot to select the Windows partition – as well as Macintosh HD and Windows, the boot loader offered the choice of booting from the Windows DVD (I’m not sure if this is available to Mac users without Boot Camp?).

I have previously criticised the Vista user interface but I’m finding that I actually like the full experience with all the 3D effects turned on (sorry Microsoft). Flip 3D is cool; so is the taskbar thumbnail preview; and I like the way that Windows fade in/out as I maximise/minimise them.

Flip-3D

Thumbnail preview

Extolling the virtues of Vista’s user interface does not in any way reverse the opinion I have previously expressed as a Microsoft business customer – by and large, corporates don’t care about 3D graphics and the main requirement is for a reliable and secure operating system, something for which only time can tell if Windows Vista is or is not.

As for those who point out the similarities between Windows Vista and Mac OS X (I did blog about the spoof videos earlier this year and yes, I have seen David Pogue’s video article on the New York Times site, to which it should be added that Pogue is a well-known Mac user – he even writes books about Apple software!), let’s play that particular criticism back another way (which I haven’t seen anybody comment on)… it’s well publicised that it took many years for Microsoft to write Vista and Microsoft is far less secretive about new features than Apple is – who says that Apple didn’t steal some of Microsoft’s ideas in the meantime and bring them to market first? After all, the much acclaimed Time Machine feature in the forthcoming version of OS X sounds very like a feature we have had in Windows for years (the volume shadow copy service). Or maybe (and more likely in my opinion), consumers expect features like a calendar application and digital media management built in to our operating system (heaven knows that Outlook Express was long overdue an update). As for gadgets/widgets and desktop search (Spotlight) – they are not Apple inventions either (in fact, many Mac users eschew Mac OS X’s Spotlight search in favour of Quicksilver).

I’ll still be running Mac OS X most of the time (at home anyway – I need to use Linux and Windows XP for work) but it’s good to be able to test Vista in all it’s glory and it seems to run well on my Mac Mini. In fairness, I do have a Core Duo processor and 2GB of RAM, but it feels responsive (at least as much so as OS X) and the overall experience is positive – and that’s on a machine which only scores a Windows experience index of 3.0 (dragged down by the built-in Intel GMA950 graphics – the other metrics are all above 4).

Performance information and tools

As I’ve written previously, Windows Vista is a fantastic achievement on Microsoft’s part, although I do wish that there had been simultaneous consumer and business launches (if only to stop all this ¨we don’t support it because it’s not available yet¨ nonsense from software vendors who should have been getting ready for Vista months ago). Now we just need to stop all the noise from David Pogue and others about how Microsoft copied Apple and just live with the fact that Vista will be on hundreds of millions of PCs by this time next year – regardless of whether or not it is the best operating system. Despite my initial reservations, I like running Mac OS X, I also like running Linux, and I like running Windows too – they all have their good and bad points so let’s play nicely together.

(In the interests of my operating system-agnostic credentials, I should add that I started to write this post on a PC running Fedora Core 5 whilst the Mac was being upgraded, then I switched to the Mac, adding details whilst booted under both Windows Vista and Mac OS X!)

New toys for digital imaging

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Blogging may be a bit sporadic for a while as I’m trying to spend some time with my family (I’ve been far too busy at work over the last few weeks and they have been losing out); however I did find 5 minutes to blog about the new toys that Santa (okay, it was Mrs. Wilson) left on our fireplace/under the Christmas tree a couple of days ago…

Wacom Graphire 4 Classic A6 tablet

The first was a Wacom Graphire 4 Classic A6 tablet – I’ve never used a pen for digital work before but I figured it must be far more intuitive than a mouse and whilst I’ve not had much time to play (no more than the basic setup process) this could open up a whole new world of possibilities for digital image creation. Installing it on my Mac Mini (under both Mac OS X and Windows XP) was easy – although I was a bit perplexed when the product registration screen started asking me questions about how I’d found the product’s usability (duh… I’ve just bought it and am registering it as part of the software installation – I haven’t used it yet!). Slightly annoyingly, as I’m writing this, I see that there is a white version available now; however as my Mac, monitor, external hard disk are all aluminium and my scanners are silver-painted plastic, the silver version doesn’t look out of place on my desktop.

Lexar Professional CompactFlash 2GB 133x memory card

Tech present number 2 was a 2GB 133x Lexar Professional CompactFlash memory card – now I have room on my camera for either many more JPEGs, or for the long-awaited switch to raw format photography.

So, what exactly is the point of this rambling? Well, like much of the rambling on this blog, bear with me – normal service will be resumed soon (I have a lot of half-written blog posts to finish writing) and in the meantime, enjoy the Christmas holidays – I’ll be playing with my children, my camera and my computer (in that order).

Passed the VMware Certified Professional exam

Posted on By Mark Wilson

VMware Certified ProfessionalThis morning I passed the VMware Certified Professional on VI3 exam.

VMware’s non-disclosure agreement prevents me from saying anything about the exam itself but I can say that it involved a lot of preparation and this was my strategy:

  • Most importantly, get some experience of working with VMware products (I have been working on a project to implement VI3 since July and also use VMware Server every day).
  • Attend the mandatory VMware Infrastructure 3 Install and Configure course (I don’t believe that making a £2200 course mandatory is a good thing – people with suitable experience should be allowed to take the test without having to either shell out that sort of cash themselves or persuade their employer to do it – often locking them into an agreement to stay with the company…).
  • Book the exam (oh yes, the £2200 doesn’t include exam fees – that’s another £100).
  • Use the week before Christmas, when most of my colleagues were on holiday, to lock myself away and cram like crazy, reading the course notes through again as well as the product documentation. I find that writing notes helps me to taking information on board and I’ve published my revision notes here (note that these were written prior to taking the exam and, to avoid breaking the terms of the exam NDA, the content has not been edited to reflect what I experienced in the exam – the only changes from the originals relate to formatting and grammar).

Keeping up with the news (plus some tips for Windows Vista)

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Clicking through from one of Victor Laurie’s sites, I found Ed Bott’s 10 expert tips and tweaks for Windows Vista – it looks as though there are some nice tips there.

I regularly read Paul Thurrott‘s writing (as well as listening to his Windows Weekly podcast with Leo Laporte) and I occasionally check out what Stephen Bink and Ryan Hoffman have to say but it seems Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report is another useful resource for those keeping up-to-date with the latest news from Redmond (there is also the official Microsoft news is at Presspass, but it’s all so clinical and corporate).

Of course, Ed Bott writes at ZDNet, who have loads of writers churning out news on Microsoft, Google, Apple and others but it’s just so hard to keep up (and RSS feeds are worsening my information overload instead of making it better!) – just thought I’d make a note of it up here on the blog in case it turns out useful for someone.