Comments on: Virtualization: so cool it hurts

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:56:41 +0000

Yep, this is what I'm doing, except I didn't bother with a smart playlist. Mine's dumb. ;)

By: Bruce

Bruce — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:29:58 +0000

Rob, this just in from EntertainMac (via Lifehacker):

Internet Radio in Front Row

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:22:23 +0000

I'm just using iTunes for radio. I have our local stations along with some cool indie stations from across the country in a playlist. Front Row sees all playlists.

Thank goodness I'm not a gamer. Good advice about my spousal name calling. I will take it to heart. :o

By: Bruce

Bruce — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:16:18 +0000

Great Rob! I'd always thought my mini would suffer the same fate in it's retirement, connected to the TV with an EyeTV tuner attached—so I'm pleased to hear you're happy with such a setup. I haven't really found a use for Front Row as I'm often working on the Mac, but can see that it would come into its own if I had a library of recordings to browse via the TV (probably wouldn't use it for music or showing photos 'tho). How are you doing the streaming radio; iTunes or radio SHARK?

On the game front you'd need one at least 2 years old to play on the mini anyway: the built-in graphics aren't good for much. Tomb Raider, for example, sometimes gets painfully slow under Bootcamp even with many of the effects turned off. Parallels is a great alternative for when you must run Windows for things other than games.

P.S. Don't call your dearest "The wife"; it's our 10th anniversary this year and I've only ever done that once ;-)

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:36:53 +0000

Bruce, I've joined the Intel Mac ranks and bought a Mac Mini 1.6 Core Duo. The wife finally consented (wasn't all that hard) and it's our home theater computer. It's really sweet!

I love how it consolidates a bunch of our entertainment sources into one: iTunes, photos, streaming radio, DVDs, torrent downloads, HDTV recordings (using the Elgato EyeTV 500). I'm loving the Front Row experience so far.

I thought about installing Bootcamp for the occasional PC game, but who am I kidding? I haven't played a PC game in over 2 years now. God, that makes me sound old! Instead, I'm getting into emulators again. I've got Nestopia and a slew of Metroid mods. Wow, now that's some old school fun!

By: Bluesaze

Bluesaze — Sun, 28 May 2006 04:35:40 +0000

I donno I switched over to the http://www.openswitch.org/ template it started working. :)

By: Bruce

Bruce — Sat, 27 May 2006 17:18:57 +0000

Ken, I've not taxed it (only Firefox etc) but Ubuntu certainly feels as snappy as it did (at least) on my PIII Dell. Likewise, Windows XP runs very satisfactorily too.

Bluesaze, I see you got it working (sorry I couldn't respond sooner, I've been abroad). For the benefit of others, what was the problem?

By: Bluesaze

Bluesaze — Tue, 23 May 2006 10:32:30 +0000

Hi .... I am trying to get the Did you pass math Plugin to work with K2 The plugin gets activated but I cant see the question any where near the comment box.

Thanks

By: Ken

Ken — Sun, 21 May 2006 14:23:57 +0000

I'm running Ubuntu on an old, noisy G4 PowerMac. You're making me want to go and buy a new Intel Mac (having not that long ago bought a G5 iMac) just for the pleasure of virtualization. What's the performance of Ubuntu like running on Parallels?