OS X on a Dell? Yuk! Question and answer formed the two first sentences of this column – a.k.a. ‘Interface’ until September 2004 – on February 29, 2002. Feed question and answer to Google and you’ll find it over here (in Dutch).
A lot has changed in four years. While I made my entrance into the Mac-parish it has become possible – although not officially allowed by Redmond or Cupertino – to install and operate OS X on a Dell without too many sleepless nights.
Even crazier, which I couldn’t have dreamed in 2002, the other way is officially possible, although only encouraged by the Cupertino Boot Campers: run XP on OS X. Ad yes, anno 2006 Macs are delivered with Intel processors inside.
Feed ‘OS X and Dell‘ to Google once more and print quite a few nights of reading. Filter the junk, and study the bona fide sources like Slashdot, Mac forums, John Dvorak or Bob Cringely. Try to understand what the true analysts think of Apple’s tricks and strategies, and deduct your own conclusion.
Mine? I haven’t got a clue, I don’t understand at all what Apple is doing or why.
Doesn’t bother me, just like it doesn’t interest me at all with what kind of ads, tricks, freebies or whatever, Mercedes Benz or BMW are trying to sell their cars. For me, the user, only counts how the wheels are driving once bought, because I’ll have to drive the car for a while, at least.
So how do I like my snow white FatCat (iMac PowerPC G5) that’s purring on my desk since december 2005?
Grrrreat, thank you very much! One way or another OS X fits me like a tailor made suit, while the white plastic suits my living room nicely.
Last week I’ve bought an Airport Express, and iTunes now streams my music to our 25 year old Pioneer stereo, another happy marriage of old and new.
A really great bonus is the fact that the Escenic Content Studio, a Content Management System written in Java, by means of which we have to edit the newspaper portal, runs even a bit nicer on OS X than on my XP Optiplex Dell at work.
Want some bad news too? Very well, it’s all technique and where there’s technique, things will go wrong.
Yesterday my ten month old 1gb iPod Shuffle went kaflooie when I connected it to one of the iMac’s USB ports, just like that. When something like that happens it doesn’t matter if you’re running OS X or XP, because the result is the same: you keep trying all kinds of solutions for hours before accepting the final kaput.
It took the lady at the local Apple dealer less than ten seconds to come to the same conclusion. She connected the Shuffle to her Mac, and when her machine didn’t see it either, the iPodd was diagnosed as definitely kaput. No problem, it’s send to Apple, and and they will return it repaired or send me a new one, cause it’s still under warranty.
One more thing: a riddle. Every once in a while, unprovoked, Airport and Pioneer get bonkers and start to fight each other in such a way, that there’s only one way to end the hostilities: a reboot of FatCat.
Must be a config error, but where?