User Profile for sparcdr

User Name sparcdr

Member Since 2006-06-28

Total number of Feedback Posts: 11

Total number of comments: 15

Last 10 Feedback Posts by sparcdr [ Search for All ]

EyeTV 2.5 (Mac OS X)

I purchased an EyeTV 250 PVR from Elgato in June of 2006, and since then I've received several large sized updates for free as the device came with a license to EyeTV 2. So far I've had no issues with EyeTV on either Tiger or Leopard since I've purchased it. For over a year, I ran 2.4 on Tiger and recorded an upwards of 300 hours of video, and watched another 200 with it or more. With Leopard's released I expected a few applications, especially those that interface directly with the operating system kernel through extensions to break. This was not the case with Leopard and EyeTV 2.5. EyeTV 2.5 had been out for maybe a month, and it worked without crashing or erroring out on Leopard when I installed the release version of 10.5. Now that 2.5.1 is out, with Leopard centric features to show, I'm happy to report that EyeTV's support in software is not easy to match. I've seen only four other vendors that would provide customers this kind of long term support, being Sun Microsystems, VMware Microsoft, and Apple. Congrats to Apple and Elgato for making things "Just Work"! [alert admin]

VMware Fusion 1.0.51348 (Mac OS X)

Solid solution for everyone

VMware Fusion is a solid product from one of the most known companies in the developer and system administrator software markets. Delivering elegant UI conforming to Apple Human Interface Gudelines, VMware pushes ahead as a solid, well tested, fast, and easy to use product for any Mac OS X user seeking a solution to run a variety of guest operating systems. For software testing, risk assessment, development, technical support, specialized software, and for a selection of DirectX 8.1 games, rest assured that your $80 will be worth every penny. VMware Fusion at version 1.0 is as stable as Parallels Desktop 3's latest build. Through rigorous public testing, VMware utilized tester feedback to stabilize and add features to the product which increase productivity for all users running any operating system as a guest. How does it stack up against Parallels Desktop? As a public tester for VMware Fusion, I evaluated Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3, Beta 4, Beta 4.1 and RC1 versions. From Beta 3 onwards, Fusion pushed ahead once again proving that quality was not an afterthought. Parallels Desktop between each release has been plagued with unexplainable bugs and crashes due to feature creep and lack of well established testing routine. It's safe to say that unless you absolutely must have Multiple Snapshots and the improved coherence mode (Which exposes applications of both Mac OS X and Windows type to Expose) VMware Fusion will surely be a good solution. I strongly feel that it is a product you can trust. The disk format is also non-proprietary, allowing for cross-platform compatibility with 3rd party virtualization solutions, and VMware's Workstation, ESX and Server products. It's also worthy to note that VMware's ACPI-compliant BIOS for virtualization has a longer track record as software, and has proven itself more compatible than VirtualPC and Parallels products. Don't believe me? Parallels forced upgrades for 2.x users by stagnating updates for 2.x customers, making them lean toward an upgrade, which occured in under a year. Standard software upgrades last a minimal of a year, yet Parallels for many customers was a 2x rate loss in value by forcing this upgrade. VMware's policy is 18 months for their software, so you can found your mission critical tasks on their solution without worrying about locking yourself in with a proprietary format like Parallels has, or risk using buggy software with security holes and data loss risk. Try it out for 30 days, trust me, it is a great product. Just make sure you have enough ram for either product, otherwise don't complain if you somehow get a 256MB VM running on your sub-economic Mac Mini. [alert admin]

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Tuesday, August 07 2007 @ 02:55 AM PDT

Enigmail 0.95.2 (Mac OS X)

Good but it'd be nice to just have a Mail.app GPG plugin somehow

This is a good plugin, but for Mac users, XUL is a terrible way to make a UI. Most of us can't stand how Thunderbird handles IMAP, and Mail.app is just more pleasing to use, and works as well. It just lacks plugins like this, which is why I keep Thunderbird around, for those people who have to GPG everything. As for the plugin, never had issues with it, and have been using it since Thunderbird 1.0. [alert admin]

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Monday, July 02 2007 @ 05:08 AM PDT

Parallels Desktop 3.0 Build 4128.0 (Mac OS X)

Unstable product

Very very unstable product. 5 of 7 times it will hang the kernel extensions handler (kextd) and you won't be able to reboot, even from command line. Grey screens of death (Kernel panics), shoddy drivers which can't be removed on a boot camp partition unless you're using it in a Window, which almost always crashes. Bad support, 3D support not even good enough for DirectX 8.1 applications. VMware Fusion's last two betas were more stable than any oft he 2.5 and 3.0 line versions of Parallels Desktop. I wish Fusion had multiple snapshots, rollback, and guest console recording, I'd ditch parallels completely, even if it's a little slower. Fusion supports 64-bit guests on Tiger, and it also supports using both cores. It runs great on everything except FreeBSD which idles at 25% cpu due to some bug in Fusion. Other than that I run the same apps on both and have no issues. Parallels 2.5 was more stable, but they won't provide many updates to 2.5 line customers. They are doing what Microsoft does, push out tons and tons of features and test it on one machine, then deploy it and have customers deal with the problems and make it better by having to lose data. VMware's disk format also isn't proprietary and is both forwards and backwards compatible, while Parallels can only convert forwards directly, making you use VMware Converter to get it back to VMware. Make sure you keep copies of your VM's if you use both. Upgrade not worth it, if it was stable it would be. I depend on a stable virtualization solution, and this is not capable of being trusted. Just run boot camp, you'll have less issues. [alert admin]

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Sunday, July 01 2007 @ 12:32 AM PDT

VMware Fusion 1.0b4.1 (Mac OS X)

VMware Fusion versus Parallels Desktop

I've been using Parallels Desktop since June of 2006. Throughout the months I found that Parallels' quality control was terrible and their support according to users was non-existant. I myself never depend on support, mainly because I work for IT, and can usually handle my own problems. The only things I ever try and get support for are when someone's product is obviously unstable or broken. Between releases, such as pre-release to 3188, maybe one or two were stable enough to use all day. (3188 was the best of them all) From upgrading to 3.0, I found no new advantages, their support still isn't there, and the quality is still not there. Parallels will take down your machine and cause kernel modules to get stuck churning, with a hard boot being the only way to recover. (halt and shutdown methods abroad fail to kill off the process) Their development rate is spuratic, unplanned, and bad quality, and their documentation fails to help anyone but Windows users. VMware's documentation is the same, and for both companies, the tools are the same as well. Parallels however is retail, and is in worse shape than VMware Fusion B3. It has tons and tons of features, and the keybindings are nice, but they use a proprietary disk format and have constant regressions of stability. I've [alert admin]

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Sunday, June 24 2007 @ 02:33 PM PDT

Parallels Desktop 2.5 Build 3186.0 (Mac OS X)

Getting a bit chunky

It seems that Parallels has been growing in size without really adding any new features lately. 1970 - 29.2MB 3036 - 32.9MB 3120 - 37.2MB 3150 - 38.5MB 3170 - 38.7MB 3186 - 57.4MB (Current) What did they add? The last few versions before 3186 had Coherency, USB 2.0, and bugfixes can't be that big, seriously. Talk about eating up your bandwidth, it's not like it's really a big deal, unless you are on satillite or cheap DSL, in this case I'm on satillite and have stupid bandwidth limits. Parallels is slowly reaching the rate of bloat that VMware Fusion's only public beta is at. VMware Fusion can't compare to Parallels, until they actually build in snapshots, boot camp partition support, VIX automation API, host VNC server, teams, and VMTN machine viewer. Currently they only sport VirtualSMP, aka multi-cpu VM capability, which Parallels doesn't have. In truth, there is no such thing as isolating the CPU as Parallels claims, VirtualSMP on Parallels is wholly possible, while accelerated graphics is a feat of programming, it will never be able to do games until there are VGPU's. The disk and memory slowdowns from having to abstract through the OS will make it painful to run games even if there are VGPU's. I look forward to being able to run Beryl and Aero in a VM, and I know it's not gonna be as good as bare metal, but it is possible. Although I won't have to run Beryl in a VM soon, as Leopard is using modular X.org, which will make it possible to hack up Beryl, compile it, and run it fullscreen just for fun. [alert admin]

Yahoo! Messenger 3.0b1r2 (Mac OS X)

Incomplete, insulting attempt

While I'm glad they actually got a native Cocoa based product out, I am not glad that it has sat as a beta for so long. I find it solid enough to be called stable, yet it remains in the same condition. It does however lack image sharing, plugins, and almost every single feature the Windows side enjoys. I'll agree with other posts, Adium is better than this. Yahoo!, you have the money to create software, bring a GA release up to par on both systems, do not encumber the software with ads like you seem doing, and maybe people will actually use the messenger. The video chat works, but there is no voice chat, and the way the interface is presented is a bit confusing and obviously as I said, incomplete. Macs account for 12-15% of notebooks sold as of December 2006, and 6-7% of desktops as of this month. There is no reason you cant come out with something better. Google has yet to provide a Gmail client for anything but Windows, and is in a sad state. Those of you here expecting to do cross-platform collaboration, consider just using Skype and something like Yugma for desktop sharing. When Leopard comes out you can at least share your desktop, and iWork documents with your Mac buddies. Companies blindly ignoring that the Mac is a fact: VMware, Borland, Microsoft, Yahoo, ID Software, EA Games, Ubisoft, Sun Microsystems, Sharp, Palm, Rockstar Games, TechSmith, and many many others... Examples of software that needs/should be available: Up to par MSN/Live Messenger (Microsoft) Up to par Microsoft Office with access (Using Cocoa, not Carbon, and not 6-18 months after the Windows version) Native VMware Console (This is a big deal, there are many people miffed about VMware's sub-par Fusion product and lack of native console for their server product) Camtasia and SnagIt screen capturing software (There is ScreenMimic and others but TechSmith is the industry go-to) StarOffice (While there is NeoOffice, there is no commercial alternative to Microsoft office with the same features, iWork '07 *might* have a spreadsheet component) Native Sharp and Palm PDA synchronization software does not exist Any games on the Mac except Quake 3 are independent ports mostly done through Aspyre. There is no Grand Theft Auto or recent Unreal Tournament 2003+ engine ports. If the engine was up to date games based on it such as Lineage II and America's Army could be ported/resumed for Mac OS X. America's Army was an independent job to begin with, and is now dead, despite growing userbase. We can only hope that games that were never ported from PowerPC are ported and again become available. EA Games has always ignored the Mac, and there is no port of Battlefield 2 or 2142 to Mac OS X, and Battlefield 1942 is PowerPC-only, with significant version lag and performance problems. As is the tradition, and as of being independent, there is always version and checksum problems with playing with the other operating system, as well as performance problems and unfixed unreported vendor hushed glitches only privy to Windows, this needs to stop now. [alert admin]

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Saturday, January 20 2007 @ 06:03 PM PST

Yahoo! Messenger 3.0b1r2 (Mac OS X)

Incomplete, insulting attempt

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Saturday, January 20 2007 @ 05:55 PM PST

Parallels Desktop 2.5 Build 3106.0 (Mac OS X)

Sub-standard Beta Software

For those of you out there who absolutely hate the software engineering out of good old Redmond, try this out and you'll want to give Steve Ballmer a big hug. It's a beta, there are no promises that it won't start World War III, but for a beta product, I've seen better alphas out of the woodwork at Microsoft, Apple, Sun, and all of them have major stability problems out the gate, even most the way through the betas and even into "stable" releases. (Windows Vista, Mac OS X Leopard, Sun Studio, Netbeans, Eclipse, Java Studio Creator, Java Enterprise, are examples of large software products that always have major flaws which hinder stability, performance, and usability throughout the releases) Regardless the features it may bring to the table my estimate is that 95% of users who have tried the last two Parallels Desktop betas reverted back to the "stable" version despite the chunk of new "innovative" features. We're stuck with VMware Fusion and Parallels, and Parallels came through six months before VMware with a very stable and cost effective product that does what it was supposed to, abeit basic. However, many people are lacking the snapshots, USB 2.0, VNC, backgrounded VM's, Virtual Appliance View, VirtualSMP, Teams, and VTMN Virtual Machines many have come to expect from desktop/workstation virtualization, at the hand of VMware's pioneering product, VMware Workstation on Microsoft Windows and Linux. This is a major pitfall since the majority of Workstation features have yet to be merged or implemented into Fusion. It appears that their engine is not a shared source base, utilizing assembly code and platform specific libraries and code syntax. While this could be debatable as a move for getting the best optimization, VMware is actually a daemon with a client-server design. The GUI you see is implemented in the native toolkit but the core functions are running on your computer behind the scenes. Parallels as far as I can tell is an isolated, user-mode application which houses all the functionality into a single application. GTK, Win32/ATL/Com, and Cocoa are the toolkits used by VMware and Parallels. (Note: Parallels also sells a Linux and Windows product) The Fusion product has less features overall, but is much more stable and at least has the ability to abstract both cores through to the virtual machine (VirtualSMP), although it too has some stability problems and sluggish performance. (Mainly due to debugging symbols) Stick with 1970 for now and backup the VM before trying ANY beta version of Parallels or VMware Fusion. Parallels: Do what Apple and VMware do, keep it behind the scenes before releasing public betas just a little bit longer. Focus on the stability more then making every single feature working upon beta release. Don't take too long, some of us are dieing to utilize Coherence. We of course won't use the product in production or for a fair amount of work until the product is safe enough where it won't turn your Windows XP or FreeBSD installation into burned toast. At this time I do not recommend wasting the bandwidth on Parallels' betas. I do however recommend purchasing a copy since for a full year you will get free updates and new features. Their stable product is definitely fast and stable and it runs FreeBSD 5/6, Solaris 10, Windows 98/2000/XP/2003/Vista, and essentially any recent Linux varient, as well as other not so mainstream OS, like OS/2 (EComStation), OpenBSD and NetBSD. (Slackware, Debian, RHEL/CentOS, Fedora, Gentoo, SUSE are just a few distros which work with 2.4 and 2.6 kernels) [alert admin]

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Saturday, January 06 2007 @ 12:14 PM PST

Microsoft IntelliPoint & IntelliType 6.0 (Mac OS X)

So far so good

I'd like to reiterate a concern many of the reviewers have about IntelliType for Mac OS X. Microsoft, you need to provide Bluetooth support, period. Make the function keys work, don't treat Mac OS X users like second class when the fact in the matter is that most Mac users still buy your products, including your cash cow Microsoft Office and your input devices. Reading Apple Developer Connection's documentation about the Bluetooth implementation is not hard, so get to it, it's one of the main concerns for your customers. Okay, so I bought a Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, which uses USB interface. This keyboard is being used with a 24" iMac with Core 2 Duo running Boot Camp with Windows XP Pro SP2 alongside Mac OS X 10.4.8. Even though I've only had this keyboard a few days I'd like to share my current experience so far with their IntelliType preference pane and the keyboard itself. First I'd like to comment on the design of the keyboard, at first it is somewhat an uphill battle to get used to, and I'm still getting a feel for the locations of buttons and thus still reference the printed letters from time to time. The keyboard so far creates less strain on my hands, is faster to type on, with less mistakes then either my Logitech Desktop keyboard or the included Apple USB keyboard. While I miss the low-power USB hub and eject keys that the Apple keyboard has, I will never go back to the Apple keyboard as long as I have this, simply because the keys were too small and put a lot more strain on my hands because I do type for lengthy periods of time. Your software is ironically better quality then Logitech's and supports a lot more keyboards then Logitech supports on Mac OS X, and I commend you for actually updating the software to be Intel compatible before summer of 2006. I got this system in September of 2006 so I didn't have to wait for you, my recommendation for updates in the future is to release device support for most new input devices alongside the Windows counterparts. I understand that your MacBU is a lot smaller and has less resources, so maybe you should actually hire more people. Side note is that 6-8 month delay on Office 2007 for Mac is the lamest thing I've heard of, using proprietary XML formats that aren't standardized by ISO is even more lame, and your Novell deal is the lamest of the lame, although there is one benefit from it, Office XML format support by Q1 2007 in OpenOffice.org which will trickle down to NeoOffice before you get your Universal Office out. Regardless, defaulting the format to doc/xl/ppt(.x) in the Windows version will definitely cause headaches. I'm reflecting upon this because I notice the same trend with Messenger for Mac, Office, Remote Desktop Connection and IntelliType, the delay and lower quality of software is unforgivable. I notice tons of people were unhappy with version 5 of IntelliType, which is bundled with the keyboards and mice on a CD. 6 months later, you still ship version 5, which isn't Mac Intel compatible, and thus it is time for you to phase out the stock of periphreals still using version 5 if you want to keep using the Mac logo on the box. The software must be installed first folks, just do it to avoid headaches. On both OS I installed the software first and then plugged in the keyboard, which worked immediately. I hit a few function keys and the IntelliType application instantly asked me if I wanted to use volume up for making the volume higher or lower. The web/home, search, mail, mute, vol+, vol-, back/forward, play/pause, calculator, and 1-5 function keys all are fully programmable within the IntelliType preference pane in System Preferences or the IntelliType application under Windows. My Logitech keyboard only has its core features working with annoying glitches for function/multimedia keys in contrast. Word of advice to Logitech customers: dump Logitech, they make worse software then Microsoft. Anywho everything works, even the zoom button and My Favorites button and I am very happy with this release. Your milage may vary, but just check the Microsoft site first on compatibility before complaining. Microsoft, once again, we'd like support for your high end laser and bluetooth input devices. Many people like the included remote with the Intel systems and front row. I use EyeTV and DVD player with the remote, and use my Mac as my TV, so including bluetooth support is critical, since RF is a galaxy better then Infared. I highly recommend the 4000 series ergonomic keyboard to potential buyers who want features and cross compatibility. I assure you that the price is warrented. I bought mine through Amazon and saved money, whatever you do don't get it through Microsoft itself unless your employer is paying for it, the pricetag for a keyboard at that point will probably scare you. [alert admin]

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Saturday, December 30 2006 @ 03:07 PM PST

Last 10 Comments by sparcdr [ Search for All ]

Not for 10.5? - NO, JUST TIGER

Seems as if Automatic updates did not pick this up. You seem to need 10.5.2 to have it appear, and a 64-bit Intel machine running Leopard. 57.5MB via Software Update Cannot find it on Apple Downloads Goes into and then deletes itself: /var/folders/Rg/Rg5ULbcvHL8gOmRc4HvzrU+++TI/-Caches-/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate/swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/18/40/zzz061-4295/Q6mJPnHZX5WHd6MzHt2qMy9kgyQzpCnDJX/JavaSE6.pkg xray:~ sparcdr$ ls /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/ 1.3/ 1.4/ 1.4.2/ 1.5.0/ 1.6.0/ …

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Tuesday, April 29 2008 @ 03:42 PM PDT

Not for 10.5? - NO, JUST TIGER

Via Software Update, and the size is the same as this, on Leopard. The info link provided I think is inaccurate. Just did a clean install today, updated and there's no 1.6 (6.0) in /System/Library/Frameworks xray:~ sparcdr$ ls /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/ 1.3 1.4 1.4.2 1.5.0 Current 1.3.1 1.4.1 1.5 A CurrentJDK java version "1.5.0_13" Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_13-b05-237) Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_13-119, mixed mode, sharing) James

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Tuesday, April 29 2008 @ 03:06 PM PDT

Norton Retail WONT work with VISTA, Corporate WILL WHY?

Symantec Internet Security 2008 works for me on Vista Home Premium with latest updates in addition to an XP machine with SP2 I have here. Identity safe also works with IE7 on Vista and Firefox on Vista. :-) I did notice that sometimes the offline updates from the list will not apply, so in this case you need to use their automatic update mechanism, then wait for the next offline updater.

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Tuesday, February 12 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST

Too many problems

VMware Fusion, VirtualBox, Q:Kju (Qemu), Bochs, Boot Camp Fusion has the same features Parallels has, using their mature virtualization platform. They have a lot more experience with user interfaces and this thing called "stability". Drag & Drop didn't break, their program doesn't cause strange kernel panics, their tools support non-Windows operating systems better, and their format isn't so closed in nature, and is portable to their other products, and convertable to other virtualization solutions,…

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Friday, January 18 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST

You are dumber than an idiot sandwich

OGG is more popular han FLAC buddy. Many game producers use it to avoid pantent royalties. Off the top of my head, Mafia which is from 2002, quite old, uses ogg instead of mp3. OGG doesn't degrade as much as mp3 with multiple conversions. But FLAC is obscure, don't know where you got the idea anyone except fanatical Linux users actually got anything out of it. Personally, I don't care,…

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Wednesday, January 16 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST

Works for PowerShot S5 IS too....

http://software.canon-europe.com/software/0027592.asp?model= Pretty much every camera made after 2003 works with the new version, and it's universal, I have a rule not to use any non-native programs unless they are part of the system, Rosetta is just not good enough for even the most basic things.

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Monday, January 07 2008 @ 12:41 AM PST

Cannot install WinXP, no error log, support site rejects product code, costly support

Should have gone with VMware Fusion. VMware has a lot more experience with virtualization and user experience. Plus their support is 18 months for updates, Parallels doesn't promise anything. A lot of us were forced to get Parallels 3 for critical stability updates. All in all buggy software, retarded file formats, and bad quality control. This includes their "stable" releases.

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Monday, November 19 2007 @ 03:28 AM PST

12184 on dual 2.4 GHz Core 2 Quad 16GB RAM

Not true. The serial number is for the harware, this does not invalidate AppleCare, many high-end applications use the serial number to nodelock or restrict usage. Apple does not use serial numbers in software except for Final Cut Studio, iWork, and Aperture. It is not possible to modify the serial number to copy another machine's through software.

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Tuesday, November 13 2007 @ 11:45 PM PST

I'll wait until ver 1.5 or 2.0

The reason their GUI seems faster is because it is a cheap Carbon application. Carbon is not the recommended framework, especially now that 10.5 is out, it isn't 64-bit capable. Carbon and Cocoa being frameworks, are written with different uses. Carbon uses regular C, and Cocoa uses Objective-C. Objective-C's "prebinding" and dynamic runtime, similar to some Java features, is slower because it takes more instructions. Objective-C is a set of…

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Saturday, October 27 2007 @ 12:43 AM PDT

works fine for Windows Xp

Since all Macs for many years have not came with floppy drives, I'm assuming you're using a USB floppy drive. You just need to run DIsk Utility from Finder -> Tools -> Utilities and click the floppy drive and file -> New Disk Image from Folder should work if you have command.com and all of the .sys files, etc. Otherwise a direct copy can be done by using Terminal from Utilities and the…

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Tuesday, August 07 2007 @ 02:38 AM PDT