NeoOffice and OLE

I thought OLE was a Windows only capability. I have been using Object-Linking-and-Embedding (OLE) since the it stabilized in the early 1990s in Windows 3.1. To my surprise, OpenOffice.org 2.x and more specifically NeoOffice 2.2 for Mac OS X does it just as good as it works on Windows. In any OpenOffice document (i.e. text, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing) I can embed any other object via OLE!

I was working an a project and needed to create a presentation with embedded objects on my MacBook and not realizing I was on my Mac I just started doing the embedding like I normally do in Window applications. To my surprise I did not really think about what I had accomplished until the next day. The implications are tremendous.

I have been working on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings in a cross-platform environment for the past few years. However, I had always resorted back to Windows when I needed rich compound documents (with OLE objects) embedded in them. Now I know that this is possible in a cross-platform manner with OpenOffice.org based technology. I can't wait until OpenOffice.org 3.0 is released which will provide native Mac support.

Next innovation would be to extend this OLE capability into Google Docs. Now that would be true innovation and make my migration to Google Docs complete. Wishful thinking but then again, Google continually surprises me with their continuous fast-forward innovation.

Apple TV 2.0

When Apple first released Apple TV I thought it was a decent idea with a bad implementation. They tied it to a computer on your network running iTunes. Then it would stream video from your iTunes to your TV. This sounded more like a marketing ploy to get more licenses of iTunes installed.

Now with Apple TV 2.0, they finally got it right. Since the Apple TV runs a a scaled down Mac OS X operating system, it only makes sense. I am not sure what Apple was thinking when they first released it and implementing a dependency on another computer on your network.

Now, I am seriously considering Apple TV 2.0 since it does not depend on another computer on my home network. Apple even lowered the price which makes it even more attractive. This will mean yet another digital device in the increasingly expanding digital home.

My First Year with a Mac

Since I bought my first MacBook a year ago, here is the my impressions after using it daily for the past 12-months:

• It makes computing fun.
• I am no longer worried about security hacks and viruses like I am on Windows.
• Everything just works.
• It is a better Linux than Linux. Less complicated.
• It is a better Windows and than Windows.
  
• It has become my computing appliance like my refrigerator.
• I never have to take it apart to rebuilding/reinstall/repair, fix, de-virus, de-spam, de-malware, or DLL anything.
• Installing applications the Mac way is a simple drag and drop. No more InstallShield and tons of questions and decisions to make.
  
• Virtualization using Parallels and VMware Fusion is awesome.
  
• It is an excellent Java development platform.
• It is an excellent LAMP language (Perl, PHP, ...) development environment.
• Open Source Mac software rocks.
• Mac applications are nice.
• It looks good and so do all the various peripherals.
  

And with all the above I did not even mention multimedia because it just works and is above and beyond my experiences on any other platform (Linux, OS/2, or Windows).

With Leopard out, it will just get better. My next computer will be another Mac. Next on the wish list is an iPod Touch or iPhone. Apple is on a roll.

Enough said. Now get a Mac if you want to simplify your computing life. If not, stick with what you have, shut up, and deal with your platform of un-choice.

Must Have Open Source Mac OS X Applications

I started using the Mac OS X after getting my first MacBook last year (Nov2006).
Since then, I have enjoyed everything Mac. Including what I have been able to find and use from the open source world. I have been using open source software on Linux and Windows for a long time and now can say that I do the same on the Mac.

Here is a list of my must have open source applications on the Mac:

Mozilla Firefox. My cross-platform browser of choice.
NeoOffice. This is the OpenOffice.org port to Aqua that works great and does not require X11.
iTerm. This is the terminal application use for ssh into my Linux machines.
Cyberduck. FTP/SSH tool.
Nvu. Cross-platform HTML authoring tool.
Handbrake. The CD/DVD ripping tool.
Instant Handbrake. The quick DVD ripping tool with preconfigred iPod/PSP settings.
Burn. CD/DVD burning application.
Audacity. Cross platform digitial audio editing tool.
Adium. Instant Messenging application that supports just about every IM network there is.
Seashore. GIMP like graphics tool. GIMP is nice too but requires X11.
Eclipse. Enough said. The quintessential IDE for Java, PHP, Ruby, Perl etc. Check out EasyEclipse for pre-bundles.
TomatoTorrent. Bit-torrent client.
RSSOwl. Cross-platform RSS aggregator. (written in Java).
Freemind. Cross-platform idea/mind mapping tool. (written in Java).
Google. They seem to have an endless stream of revolutionary web apps I use daily.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets. This has been a revolutionary Web 2.0 application.
Google Calendar.
Google Reader. The recent Gears technology is incredible.

There is definitely more that I am finding every day. The above list represents what I have been using on a regular basis all year on my Macbook. Some decent sites I have found related to open source Mac software is OpenSourceMac, this article at MacDevCenter.

The Spotlight

I have been using my MacBook for over 6-months now. I guess I consider myself a veteran user of the Mac since I use it on a daily basis. One feature that I have come to depend on and like very much is Spotlight. All I can say is wow!

There really is no analogy to this in Windows. The closest thing I can think of is Google Desktop or Yahoo! Desktop Search add-ons to Windows. Spotlight is really impressive and well integrated into Mac OS X (10.4 Tiger). It is very intuitive and just works just like my kitchen refrigerator. I think Microsoft copied this in Windows Vista. I have used the Search feature in Vista and unless you have more than 1GB RAM and the fastest processor available today, it runs somewhat sluggish in my experience. Anyway, back to Spotlight.

Spotlight is designed intuitively and never intrudes on my computing experience. If you are still sitting on the sidelines and thinking about getting Mac, this is yet another innovation that non-technical users will use often. One thing I like about it is that I can find all instances of any words or phrases that are anywhere on my MacBook just about instantaneously. This includes inside of documents (pdf, odt, txt, html, etc) that are on my MacBook. Since it is well integrated into the OS, it just works.

Office Suites

If you need an office suite and have not tried OpenOffice.org or NeoOffice then you are missing out. NeoOffice just released version 2.1 final which is based on OpenOffice.org 2.1 and it rocks. Last fall I was using NeoOffice 2.0 beta which was based on OpenOffice.org 2.03 and it just was not up to par. So since I already use OpenOffice.org 2.1 in Linux and Windows, I installed OpenOffice.org 2.1 on my MacBook. The most negative thing about OpenOffice was that it has to run in X11 on Mac OS X. The native OpenOffice.org port for Mac OS X is still in progress.

Just yesterday (03/27/2007), NeoOffice 2.1 final (non-beta) was released. Since NeoOffice is a native Aqua application, I downloaded it and installed it over my previous NeoOffice 2.0 beta3 installation. My first impression is, wow! It works solidly and performance is significantly improved over the previous beta.

I have used it for spreadsheets, word processing, diagrams, and presentations and I can tell you that it does well in all categories. I have not tried the desktop database product but I am sure it works well. The bottom line is that I highly recommend that you use NeoOffice if you are a Mac user and do not have a need to run Microsoft Office. If you do use Microsoft Office on the Mac, then you might want to give NeoOffice a spin. It reads and writes all MS-Office formats with ease and more.

I now use NeoOffice 2.1 as my preferred office suite on my MacBook. It works great and has a lot of user-interface improvements over OpenOffice.org. It feels like native Mac OS X application and has all the capabilities of its OpenOffice.org roots.

Virtualization on the Mac

If you have not used or seen virtualization in action, this may not make a lot of sense. If you have seen virtualization technology in use then this is my first hand viewpoint of based on my experience with virtualization technology on the Mac OS X.

First, VMware has released VMware Fusion Beta for Mac OS X. The positive news is that your VMware virtual machine images or any of the virutal appliances at VMTN work as expected. The user-interface of VMware Fusion beta looks a bit different compared to VMware on Windows or Linux. It has been re-engineered for the Mac OS X. The negative news is that since this is a beta, it suffers from degraded performance due to debugging code that you cannot disable. At least not the in latest release I was using.

The other virtualization software I use on my MacBook is Parallels. This the premiere virtualization products for Mac OS X. It works as advertised and performance is excellent. I converted a Windows XP Professional VMware virtual machine into a Parallels virtual machine using the Parallels Transporter utility. This utility is similar to the VMware Converter which lets you convert a Microsoft Virtual Server or Virtual PC image to a VMware virtual machine.

The Parallels Transporter allows you to convert a VMware or Microsoft Virtual PC/Server into a Parallels virtual machine. I had a few issues when trying to convert a Linux VMware machine to Parallels. It converted the virtual disk but did not make it bootable. I am still looking into this.

Anyway, the Parallels Transporter also lets you convert a physical machine into a virutal machine. This is a capability that VMware Converter also has. I have not tried either one out yet but this allows you to create a virtual machine backup of any machine which is a pretty nifty idea.

One thing I like about Parallels is the user interface on the Mac OS X. It is definitely a Mac application that I was able to figure out intuitively in a short period of time. I like the animations is does when you switch from OS Window mode to Full Screen mode. The animation is a rotating 3-D cube similar to how Mac OS X animates the Fast User Switching feature. For those of you who have not seen this, it is just totally visually cool. I have not seen anything like on Linux or Windows. Also, when you run a Windows Parallels virtual machine in full screen mode, it much better than doing the same using VMware on Windows. At least in my experience.

Anyway, back to virtualization. Virtualization works nicely on Mac OS X. Just as in Linux or Windows, you must have a lot of RAM for this to work well. I recommend at least 1GB RAM and preferrably 2GB or higher. For virtualization the more RAM you have, the better off you will be. If you want virtualization that works great today, then Parallels is it. VMware Fusion is still in beta and based on my experience, not quite yet ready for prime time. VMware has not stated when the final 1.0 release will be ready. I read rumors that summer 2007 is when VMware is expected to put out a stable 1.0 non-beta Fusion product. Until then I plan to use Parallels and will compare the two once VMware Fusion is released as a non-beta product.

As for open source virtualization on Mac OS X, I have not had the chance to research that yet. I am sure there is some open source virtualization ports to Mac OS X like Xen or Virtuozzo.

If you need to run Linux, Windows or other operating systems in virtualization on Mac OS X, you can today and it works well.