I pretty much agree with Tassos, but he neglected to mention that on an Intel Mac you can also run Linux and Windows at native speeds, on the same machine, simultaneously. With Parallels software, you also get the added advantage of OpenGL 3D hardware acceleration, whereas with VMWare, you get 64 bit support, dual-core VMs, and better stability. Both solutions support drag & drop as well as copy & paste between interleaved application windows on a unified desktop. I've also noticed that virtualized OSes boot much faster than their non-virtualized equivalents, and that fully backing up a virtual computer is a simple copy operation.
Of course, you'll spend a more money on software licenses, disk space, and RAM to make this work, but there is nothing on the planet that can compare with the compatibility, portability, and convenience of a MacBook Pro running OS X, Windows, & Linux together under Parallels and/or VMware. PS. Me too Steve! Ditto Bill! Ditto Linus! Oh wait... ________________________________ From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Anastassis Perrakis Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 9:23 AM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Vista <flames on> Vista or XP, I shamelessly admit that I personally totally fail to see why - ideology left aside - I would ever buy a *laptop* which is not a Mac. Even for the fact that when a Mac is "asleep" you open the cover and it actually comes up in 1 sec, exactly where it was last evening, its worth it ! I run MS Office (I actually do like Word), iWork (Keynote is what PP might some day be ... Pages is great for eg posters), iLife for home, Coot, O, CCP4, Phenix, ARP/wARP, Solve/Resolve, Phaser, Pymol, Papers (!!! a dream that will not come true for Windows-based scientists - http://mekentosj.com/), R, Adobe and all work. And you also have Xcode, the GUI builder, management tools, and others for development. For the last 4 years I use a G4 as my laptop which is also my desktop with external monitor and keyboard/mouse - I have dropped it a couple of times, have been around the world, still works. I only switched to Macs in 2001 and I am still happy. And I did not even mention that it LOOKS better ;-)) <flames off> Apologies for not answering the original question, but the discussion was drifting this way. I am now waiting to see what Vista can do that Windows cannot. I am aware of one application I want and does not run on a Mac, and that is the Polar Fitness software for my bike. Argh. Most spyware and virus detection software also do not run in a Mac btw! For a reason: you do not need them dudes ! A. PS And no, I don't work for Apple, I don't get free gifts from Apple, but if Steve is reading and he wants to send me a Mac Air for my kind words, please, go ahead ! ;-)))
