This & That: Changing my religion - part 2 - extra RAM, Parallels, widgets ... and the bottom line

This & That

Changing my religion - part 2 - extra RAM, Parallels, widgets ... and the bottom line

The package from Crucial arrived (www.crucial.com/uk) containing 2 x 1Gb RAM modules (around £30 in total) and the 'old' 2 x 512Mb RAM modules are sitting on the desk looking for a new home.

What's the difference? With 1Gb RAM OS X ran fine and was happy with several programs open simultaneously; try and run Parallels/Windows XP, however, and both OS X and Parallels were so slow as to be wholly useless. With 2Gb RAM, both OS X and Parallels/XP run beautifully. Problem solved.

Under Parallels, Windows can see my Mac folders and OS X can see my Windows folders For £50 or so (plus your copy of Windows) Parallels really does allow you the best of both worlds, Mac and Microsoft.

Any major disappointments with the Macbook/OS X combo? Yes. I thought that 'speech recognition' was the full-blown version not just a selection of verbal controls for applications. I am in the early stages of transcribing 1500, 500-word newspaper articles for a website. The originals are poor quality photocopies and so the use of OCR is out of the question. On my former laptop, full speech recognition was built in to Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005; fast and accurate with minimal training, it was ideal to the transcription project. I really think that Apple should make it far more clear that Mac 'speech recognition' is simple 'command recognition' and a million miles away from full speech-to-text.

On a positive note, I love widgets (tiny applications which appear as an overlay to the current screen when you hit the F12 key and disappear when you hit the key a second time). I have two weather widgets, a calculator, an analog clock, a BBC radio streamer and a share price widget. Vista has the similar functionality with its Sidebar gadgets. Quick access to basic information, isn't that what computing should be about?

Ah yes, WEP-encrypted WiFi. The Macbook really doesn't seem to like WEP, and will often refuse to connect to a WEP-encrypted WiFi link at the first attempt. On a subsequent attempt, after time-wasting and frustration on my part, it will generally succeed. Advice from my Apple dealer: "Macs don't like WEP, use WPA". Sorry guys, but not everywhere I visit uses WPA, and I may have no option but to use WEP. Not impressive.

So, I spent the money (my own cash, not my employer's) on a Macbook, but with my new-found experience, which would I prefer: the Macbook or my previous Toshiba M400 running Windows XP? Deep consideration: I like the Macbook, OS X is stable and you get a lot of software right out-of-the-box; but Windows XP on the Toshiba M400 was stable, the screen was superb (way better than the Macbook) and I already own all the productivity software I need. Bottom line, which machine was I more happy to use? No doubts - the Tosh.