George Chen

MacBook (not pro) + Windows XP

I might be a little late to the whole IntelMac BootCamp thing, but I haven’t run into any online review or experience of the consumer MacBook with Windows XP yet using BootCamp yet so here’s my take of that combo.

I purchased the white 2GzH MacBook at the Emeryville Apple Store on May 19th  – decided to cancel the online ordered since the black version looks bad in person.

There’s something has to be said about the latest crop of Apple retail staff. What’s up with the greasy hair, emo look? Looks aside, they are not very knowledgeable in tech as I have hope they can be. They are no serious nerds, but Apple needs serious nerd to sell Macs.

As an example, BootCamp came out before the release of MacBook, so I was concern the software drivers would not support MacBook. When I ask one of the staff if a MacBook would it be ok to run BootCamp, he was not able to give me a straight answer. That’s too bad.

So I took the chance and purchased a MacBook primarily to test run Windows XP and no, I don’t want a new printer, and I already have a .Mac account. What’s up with the pushy Apple retail staff again? I then proceeded to BestBuy to pick up a fresh copy of Windows XP. And yes, purchasing Windows XP in a box did make me feel a little dirty.

Installing and partitioning Windows XP on MacBook was super easy. Took about an hour only. The first time I tried it, I gave Windows XP 15 GB of space. With the OS installed, games etc, I have only 3-5 GB ofworkable space. Then I did a repartition and re-install. Now I split the 60GB internal drive to half-and-half. I will likely upgrade the drive to 120GB when BootCamp come out of Beta.

I used both Macs and PC. Recent year I like PC more, and I do all my design work on a PC. I don’t know why most designers still use Macs. Indeed, the Intel build of MacOS X is pretty fast, but compare with Windows XP on MacBook things are even faster.

I am by no mean trashing MacOS X, but for what I need Windows XP on MacBook works great – as I can run Final Fantasy XI Online on a MacBook. Oh, and have I mention the PC USB drivers for Playstation 2 Control also works great on a Mac?

Sakamoto & Nokia 8800

Ryuichi Sakamoto composed a set of "sound skin" for the new Nokia 8800 phone. Go check it out and have a listen. It’s typical Sakamoto stuff which means…. um… freakin’ GOOD. Wonder if we will see the song like ringtone release on a CD.

Nokia certainly knows their target audience (who, me?) sleek phone and damn fine music/sound skin…. Product Marketing at its’ best.

I also shared the intel with BK, and he had some interesting comment:

"I like how ‘Ryuichi Sakamoto Sound Design’ is slotted right
in between ‘Scratch-resistant Glass Screen’ and ‘Unique slide
architecture’"

Sakamoto’s music is just a
"feature" indeed. Also since the phone will set you back $1,000 US, he also said:

"maybe I’ll just uhhh convert some Sakamoto songs into polyphonic MIDI files and use those instead – Ghetto Sakamoto"

That’s an option too.

Happy Birthday Y!

Marketplace had a story on Yahoo!’s 10th birthday last night. It was weird to hear that on the radio while I drove home… The story is a little "raah-rahh", but there’s still a lot of truth in it. What’s funny is, today, I received an e-mail from my sister, and she ask me where she can get free ice cream… Anyhoo, happy birthday Y!!