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I am going to say this first, I am not the most technically advanced person in the world.  Especially when it comes to my Macbook.  I have had this laptop for nearly 3 years now and I am just learning most of the shortcuts and how to use it to its fullest.  I really wanted to learn more and putting the newest Windows OS on my life line was a huge step.  The only reason I really wanted it on the laptop was because I wanted to play PC games and use Office.  This was my biggest and scariest experiment to date, installing Windows 7 on it.  I did face a couple of potholes on the way, Boot Camp Assistant was not my friend, but that was my own fault, too many files to partition. I had to burn two dvds because the first one did not work.  But when it was time for the macbook to preform, I was not let down.  This is why I love my 3 year old macbook.

First off, follow the system requirements it gives you, I only have 1 gb of ram and to date that has been plenty.  I have an 80 gb hard drive but I also have a 320gb external.  As long as you have more than 10 gb of space on your laptop and don’t plan on adding tons more to it, you should be all set.  If you cringed at the idea of having less than 3 gb of space left on your laptop, external is the way to go.

That being said, follow my lead.  Go to the Windows 7 download site, download your copy and make sure to write your serial down.  Then burn the iso to a dvd, its easier with the Mac then a windows machine.  After you have that done, I suggest trying out a free trial of VMWare Fusion.  It was a toss up between Boot Camp and VMWare, but when Boot Camp Assistant decided that it could not partition my hard drive, VMWare was the way to go.  I got the trial of VMWare Fusion and then inserted my Windows 7 cd and about an hour later, I was running Windows and Mac, smooth like butter.  I put the image on my laptop hard drive at first but then I moved it over to my external.  Once I opened the image on my external, it just asked if I had moved or copied it, select moved and it makes the changes.

It was a pretty interesting experience, but with VMWare Fusion, it is MUCH better than dual boot.  You can also use Parallels, which I have used before, but Fusion was much easier to use.

gmFunkd Laptops, Netbooks, Software, Windows, gadgets, technology Leopard OS, Macbook, Virutal Machine, VMWare Fusion, Windows 7

Google has just announced on their blog that they are currently developing their next phase of internet domination by moving into the PC operating system market.  Chrome OS, which Google claims will be shipping on devices in 2010 will be an open-source light-weight operating system designed for users who spend more and more of their computing life on the web.  For some time now, Google has been making a push to take the workload of computing off of the machine and into the cloud by launching services such as Google Docs, Apps and Mail.  With their announcement of a new light-weight OS, it seems that they are furthering their push to get users to become more cloud centric.

“Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web.”

It would seem that Google’s intentions are pretty clearly spelled out.  They want to put out an OS that users can boot into quickly and reach out to the internet/web/cloud near instantly to get done whatever work they need.  Personally, I am excited at the prospect of a new challenger in the old OS ring, especially a new one that isn’t set firmly into habits based around a pre-webcentric world and feel that coming from Google, it may actually have a chance.

MG_Chris Laptops, Netbooks, Software, Web, technology chrome, Google, internet, operating system, os, Web, Windows

ATTENTION WEB SURFER: WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!?!

Is basically the message I was greeted with after restoring a Firefox session following a version update for a few of my saved tabs on sites I visit regularly.  It seems that with its most recent version, Firefox has teamed up with Google in an effort to protect presumably unscrupulous users from accidentally stumbling upon sites that they seem to think will maliciously install software on your system (or, at least, try to).  Seeing a few of my tabs load with a “NO” icon instead of what I would normally expect was quite a shock as these sites it had flagged are not any that I’ve ever considered particularly malicious.  (I’ve been accessing them with no issues for some time now, though my continued use of Adblock Plus and No Script may be the reason for my lack of suspicious activity).

My initial thought was that a random addon would be the cause of this alert, but upon clicking the “Why was this site blocked?” button, I was surprised to see the real answer

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MG_Chris Laptops, Netbooks, Software, Web, Windows, technology alert, Firefox, Google, internet, malicious, malware, security, Web, website

Acer Aspire One ZG5

For my first post on the MuchGeek blog I chose to do a review. I will talk briefly about the Acer Aspire One ZG5 8.9-inch Netbook.

However, I must preface the story by saying that I only came upon this netbook by chance. I first purchased an Acer EeePc for $250 from Best Buy and after a torturous first night experience with it including a 5 hour install of Windows 7 Beta! I decided to give the Acer a shot.

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MG_Kevin Laptops, Netbooks, Review, gadgets Acer Aspire One, Netbook, Review