3 ms·

Good bye Microsoft! MS employee and author of 9 Visual Basic books has now left the building (for RoR).

12 points by vlad 19y ago

vlad 19y ago
With the best comments I've ever seen in a blog post. I found that article at an appropriate time, for many reasons... So, has anybody tried using a MacBook Core 2 Duo with 1GB RAM connected to a 24 inch dell fpw monitor and wireless usb keyboard? Is that enough ram for development? How well can it handle standard-definition video editing, since the hard drive operates at 5400rpm? Anybody over 6' tall who finds the MacBook keyboard comfortable? Can you run Visual Studio (last Microsoft product I hopefully will ever use) in parallels?
- brianmckenzie 19y ago
  1 GB is more than enough RAM for development, no Mac would even ship with too little. I'm 6'3" and the MacBook keyboard is too small for me, so I bought the iMac and have not looked back. The iMac has a 7200rpm drive as well, together with the gorgeous screen would be better for video editing.
  - martin 19y ago
    1GB might be enough RAM if you don't use Parallels, but with Parallels, forget it. Running Windows XP with less than 1GB RAM while trying to do anything intensive is torture, and running Visual Studio certain qualifies. So you'd probably need 2GB, with 1GB allocated to your virtual machine. Heck, even that might not be enough for you. I have a MacBook Pro (2.33ghz C2D) with 2GB, and Parallels slows my machine down enough that I don't leave it running unless I'm actively using it. (To be fair, I tend to leave a lot of OS X apps open at a time.) I'm probably going to upgrade to 3GB one of these days and see if that helps -- I've read in a couple of blog posts that's really Parallels' RAM sweet spot. In any event, if you're not sure, you can always just buy the MacBook and upgrade the RAM later. In fact, I've read that you can even stick 3GB in the MacBook, even though Apple advertises 2GB as being the limit. As far as Dell monitors go -- I got one recently (3007WFP -- I do IT work for my father and get paid in merchandise :)). It works great as a monitor, but I've been having issues with the built-in USB hub, to the point that I can't really use it (when it's plugged in and the computer goes to sleep, it either immediately wakes it or causes a kernel panic a large percentage of the time).
    - brianmckenzie 19y ago
      Ahh, Parallels will take more RAM - I wasn't considering that, thanks for pointing it out. As soon as you start running XP your memory requirements go through the roof.
gyro_robo 19y ago
...and Python and Perl. By the time kids born today are in college, they probably won't need to know any special programming languages. AIs will intuit what you mean.
- omouse 19y ago
  We can only hope.

12 points by vlad 19y ago

vlad 19y ago

With the best comments I've ever seen in a blog post. I found that article at an appropriate time, for many reasons... So, has anybody tried using a MacBook Core 2 Duo with 1GB RAM connected to a 24 inch dell fpw monitor and wireless usb keyboard? Is that enough ram for development? How well can it handle standard-definition video editing, since the hard drive operates at 5400rpm? Anybody over 6' tall who finds the MacBook keyboard comfortable? Can you run Visual Studio (last Microsoft product I hopefully will ever use) in parallels?

brianmckenzie 19y ago
1 GB is more than enough RAM for development, no Mac would even ship with too little. I'm 6'3" and the MacBook keyboard is too small for me, so I bought the iMac and have not looked back. The iMac has a 7200rpm drive as well, together with the gorgeous screen would be better for video editing.
- martin 19y ago
  1GB might be enough RAM if you don't use Parallels, but with Parallels, forget it. Running Windows XP with less than 1GB RAM while trying to do anything intensive is torture, and running Visual Studio certain qualifies. So you'd probably need 2GB, with 1GB allocated to your virtual machine. Heck, even that might not be enough for you. I have a MacBook Pro (2.33ghz C2D) with 2GB, and Parallels slows my machine down enough that I don't leave it running unless I'm actively using it. (To be fair, I tend to leave a lot of OS X apps open at a time.) I'm probably going to upgrade to 3GB one of these days and see if that helps -- I've read in a couple of blog posts that's really Parallels' RAM sweet spot. In any event, if you're not sure, you can always just buy the MacBook and upgrade the RAM later. In fact, I've read that you can even stick 3GB in the MacBook, even though Apple advertises 2GB as being the limit. As far as Dell monitors go -- I got one recently (3007WFP -- I do IT work for my father and get paid in merchandise :)). It works great as a monitor, but I've been having issues with the built-in USB hub, to the point that I can't really use it (when it's plugged in and the computer goes to sleep, it either immediately wakes it or causes a kernel panic a large percentage of the time).
  - brianmckenzie 19y ago
    Ahh, Parallels will take more RAM - I wasn't considering that, thanks for pointing it out. As soon as you start running XP your memory requirements go through the roof.

gyro_robo 19y ago

...and Python and Perl. By the time kids born today are in college, they probably won't need to know any special programming languages. AIs will intuit what you mean.

omouse 19y ago
We can only hope.