Bash-O-Rama

The heavenly smell of meat roasting over an open fire, the ungodly pain of the year's first good sunburn, the ever-present itching of mosquitos swarming all over your body...

... NO, I was NOT talking about the latest Apple debacle, I meant summer. Sheessh. Although, I must admit there are some substantial similarities.

Where's the beef? It was former Apple CEO Gil Amelio's butt held closely to flame last week when Apple's board of directors invited him to leave. Citing a slew of Apple-speak including "declining profits" (now that's a news flash), "failure to return to shareholder value in a timely manner" (read: no profits = bye bye), and equally vibrant variations on you-didn't-do-your-job-fast-enough-and-we-need someone-to-sacrafice-so-hit-the-road-buddy jargon.

Not that Gil was a prized public speaker, but hey, if he can turnaround a semiconductor company, surely it shouldn't be no problem to get a little software/hardware company on its feet again...I mean, hardware, software, chips, what's the difference? D'oh!

Okay, okay, so the Apple Board screwed up in hiring the wrong person for the job... at least they're CONSISTENT. It was about a year and a half ago that they invited Michael Spindler to get the hell out of Dodge, and before that they booted John Sculley out the door.

Interesting "re-organization" strategy - but it just makes people out there using (and loving) the Mac scratch their heads and say "surely it can't get worse..."

Can, and has. Ellen Hancock, the EX Chief Technology Officer (read: cool chick in charge of all technical aspects for hardware and software) decided that she'd rather be sitting on a beach somewhere, so... yep - she quit, too.

So now, they're minus two of the most visible people in the company - and have given some measure of control to... get this... Steve Jobs! This is the same guy the same board jettisoned from the company HE FOUNDED. Just goes to show that you just never know.

Oh yeah - don't be too sad for "gool ol' Gil" - he was handed a parachute along with his exit survey, to the tune of over $7 million in cash and prizes. Seven million dollars for getting fired? Where can I sign up?

Special thanks to Jeff Pagano the FileMaker Pro Tips & Tricks correspondent for Mac Today for his kind words regarding this column in the latest edition. It's nice to know someone besides my wife reads this...

Virtual (PC) Reality

Editor's NOTE: This is a moldie oldie that I pulled from a text dump archive. None of the links will work anymore (or 99% won't) - but the names and companies have NOT changed.

It's no secret that we prefer the Mac OS here at ClickWare. It's not that we're anti-Windows, it's just that, for us, the Mac OS is an easier, more elegant solution.

That said, there is no denying the fact that most of the "civilized" society we deal with (including the majority of our major customers and business partners) has chosen to use the Windows Operating System. Why? Who knows. It's simply a fact.

Are we at ClickWare going to stop using the Mac OS? Not a chance in hell! Are we going to use the semi-vaporware "Rhapsody" when it comes out? You betcha'. Are we going to use Windows? Yes... on my Mac.

The hell, you say! Yes, it's true. In my continuing quest to seek out all things cool and useful, I recently bought a copy of Connectix Virtual PC (the Windows 95 Edition) - that allows me to have a Pentium speed Windows 95 machine - on my Macintosh!

There is another edition that allows you to run DOS and Windows 3.1... but if you're running Windows 95, you've got all the DOS you "need."

The software basically emulates the Intel CHIP, NOT the operating system. That means that my Ethernet Network, Networked Printers, CD ROM, etc. works seamlessly in the PC environment. Add to that the fact that VirtualPC fully support the popular SoundBlaster audio, supports PC joysticks, and can even output video and sound (some tinkering required) - and now I can play DOOM on two platforms at once.

You can set up "shared" folders - so that you can "exchanged" files between the Mac and Windows systems. For example, we do lots of cross-platform development, and rather than copying across the network to test on a PC, we can actually just toggle between platforms, checking the colors, fonts, etc. that can get you into trouble (especially in FileMaker Pro development).

But wait, there's more.

It will run Windows NT, Warp (OS2), Rhapsody for Intel, Rhapsody for Windows - in short, whatever operating system you want. Now, my friends, THAT is very cool! If you don't have the Mac Hardware (100 MhZ 603e with 64MB of RAM at the MINIMUM) - don't bother with Virtual PC. I'm using a Mac 9600/200 with 64MB of RAM (45MB dedicated to Virtual PC), a built-in 4 GIG hard drive (of which Virtual PC takes up 275 MB), 2MB of L2 Cache, 4MB of Video RAM (driving a Sony 17" monitor).

Granted, my setup is not exactly "typical", but I swear, the performance of Virtual PC is almost as good as a dedicated PC box. Now, I'm not getting paid by Connectix, I don't own stock in the company, and they didn't give me a free copy of the software. This is a real world, take no prisoners, truly USEFUL productivity tool.