Vox Bomb

Here’s what I’ve been going on about lately:

• 11:32 Hey, lady, when I’m talking to the receptionist at the doctor’s office, wait BEHIND me in line, like everyone else, not pull up NEXT to me. #
• 17:39 Yep, it was definitely Monday. #
• 19:54 Why doesn’t Apple just open up the platform? The mindshare they have could give a significant boost to OS X on PC sales. Come on, Apple! #

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I’ve been messing around and experimenting these past couple of weeks. I first discovered this crazy idea while at a local farmer’s market, in a book and magazine shop I used to go to as a kid. I was browsing the magazines and noticed a MacWorld (at least, I believe it was) article on installing Mac OS X on a PC. I had heard of running Mac OS X in a virtual machine but didn’t think about trying to install it on a regular desktop. I perused the article and figured that I would look into it later. A few days later, I was online and did some research. I found a site, Insanely Mac, which was all about the “OSx86″ movement. I found it real interesting, and long-story short, I obtained a DVD to try it out.

(Let me just jump in here and say to anyone about throw out a copyright argument, I have purchased a Mac OS X Leopard license).

The install I tried first (and wound up working the best) was the iATKOS 2.0i installation. It contained most of the drivers for my notebook (not that I knew it at the time), and had Mac OS X 10.5.2 installed on my Presario quickly, within about 20 to 25 minutes. Here is what worked right away:

• Video worked great, 1280×800 resolution.
• Sound (including the FN + PG UP / DOWN shortcuts).
• Internal Ethernet card.
• DVD drive (iDVD plays a movie fine).
• Trackpad (was quirky at first, and then I installed an update that fixed it).
• USB ports work fine. External mouse and keyboard worked great.

What didn’t work?

• Internal wireless doesn’t work, and apparently no drivers are available yet. I wound up getting a USB wireless dongle.
• Internal modem isn’t detected (and I couldn’t care less, considering I haven’t used one in years).
• Power management is quirky (sleep / hibernation).

Boot up time on the Mac is pretty quick- about 30 seconds. Attaching a USB thumb drive was just as painless as under Vista / XP, except I found the file copies to be much quicker in OS X. I love the Dock, but that’s no surprise considering I loved RocketDock on Vista. What I have grown attached to is the Mac OS menu bar across the top, and how it adapters to each application. I enabled Quartz and some of the transparency effects on OS X look similar to Vista (or is it vice versa? ). It took some time digging in and reinstalling the OS several times after trial, error, and experimenting to get pretty comfortable with things. The command line was easy, considering it is based off of BSD.

There is still a lot to learn about OS X, but I can understand why Mac devotees often say about Mac that “it just works.” Take the security model, for example. In Vista, if you have UAC enabled, you have to answer three prompts just to copy a file or do much of anything. In OS X? You’re just prompted for your password, and that’s just if you’re installing an application. Simple, secure, and not cumbersome.

But easily one of the most impressive portions is Time Machine.

Why Microsoft doesn’t include something this good in Windows is beyond me. Time Machine is really awesome and just works. Plug in your external drive designated for use with Time Machine, the back up just kicks off. Doing a full system restore was effortless, quick, and did exactly what I was hoping for it to do. Time Machine is almost worth the price of admission alone.

There are a lot of other things that I’ll be elaborating upon in the coming weeks regarding my “Hackintosh” (HackBook?). Needless to say, while keeping a dual boot of Vista and Mac for the first few days, I opted to completely wipe Vista and go solo with OS X, just to see how I would fair.

Thus far, I haven’t looked back at Vista. And I have to admit it: I’m hooked.

I’m switching from Lexapro to Celexa.  The decision was made after discussing this with my psychologist and my feeling that something wasn’t working.  I initially thought it was the Wellbutrin, and when my prescription ran out, I began to feel more “meh.”  And the fact that I have to wrangle with our prescription company and send away for the meds doesn’t help.  Frustrated, I gave up on taking the Lexapro cold turkey.

Big.  Mistake.

Several days later I started feeling dizzy and having headaches.  It felt like the world would shift noticeably when I would stand and move about.  The center of my forehead felt like it was going to split open.  My mood nosedived.  I was in real bad way for a few days.

My psychologist strongly recommended taking the Lexapro.  Within a day, the dizziness had mostly stopped.  My mood improved strictly from relief; my head felt so much better.  We further talked about switching me over to Celexa, as he felt, since it is very similar to Lexapro but is a bit stronger, might have a more positive impact on me.  I went to my doctor today and after talking for a while, she approved it, writing me a perscription and faxing it to the local pharmacy (as well as a 30-day supply of Wellbutrin).  So, starting tonight, I’ll be slowly switching over to Celexa (alternating with Lexapro until it runs out) and taking the Wellbutrin as well.  Hopefully things will improve.

Here’s what I’ve been going on about lately:

• 20:24 Got a 320GB external hard drive for $50. Me happy. #
• 21:20 Ooooh the DVD app works great. “Millennium Actress” came up with no problems. #
• 11:32 Hey, lady, when I’m talking to the receptionist at the doctor’s office, wait BEHIND me in line, like everyone else, not pull up NEXT to me. #
• 17:39 Yep, it was definitely Monday. #

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Alright, where did the weekend go?  Because, I know before I blink again, it’ll be Labor Day and the kids will be bemoaning the fact that it is time for school again. Ugh.

Friday was spent at an all-day religious convention.  Saturday was pretty low key, and I finally got to show Karen Airplane!, which she had never seen before (blasphemy, I know).  Today, the kids got Nintendo DSes (each traded in their Gameboy Advanced SPs based on a promotion, which took a $40 off the price, and I traded in some other games to help with the cost) which they were excited about.  We also got to play outside, throw the ball around and play baseball.  Overall, a nice time.

In-between, I got some writing done, rearranged my writing methodology (which will be the subject of another post), and hammered away at a tech project that has become a bit of an obsession (again, the subject of another post).

Tomorrow, it’s back to work and a doctor’s visit to see about changing medications.  Bring on Monday…