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So you live in a Mac/PC hybrid environment and you regularly have to share files between them, right? Well, I don’t think it’s that uncommon, and there are several ways to tackle this problem, but I thought I would share with you my approach.

First we have to start out with a little bit of code for you, the tool of choice is Script Editor, which can be found in /Applications/Apple Script. First let’s start with a little code, er, script:

   1: tell application "Finder"

   2:     mount volume "afp://UserName:Password@IPAddress/ShareName"

   3: end tell

   4:  

   5: tell application "Finder"

   6:     mount volume "smb://ComputerName;UserName:Password@ComputerName/ShareName"

   7: end tell

Now, depending on your purpose, you may only need one of these two tell clauses. The first one is for connecting to shares on OS X systems, the second is for connecting to shares on Windows systems, which is the purpose for this post, so we will concentrate on that.

Fire up script editor and paste in lines 5-7. The tell application function tells the Finder application to perform the embedded commands. The command inside is mount volume which you use to, that’s right, mount a volume. In this case we will be using a random share named “mystuff” on a fictional PC called “mypc.” Your username will be “myusername” and your password is, can you guess? That’s right, “mypassword.”

The mount line in this instance would be:

mount volume “smb://mypc;myusername:mypassword@mypc/mystuff”

Pretty self explanatory really. Now the trick comes in, with this script edited, choose File, Save As…, give it an application, change the file format to “Application” and make sure “Run Only” is checked. and “Startup Screen” and “Stay Open” are unchecked.

Save it and you have an application that is single function to connect to your share. Now we are getting somewhere. Copy this file somewhere save, in my Macs I copy it to the root of “Macintosh HD” and then lets go to System Preferences.

Under the “Accounts” Preferences pane, select “Login Items” for the account you use to log in, and click the small + button to add an item to the list. I called my login application “ConnectHPVista64” and in the screenshot you can see it in my list:

I check the hide box so I don’t see it run and then I am done. Log off and log in and you should see your the dock icon bounce for a few seconds and then you should see the volume on your desktop (assuming you haven’t disabled them from showing.)

That’s it, hope this helps someone.

First let me say that I am a Microsoft employee and this post is pure opinion and not an official position of my employer. That being said, reading my morning dose of feeds I have already came across nearly a dozen articles whining that Windows 7 looks just like Windows Vista.

Not to go directly at our buddies down at 1 Infinite Loop, but hasn’t OS X looked the same for like, um 10 years or something? OS X was released in 1999 at version 10.0, and here we are at the edge of 2009 and they are still on 10?

In 1999, when OS X first hit the scene (as a server component first), we were on Windows 98 Second Edition. Microsoft was still on Version 4 of Windows which included Windows 95, NT 4, 98 and 98 SE. That’s four official OS releases off of the 4.0 framework. It had been a period of four years, one OS per year.

That’s a decent life span out of a code base and it was time to move on. In that same time period, Apple shipped OS X 10.0 Server. Now let me introduce a quote that I think might ring somewhat familiar if only you take out the words Mac OS X and insert Windows Vista in their place.

“The initial version was slow, not feature complete, and had very few applications available at the time of its launch, mostly from independent developers. While many critics suggested that the operating system was not ready for mainstream adoption, they recognized the importance of its initial launch as a base on which to improve. Simply releasing Mac OS X was received by the Macintosh community as a great accomplishment, for attempts to completely overhaul the Mac OS had been underway since 1996, and delayed by countless setbacks. Following some bug fixes, kernel panics became much less frequent.”

Wow doesn’t that sound familiar. Are you saying those boys have those kinds of problems too when they change the entire architecture of their OS?

To the right you see a screen shot of what OS X 10.0 (Cheetah) looked like the year it was introduced.

I’ll let you draw your own opinions while we follow this timeline forward and compare the look, the innovations and the general market sentiments of the two OSes as they have blazed their way through the last decade. It’s not pretty at times for both, but I think you will draw the same conclusion that I do. Microsoft Windows has changed a great deal more than OS X in the last 10 years. The changes from Windows Vista to Windows 7 are not cosmetic, the power is in the code. Moving to the Windows Server 2008 Codebase is a huge win that should not be ignored because the buttons aren’t shinier.

February 2000 – Microsoft Ships Windows 2000

If I had to take a pulse, I would bet that until XP really matured, Windows 2000 would be considered the most stable Windows OS ever. I remember standing in awe at not having to reboot to change an IP address.

Now if you were to compare Windows 2000 to Windows 98 SE at this point, you might be tempted to follow today’s current media whirlwind and say “But Windows 2000 doesn’t look very different from Windows 98 at all, hell, it kinda looks just like Windows 95!”

But I am sure history and experience would tell you quite a different story. Windows 2000 was the first time I felt Windows was truly stable. The first time that the OS at heart was rock solid and performed it’s duties without getting in the way.

Of course you will remember, or at least I do, in the beginning there were huge legions of missing drivers. It took hardware makers ages to catch up, but when they did, it was a force.

Now at this point Mac OS X Server would be out for nearly two years before OS X would ship as a desktop product and the space between the initial launch of OS X 10.0 Cheetah and OS X 10.1 Puma would be a gap of mere months (March to September).

They boosted performance a bit and added DVD playback. It was released as a free upgrade to 10.0 users. In January 2002, Apple announced that Mac OS X would be the default OS on Macs. That’s a timeframe of less than one year before they made OS 9 obsolete.

Microsoft would later be lambasted for announcing the demise of Windows XP 17 months after Windows Vista shipped.

October 2001 – Microsoft Ships Windows XP

With the amount of petitions and users clinging to it, one could make an argument that Windows XP is the most beloved Microsoft Windows version ever.

Windows XP provided Microsoft’s first significant UI update since Windows 95. It was also quite different under the hood making for a stable OS that is still being used and will continue to be for several years.

Windows XP was also Microsoft’s first real entry into 64-bit operating systems. While 64-bit Windows wouldn’t catch fire until the release of Vista, the milestone is no less significant.

Windows XP has had 3 service packs in it’s lifetime and depending on the installed service pack, is scheduled to be supported until 2014.

In August 2002, just over a year after 10.1, Apple shipped OS X 10.2 Jaguar. In a years time they had introduced over 150 enhancements according to Apple. These amounted to a more performant operating system that was more stable but looked fundamentally the same. Sound familiar?

This was also the time when Apple finally let go of the “Happy Mac” logo and went to the grey apple screen that is now so familiar. CHIME ON!

It’s interesting to note that we have fast forwarded several years and while Windows has seen 98, 2000 and XP, Apple is still rocking 10.1. Sure numbers are semantics, but it’s hard to call anything up to this point revolutionary.

January 2007 – Microsoft Ships Vista

Wow, that was a big gap, 6 years, and one Microsoft caught a lot of grief for. That’s a hell of a long time to go without a new operating system for anyone. Of course we did update with three service packs in that time frame. The OS has been kicking along quite well for all this time and so much so that now that Vista is out, everyone wants to know why they should change?

The laundry list of changes to the UI and underlying framework for security and interoperability is huge, but to most people, it just looks pretty. It’s glossy, it has a totally new UI.

The hardware requirement bar has been raised quite a bit but for some reason those same people that have been rocking XP for 6 years on likely the same hardware, can’t figure out why the new one doesn’t run so hot. I could make a fair guess but that’s not the point of this post now is it

In October 2007, Apple introduced OS X 10.5 Leopard. While Windows Vista was sleeping, we skipped right past OS X 10.3 Panther and OS X 10.4 Tiger. Apple added more performance gains in 10.3 and what they called an extensive update to the user interface. I’ll let you be the judge.

10.2 Jaguar	10.3 Panther	10.4 Tiger

I can’t say I am seeing drastic changes here, especially not “extensive.” As a fair comparative, here is a fast forward comparison of Windows and OS X for the last decade.

	2000	2007
Windows
OS X

So there you have it folks. OS changes are incremental, it is what it is. In 10 years we have come a long way in both camps. Sure the truth is version numbers and screen shots don’t amount to much in the real world, but as pure marketing fluff, it’s easy to look at things this way and see the point I am trying to make.

Don’t expect Windows 7 to look drastically different. The changes aren’t always so close to the surface. Keep tuned for more open and honest commentary on it as it’s made available to play with.

I would venture to say that given this site’s general topic of OS Agnostic computing, I know more than most the arguments for and against these two titan operating systems. The arguments against Vista are legendary. I have made no secret of the fact that I started carrying a Macbook Pro in September of last year. With the exception of using VmWare Fusion sometimes at work, it has truly lived as a Mac. It shipped with Tiger and was upgraded to Leopard as soon as it was available. Still, I have never strayed from my Windows roots. I used a Windows XP desktop machine regularly at home and these days I have two Vista powerhouses side by side at home. My laptop still runs Leopard and I have added an iMac into the mix that runs Leopard also, but I still remain divided right down the middle in my personal computing world, two Macs and two PCs. I might just give someone a headache to think about how this works, but for me, it’s computing Nirvana.

I think it’s important to dissect each computer’s purpose and see how it lends itself to a particular operating system. I think this first exercise might just lend some light to this dubious setup:

1. Macbook Pro Laptop: (2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB Ram, 120GB HD, nVidia GeForce 8600m) This laptop is hands down my favorite laptop I have ever owned. To quantify that, this is laptop number 10. I have been a card carrying, or laptop carrying, geek since I was in the 10th grade. I am not kidding, we are talking monochrome plasma screen, DOS and a 5 1/4" floppy drive. It probably weighed 10lbs. These days, it’s a svelte Macbook Pro, 15.4" display, thin and light, fast as hell and it runs OS X Leopard. I use it for mobile photo work, email, chatting, browsing the web and the like. It’s just a keep me connected while I am away machine. I have a PC laptop Microsoft provides that does the work duty while I am mobile, and I keep my laptop free to play and have fun. Steve Jobs can cringe, but I would hardly consider an Apple laptop if it was my primary business laptop, that is unless my primary business was graphics, audio or video. Not that one couldn’t survive on one (or boot Vista on it for that matter, but this is about OS X) I just don’t think it would be a practical machine. That being said, I have never loved a laptop more.
2. Home Built Vista Ultimate 32-bit Desktop: (2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo, 3GB Ram, 400GB & 120GB HD’s, nVidia GeForce 8400 GS) This machine is a week new. I say a week new because I replaced all of the guts in this machine last week. This has nothing to do with the OS, but I hardly think I could have revived a waning iMac for $340 and literally replaced every component but the case, power supply and DVD drive. In a way it does have everything to do with the OS though. Windows Vista is flexible. It doesn’t require Steve Jobs approved hardware. It will run on nearly anything. I bought a box of parts, put them together, turned it on and installed Vista without incident. I am writing this blog on it and so far this machine is fast, stabile and a dream to use. This is the machine I use for development work, including maintaining this site. I also sometimes do some light graphics work on it, manage all of my email, and browse the web and communicate with friends. This box has been my general purpose computer for five years. I think it cost me about $2,000 to build in 2003, and now another $340 and it’s better than any machine I could have bought at the local PC retailers for three times as much. I know, I looked.
3. HP Vista Ultimate 64-bit Desktop: (2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB Ram, 350GB HD, nVidia GeForce 8800 GT) This machine is arguably the most under utilized machine in this house. It’s fast, has gobs of ram and a big ass 24" monitor. I use it for photo work from time to time, watch TV and movies on it, and most of the time I just plink around on it when my other box is busy. They side side by side in my office and it gets maybe 20% of the overall use. It screams through Photoshop and given some of the upgrades I gave it, it plays games fantastically well. It has 4GB of Ram, a Core 2 Duo processor and a nVidia GeForce 8800 GT video card. It’s a true screamer and to me it’s just a fun machine to play with. I am sure someday I will come up with something useful to use it for regularly, but for now it’s kind of the Tim Allen machine, you know, the one that makes you grunt when you use it.
4. 24" iMac Desktop: (2.13Ghz Core 2 Duo, 3GB Ram, 250GB HD, nVidia 7300 GT) I bought this computer for the sole purpose of doing music work with it. It excels at that task well and has now also picked up some video work. This computer gets the least use of any in the arsenal, but when it does, it never gets in my way, it’s rock solid and Logic Express is a dream to use. It’s connected to a variety of audio hardware and it never gives me a minute’s trouble. I would possibly use this machine for more if I didn’t already have several others. I have intentionally left certain applications off of it so I am not tempted to garbage it up full of stuff I could too easily use on other computers that already have that software.

Now one might ask why the hell have all these computers, couldn’t I have gotten one big ass computer and done all of this stuff on it? Yea, possibly I could have. But that’s just not how I work. Without having a business to pay the ridiculous cost of a Mac Pro or a high end Workstation computer, I buy these on my budget. I also like the ability to dedicate a machine to a particular task, like compressing video or playing a game, and still be able to browse the web about the game or work on something else while one is crunching away.

The entire point to this article is simple. With all that information I just threw out there, I use Windows and OS X simultaneously. Never am I on one when I am saying to myself "Man, I wish this had x on it." I think they both have their own strengths and weaknesses, but neither are so strong or so weak as to make a clear winner. And one last note to leave on, don’t let anyone tell you that Vista is crazy buggy, slow or hard to use. I gave up Windows XP for Vista officially last week, and not once have I wished otherwise. This machine runs it exceptionally well, it’s rock solid and I have no complaints.

It’s my hard drive space, the gigantic half terabyte I added to my iMac. I use it for audio files, but there is plenty of space for a little dual purpose. I got a new camera last week and I decided to use my iMac as my “photo work” machine. That being said, instead of filling the hard drive on the machine, I wanted to store my photos on the external drive.

I opened up iPhoto, browsed to the preferences, and to my shock, this wasn’t possible. Unlike iTunes, you can’t just browse to a new default Library location and move on.

Lucky for us, there is a work around and it’s probably the most un-Apple like, not remotely graceful fix.

How To Change Your Default Library:

1. Make sure iPhoto is closed.
2. Copy your existing Library file to it’s new home.
3. Delete the existing Library file from it’s old home.
4. Open iPhoto and relieve it’s shock at it’s missing guts by selecting the newly re-homed file.

That’s it. iPhoto now has a new home. It’s not exactly tough, but why not the same dialog iTunes has? Surely you can reuse that tiny bit of code.

This CAN also be done from the Unix Terminal, but who wants to go through that much trouble.

In case you do, here it is:

To change the default file store location, go to terminal and type:

  defaults write com.apple.iPhoto RootDirectory /path/to/

To remove the change default:

  defaults remove com.apple.iPhoto RootDirectory

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and enjoy the tip.

I recently got the HTC Mogul phone and service from Sprint. I had been using it sporadically as a network device via Bluetooth on the Macbook Pro in OS X 10.5 Leopard but had not tried it tethered in Windows Vista Ultimate in Bootcamp. I decided to try it USB so I wasn’t marrying the device to the same notebook twice, and I cannot be more pleased with the results.

I didn’t have to touch a single disc. I plugged it in via USB, selected "Internet sharing" on the phone via USB and plugged it in. The laptop chugged for about 30 seconds installing drivers and blam, I was online. Ok, maybe not blam, I did have to turn off WiFi for the browser to recognize the connection, but once I had done that I was set. As a matter of fact this is the 3rd time I have used it that way and I am writing and posting this blog via a cell connection.

I wish I could get it working USB on OS X, has anyone managed that? While wireless is nice, Bluetooth decimates the battery, I would much rather have it use my laptop’s battery.