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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.

I have had quite a mish mash of different home wide media solutions over the course of time and each one seems to get a little better. This time I think it’s about as seamless as it can get and I have to say I am very impressed. Two of my co-workers had been singing Media Center’s praises for quite some time, but I was still remembering how it was in XP and had never given it a honest try connected to our Xbox 360.

It wasn’t until I decided to try out this media center PC I had bought as an actual Media Center for the purpose of watching TV, that I started getting interested in what it can do. Now that it’s all set up, it’s quite impressive. I’ll give you the lay of the land, and then describe some of the features that have already got me loving it.

The Computer
The Computer it runs on is a non-stock HP Media Center PC m8227n. It has been upgraded to Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition as well as an additional 2GB of Ram for a total of 4GB. I have also added a nVidia GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of Video Ram and connected a tiny 15" LCD to the right of the hulking 24" LCD. Why would I do that you ask? I actually use this computer too. So it’s nice to have media center running on the smaller display as an office TV and not remove the ability to actually use the PC. It works like a charm.

The Features
So there is an Xbox 360 upstairs, connected to our home network via WiFi G. It’s a recognized Media Center Extender for this PC and I had already used it in this capacity recently to play music during a poker party we had. Now I am able to also watch video stored on the Media Center PC as well as shows I have recorded.

Speaking of recorded shows….I have remote record enabled, so if I am at work, I can log into MSN TV, sign in, and remotely set up recordings and the PC will dutifully carry them out in the background. I can come home and watch them in my office or upstairs in the living room through the Xbox 360. Now that is convergence.

The guide that ships in media center shreds the Comcast guide you get with the cable box. Sure I am missing on-demand and some of the premium channels from upstairs, but as a convenient system that doesn’t occupy more space like another TV would, it’s fantastic.

I am still digging to learn what all it can do, so far I am impressed. I will get the guys at work to show me how to really make it shine and follow up with more details.

I decided that it was time to make a concerted effort to get my TV-Tuner card working in Windows Vista 64-bit edition so I could watch TV in my downstairs office without having to have a dedicated TV for the purpose. This meant breaking down and trying to figure out how to get the unrecognized TV-Tuner to work.

As it would turn out, the Tuner card has no discernable markings that could tell you what brand and model it may be. I took a simplistic approach, and went to HP’s web site to try and find the drivers. I had done this before, but a month or so had gone by so why not. I was, of course, out of luck so I moved on. I decided to try the online chat support next and received an incredibly helpful response:

HP Rep: Hello Jason, how can I help you?

Jason: I have an HP Media Center PC m8227, and I upgraded it to Windows Vista 64-bit edition. I need the driver for the TV-Tuner card for 64-bit Vista.

HP Rep: How did you upgrade your operating system?

Jason: I went to the store, bought a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate and did a clean install.

HP Rep: We recommend you do not upgrade the operating system that comes with the computer as we can not guarantee drivers will be available for your system.

Jason: Fair enough, but I have upgraded and intend to keep it that way with or without the TV- Tuner card, so you are saying you do not have the driver?

HP Rep: Please wait while I look.

Jason: Sure…

HP Rep: It appears as that driver is not available for 64-bit Windows.

Jason: Could you at least tell me the model and brand of the card so I can try to locate it from the manufacturer?

HP Rep: Yes, it is an ASUS NTSC & ATSC PCI Express x1 TV-tuner card.

Jason: Thank you.

So I got a little help, but not much. Further discovery led to zero help at the Asus website either. The model wasn’t even listed and as far as I could tell checking other cards there were no Vista drivers at all, much less 64-bit.

Finally I decided to try something funny. I went to the device manager, right clicked on the offending card, and clicked "upgrade driver."

I got the standard no driver located, but saw "Would you like Windows Vista to try and find the correct driver for you?" I chose yes and within a minute I got a dialog telling me the driver had successfully been installed and I set up media center and was on my way. It works like a charm.

I thought it was a great time to share a positive Windows Vista driver story, and a 64-bit one no less. Go Vista.

Photo: This is the new setup with the 64-bit machine, 24" main display, with a 15" LCD dedicated to the Media Center. It’s working well.

On my main machine I had installed Safari for Windows for testing purposes. Knowing that, I was not surprised when Apple’s update software alerted me that 3.1 was available for download. I updated and all was right with the world.

I saw update pop up on my wife’s machine this week and noticed Safari in the list of updates, no biggie I thought, perhaps she had installed it also.

It was when I saw the software alert on my 64-bit machine that alarms went off. Apple was telling me there was an update for Safari to be installed when Safari had never been installed previously.

Now I may be splitting hairs here, but adding new software under the guise of an update seems to be pretty shady to me. Someone that isn’t paying much attention might bet getting all sorts of software that he or she never intended.

If I remember correctly, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back with Limewire and labeled it as Mal-ware. I am not saying that Safari is dangerous, but given the state of browsers and the constant attacks the receive, they very may well be, but since when does “update” mean, install whatever you want.

There are some things that you just have to do when you set up a new PC. One of the necessary evils is Adobe’s PDF Reader.

Now back in the day it was as light as a feather. 1-2 MB installer and you were done. Today, the behemoth clocks in at 22.4 MB. Think about that. A document reader that is as large as iTunes, or 4 times the size of Firefox? Wow, that’s one heck of a PDF reader.

Tonight I did a little research and came across Foxit’s PDF Reader. The best thing is the spanky little reader is FREE.

I installed it and it worked fantastically. Of course if you need editing or advanced publishing features, this isn’t your bag. If you just need to read them from time to time, this is just the ticket.