This week saw big changes in the gear at Mobile Tech Manor (MTM) and the freeing up of a lot of desk space. I played around with getting multi-touch to work in Vista and have created a great work scheme using Parallels on the MacBook. Come on in and share my week with me.
Bye bye MacBook Pro
The office cleanup has continued for the past few weeks with the biggest change so far happening this week. I sold the 17-inch MacBook Pro which has been my main desktop system for almost two years and have settled on the new aluminum MacBook as both my main “desktop” system and my mobile computer. It takes up so little space on the desk yet provides a great platform for doing my work each day.
When I need to go mobile I simply unplug the external speakers (Harmon Kardon) and the MagSafe power cord and off I go. It’s already become much easier with no worries about keeping multiple systems in sync. Since removing the MacBook Pro from the rotation I am using the Apple wireless keyboard and wireless Mighty Mouse when at the desk. Both of those are of the Bluetooth variety.
Hello MacBook
I have run into some issues with this Bluetooth usage that research shows others are seeing too. It seems to have been introduced in the recent OS X update to 10.5.6 and affects MacBooks. Bluetooth has a tendency to disappear completely requiring a PRAM/ NVRAM reset which restores it. It may not be very widespread but it’s hit me once already.
I ordered and canceled one of the new Apple 24-inch Cinema Displays since the MacBook’s 13-inch screen is not big enough for extended work sessions at the desk. I canceled it since it was back ordered and the more I thought about it the harder it was to justify paying almost $1,000 for an external monitor. Sure it has a lot of other benefits when paired with a MacBook but the timing right before the holidays was not good for that kind of expenditure.
I am going to use just the MacBook for a while and get a feel for how big an external monitor I really need and if I think a third party monitor would make more financial sense. We’ll see how it goes with just a small screen, so far it’s OK but I’m sure it will grow old quickly.
Spaces- the place to be
Having such a small screen has caused me to experiment with ways to display a lot of information in a small space. OS X has Spaces which is just a virtual desktop manager with some nice touches so that’s where I started. I am currently using Spaces with just two desktops or “spaces” defined side by side and it’s working well.
I have been running Vista Ultimate in a Parallels virtual machine every day or two to access Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and OneNote which is working very well on the MacBook. I have settled on running Vista in a full-screen window since the screen is so small and I’ve been running that by itself in “Space 2″ in Spaces. I run OS X normally in Space 1 and use Option-right arrow to toggle between the two OSes which happens instantly. This is a great way to run two different machines on the same system and have the benefit of each having their own full screen. It blows me away how well this is working.
Multi-touch in Vista, yes you can
Since I have been spending more time in Vista lately I found I missed the ability to use the OS X multi-touch gestures to easily do things. They work great in the OS X desktop but are gone in Vista as you would expect. Not one to sit and accept that I have started playing with getting the multi-touch stuff working in Vista with some degree of success.
I shared in a past column about the free utility MultiClutch on the Mac that lets me configure multi-touch gestures for any Mac program. This has let me streamline Firefox on the Mac to be a wonderful environment and I decided it would be worth a try to use it in Parallels to control Vista.
I have a few basic things working, I can do the pinch zooming in Vista Photo Gallery which is pretty cool to see in action. The problem I am faced with is how individual Vista applications have their own keystrokes to invoke actions and OS X only sees the Vista environment as one big Parallels program. I’m still playing with this though and I feel pretty sure I can get a fair bit of multi-touch goodness for Vista this way. More on this as it unfolds.
eBook of the week
The ebook this week has hero Dirk Pitt continuing his antics of spoiling terrorist activities. It is Valhalla Rising by Clive Cussler and it has been very entertaining so far. I am enjoying it and find it amusing in every one of the Dirk Pitt series how Cussler always finds a way to put himself in each book. Fun stuff.
A bit of fun
Today is the tenth anniversary of our marriage and my bride gave me the coolest present ever. She commisioned a cartoonist to draw a piece of work based on a photo and description of what I do. It’s a one-of-a-kind sketch and while this photo is not very good here’s what he came up with:

Thanks babe!
Holidays are coming
That’s it for this week before the holidays are here in full swing. The time seems so short with holiday planning and events alongside the CES trip looming in just a few weeks. I’m going to San Francisco a few days after the CES trip so things are popping right now. Enjoy your week and come back next week and we’ll do this again.
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