Don't want to pay for StatTracker?

So I've spent some time searching for a good alternative to the Yahoo! StatTracker that costs $10 bucks to give me realtime scoring. Thanks to my buddy Paco, I found a nice free Greasmonkey script that gives a daily tabulation of the team. Might not be as good as StatTracker, but it does a good enough of a job in reducing the effort I have to put into figuring out where I stand. It has a fair amount of categories, so check it out here. You can get Greasemonkey for Firefox, which enables you to run scripts that customize the appearance of webpages that you visit here.

Intercompatibility issues in Office 08

First of all, I just wanted to thank everyone for continuing to read this blog. The past month has probably been one of my higher yield runs thanks to the Windows 7 post, though I haven't been helping it much given my absence.

For those of you who follow regularly, you probably realize I'm a big fan of virtualization and it runs pretty smoothly on newer computers. I've got a copy of Office 2007 courtesy of Microsoft and frankly, Office 2008 on Mac just doesn't compare at all, probably for pretty obvious reasons. I did want to point out a few things to give people a heads up:

First, Office 08 can't handle equations from 2007 and vice-versa. There's not really any way around this.

Second, I ran into some strange issue with not being able to make trendlines in Office 08. I haven't been able to find a lot on this issue, but basically it's just greyed out and unclickable.

So basically, if you're toting Office 08, watch out for this things. I know that rendering is still a little weird sometimes in iWork, otherwise I'd probably make the switch. In the meantime, I'll be packing a copy of Office 2007 with me.

Also, since I'm on the topic of virtualization, I've ditched my Windows 7 Boot Camp and swapped back over to XP - it just runs faster and you can't take advantage of the great features in 7 like Aero Peek and such.

Windows 7 on MacBook followups

A couple things that I've encountered while working on Windows 7 Beta 7000.

1) If you're using VMWare Fusion to boot a Boot Camp partition, make sure you do a complete shut down. Otherwise, it won't be adequately configured and you'll run into BSODs.

2) Networking is problematic in VMWare. You'll need to edit your vmx file to read: ethernet0.virtualDEV = "e1000" like the VMWare forums suggest.

Good luck.

Windows 7 on MacBook [How-to]

Well, I've got Windows 7 Beta 7000 working out fine on my MacBook. I don't really plan on using it much, but I keep a Boot Camp/VM partition of Windows on my computer in case I need it. Easy instructions on how to do it:

1) Grab the Beta from Microsoft. It's been extended for distribution by Microsoft for a little longer: you can register with Microsoft here. I've also put the direct links for non-IE users at the bottom of this post. Remember though! Even if you grab the iso from Microsoft directly, you still need the key that they'll generate from the official beta site. You'll want to make sure you get the 32-bit version, since that's the only version supported on any Macs other than the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro (you can go 64-bit if you have either of those). This is mostly a limitation due to the Apple Boot Camp drivers that are available, I believe.

2) Use the Boot Camp Assistant to repartition your hard drive and start the installation process. It's pretty straightforward from there, make sure you format in NTFS and follow the instructions for setup.

3) Once you're done with that, pull out your Leopard disc and throw it in. Install the Boot Camp drivers and then head over to the Apple site for the Boot Camp updates. You can use the Vista drivers plus the Multi-touch touchpad drivers.

4) Go through the restarts and you're set. To get the whole Win7 experience though, make sure you enable your Aero visual effects. This process will reset your Boot Camp default partition to Windows, so to get it back to Leopard, go to your Startup Disk settings or the Boot Camp control panel in Windows to reset it to your Mac OS partition. You're all set.

There is word of sound issues too, so you can feel free to grab the Realtek drivers to fix the problem. I didn't run into anything along my way though, nor did I need to get NVidia drivers for my graphics card to enable Aero (but you still have to turn it on).

I have noticed some problems though with my Minidisplay port, so I'll look into that since I'd like my dual display setup working. Other than that, all of the new Windows 7 features are working fine.

Edit: I neglected to mention that non-IE users have issues getting the download after grabbing their key. You'll find the direct links from these Wired and Lifehacker articles below until Microsoft pulls them down. I recommend copy-pasting them.

32- Bit Windows 7 7000 - you'll want this if you have anything other than a MacBook Pro or Mac Pro. I know this works for sure with the Boot Camp drivers so if you want to be safe just use this.

64-Bit Windows 7 7000

Windows 7 is still up

Hey everyone, Windows 7 is still up for grabs at the official Microsoft site after being up and down for today. I've got both the 32 and 64-bit versions. Make sure you grab your key from MS and you can use any of the direct download links you find on Wired or Lifehacker. I'll post on how well this works on my Macbook and in VMWare Fusion when I get around to it. (It's a little sad though that I'll barely ever even use W7 though).

Still waiting on that Windows 7 Beta Download

In case any of you guys are wondering what's going on, Wired has an update on Windows 7, beta build 7000 for public users (without using BitTorrent). Apparently the download was supposed to kick off at noon PST but I still don't see any updates on the official site as of 12:35. Stay tuned and I'll go over how the install goes in Boot Camp and VMWare Fusion compatibility on Macs. The new Parallels 4.0 gives some experimental support for Snow Leopard and Windows 7 according to TUAW and TheAppleBlog. We'll see what VMWare does and how the current version handles it when I get my hands on the beta.

Wires and Waves - Macbook WiFi issues

So I've been sitting here reading about wireless issues that have plagued Macbooks for several years now. I'm back at home, chilling with my old school D-Link D-514 wireless router. It seems that my Macbook is having trouble maintaining a connection with the router, unlike my PCs. I spoke for a little with a very helpful AppleCare agent, who tried various fixes. The weird thing is my laptop works fine on the school network. After trying several things, including DNS fixes (which I had already done), uninstalling Sophos Antivirus, deleting login items, etc, we didn't really stumble across anything useful. My wireless is still shaky. Mostly I'm having trouble staying connected to AIM or any chat client over iChat, Meebo, GMail Chat, or Adium, and then can't tell that I'm disconnected. Javascript, AJAX, and Flash apps frequently have issues refreshing information, and I still haven't really figured out what's wrong. I have a slow internet connection where I get hangs on the "waiting for..." and "connecting to...", though a refresh usually gets it going again (something I can't easily do with the Javascript/AJAX/Flash issues, like refresh Meebo). Trace routes have had tons of timeouts. Granted, my router is terribly old and I should upgrade, but it still perplexes me that none of the other computers in my house are having (as much) trouble as my Macbook. No issues on any other network so it's got to be some sort of software compatibility interface or interference. Proximity to the router isn't helping my cause though, so I want to go for the former. I haven't found any online discussion of the exact problem, but I also don't really know the best search terms. I'll keep trying to figure it out, but I'm pretty sure it's something a new router can fix.

Anyone have any thoughts or having the same issue?

Amendment: I did end up getting a new router and my MacBook works fine now. Weird though with that old router.