HE FOUND THE PUN (unfortunately)

Yes, an orange juice tanker hit our barge...

Mark Kirby:  “And for a MINUTE MAID a huge commotion.  (There’s a naval navel pun for you.)”

F My fault for starting this.

MOZY

Mike Albert:  “Mozy lets you specify your own encryption key (not the same as your login password), which never leaves your PC.  Your data is encrypted on your PC before Mozy even sees it, so it’s unlikely that even the NSA could decrypt it.  That's what I do.  I’m not worried about NSA or other legal attacks, but I am afraid that sloppiness at a Mozy data center that would let some hacker get my personal information.  That’s not exactly unknown these days.”

“A DRIVE”

Joe:  “Mozy, schmozy.  A Drive gives you 50 gigabytes of FREE storage.”

F It’s still in beta and doesn’t yet even schedule automatic backups (“coming soon!”).  But according to the FAQ, one of the things you can do is tag a file “shareable.”  You then get a URL you can share with others.  So if I wanted to give you all access to some Excel spreadsheet, I could just insert the link here (but I haven’t).

FREE PHOTO SHOP EXPRESS . . . with 2 gigs of free storage

Also in beta.  Well worth the click.

SAFARI

It’s Apple’s browser, also free, supposed to be nearly twice as fast on a PC as Internet Explorer.  I tried it, and it seems fine – except I don’t see a way to do “tabbed browsing” the way you can with IE.  I assume it’s there someplace.  (And how do you add the Google toolbar?)  Have any of you spent some time on a PC comparing the two?  Tips?  Worth switching?  Reason to use both?

I TYPE FASTER THAN I TALK

And even if I don’t, I seem to have more brains in my fingers than in my larynx. So this is not for me. But you’ve got to admit this quick pitch for speech recognition software is intriguing – especially if you just grabbed the plate your waiter warned you was “really, really hot” to show how tough you are (and this time, for perhaps the first time ever, it was really, really hot).

THEY SWITCHED TO MAC

Richard Factor:  “I had the same experience Aaron did – my Mac runs Windows better than the PCs I’ve used and retired.  I am not particularly enthusiastic about the Mac OS, but I do like my Mac PRO.  After a few days it didn’t even smell funny any more.  Here’s ‘that story.’ ”

Clare Durst:  “Thanks THANKS for your link to Bird and Fortune. Never heard of them before!  What a gift to be able to watch them on YouTube.  And yes, I switched to a Mac this Christmas and am delighted to have not only the Mac interface but my old PC programs running smoothly – more smoothly than they did in my old XP machine.  The Mac, Google and gmail, and Firefox . . . I’m in hog heaven!”

David D’Antonio:  “For what it’s worth, there are alternatives to Parallels if someone were to want to run Windows (or other operating systems) on a Mac. While I own Parallels, VMWare makes a product called ‘Fusion’ that does essentially the same thing; it lets me install Windows on a virtual machine and use it.  It has similar features to Parallels but appears to have far better tech support (I was able to find all the answers to questions in the VMWare forums). VMWare also has a long history of doing virtualization software for a variety of platforms; since we use it at work for other virtual machines, using it on my Mac at work was a no-brainer, as they say.  I believe both companies offer ‘try before you buy’ versions so there is minimal risk in just checking then out.”

HE’S NOT SO SURE

Dennis King:  “In what strikes me as Aaron’s irrational exhuberance yesterday, he writes: ‘This is important because the old Macs had a Motorola processor.’  Everyone seems to rave about how nicely things work on a Mac.  Peoples memories are short or they are just not old enough.  I was around for all of the earlier versions of Mac OS from 1 through X.  There were VARIOUS Motorola and PowerPC (Motorola/IBM) processors involved and many times it was less than pleasant making the transition from each processor and each version of the OS.  I have file drawers full of older Mac software which DOES NOT run under OSX. Yet if some older Windows program does not operate under Vista this seems to raise a big concern.  It is remarkable to me how much older Windows software DOES RUN on modern systems.

“Aaron writes about how well Parallels runs other operating systems.  I had a friend who was trying to get a Windows game running under Parallels.  He struggled so much with it that he finally came to my place to install it on a ‘normal’ Windows machine to see if it could even be done.  Yes it could, relatively easily.  He eventually got the game running under Parallels, but it was no cake walk.

“He writes, ‘And it boots Windows more quickly and smoothly than my ThinkPad ever did’ with no mention of what specific hardware he was using.  Was the ThinkPad an older machine with a slower processor and less memory?  Was the Apple machine a newer one with fast dual core processor and tons of memory?  If so, that would be like comparing his Apple to oranges.

“He writes, ‘So how does the Mac run Windows any better than my IBM did? This is all about hardware integration...’ and ‘When Windows throws up a blue screen of death (for example, on upgrading its service packs), Parallels restarts it in no time.’  I am running Windows on a Dell and have not seen a blue screen in years.  Is it possible that the Apple/Parallels integration is NOT THAT TIGHT and that is what might be causing the blue screens?

“He writes, ‘So why would anyone run Windows on the Mac, anyway?’  I am not sure. It seems Macs are useful to people who do not do that much with their computers... maybe internet access and email and they are happy.  Most of the software that the REST of the people want to use runs on Windows.  Even if that software is available on the Mac, it usually comes to market later, is usually not as full-featured as the Windows version, and is usually more expensive.  So sure, if you want to pay 2 or 3 times as much and only do email, by all means switch to a Mac.”