Brennan’s Blog

I could not wait any longer. I finally got myself a new computer to replace my current collection of machines. I have a few computers at home including a WinXP desktop, FreeBSD file server and an iBook. I got a new Inspiron E1705 with 1gb of RAM and a 256mb ATI Radeon video card.

So far I have uninstalled anything to do with AOL and Netscape (the ISP) software and set up Virtual PC to host multiple development environments, like .NET 2.0, .NET 1.1 and Java 1.5. I may continue using Virtual PC as the performance has been reasonable.

The trouble with a laptop is that sometimes I may be using a WiFi connection while other times I may be on Ethernet. That really confuses Virtual PC instances. I am experimenting with various scenarios. I will report back here on what I find to be the best setup. For now, I am looking for suggestions for the ideal configuration.

Since I ordered the Dell, I have seen the Intel Macs now have the supported Boot Camp software to allow a WinXP system to dual boot alongside MacOS X on Apple hardware. I was waiting for that. Yet, I am still waiting for the iBook replacement which comes in around the $1000 price point. The $2300 MacBook is more than I want to spend. I got this new Dell for $1280 and now I can do all of my gaming and development work on it, so it was money well spent. For a while longer, even with Boot Camp, I think it will be a hassle to run WinXP on Apple hardware. Once VMWare and others get their virtualization software running hosted WinXP instances inside MacOS X I will be ready to leave Windows-only hardware behind entirely.