I have tried both of the big Windows emulators for Intel Macs and have to say they both suck. When they work, it’s nice. But when they act-up, which is far too often, only a restart will fix things.

For the most part, Fusion and Parallels are easy to set-up and get going. The applications take you through the process of installing Windows, or any other OS, onto your Mac. Once installed, both are like having a Windows machine, but as an application. You can switch between Mac and Windows applications, move files, etc. I don’t have a huge need for Windows, but once in a while it comes in handy to run a few apps that aren’t on the Mac.

Then the trouble starts. For whatever reason, sometimes just launching Fusion or Parallels would result in a spinning beach ball. No problem right? Just force quit the application. No. Often force quit will not close the application. It certainly will not stop all of the processes these programs use. Only a complete restart will kill the processes and unlock the virtual drive files. Of course you could do this manually, but it would take just as long to restart the computer. 

I searched for a solution as to what may be wrong and came to a conclusion. There is no solid answer to the beach ball problem. Some people are cursed and others are not. It’s like having symptoms of an illness that you know are real, but the doctors and everyone else just tell you to take an aspirin. The un-cursed do offer all sorts of tips and ideas, but they haven’t worked. I’ve reinstalled the applications and Windows multiple times with the same level if instability.

So is it really worth it? Because they are only emulating, there isn’t 100% compatibility. Some games and apps work, others don’t. The beach ball issue is a HUGE deal breaker in my opinion. If I have to restart the computer every other time I’m going to use Windows, why am I running an emulator? I could just use Boot Camp and natively run Windows. Which is what I did.

Boot Camp partitions a piece of your hard drive for a second OS. Install Windows or Linux on that partition, and you have a dual boot machine. Even better than emulation, you have a native dual boot machine.

The file system Windows uses, NTFS, is Microsoft’s and Macs can’t natively write to those partitions. Of course there is a solution. Download install the two files below. Ta-da, full read & write to NTFS partitions. 

MacFuse and NTFS-3G

Yes, I have to restart the machine, but under emulation, I was pretty much doing the same thing with less compatibility. Maybe in a few years I’ll revisit the emulators, but for now Boot Camp is the way to go.

This summer I have watched the first two seasons of the Showtime program Dexter and then read the three books it was based on. Similar, but different, here are what I liked about the respective versions.

Books:

Dexter:

The books are written in first person while the show provides a voice-over. The books show a deeper level of Dexter and his witty comments. Honestly, if Dexter wasn’t such an entertaining narrator, there wouldn’t be a 2nd book and especially no TV show.

Dexter’s Hunger:

The first season showed Dexter’s near constant craving for food, but season two mostly forgot about it. When Dexter can only think about some of his favorite Cuban food after a particularly gruesome crime scene, “unique flavor” doesn’t refer to his next meal.

Less Deb:

TV Deb sucks. She swears every other word, the character is a mess, and I cringe when she has a scene. She still swears in the book, but her role is much smaller. It’s just enough to stay interesting, but not enough to make you sick.

TV Show:

Harry: Nearly every episode shows Harry giving Dexter a lesson on Harry’s Code. You get to see how he guided every step of Dexter to channel his dark side for good instead of evil. The books cover a little, but only a taste.

Angel & Vince: I really liked how they expanded the characters from the very limited roles in the books. Instead of characters you hate, like Deb, they made Angel & Vince something to look forward to seeing. Angel’s added Latino flavor to the Miami backdrop makes perfect sense.

LaGuerda: Her role in the first book was also minor. The show makes her conniving, strong-headed, and ruthless. Not to mention still alive.

The summer of Dexter has officially come to a close. I watched the first two seasons of the TV show and just finished reading the third book. The third TV season begins in the fall, but I think I’ll wait until the entire season is available before watching. I like being able to see as much or little at a time. Being strung along for 3 months can get annoying. I’m most curious about how the story line will develop. The books and show are starting to live in two different universes. Characters in one are dead or don’t exist in the other. What about Dexter and Rita’s relationship and what path will her kids take? Doakes? LaGuerda?

As for the final book, I’m mixed. I liked Dexter realizing that his Dark Passenger is a shadow, a spirit, a possessor. Having it separate from him opens more doors down the road. The thing I didn’t like is the same complaint I have about all of the books. They end in a heartbeat. In a 300 page book, between pages 295 and 297, the entire story will be wrapped-up in a nice package. It’s so fast there isn’t even time to put a bow on it. Give me something more at least. 297 pages are enjoyable narration with plenty of side-tracks and development, so can’t the ending take just a little bit longer? Not a fancy bow, but still a bow?

Why does GimmieSomeTune have to suck? It does everything I want in an iTunes controller, but it lags all the time. I’ve looked for alternative programs, but they either don’t do as much or they suck even worse than GimmieSomeTune. The latest was TotalTunes Control. Not bad, but it wastes too screen real estate.

Maybe a GST update would help to work with the newer versions of iTunes.

Jerry Seinfeld didn’t do bad with this film. It was entertaining and fun, but it somehow left me a little empty. The animation is great, the bees are great, but the story just doesn’t have that same x-factor that Pixar brings to the table. Kids likely eat it up.

Not bad, but it’s no Ratatouille.

After watching the first two seasons of Dexter, I thought I’d read the books they are based on.

What I like most is the smart and witty way that Dexter narrates. The book is told in first-person and it doesn’t get old. Because of the style, it is a rather fast and enjoyable read.

The idea of a serial killer as a protagonist may turn off a few people, but Jeff Lendsay has created a page-turning anti-hero. A Robin Hood of serial killers. His victims are bad people who are either under the radar of law enforcement, or freed on technicalities.

The first book in the Dexter line reads like a condensed version of the first season of the TV show. The TV show takes some liberties with characters and even the plot, though the core concept is there. If you enjoy the show, I recommend the book.

As I mentioned before, BeyondTV has a decent plug-in community. One of the best has to be AutoXvid. It’s a plug-in that will automatically scan and cut commercials from your recordings and then convert them to Xvid format. Or, only do one of those tasks. I only have it cut the ads. If I want to compress something, I do it manually with a drag and drop.

There is a configuration file you’ll have to edit it NotePad. Unfortunately the program isn’t sophisticated enough to have a front-end set-up or run through a preference form. But it is not difficult and nothing to be scared about.

I have a large hard drive and record at a high bit rate. An hour of TV ends up at around 2.0 to 2.5 Gigs. Cutting ads brings down the file size by 1/3. Not to mention not having to skip through the ads. I’m a couch potato after all. The ad scanner and cutter does a really great job out of the box. There are a number of options that allow the ad detection to be more or less accurate, but the default set-up has been working pretty good for me.

It’s a must-have for BeyondTV users.