On the Web: GUIdebook

March 30, 2007 at 12:47 pm · Filed under Information Architecture, On the Web, Visual Design, Applications, User Interface, User Experience

If you’re into user interface or user experience design, you’ll probably be a fan of GUIdebook. The site features screen captures of just about any operating system you can think of, timelines for releases by OS, icons, sounds (unfortunately this section covers only a few versions of Microsoft Windows and OS/2), splash screens for applications and more.

A few favorite areas on the site:

1. The visual display of how various operating systems visually executed the same interfaces (right side of page, under ‘components’).
2. Common icons as represented by different operating systems.
3. The tutorials that many operating systems provided.

Some of the GUIs represented on the site: Amiga OS, Apple II, GEOS/GeoWorks (which ran on the Commodore 64 and 128 as well as the Apple II), Lisa Office System, OS X, Windows, and Xerox Star/ViewPoint/Global View.

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Vista via Parallels (without Boot Camp unfortunately)

March 30, 2007 at 8:26 am · Filed under Hardware, Applications

Well, I finally had to retreat. I needed to work in Vista, and couldn’t do without having OS X open also, so the MacBook Pro has moved back a half step for now. I decided to create a Parallels VM for Vista, and just run it that way. I didn’t want to waste the disk space on my Boot Camp partition, so I removed it entirely.

In the same boat? It’s easy to do. Here’s what I did:

1. To remove (completely) the Vista Boot Camp partition, go to:
   Applications > Utilities > Boot Camp Assistant
2. Select the “Restore Mac to a single partition” option (Note: this will erradicate the Vista Boot Camp partition entirely. If you have data you need to backup, do it before this step!)
3. The Macintosh will reboot into its only OS now… OS X
4. Launch Parallels
5. If you created any Virtual Machines that didn’t work when trying to convince Parallels to honor the Vista Boot Camp partition, remove them by going to:
   File > Delete… (in the Parallels Desktop menu)
6. Create a new Vista Parallels VM by using the OS X Installation Assistant
   File > New…

That’s it. Hopefully Parallels will support the selection of a Boot Camp partition for Vista soon.

UPDATE: I am now running a newer version of Parallels with the setup I wanted all along (read the post about that Vista Parallels setup—be sure to read the ‘UPDATE’ at the bottom).

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Boot Camp + Vista + Parallels = ?

March 29, 2007 at 1:36 pm · Filed under Hardware, Applications

Well, unfortunately the super-setup (installing Windows Vista as a Boot Camp option on a Macintosh, and then also specifying it as a Parallels Desktop for Mac VM) isn’t as I had hoped. Here’s the quick version:

• OS X + Windows Vista via Boot Camp 1.2 = No Problem
• OS X + Windows Vista via Parallels (not using a Boot Camp Partition) = No Problem

Here’s where my plan fell apart:

• OS X + Windows Vista via Parallels referencing the Boot Camped Vista Partition = No dice

In fact, I can’t even get Parallels to allow me to select the Boot Comp option during setup–the option is disabled. I tried to ‘trick it’ (I won’t go into details because it doesn’t matter) into setting up the Virtual Machine, but it didn’t pan out.

There is a lot of buzz on the Parallels forums about this. Hopefully it will be worked out soon.

UPDATE: Vista Support for Parallels has arrived!

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Boot Camp is Vista ready!

March 29, 2007 at 5:39 am · Filed under Hardware, Beta, Applications

Apple released an updated version of Boot Camp Public Beta yesterday (v1.2) which is Vista ready. I just blew away my MacBook Pro to create a Vista partition via Boot Camp, which I will then reference as a Parallels Desktop for Mac VM.

The setup will allow either selecting Windows Vista or OS X at startup, or booting into OS X and running Vista as a Guest OS via Parallels. I’ll post an update after the entire setup is complete!

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Serving OS X Apache to a Parallels Windows client

March 29, 2007 at 3:42 am · Filed under Hardware, Applications

I’m currently creating a Vista Sidebar Gadget, and needed to work with it on a PC to ensure my HTML was rendering correctly. All of my HTML and image files are own my Mac, and I have Parallels running Windows as a guest operating system. All I needed to do is to allow the PC guest OS to have access to the Apache web server on the OS X side.

I found a few articles on how to do this-most involve network configuration settings on both the OS X Parallels Network Adapter and on Windows. It also involves cracking open the C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file and making an update, which is easy, but I doubt the generalist is interested in doing.

Here’s a simple, quick solution: Bonjour. I didn’t know there was Bonjour for Windows, but there is (which in retrospect makes sense with iTunes having a PC program). Here’s the drill:

1. On the Parallels Windows guest OS, download and install the Bonjour for Windows client.
2. On the Parallels Windows guest OS, open Internet Explorer, and enable Bonjour by clicking on the Bonjour Icon in the Toolbar (this might not be necessary-clicking it will, at the least, show a list of printers Bonjour has detected on the network in a pane on the left-hand side of IE, confirming that Bonjour is running).
3. On the Macintosh, go to System Preferences > Sharing and enable Windows Sharing and Personal Web Sharing. When you enable Windows Sharing, make a note of the IP address that OS X assigns. In my case, it was 172.20.1.111
4. On the Macintosh, verify your Apache Server is fine. Open a browser instance and navigate to:http://localhost/You should see the Apache web server default page (”Seeing this instead of the website you expected?”).
5. On the Parallels Windows guest OS, open navigate to the IP address that OS X declared when you enabled Windows sharing in Step 3:http://172.20.1.11/If everything is clicking right, you should be seeing the same Apache web server default page you’re seeing on the Mac.

That should be it!

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