racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

According to my NetStat widget, my PowerBook has been online for 28 days, 6 hours and 13 minutes. And since that time, the notebook had been running without a hitch–perhaps save for some mishaps that caused Firefox to freeze up and require a restart (sometimes happens to such a memory hog like Firefox).

Meanwhile, my Windows-powered Compaq Presario has likewise been running for approximately that same duration. And I occasionally experience losing my wireless connection, and I sometimes get “virtual memory low” messages.

Of course, I don’t really have my laptops running powered on all the time. With the Mac, I close the lid and keep it in a _sleep_ state. With the PC, I use _hibernate_. This way, I get to save on power and extend my computers’ lifetimes, without having to lose the state I’ve been in. Yes, sometimes I get back to a cluttered desktop, but hey, at least I don’t lose track.

Why do I hate Windows?

I don’t hate Windows _per se_. I know XP is a solid operating system (as solid as Swiss cheese!). But with OS X I seem to be able to do my work more efficiently. I feel more productive on the Mac than on the PC. This is simply because I don’t have to deal with the minor annoyances that usually come with running Windows, like:

* Antivirus programs popping up notifying me of updates.
* Antivirus programs suddenly running full tests in the background while I’m doing some _important_ processor-intensive stuff (like copy CDs into my iTunes library!).
* Lag times due to the system accessing virtual memory.
* It takes an eternity to go into _hibernate_ mode. It takes an even longer time to wake up from _hibernate_state.
* It also takes forever to go to and wake up from _standby_ mode.
* Some other stuff I can hardly remember but does happen.

Something tells me all my issues with Windows lie with the memory management. And to think my old PowerBook is still running on a G3 and has about 50% less system RAM than my Presario.

Sigh.

OSX86?

That’s why I wanted to install OS X 86 on my Presario–somewhere along the way, I felt it too tedious to have to backup all my important files (lotsa MP3s), resize the partition and install X 86. Oh, wait, I think I’ve already done that, up to the point of resizing the partition using PartitionMagic and activating the second partition for booting. Only my OS X 86 installer did not push through with the installation. Lucky me!

I’ll try again next time.

Meanwhile, I think it’s time to do a restart on my PowerBook. It does help to run the system from a fresh start once in a while. And it’s mostly to clear the desktop of all the clutter so I can move on with whatever work I’m doing (I’m too lazy to individually close everything!).