Tech
Mac or PC ?
by Andrew Shough on Mar.26, 2010, under Apple, Hardware
My laptop, which is about six years old, has finally given up on life and the battery is dead. I have tried to get a new battery but as I suspected there are none available in South Africa nor do they make them any more. So I have to take the plunge and get a new laptop, even though I have a desktop at home, I just need to have a laptop when I travel and for home with email, as I use my desktop for development.
I have always been an Apple fan but just have not been able to afford them but now I might be able to. I have been looking at the MacBook Pro 13” (with 250 gig HDD, four gigs of memory), and the normal basic entry level MacBook (with 250 gig HDD, two gigs of memory), although I don’t like the white body, plus I like the option of taking the MacBook Pro with four gigs of memory instead of two.
but there are the same options in the PC laptop world, for a cheaper cost, which are big pluses for me, but those are really the only benefits I can think of, if I want better specifications then I will start looking at the same or higher prices than the MacBook and MacBook Pro. While I agree that for 16 grand, I cat get the MacBook Pro 13” with four gigs of memory and 250 gigs HDD, but for 16 grand I can get a seriously good PC laptop from Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba.
What still brings me back to paying the price of the MacBook and MacBook Pro is that it is an apple, so it is stable, the OS manages the resources much better than any PC laptop can and ever will while running Windows, and it’s an APPLE!
So I foresee myself having to find 16 grand somewhere in the near future to get a MacBook, cause they are fantastic machines and lets be honest, they do look really nice!
Help Test Net Framework 4 Beta 2 with Windows Update
by Andrew Shough on Jan.20, 2010, under Development Reference Material, Microsoft Software
I follow Scott Hanselman’s blog and he is a Microsoft fundi, he works for them and he posts regularly about the goings on at Microsoft. One of his posts recently caught my eye and I was glad to see it.
The .Net framework team are allowing people to test the latest Beta release of the .Net 4 client profile via the windows update. The update will be a recommended update when it is officially released about 6-8 weeks after the release of .Net Framework 4.
Below is comparison of the 4 client profile and 3 client profile.
| .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Client Profile | .NET Framework 4 Client Profile |
| Web Install | Local Package & Web Install |
| Only Windows XP SP2 or SP3 and x86 architecture. | All platforms and CPU architectures supported by the full .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 except IA64. |
| Separate from the framework. | Part of the full .NET Framework. The .NET Framework is made up of the Client Profile and Extended components that exist separately in Add or Remove Programs. |
| Windows Update will upgrade it to the full .NET Framework. |
Independent component.
|
if you want to test the Beta, then here is how you go about it:
if you have no dot net 4 bits on your machine, Just make a text file with some meaningful name and make sure the file extension is .reg, and put the following text in it:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4B2WU]"OptIn"=dword:00000001
then save and close it, and double click on the file and it will insert the registry key and you will be able to install the client profile from windows update.
You can do it from an administrator command prompt if you want:
reg.exe add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4B2WU" /v OptIn /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
I have heard that if you have any .net 4 components installed already, that the client profile will not install.
When they release the client profile it will install over the beta install and will upgrade it.
If you experience any problems, just remember it can be uninstalled, but do report any issues you have at The .Net Framework 4 Setup & deployment support forum.
