Databubble Blog

Windows 'Not-so' Easy Transfer

Having had my first customer who actually wanted to move their PC on to the brave (and somewhat frightening) world that is Vista, I found myself needing to transfer all their stuff off the old XP Thinkpad and onto their new HP Paviilion.

Looking at Vista I noticed Windows Easy transfer - from what I read it seemed to be Windows' equivalent of OS X's Migration Assistant.  And it is........

....well sort of.  The only difference I can find is that Migration Assistant actually works but WET doesn't.  Nada.  Niet.  Zip.  It just ain't playing ball  and after 12 hours of messing about with it I went back to Plan A - mount the old Profile as a share and copy the stuff over by hand.  That bit only took about 50 mins to copy the whole 9Gb of their Profile.  God is WET slow - 9Gb's???  Migration Assistant would have copied that lot and all the Applications variables along with in about 45 mins. And not asked me stupid questions in the middle of the copy so it kept stalling....and it would have finished.

Microsoft, when will you learn to write software properly!!???

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Apple's New MacBooks & Display

So Apple finally got around to updating their laptops - whoopdydoo!  Or is it?

After following yesterdays 'Spotlight on Laptops' event I must say that the new MacBooks and the new Display look great but there is a huge amount to be bothered about.  For example no FireWire port on the MacBook?  How is one expected to use a DV Camera?  The 'DV' part of the name means it uses IEEE1394 to connect to devices - which the new MacBook doesn't have.  And as for a basic function of Mac troubleshooting, Target Disk Mode is a GodSend but again impossible with the new MacBook - or are there plans for a USB dervied TDM?

And although I applaud the decision to use DisplayPort and build it into all new Macs, surely realeasing a new Display that ONLY supports DisplayPort is suicidal.  Why fit in the iSight & Audio if it will only work with 3 laptops that already have them?  Surely this monitor would sell by the bucketload for people with mac Minis & Mac Pros (who could take advantage of these fetaure) - and even iMac owners who would be able to have a monitor that matched the style and grace of their own computer.

I am intrigued - Apple appear to have lost the plot and I for one will not be buying any of these as they only increase performance slightly and remove 2 large abilites that are important to me.  I do not think I will be the only one.  

I suggest 2 things to Apple;

  1. introduce a FireWire port on the MacBook (or an adaptor that will work with TDM)
  2. Introduce an adaptor to make the new Display work with DVI.
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