Friday, Mrs K and I met up with a college friend and her husband for lunch. Karen and I dated briefly at UCLA. During my junior year, “one day at band camp,” she introduced me to the future Mrs Kestrel. Karen was one of Mrs K’s bridesmaids, and a few years later, returned the favor…and also asked our oldest son, Eric, to be the ring-bearer at her wedding.
We have maintained our friendship ever since, and a couple years ago, when Mrs K and her mother were touring southeast Asia, they visited Mike and Karen in Panang, Malaysia, where Mike was working for Mattel.
After an excellent lunch at a local Mexican restaurant, we returned to their house for a couple hours of conversation. Mike is an avowed Mac power user, so I was interested in talking to him a bit about Macs. I wanted to get a few pointers on Mac software, since I don’t use the Macbook Pro (MBP) nearly as much as I do Windows apps.
Mike convinced me to get a copy of VMWare Fusion 2, to allow me to run Windows in a “virtual machine” process on the MBP. My brother-in-law and I made a visit to Fry’s Electronics this morning, but I thought I might do better than the $80 retail price by checking Newegg. In fact, I found it for $35.99 after a $10 mail-in rebate!
Then I started looking at other Mac software available from Newegg. I’m still looking for a blogging app as flexible and powerful as Windows Live Writer. (It occurs to me that once I have Fusion installed, I can run WLW under Windows on the Mac. Cool!) As a result, I’m writing this entry in MacJournal, from Mariner Software. I’ll hold off on shelling out $35 for it, though, until after I get a chance to install Fusion next month, and try WLW in a Windows virtual machine.
Thus, the purpose of this article, in addition to letting you know what I’ve been doing the past couple days (in addition to trying to keep up with the U.S. Open from Long Island), is to see how well MacJournal works as a blogging platform.
Update: So far, so good. Obviously, I didn’t play with images this time around, but if you’re a Mac-based blogger, you can do a lot worse than MacJournal. For the price of the $35 download (the 15-day trial version is free and feature-complete), it’s a reasonably priced piece of Mac software.
Of course, Windows Live Writer is free, but…Windows-only.
Some better Mac blog editors IMHO are marsedit and ecto. Marsedit is a little more MAC like but both are full featured editors with tons of bells and whistles, both support applescript. also If you are running an intel mac I would suggest just loading windows on it through boot camp instead of going for the “Virtual” option. a virtual machine is ok, but if it is an intel machine you could just load up the real deal.
I’ve looked at both Marsedit and Ecto; in fact, I have Ecto installed currently. IMO, neither come close to the functionality and ease of use that Windows Live Writer provides. (Yes, I should have mentioned I’ve tried both of those programs in my article; to be frank, I was just trying to write and post something with MacJournal to see how it worked.)
I know there are some people–Tami, from Egotistical Priest/TamiMoore.com, for instance–who can’t stand WLW, but I haven’t found a better editor on either platform.
The problem with BootCamp is, it’s an “either/or” proposition: OS X or Windows. I want both. (“I want it all…and I want it now!”
) In fact, I have Vista SP1 installed via BootCamp presently. However, with the upcoming 10.6 Snow Leopard and true 64-bit computing, the prospect of both Windows & OS X running together is pretty exciting.
I’m going to give Macjournal a go – you’re the second blogger I know who uses it and has sung it’s praises.
Well actually it isn’t an either/or proposition. From the Apple Download site: Parallels Desktop for Mac 4.0 | Staff Pick
11/11/2008 The first solution that gives Apple users the ability to run Windows, Linux or any other operating system and their critical applications at the same time as Mac OS X. (Demo)
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/parallelsdesktopformac.html
It is what i use and I have both running at the same time.
Exactly; my point was that BootCamp won’t run Windows in a VM, but Fusion or Parallels will.
Suggest MarsEdit, ecto, Blogo, or Journler.
I’m told by my friends they’re not quite as awesome as WLW, but Journler looks pretty good. I haven’t used a windows machine for real work in a long, long time so I’ve never been exposed to WLW.
Mac this Mac that…as foodies we are interested in your Mexican food experience. Was it more authentic or american style mexican. Details please.
Sounds like you are enjoying yourself dear:)
.-= Cathy´s last blog ..Ninja Epidemic =-.
Cathy » Extremely authentic, since the place is a family-run business. I had the carnitas (pork) burrito, and it was filled with meat. Unfortunately, their signature flan hadn’t turned out well that day (so you know it’s “homemade” and not from a restaurant supply!), so we missed out on that.
Even better, though, was the meal last Saturday at Giancarlo’s in Morro Bay. O M G. Seafood to die for.
My wife had cioppino that had enough fish and shellfish in it to feed two (including a couple very large crab legs!). The lamb shank osso bucco I had was absolutely the best I have ever had. My sister-in-law had scallops that were so large, she could only eat two! My niece had swordfish that was as good as the best I’ve had up in Monterey. And my brother-in-law had some roast duck that was indescribably good…not fatty or greasy at all.
Together with some very nice appetizers, a couple excellent bottles of wine, and a two-man combo providing live, listenable music, and you have all the ingredients for one of the very best dining experiences I’ve ever enjoyed.
[...] to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet BoxWhen last I left you, I was writing from Los Angeles (or thereabouts); however, I never related the story of getting there from Amarillo. And believe [...]
[...] we went to lunch with our friends Karen and Mike, as previously documented. Saturday was a pretty leisurely day, although Bill and I did spend an hour or so wandering around [...]