Interesting. When we asked VMware to review the article as a fact check, they didn't mention anything about this. Didn't do it last time either.
Are you sure this is in the VMware Fusion EULA? Or maybe it's their other products.
Sorry all for the slowness this morning. Turns out that OpenAds was struggling with the load from being slashdotted. Once we figured that out, everything is loading much better now.
Thanks for your patience.
Neil Ticktin
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
MacTech Magazine
>> While stopwatches may work well for load time and busy waiting scenarios,
>> you'd have to be particularly quick to measure frame rates with one.
Agreed!
We believe that the most important scenarios are the ones that are user perceivable... and typically, that means that if it's not long enough to measure with a stopwatch, there's a good chance that it's hard for the user to perceive. There are DEFINITELY exceptions to this -- for example, video frame rates as you mention, may make the difference in how "smooth" something looks.
In any event, if you look at the tests that we've done -- they are the types of user actions that are measured well by stopwatches... in fact, better in our opinion, than some of the other timing methods.
MacTech Labs (part of MacTech Magazine) has done a number of benchmarks that were very mainstream in the past year -- including most recently Parallels vs. Boot Camp vs. VMware Fusion, and Office 2008. In designing each of these, we went out of our way to figure out how to make them "real world". In other words, not only to only test the things that most users would do... but also to measure them in a way that users perceive. One way that we do that is to do the testing with stopwatches. Because, if it's not long enough to see with a stopwatch, it's certainly not long enough for a user to perceive. This has worked well... and avoids the issue of getting erroneous timings as mentioned in other posts here.
Basically, BootCamp doesn't do anything special -- it just makes it easier. The CD of drivers is useful, but the drive partitioning can be done in a variety of ways. We wrote an article in MacTech Magazine over a year ago about how to set up your computer to triple boot that would useful for those recovering here as well (e.g., needing to recreate the volumes).
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.22/22.11/TripleBoot/index.html
Hope that helps,
Neil
Thanks for re-posting this. The full write up of those on the list is in the August issue which is already at the printer and will be available in time for WWDC. In the write up are pictures, descriptions and commentary.
If you're a subscriber already to MacTech, then you'll get it in the mail towards the end of July.
Thanks,
Neil Ticktin
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
MacTech Magazine
I found RSS readers tough to scan quickly, and adopted a different approach for my daily news ingestion... I set up an RSS aggregator for the common sites I wanted to see, including Slashdot, and wrapped a new site around it so that others could use it as well.
We're still the developer pub, but as you've seen, Apple has redefined the word "developer" to mean anyone technical. This made sense for us anyway, as the majority of our readers wanted to know about web development, networking, and more.
The VoIP article that we're working on is from a netadmin point of view. It's not a Vonage review or anything like that. It talks about the real life experience of rolling out an all VoIP network, and all the issues that a geek faces in doing this for the company.
Drop me a note if you have questions... publisher at mactech.com is my address.
We're getting ready to do a cover story in our magazine about our experiences with VoIP. To do this, we decided to "eat our own dog food" and move the entire company to VoIP.
In short, I'm glad we're on VoIP. We're using a smaller provider, which gives more personalized service... and that's been a big win. The company is PhonePipe... www.phonepipe.com... and aside from the usual bumps in the road, we've been glad that we went with them.
A few things to consider. Some VoIP companies are not financially stable, and they many times don't fall under the FCC rules. So, you should check out the companies you are dealing with... even some of the biggest ones are not financially sound.
For hardware, go with either ATAs or the Cisco phones. ATAs will allow you to preserve your prior investment.
Lastly, be aware that you may need to do some traffic shaping, QoS, etc... And, that many times, the cheap consumer routers handle VoIP much better than the higher end stuff (believe it or not).
Favorite features? Simultaneous ring, and the ability to filter which calls get through and which get routed right to voicemail.
You are quite right -- and we hear this a lot. When you have a magazine that is "targeted" or focused on a specific kind of topic, the ads are often very useful to the readers. It helps keep them informed. It also helps technical folks see who "the real companies" are... at least that's what our readers tell us.
Yep -- we're seeing similar kinds of things. Recently, in preparation to migrating to some new servers we lowered our TTLs on the web server entries. Yesterday, we switched them over, and found that it wouldn't switch the traffic over within the TTL specs. Very frustrating to be sure, and we came to the same conclusion... many (most?) Internet providers are ignoring DNS TTL.
Thanks,
Neil Ticktin
Publisher, MacTech Magazine
Slashdot Mirror
All depends which versions you are talking about. That's not what we saw in the most recent versions when doing the benchmarks.
For the record, both Parallels and VMware had a chance to review the article for technical accuracy prior to publishing.
Damn ... you caught us! (Love the IIS comment).
Actually, the banner ad system got crushed by SlashDot. Once we took OpenAds out of the picture, all went well.
Try it again now.
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.25/25.04/VMBenchmarks/
Unfortunately, the problem was the banner server. OpenAds got crushed by SlashDot. Once we figured that out ... all was fine.
Try the article again now.
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.25/25.04/VMBenchmarks/
Try the article again now. Server bottleneck is restored (OpenAds was struggling with the load).
Actually, we know that. The sentence is primarily talking about Windows.
Nope. Works quite nicely actually.
Interesting. When we asked VMware to review the article as a fact check, they didn't mention anything about this. Didn't do it last time either. Are you sure this is in the VMware Fusion EULA? Or maybe it's their other products.
Sorry ... all is better now. Try it again.
OpenAds was having trouble and once we figured that out, all is fine.
Thanks - Neil
Sorry all for the slowness this morning. Turns out that OpenAds was struggling with the load from being slashdotted. Once we figured that out, everything is loading much better now. Thanks for your patience. Neil Ticktin Publisher/Editor-in-Chief MacTech Magazine
>> While stopwatches may work well for load time and busy waiting scenarios, >> you'd have to be particularly quick to measure frame rates with one. Agreed! We believe that the most important scenarios are the ones that are user perceivable ... and typically, that means that if it's not long enough to measure with a stopwatch, there's a good chance that it's hard for the user to perceive. There are DEFINITELY exceptions to this -- for example, video frame rates as you mention, may make the difference in how "smooth" something looks.
In any event, if you look at the tests that we've done -- they are the types of user actions that are measured well by stopwatches ... in fact, better in our opinion, than some of the other timing methods.
MacTech Labs (part of MacTech Magazine) has done a number of benchmarks that were very mainstream in the past year -- including most recently Parallels vs. Boot Camp vs. VMware Fusion, and Office 2008. In designing each of these, we went out of our way to figure out how to make them "real world". In other words, not only to only test the things that most users would do ... but also to measure them in a way that users perceive. One way that we do that is to do the testing with stopwatches. Because, if it's not long enough to see with a stopwatch, it's certainly not long enough for a user to perceive. This has worked well ... and avoids the issue of getting erroneous timings as mentioned in other posts here.
Basically, BootCamp doesn't do anything special -- it just makes it easier. The CD of drivers is useful, but the drive partitioning can be done in a variety of ways. We wrote an article in MacTech Magazine over a year ago about how to set up your computer to triple boot that would useful for those recovering here as well (e.g., needing to recreate the volumes). http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.22/22.11/TripleBoot/index.html Hope that helps, Neil
Thanks for re-posting this. The full write up of those on the list is in the August issue which is already at the printer and will be available in time for WWDC. In the write up are pictures, descriptions and commentary. If you're a subscriber already to MacTech, then you'll get it in the mail towards the end of July. Thanks, Neil Ticktin Publisher/Editor-in-Chief MacTech Magazine
I found RSS readers tough to scan quickly, and adopted a different approach for my daily news ingestion ... I set up an RSS aggregator for the common sites I wanted to see, including Slashdot, and wrapped a new site around it so that others could use it as well.
http://www.mynewswatch.com/
Enjoy.
We're still the developer pub, but as you've seen, Apple has redefined the word "developer" to mean anyone technical. This made sense for us anyway, as the majority of our readers wanted to know about web development, networking, and more.
... publisher at mactech.com is my address.
The VoIP article that we're working on is from a netadmin point of view. It's not a Vonage review or anything like that. It talks about the real life experience of rolling out an all VoIP network, and all the issues that a geek faces in doing this for the company.
Drop me a note if you have questions
Thanks!
Neil
We're getting ready to do a cover story in our magazine about our experiences with VoIP. To do this, we decided to "eat our own dog food" and move the entire company to VoIP.
... and that's been a big win. The company is PhonePipe ... www.phonepipe.com ... and aside from the usual bumps in the road, we've been glad that we went with them.
... even some of the biggest ones are not financially sound.
In short, I'm glad we're on VoIP. We're using a smaller provider, which gives more personalized service
A few things to consider. Some VoIP companies are not financially stable, and they many times don't fall under the FCC rules. So, you should check out the companies you are dealing with
For hardware, go with either ATAs or the Cisco phones. ATAs will allow you to preserve your prior investment.
Lastly, be aware that you may need to do some traffic shaping, QoS, etc... And, that many times, the cheap consumer routers handle VoIP much better than the higher end stuff (believe it or not).
Favorite features? Simultaneous ring, and the ability to filter which calls get through and which get routed right to voicemail.
Good luck with it!
Thanks,
Neil Ticktin
Publisher, MacTech Magazine
Jesse,
... at least that's what our readers tell us.
You are quite right -- and we hear this a lot. When you have a magazine that is "targeted" or focused on a specific kind of topic, the ads are often very useful to the readers. It helps keep them informed. It also helps technical folks see who "the real companies" are
Thanks,
Neil Ticktin
Publisher, MacTech Magazine
Yep -- we're seeing similar kinds of things. Recently, in preparation to migrating to some new servers we lowered our TTLs on the web server entries. Yesterday, we switched them over, and found that it wouldn't switch the traffic over within the TTL specs. Very frustrating to be sure, and we came to the same conclusion ... many (most?) Internet providers are ignoring DNS TTL.
Thanks,
Neil Ticktin
Publisher, MacTech Magazine