Windows 8 on Mac Mini

Ever since I saw the first video clips from the upcoming Windows 8 sometime in 2011 I wanted to see it live and try it myself. The Metro UI was simply looking so fresh and cool, coming from Microsoft after all! Sometime afterwards I started using Windows Phone 7.5 on HTC Radar and Nokia Lumia 800. WP7 also features Metro-styled Live Tiles and UI in many of the apps so it's pretty close to the Windows 8 Metro user interface.

Even despite Windows 8 consumer preview being available to public, for free, I had a problem: I was using a Mac instead of a PC and wasn't planning on buying a PC in the near future. It wasn't until late May 2012 when I got tipped (Thanks to @gadgetero on Twitter!) that the Win8 preview can be run on a Mac with ease, using VirtualBox virtualization software, also available for free download.

So I went and downloaded the Windows 8 consumer preview from Microsoft and VirtualBox from Oracle. I recommend to follow the instructions on OS X Daily.

Installing VirtualBox was very easy as was setting up the virtual machine and it's options. Really nice software! When I was a kid, virtual PC emulators for Mac cost a lot of money so it's cool you can nowadays get such quality stuff for free. Next up was the installation of Windows 8. It crashed during the installation once, but I think it was due to me being away from the computer (Win8 installed faster than I thought!). Despite the crash, I could finish the installation right after reboot with no further problems. Afterwards the VirtualBox Win8 always got stuck in the start up screen, but I could bypass this bug by changing the virtual machine boot order from the settings (Hard Disk as #1 boot drive).

 Windows 8 with Metro UI running on VirtualBox on my Mac Mini.

So what do I think about Windows 8 now that I've gotten the chance to try it? I think it's really great! Instead of the half-empty desktop and static icons I've used to, the Live tiles were truly alive, telling me info without opening the actual app. The ones that were immediately working for me were the E-mail and Weather (after set-up) tiles, but I can only imagine how cool it will be once all kinds of apps are built to utilize the Metro stuff to the max. Many have argued that the big tiles are not suitable for a mouse use on a big desktop computer screen, but I found them rather easy to use with a mouse too and I do love simplistic design. You can get a lot of info just looking at the tiles, plus to me it's like the quick place to launch any of my favorite apps, especially if I see there's some interesting new stuff going on in it. I don't need a gazillion icons (they tend to pile up on my desktop anyways). Of course it's not going to be an optimal start up view for everyone, but you can get to the old style Windows desktop and resource managing with one single click.

I love the vibrant colors, nice little animations and clear, fresh, neat interface Metro has to offer. Time will tell if I feel like that after months of using it, but the first impression is good! I can imagine Windows 8 will rock on a tablet since mobile devices are the ones where Metro is really meant to shine after all.

I have to admit the built-in preview apps themselves were quite buggy and crashed many times. Also my Mac Mini isn't the most powerful machine on Earth so e.g. games were so laggy they were impossible to use. But the basic Metro desktop etc. worked pretty smoothly, albeit not in full screen. But no matter if you're using a Mac or PC right now, you should give Windows 8 Consumer Preview a try, there's no complete escape from it anyway once it starts shipping later this year!

PS. thanks to @gadgetero again for the social links code on the right menu =)

Stockholm in pictures (taken with Lumia 800)

Greetings from Stockholm, the 'capital of Scandinavia'! =) Indeed, this beautiful capital of Sweden can rightfully claim to that title as it is a city with such a long and interesting history. In the 17th century it was the center of one of the most powerful empires in all Europe.

The city has a lot to offer, let it be historical sites, shopping or just the beautiful scenery - the city is located on many island in a spot where Mälaren lake connects to the Baltic Sea. If you're ever traveling there for a couple of days, you should get a Stockholm card to enjoy vast amount of museums and attractions for free! And it works as an unlimited ticket to the public transit too.

This was the one of the first times I left my DSLR camera behind when traveling as I didn't feel like carrying it around anymore and wanted to test if I could capture the memories just with my phone (Nokia Lumia 800). As a result I took over a 100 shots and put them to a gallery for all of you to view (I'll add captions later on). Most of the pics are completely unedited and the panorama shots were taken on-phone with Creative Studio, a free app available for the Lumia phones. Click the link below to view the gallery.

Stockholm travel pictures gallery

Steve Jobs biography

I'm not a bookworm sort of guy at all. In fact, I rarely read any printed material, but the official biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson was something I absolutely had to read. It took me some while to read this massive book, but it was totally worth it.

I must say the first half of the book was far more interesting than the second half. I think this is because of two things: firstly, in the beginning Steve Jobs, Wozniak, Gates and all the other legends of Silicon Valley were inventing the 21st century. It felt to me that so much more exciting stuff happened in the first decades of Apple. Second reason is that I simply remembered some of the stuff in the latter part of the book (I've been Apple user since 1991). Of course the extra details from more recent Apple history were interesting, but still, it's more about the development process of some of Apple's core products of today, rather than the birth of the characters or the tech sector as a whole.

The book didn't reveal anything extremely surprising about Jobs, I knew he was a really, REALLY difficult person. But a genius. Many mock Apple and Jobs, saying that he didn't invent anything since the technical innovations were already existing. But the book depicts well how Jobs visioned HOW the technology should be used in convenient way for the users. Perhaps the biggest news from the book for me was the bizarre diets and other obsessions Jobs had.

I am no book critic, but f you are even a bit interested in technology and IT-history, Jobs, Woz, Gates, Microsoft, Google, Apple or anything related, I think you should read this book!