I realise this is not directly relevant to outlining, but it is tangentially relevant.

Over the years, the forum has seen much grumbling about the fact you can get certain favourite progs/apps on one platform but not on another. And I've been one of the grumblers.

A couple of days ago, I had occasion to want to run Windows on my Mac. Yes, I know! But I had just acquired a rather fine text alignment tool (very useful for translators when you want to create "bitexts" out of source/target versions of a given text, i.e. align both languages side by side: the tool is AlignFactory Lite by Terminotix, for those who are interested. The AlignFactory series are by far the most powerful and intelligent alignment tools I've ever used, and also output a wide variety of formats, including HTML and XML).

Unfortunately, said alignment tool only runs on Windows. Did I want to open up one of my old Windows machines and install it? No. The very thought of the hours and hours of updates I would have to put up with.... ugh! Did I want to create a Bootcamp partition and run it on that? Nope, because then I'd have to fiddle about with cross-partition file access, a true PITA. Did I want to experiment with a virtual machine? No, because they're memory-intensive, expensi... wait a minute, maybe they're not!

So I downloaded a couple: a trial version of Parallels (quite expensive but supposedly very good), and VirtualBox (free from Oracle - who'd a thunk?)

In the end, I didn't bother installing Parallels. VirtualBox has come on in leaps and bounds. And is perfect for Windows 10. I was already aware that Windows 10 was resource-efficient - my little HP x2 only has 2GB of RAM, but is quite sprightly. My MacBook only has 4GB of RAM (yes, a strategic mistake - I should have opted for 8GB). So I could only afford to allocate 1GB of RAM to the virtual machine. But it runs beautifully! So what's to say:

a) VirtualBox for Mac is very easy to install; it's also very easy to install Windows from an ISO disk image.
b) Not so easy to install (because difficult to find) are the Guest Additions, which you'll need for the Really Cool functions described below. Actually, the disk image for Guest Additions is hidden in the application package itself - it's easy enough to extract if you know that, but why the VirtualBox package doesn't extract it automatically is beyond my ken.
c) The Really Cool functions include: cross-platform copy and paste (bidirectional, effortless, although there's occasionally a slight lag); option to mount your Mac's file system under Windows, where it becomes instantly and seamlessly accessible (basically, you can mount Mac folders - at any level - as permanent, mapped disk drives on your virtual PC, so they automatically mount as you load the virtual machine. File system access is handled invisibly by VirtualBox). I believe there are other options, including integrating VirtualBox into the Mac UI seamlessly, just like Parallels (which basically pretends Windows apps are part of your Mac setup), but I don't need that particular luxury and suspect it would involve a memory hit in any case. Finally, it's easy to mount CDs, DVDs and other optical drives.
d) Networking "just works"
e) USB devices "just work"
f) VirtualBox uses a "dynamic" hard drive; you set a limit, but you don't have to dedicate actual hard disk space to the drive; it automatically grows up to the limit you imposed. Meaning I now have a full Windows VM running in about 5GB of space, although the nominal size of the disk drive is 32GB.
g) Of course you can run other virtual machines, too, such as Linux-based ones, or anything you like that runs on an Intel processor, really.

So I am now the proud owner of a virtual Windows machine that runs very nicely on my MacBook Air, despite the latter's limited memory. It does have an impact; the memory pressure is reported as varying between 70% and 80%, which is quite high. But it runs very smoothly (so far, at any rate). No, I'm not getting rocket-like performance, but I'm not expecting it, either.

So I shall undoubtedly be installing a couple of my favourite Windows outliners in the not-too-distant future - there are a couple I still feel the occasional pang of nostalgia for (MyInfo, RightNote...).

Happy Christmas, is what I say!

Sounds good. I think it's very relevant but I'm more interested in going the other (running Mac programs on Windows). I haven't been able to come up much. Three different Apple store advisers have told me there's no way to do it other than buying a separate Mac and sharing the keyboard and monitor.

Does anyone know if it can be done with virtual software (or some other way)?

Wayne

I would like too, so I checked the Virtual Box site, and apparently there is a way to get Mac running on the PC. I will be exploring it further.

Daly

Wayne K wrote:

Sounds good. I think it's very relevant but I'm more interested in
going the other (running Mac programs on Windows). I haven't been able
to come up much. Three different Apple store advisers have told me
there's no way to do it other than buying a separate Mac and sharing the
keyboard and monitor.

Does anyone know if it can be done with virtual software (or some other
way)?

Wayne

I would like too, so I checked the Virtual Box site, and apparently there is a way to get Mac running on the PC. I will be exploring it further.

Daly

Wayne K wrote:

Sounds good. I think it's very relevant but I'm more interested in
going the other (running Mac programs on Windows). I haven't been able
to come up much. Three different Apple store advisers have told me
there's no way to do it other than buying a separate Mac and sharing the
keyboard and monitor.

Does anyone know if it can be done with virtual software (or some other
way)?

Wayne

I haven't tried this yet, but it's on the to do list.

http://www.macbreaker.com/2013/01/iatkos-ml2-mountain-lion-virtualbox.html - how to install from the distro

http://www.macbreaker.com/2013/01/install-mountain-lion-iatkos-ml2-hackintosh.html - how to setup the distro FROM a Mac

And I've been running a laptop that came with Windows 7. I run some Linux distros on it virtually, but believe, from a security point of view, that it's smarter to do it the other way around. Windows 10 has some worrisome privacy issues: like copying all the local data to Micrsosoft servers. But Windows 10 in a VM wouldn't have much to copy. I just need it for the occasional webinar, which Linux doesn't do well with.

I would like too, so I checked the Virtual Box site, and apparently there is a way to get Mac running on the PC. I will be exploring it further.
Daly

Virtual Box has experimental support for an OS X guest operating system. https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html#guestossupport

The big problem is obtaining a legal copy of OS X to run virtually. Apple forbids running OS X on anything but Apple hardware. I don't know how vigorously they enforce that, but I'd avoid advertising the fact if you're successful.

There's some info here that might be helpful. https://askubuntu.com/questions/303725/virtualbox-how-to-install-os-x-guest-under-ubuntu-host

Best regards,

Paul

And I’ve been running a laptop that came with Windows 7. I run some Linux distros on it virtually, but believe, from a security point of view, that it’s smarter to do it the other way around.

I agree. But on every Linux system I've had Virtual Box installed on, Windows runs agonizingly slow as a guest. No so when running Linux as a guest on a Windows system. Others have said they don't experience this. But regardless of which way you go, make sure that hardware acceleration is turned on in your BIOS. VBox performs much better that way.

Paul

Thanks for the links. I was superficially familiar with the Hackintosh approach and reading some of the articles there reminded me why I didn't follow through. There are some pretty complicated hardware issues that have to be worked through. You can't just run virtual software on any Windows machine.

If anyone gives it a shot, a follow up here would be much appreciated.

Wayne

I highly recommend Veertu, the new virtualization software for Mac that's available on the Mac App Store (free to run Linux, $40 to run Windows). Unlike other virtualization software, it builds directly on OS X's architecture --- the download is only 13 MB! Moreover, it doesn't require kernel extensions or special permissions. And it runs Windows snappily.

That being said, it still has a few kinks. In my case, installation of Windows was initially difficult because the cursor didn't function --- I had to use tab. But once I had installed Windows as well as the "guest add-ons", everything worked great. The only other issue has been the occasional need to force a restart of Windows after waking my Mac from sleep.

Anyway, I had abandoned using Windows via Parallels (which I own) because it felt too cumbersome, but now I'm happily using Windows outliners again --- including Microsoft Word, of which the Windows version uniquely features heading-based folding in Print Layout View.

Thanks for the tip about Veertu - I hadn't heard about it, and it sounds as if it's worth exploring.

I realise quite a few people probably want go from Windows to Mac, but for those who wish to go the other way there's also Crossover on the Codeweavers site; I've tried it, but some time ago now and so briefly that I wouldn't want to give a view of it. And, as mentioned above, there's Parallels. As a long-term experiment I did use Parallels for a couple of years to run Dragon Naturally Speaking together with MS Word, various other Windows applications and the inevitable Windows anti-virus software (more to protect others than me) on my Mac. I think the word "cumbersome" was used earlier in this thread; I'd describe my experience as "very cumbersome". The combination of Parallels plus Windows 7 plus Word plus Dragon plus AV software required installation of the (unofficial) maximum of 16Gb of RAM in my three-year-old i5 Mac Mini, and slowed it down considerably. In the end all the fuss as well as improvements in Dragon for the Mac persuaded me to give up the experiment; in retrospect, it reminded me of the painfully tedious maxing-out of much more limited resources in the early days of PCs, and it wasn't what I wanted my computer-use to be.

I hope Veertu and the other suggestions above offer a distinctly better experience!

Veertu does sound fascinating - I shall certainly experiment.

Crossover I've got, and don't rate very highly, to be honest. I'm sure there's stuff it works well with, but it doesn't work with the apps I need. VirtualBox has been invaluable, but in view of Veertu's tiny footprint, that's clearly worth a much closer look; even running a Windows machine with minimal RAM on a standard iMac strains the memory to the limit (Macs don't like more than ca. 60-65% "memory pressure", as it's called; while they can deal with more, they tend to become choppy and unresponsive; my VirtualBox Windows VMs both drive memory utilisation up to ca. 68-70%, despite the minimalised RAM setting).

Thanks for explaining "memory pressure" and its limits, Bill - not a topic that I knew anything about. I understand now why my experience of Parallels in my longterm "experiment" was always at the margin.

Yes, indeed - Parallels is notorious for needing a lot of RAM. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's extremely good, but if you haven't got a solid 16GB, it's going to be... sedate, is perhaps the best word.

Due to the too often version upgrade from Parallels, I've opted for VMware Fusion, which works very well. I only use the VM to mess about. Does anyone use VM's for serious work? I have often been tempted by Connected Text, but wondered how cumbersome it would be to have apps in Mac and Windows and how the cross pollination would work.

Anyone seriously using Mac and Windows in a VM environment and does it work?

I run a Windows 10 VM on my Mac Book Air, under Parallels 11. It's up and active about 10 hours a day, and has been for years. Generally stable. It is a full-fledged Windows instance -- I run Office 2016, MS Project, Visio, ConnectedText, OneNote, Outlook and numerous other apps concurrently, and the VM is running along side everything I have going on the OS X side (OS X 10.11.3) -- usually Mail, DEVONthink, Curio, Tinderbox, TheBrain 2Do, and a couple dozen menubar apps, and several other things. In other words, this is always a very busy machine and it's a real benefit to having two simultaneous environments. The Windows VM is almost always VPN'd into a client. Parallels is configured to let Mac recognize and use Windows apps, and vice versa. The only thing (no great loss) is that custom URLs on the Mac side are not recognized by Windows -- an esoteric thing of no consequence.

So yes, real work goes on LOL. I have never had a memory issue -- the MBA has 8 GB RAM and 500 GB SSD -- which is managed as virtual RAM.

Simon wrote:

Due to the too often version upgrade from Parallels, I've opted for
VMware Fusion, which works very well. I only use the VM to mess about.
Does anyone use VM's for serious work? I have often been tempted by
Connected Text, but wondered how cumbersome it would be to have apps in
Mac and Windows and how the cross pollination would work.

Anyone seriously using Mac and Windows in a VM environment and does it
work?

I run Windows instances on my Mac, too. I have to, because I use InCopy to enter text directly into a German publisher's servers. Unfortunately, the rather elderly version of InCopy I have doesn't run on El Capitan - nor does the Windows version I also have (similar in vintage) run on anything later than Windows 7. So I've been running InCopy in VirtualBox, but although it does work well, I do experience occasional memory issues (even on 8GB of RAM).

So I've started playing with Veertu. And it's looking really rather interesting - although I'm still waiting for Windows to download all its updates. But the memory footprint is tiny! I'll let you know how I get on.

Cheers,
Bill

Paul Korm wrote:

I run a Windows 10 VM on my Mac Book Air, under Parallels 11. It's up
and active about 10 hours a day, and has been for years. Generally
stable. It is a full-fledged Windows instance -- I run Office 2016, MS
Project, Visio, ConnectedText, OneNote, Outlook and numerous other apps
concurrently, and the VM is running along side everything I have going
on the OS X side (OS X 10.11.3) -- usually Mail, DEVONthink, Curio,
Tinderbox, TheBrain 2Do, and a couple dozen menubar apps, and several
other things. In other words, this is always a very busy machine and
it's a real benefit to having two simultaneous environments.

Is your data kept separate or do you use the same repository?

Could I ask why you would run ConnectedText, Onenote, Tinderbox, theBrain and Curio, when they all seem to overlap somewhat in functionality? I'm also really interested to know how you delineate what goes into which app and how, if at all you connect information?

I've long wanted to use ConectedText, but am worried about disconnecting information from my mac. The more apps I use the more I have to think what I put where!

Windows under Parallels can see the entire OS X file system (this is handled by Parallels and is configurable). I keep all data (except ConnectedText, see below) on the Mac side because I don't want to crank up Windows just to get a file.

I use all those programs because I love to buy software (CRIMP!!). But I don't see them as overlapping at all. I work 14 hours a day on computers and I enjoy the variety of working with lots of beautiful tools -- it makes the work fly along. I periodically step back and do personal data and feature modelling to reflect on what's working and what's not -- but basically it's like going into your workshop and deciding what tools you need for the project at hand. Building a chess set requires different skills and tools than building a breakfront. I suppose that doesn't answer "how do you delineate" -- because it has no answer.

ConnectedText is one case I cannot break loose from Windows. I've tried ConnectedText running in CrossOver and I hated it -- the look and feel is horrible in CrossOver and CrossOver stores ConnectedText's licensing scheme incorrectly. Since the VM can access your Mac files, you should be OK (not knowing your particulars, of course). I store my CT projects on the Windows side since they don't need sharing with any apps in OS X.

It's important to back up your VM. At least weekly shut down Parallels and use your backup program to copy the whole .pvm package over to a separate volume in your NAS or elsewhere on your LAN.

@Simon wrote:

Is your data kept separate or do you use the same repository?
Could I ask why you would run ConnectedText, Onenote, Tinderbox, theBrain and Curio, when they all seem to overlap somewhat in functionality? I’m also really interested to know >how you delineate what goes into which app and how, if at all you connect information?
I’ve long wanted to use ConectedText, but am worried about disconnecting information from my mac. The more apps I use the more I have to think what I put where!

Paul Korm wrote:

I periodically step back and do
personal data and feature modelling to reflect on what's working and
what's not -- but basically it's like going into your workshop and
deciding what tools you need for the project at hand.

I think that's an important meta (reflexive) activity, as sometimes the solution of even an intellectual problem lies in the particular instrumentalisation (tool chain) and workflow.

I have also taken to recording my particular toolchain and workflow regularly, in order to remember them the next time I come across a similar problem.

The particular toolchain and workflow for that reflexive activity (normally at the end of the day) consists of a "Stick A Note" reminder (saying "RECORD WORKFLOW!!!") that pops up when I navigate to the Home page of my CT 'project' (database), which is the main dashboard for my activities.

I have also added an automatic heading to each 'topic' (wiki page) that says "Workflow last recorded on 23/02/2016", to serve as an additional reminder, and also as a hyperlink to the actual page where I record the workflow/toolchain for the given day.

A bit off-topic but FWIW...

On the contrary, Dr Andus, very much on-topic; we are, after all, discussing information management, and meta/reflexive processes could be described as outlining in its purest form ;-)

For Mac users, I recommend Curiota (the new mini-app from the brilliant developer of Curio) for storing such notes about your ongoing processes. It's now replaced almost all my other information management apps (EagleFiler, Together, Yojimbo et al., although not DEVONthink or Outliner) because it is so convenient. You can print, paste or pass anything (in)to Curiota, you can create categories and shunt entries between them, it has a powerful search function, and it sits in your menu bar taking up minimal resources! It's just darn convenient!

Cheers,
Bill

Apple, Inc., an entity which has made keeping "fish" well inside its deceptively seductive software aquarium has entire Teams dedicated to frustrating all attempts to run its OS outside the confines of its block aluminum penitentiaries.

And the Linux world is dishearteningly fragmented.

There's an opportunity here for a risk-taking entity.

.....................................................................................................

jaslar wrote:

I haven't tried this yet, but it's on the to do list.

http://www.macbreaker.com/2013/01/iatkos-ml2-mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
- how to install from the distro

http://www.macbreaker.com/2013/01/install-mountain-lion-iatkos-ml2-hackintosh.html
- how to setup the distro FROM a Mac

TempusFugit wrote:

Apple, Inc., an entity which has made keeping "fish" well inside its
deceptively seductive software aquarium has entire Teams dedicated to
frustrating all attempts to run its OS outside the confines of its block
aluminum penitentiaries.
>http://www.macbreaker.com/2013/01/iatkos-ml2-mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
>- how to install from the distro
>
>http://www.macbreaker.com/2013/01/install-mountain-lion-iatkos-ml2-hackintosh.html
>- how to setup

Sorry, fat fingered that last reply

@TempusFugit wrote:

Apple, Inc., an entity which has made keeping “fish” well inside its
deceptively seductive software aquarium has entire Teams dedicated to
frustrating all attempts to run its OS outside the confines of its block
aluminum penitentiaries.

Maybe -- but practically speaking, is one's life less complete because we cannot order up a brick from NewEgg and install El Capitan on it? (Well, wait, we can. But why?)

I'm using a new imac 5k and am finding it quite frustrating with VM. The retina display makes windows apps difficult to run. Even with Fusions special retina setting, some apps simply aren't configured for high DPI screens (http://www.infoworld.com/article/2952506/microsoft-windows/high-resolution-displays-reveal-windows-10-blind-spot.html and Connect Text is one of them. The only way I can get CT in some semblance of usage is by moving the VM on my old 23 inch DP screen through the thunderbolt connection. Then turn of the retina setting and it displays fine. Far form ideal though.

Is anyone else finding this problem with retina screens and Windows apps?