Upgrade to Momentus XT hybrid drive

I just upgraded my old Hitachi 5400 RPM 250 GB laptop drive to a Seagate Momentus XT 7200 RPM 500GB "Hybrid" drive. It's got 4GB of build in SSD solid-state NAND gate flash memory that acts as a smart cache with what they call "Adaptive Memory Technology." Supposedly it figures out the files you use the most and drops them on the SSD portion of the disk to speed things up.

First step was to hook up the drive with a SATA-to-USB adapter and connect it to my drive. The I used Clonezilla to clone drive-to-drive and it reproduced my 170 GB partition from the old drive onto the new one as a bit-by-bit copy. Then, simply switch the drives in the PC and everything magically works just like it did before. Easy as pie. (I don't know why people say this. Have you ever baked a pie? It's a PITA.)

It certainly SEEMS faster, even after a few minutes of using it. Rebooting my 64-bit windows 7 laptop is very quick. It boots in less than 30 seconds now to the login screen. It used to be over 40 sec. I ran a benchmark utility (Passmark Performance Test) and it claimed the new drive was 2-4x faster for sequential read-write performance. I'm sold.

I read some reviews and they were generally positive with a people complaining that the drive didn't spin down very often, it was noisy, or it vibrated a lot. I'm not sure, but I think it's a little louder. Considering my laptop sits on a desk and not my lap most of the time, I don't care much.

One suggestion I found was to upgrade from SD23 firmware so SD24. So I went to the page and did it. (http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=215451). The problem is, it got stuck when I downloaded and ran the upgrade.

When I booted the machine, it would give me "Invalid System Disk. Press any key..." After that, it would boot into Windows 7 fine. Rebooting many times and re-running the utility did nothing.

Eventually I figured it out. I hit "F12" during start up to get boot options. Then I simply selected "Boot from internal HDD" and it magically fired up the upgrade utility for the firmware. 30 seconds later, it finished, shut down, restarted and now it works fine. Problem solved.

A little wonky, but it worked. Dunno if it made the drive any better. Time will tell.

Neat tire sizing tool

I came across this neat tire size comparison tool:

http://www.rimsntires.com/rt_specs.jsp

It allows you to plug in various sizes of tires and it analyzes how it will changes clearance, indicated speed, etc. on your vehicle.

2008 G35x Driving Impressions: First Few Weeks

Update: I had this sitting in "draft" mode for a really long time. I'm posting it now because I forgot to do so a long time ago.

As I wrote in my original post, I recently purchased a 2008 Infiniti G35x Sedan. I've been driving it for a few week and overall, I really like it. It definitely has a different feel from my previous daily driver, a 2005 Subaru WRX Sport Wagon. Of obvious note: it's got a 3.5L 300 hp torquey V6 instead a 225 hp turbo-charged 2.0L 4-banger, it weighs 3800 lbs instead of 3300, and it's got a "sport" automatic 5 speed transmission instead of a 5 speed manual.

First, I really like the motor. It's eager to rev, but doesn't need to for producing power. I like the instant-torque of the bigger motor. It's got a nice, throaty growl to it. I've seen C&D and other reviewers claim it's kind of raspy and unrefined compared to some of the BMW's, but I've never had a BMW, so I don't really care.

The 3800 lbs is noticeable. When cornering, there car definitely wants to push. It's also got a good amount of sway in the car due to all the mass. Expansion joins on exit ramps produce a nice shimmy in the rear end of the car although the suspension keeps all the wheels planted. Launching the car from a stand-still makes good use of the AWD and the car rockets forward with a very satisfying amount of thrust.

As a life-long stick driver, the manumatic transmission takes some getting used to. As I wrote in my other post, I'm used to manual transmissions that do exactly what I want them to do and ONLY when I want them to do it. I admit it -- I'm a control freak. Further more, the throttle has a direct linkage to the wheels without any RPM slop due to a torque converter. With that said, I'm slowly getting used to the new transmission. I like the fact that I can put it in manual mode for cruising on the highway or in traffic. On the highway, I want to be able to apply full throttle to get a short jolt of speed without the transmission down-shifting and winding out to 6000 RPM's. In this case, the slush-box torque converter actually works well to allow the revs to increase slightly and get some additional power. (In most cases, I still prefer it if it just locks-up and keeps the revs matched to the wheel speed.) In traffic, I like to be able to put it in a gear and drive with the throttle instead of jamming on the brakes all the time to slow down slightly. It's actually a blessing to not have a clutch to deal with. Finally, I like being able to manually select a gear during almost-stop turns (e.g., making a turn in an intersection) so you don't get the delay-down-shift-surge lurch while the tranny tries to figure out what gear it wants to be in.

The car has two automatic modes: Drive (D) and Drive Sport (DS). While cruising around, they both seem kind of similar. DS is more aggressive during braking: it automatically down shifts, anticipating your going to get back in the throttle. This is a little annoying when approaching a stop sign, but could be beneficial if you were driving around a track or on a curvy road. However, in both those situations, I would probably have the car in manual mode, regardless, so the point becomes kind of moot.

I tend to use the automatic modes when I'm puttering around not paying attention. (Now I know what the other 90% of the population feels like. Frankly, I like actually having something to do and concentrate on during driving.) In fact, I find my most common gear pattern to be as follows: cruise in 5th gear manual, slow to a stop, pop shifter into "D" to reset "auto mode", then back into "DS" to get in automatic-but-ready-to-manually-shift mode. Accelerate normally, allowing the transmission to up-shift as it goes. Once I reach speed, bump shifter forward to "5" manual mode and cruise there. Apply as much throttle as I want to change speed. When necessary, bump down a gear for additional speed, then return to tall gear for cruising in 5th. If I need to stop, rinse and repeat.

Overall: I really like the car. It's a bit of a heavy pig compared to the WRX, but it's also a lot faster and pleasurable to drive. I'll have to write more about my recent experiences in the snow as well as my general impressions of the various technology and luxury features of the car.

2008 G35x Sedan Driving Impressions: The Facts

So, I recently upgraded my 2005 Subaru WRX Sport Wagon to a 2008 Infiniti G35x Sedan. The WRX was a great little sport compact car, but at its core it was still a suped-up Impreza compact car with very basic attributes. I was interested in getting something a little bigger, a little stronger, and with some more luxury.  My basic criteria:

• Sport sedan or wagon
• 300-ish HP from a non-turbo charged engine
• 4 doors, big enough to take on weekend trips with family
• More luxury features (bluetooth, ipod connector, HID lights, leather, etc.)
• AWD. (I don't need it THAT often, but really enjoy having it during the few times it snows every year.)
• "Sporty" transmission (either 5+ speed manual or decent manu-matic)
• Couple years old to save on depreciation

The combination actually makes it a short list. I looked at the 2007 Acura TL Type-S which I really liked. It had good power, lots of features, good fit and finish, and looks very sharp. Unfortunately, I really don't like FWD cars much, so opted out. Lexus IS AWD was good option: very sport looking, handles well, but only comes in the 250 motor which is a little underpowered for the weight of an AWD car. BMW 3-series IX, but the 328 is kind of underpowered and frankly I didn't want to pay the price of maintaining a BMW. The 335 IX kicks ass, but I wasn't willing to pay the price. Audi would have been a good option, but I didn't want another 2.0L turbo and there weren't another option with going with the S4 was kind of pricey. This left me with the G35x, which hit well on all elements and I just generally liked. The 2nd generation '07+ sedans got a major styling make over which drastically improved the looks, in my opinion. The G35 fit the bill and I've been very happy with it.

Some general facts about the car:

The Motor. Potent V6 that makes 306 hp, 268 lb-ft of torque which is good for 0-60 in approximately 5.6 seconds. This is close to the rated times of my 1994 RX-7 (when it was stock) and not bad for a 3800 lb car. Overall - it feels very strong and it's an nice change to be able to stomp on the gas in a high gear and have it go somewhere without having to downshift. (See below: automatic transmission that will actually stay in a gear.) The motor's additional power in the 2nd generation seems to have come from running higher compression with some other minor tuning adjustments.

The Transmission. The AWD "x" model only comes with a 5 speed automatic. Historically, I really don't like auto trannies very much, but I'm slowly getting used to this one. I don't care so much about the clutch, but I really want the transmission to do WHAT I want WHEN I want it to do it, and NOT to do things I don't want when I don't want it. So far, this one isn't bad. It has normal "(D)rive" mode, "(D)rive (S)port" mode, and manual shift mode. Drive mode is as you would expect. It is smooth in normal driving and responds with fairly crisp upshifts when wound out to high revs. It's fairly down-shift happy and drops a gear any time you give it moderate throttle, which I personally find annoying. Drive-Sport mode is a little more aggressive, holding the revs longer before up shifting and automatically rev-match down shifting during moderate or hard braking. It's still a little shift-happy, IMHO. Entering DS mode from D usually results in a down shift from current gear (e.g., 5th to 4th) but it will eventually up shift back to the higher gear if you cruise with steady throttle for a while. Manual mode is entered by bumping the shift lever up or down while in DS mode. It switches to manual-only shifting with a dash indicator of the current gear. Unlike some other (lousy) manumatics that I have drivent, it WILL actually stay in the gear you tell it to, including bumping off the rev limiter if you wind it out too far. (Err ... oops.) It will, however, down shift automatically to 1 when you come to a stop. It responds rapidly with crisp down shifts (maybe 0.25 second) when you bump the lever, but has very sluggish up shifts (0.75-1.5 seconds, perhaps). This lag is kind of annoying some times when I want to get on the throttle briefly, then back off and upshift a couple times to resume cruising mode. Supposedly, the models that include paddle shifters will allow you to bump gears up and down while in D mode, then it will resume normal D mode after a brief delay. (This seems desirable to me and the paddle shifters are actually a bolt-on addition that I might get.) The torque converter has about a 2000 RPM swing between full throttle and coast-down off throttle when cruising in a high gear. This amount of swing seems a little extreme, but allows the motor to rev up nicely and apply torque when cruising around in a single gear. This is a welcome change for me compared to the anemic turbo-laggy 4-banger that I've been driving for 6 years. The slush-box does lock up when cruising so throttle application has a more direct effect on the wheels at highway speeds. 

Styling. This is, of course, subjective but I think the car has very crisp, sporty styling that is just slightly on the "soft" side. I really like the changes they made to the back end for the 2nd generation remake they did in 2007. I do think the front-end styling on the base and "journey" models is a little "soft" however and I prefer the sport models that have a more aggressive, angular front air dam. I think a slightly more angular set of ground effects (front lip, side skirts, rear bumper) would improve the sportiness of the car quite a bit. It's possible a rear spoiler might sharpen it up a bit, but it also might ruin the clean lines of the car. For reference, I like the look of some of the Lexus IS sedans as well as the Acura Type-S.

Features. I seem to have picked a version of the car that has almost all the options available with the exception of paddle shifters, sport seat, and active suspension (which I'm not sure is available on the AWD car). It does not have the larger brakes, either, but those don't seem to be available on the AWD model, even on the G35xS "sport package" (not to be confused with G35S sport *model*) which I did not get, hence the missing paddle shifters and sport seats. Here are some noteable features:

• "Intelligent" Cruise Control (part of Technology Package) with laser-guided distance sensing system that automatically controls speed if you approach another car. This means if you're set at 65 and you come up on the bumper of another car, the system will automatically will slow down and maintain safe following distance (3 selectable distances). If you get too close, it will actually apply up to 25% braking force (while moving the pedal and showing the brake lights). The sensor is embedded in the front left bumper and looks like a 4" reflective sensor with a redish tint. (It took me a while to figure out what it was when I bought the car.)
• HID auto-adjusting headlights (part of Technology Package) that actually turn direction with the steering wheel. This is very noticeable at slow speed where the inner headlight literally pivots toward the direction of the curve when you turn the wheel.
• Traction Control (Vehicle Dynamic Control) with selectable Snow Mode that, most importantly, can be (almost) completely turned OFF. With AWD, the system does some magical combination of adjusting torque to each wheel, retarding engine power, and individually applying the brakes to a slipping wheel to attempt to control vehicle dynamics and allow the car to maintain grip and a stable forward direction. I had a recent opportunity to drive it in the snow and the system (while "on") does a good job at sensing vehicle dynamics and correcting the car in slides. If the car starts to slide under power, you can actually feel the system cut power and apply brakes to a slipping wheel. Combined, this has a very effective ability to bring the car back into line and allow you to maintain a forward trajectory. A steady, moderate throttle allows the wheels to independently drag you in the right direction. It's fairly impressive. The "Snow Mode" switch further retards engine response to prevent you from spinning wheels. Most importantly, hitting the "VDC Off" button seems to do just that: stop the system from intervening when you actually want to have some fun with the car. (More on my adventures in the snow with this in a later post, perhaps.) Side note: I read somewhere that the system might still intervene with brakes on a slipping wheel, but I haven't seen any indications of this yet.
• Navigation system (07-08 maps) with backup camera that has guided steering lines when you turn the wheel. It's driven by either touch screen or 8-way control pad and/or limited steering wheel up/down/select controls. It also has lots of physical buttons which I like. Generally, I find the system fairly easy to use and the Nav seems to be adequate. One pet peeve: it shows "remaining time" to destination instead of "estimated time of arrival." This makes it difficult to play my favorite game of "beat the clock" when driving to destinations. It's got simplistic voice activated menus that allow you to pick choices and set destinations hands-free while driving.
• Bluetooth integration that syncs with up to 8 different phones, so you and your wife and kids and friends can all connect their phones (one at a time). It can download the phone book, but I've had weird experiences of it duplicating my phone book entries. The search mechanism SUCKS and you basicallly have to just scroll through your list at 3-letter increments (A-C, D-F, etc.) looking for entries. You can add individual ones to your local phonebook in the car, which are the only ones accessible while the car is in motion. The voice activated menus for dialing work here, as well, and seem to be adequate. I have to say, it's VERY nice to jump in the car and have it automatically connect to my phone so I can make and receive hands-free calls. I can still dial from the phone, if necessary, but it auto-switches to the car as a bluetooth head set after dialing. There's easy to hit menu items for "use handset" if you decide NOT to talk on speaker phone. I've been told that the call quality is pretty good, so overall I give it a thumbs up.
• iPod integration which can be controlled from the on-screen navigation. Seems nice enough. Also has 3 RCA jacks for auxiliary input in case you have a non-iPad music player. Supposedly, it can display video on the Nav system monitor while parked, but I haven't tried it. I don't know if it will let you play iPod videos, but I doubt it.
• Compact-Flash card slot for playing MP3's and maybe some other stuff.
• Music Box 10GB internal hard drive that can rip music from CD's and store internally. Seems nice enough, but I haven't bought any CD's in years. It does not seem to let you just copy MP3's into the system or transfer from your iPod, so I'm not sure I'll use it much.
• Proximity-Sensing Keyless Entry with Push-button Start. Kind of a neat feature, but it allows me to unlock and enter the car, then push a button to start it without taking my keys out of my pocket.
• Auto-positioning power seats that have a "1" and "2" setting so my wife and I can automatically set our positions. Supposedly, it can sense which key fob is in the car and automatically set it that way, but I haven't configured that yet. This also includes positioning of the power mirrors and tilting extendable power steering wheel column.
• Heated seats ("Go bummy!") and Heated Mirrors which have already come in handy this winter.
• Homelink Garage Door Opener which eliminates one other do-dad that I would otherwise have to hang on my visor.
• Leature seats that I'm still getting used to. Leather is, in my opinion, not as comfortable as a good sport cloth, too slippery, too cold in the winter, and too hot in the summer. It is, however, the ONLY option available in most modern high-end cars. It has the advantage of being easy to clean, which I'm looking forward to considering what my kids have done to our other cloth-upholstered cars. The seat itself is reasonably comfortable, but I find myself sliding around in it a bit too much. Perhaps the one thing I wish I'd know about and possible searched for was the sport seat in the "sport package" that has better thigh and side bolsters. Oh, well.
• Rear pass-through panel into the trunk. I would much prefer it if the seats actually folded down, but that doesn't seem to be common in any of these cars.

It's also got some other decent features like bottle-holder slots in the map pockets in the doors, analog clock in the dash, faux-wood finish, proper knobs for the radio, dual-zone automatic climate control (with knobs), and kid-activated map lights in the rear seat.

Next up: driving impressions (as my daily driver) and some fun driving in the snow (aka "slippy slidey" in 10-year-old boy speak) that earned me the humorous name of "drift king" from one of my son's teachers.

Vista screen resolution resets monitor on lock, reboot, etc. for dual display

Vista has this nice feature called "Transient Multi-Monitor" (TMM) service which detects when monitors are added/removed from your laptop. Unfortunately, it has a habit of LOSING ITS MIND and resetting your display resolution at random times. For example, if you connect a new monitor or (lately) if the screen locks. When I unlock the screen, it resets to 800x600 or some other lame resolution.

This is all controlled by the "TMM" which is run by the task scheduler. If you don't have multiple monitors, then you can just disable it in the Task Scheduler and solve the problem. I, however, DO have multiple monitors which I'm often changing. It worked fine for a while, but has degraded to chaos lately.

Here's a good article about resetting it the registry settings so you can start over and see if it fixes your problems:

• Reset TMM (Transitent Multi-Monitor) registry entries 

These are stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MobilePC\TMM and you can simply delete the tree and have it start over. You need to logout/in to make it fix itself. There are also a lot of semi-related keys stored here: HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\VIDEO that have similar settings. I don't know what the effect of changing those would be...

Single stage snow blower comparison review

I recently went through a bunch of pain and tribulations trying to do some research on single stage snow blowers (snow throwers) to find the best one. Snow blowers come in two basic varieties: single stage and dual stage. The dual-stage throwers are the ones we typically thing of: big giant auger/chewer mechanisms in front that break up snow to feed it to a second high-speed rotor that throws it up in the air. The single stage throwers have a single high-RPM auger that grabs snow and throws it up through the shoot all in one motion. The single-stage blowers tend to be smaller, lighter, and drag themselves along with their primary auger. The dual-stage monsters are large, heavy, and have driven wheels that drive at multiple speeds to chew up snow.

I fell in love with single-stage blowers after using my neighbors old Yardman 720E single-stage green powerhouse. Yardman was eventually purchased by Toro and renamed as the Toro CCR 3650 to ultimately become the Toro Powerclear 421, the Cadillac of single-stage snow blowers. It has a 141cc 2-cycle, 6 hp motor that can throw snow 35 ft and clear 1800 lbs of snow per hour.

I went in search of a good single-stage snow blower to compare against this one. The newest iteration, the Toro Powerclear 421QE runs about $899, which was kind of steep for my budget (lets face it, I'm cheap). I live in Virginia and we get about 5 significant snowfalls every 3 years. (Not counting the Blizzards in early 2010). My basic criteria was as follows:

• Strong motor: strong enough to rip throw snow and throw it far. I based it against the 141 cc 2-stroke in the Toro/Yardman. Many new ones have 4-cycle engines and I wasn't sure how strong they were. They ranged from piddly 87cc, to 123 cc (deemed "too weak" by many reviews), to 148cc, 163cc (the Toro 421), 179cc, and the largest at 208cc.
• Gull-wing bent handlebar. Many throwers have a simple squared-off handle bar much like a common lawn mower. I prefer the ones that are bent forward to give some additional torque when pushing the machine along.
• Easily adjusted chute. The Cadillac Toro 421QE has a "Quick Shute" with remote cables to spin the chute left/right and up/down easily. Most have simple manual chutes that you have to move away from the handle bar to actually move. My experience has been that you end up moving the chute back and forth a LOT during snow removal, so the remote controls are kind of nice. (For reference, the original Yardman had a crank to turn from the handle bar to move it left and right. This was ok, but annoying to turn it back and forth.)
• Electric start. Modern small motors are very easy to start with standard recoil pull-starters, but the electric start would be an added bonus if the wife ever needed to fire the thing up.
• Sizeable wheels. Smallest ones are 6", largest are 8". I just find the bigger ones easier to push along.
• Serviceability. I don't want the thing to break, but if it does, I want to be able to get parts from a reputable dealership.

 After shopping around a LOT and trying to do some research, I finally settled on this one: The Cub Cadet 221 LHP for $539 from Home Depot online. I saw it on the Cub Cadet site for $549 on sale, but they don't sell direct. When the local dealer contacted me with a quote, he basically didn't want to sell a single-stage unit and tried to talk me into a low-end $600 dual-stage unit. My experience with low-end dual-stage units is THEY SUCK, so I decided to go with Home Depot who also sold the Cub Cadet. After calling them, they offered to price match by giving me a 10% discount from the $599 list price to $539, which beat my budgeted price.

Some things I liked about the Cub Cadet:

• Biggest motor in its class. The 208cc 4-cycle motor puts out advertised 9 ft-lb of torque which works out to 6-7 HP if it matches typical operating speed of 3800 RPM.
• Easily adjustable chute
• Gull wing handle
• Electric start
• Large 8" ball-bearing wheels
• Reputable company (Cub Cadet)
• Bonus: in-dash headlight! (Might be the only one on the market with this.)

I think this compares very well against or even beats the Toro 421QE and beats the price by almost $300! When I started looking, I almost bought a McCollough 961 that was on sale from http://www.snowblowersdirect.com for $449 on Cyber Monday. I noticed it had the 208cc motor that put up an impressive head-to-head comparison on a YouTube video. After grepping around the internet, I discovered the Cub Cadet with the same motor and some fairly strong reviews. I decided the Cub Cadet was close in price and had a LOT more features, so went for it. Here's my comparison spreadsheet on Google docs showing the ones I looked at.

Single Stage Snow Blower Comparison Spreadsheet

I just ordered it and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my unit and the first snow!

UPDATE1: I got my snow blower a couple days later from Home Depot. Unfortunately, the box got bashed up so the main wheel axle was bent. Another minor point was the head-light mounting clip was cracked and broken, so the light just falls out of the mounting point. I called Home Depot and they happily sent me another one. I returned the first one to a local store and got my payment refunded properly. No big deal. Unfortunately, the second shipment ALSO had a broken headlight clip because the same cross-piece was bouncing around inside the container again. Definitely a shipping flaw.

UPDATE2: I've now gone through a few minor snow storms and must say I'm very pleased with my purchase. The first snow was small ... only a few inches. The cub ripped right through it with no trouble. The second storm was a little more of a challenge. We got about 8" of heavy, wet snow. I went out a few times, the deepest being about 5-6" at once. Again, absolutely no problem. It even plugged through the slushy, mushy stuff the next day and just flung it 10' in whatever direction I pointed it. I was able to blast through the 2" snow bank the plow left for me, as well. That was a little more work and required some maneuvering and a few passed to let it chew through everything.

Overall: very happy with my purchase. I'm not sure it's quite as peppy as my neighbors old 2-stroke Toro, but I have no complaints. I really like the easily adjustable side-to-side swing for the chute as well as the up/down adjuster. (Minor design point: the force of the thrown snow tends to push the angle up unless you really crank the pinch bolts down.) Plus, the little headlight is cool and makes all my neighbors jealous.

Creating a VirtualBox VM from a VMware machine

I recently had some problems where my VMplayer was running really slow for an XP guest machine on my Vista host machine. The performance was terrible -- very very unusably slow. It took 10 minutes to boot and then would have a 2-3 second lag (at least) when moving mouse and clicking on something. I have no idea why, so I thought I'd try some other options.

I decided to try Virtual Box, the free VM player from Oracle/Sun. So far, it work pretty well.

I was able to use the existing VMware disk image for my Vbox image. I copied the VMware .vmdx files from my existing directory into a new place, then created a new Vbox image and pointed it to the existing disk image. It was VERY straight forward.

The one problem I had was networking and display drivers. When I boot the machine, it didn't want to work at very well, all. It  had the generic VGA driver and NO network driver. This made it hard for it to get network disk drivers.

As it turns out, the virtual ethernet control looked close enough to the VMware AMD PCnet device that it was trying to use that driver, which of course failed. Virtual Box comes with some "guest tools" that can be installed which fix the problem. I had to install the guest tools inside the XP image (mounted as CD from ISO image). I also ran the 'unpack drivers' step from the command line based on their instructions to unpack the drivers into a local directory, although I'm not sure that was needed.  After installing these tools, the network adapters STILL didn't work. They were still trying to use the VMware drivers.

I fixed the problem by using "update driver" from the Device manager, then picking my own specific location and driver. It already recognized that it had the VBox AMD PCnet driver installed, but some how was priortizing the VMware one. I simply selected the VBox adapter and it started working.

Another note: I chose 'bridged adapter' in the configuration simply because the Cisco VPN client I was using in my image works better with that. I suspect it would work fine with NAT as well.

The 'guest tools' also installed and fixed the display driver so it ran a little better.

Overall: Vbox seems to be running very smoothly. I like it so far.


Side note: VirtualBox runs on Intel Macs, as well.


Rich