More on Mac's "Boot Camp"

A week or so ago, I told you about the Macintosh "Boot Camp" beta software from Apple. This handy-dandy software lets you install Windows XP on a Macintosh computer (Intel-based Mac's only) right alongside the Mac operating system..then allows you to choose either a Mac or Windows operating system at boot-up.

There has been a lot written about this new software lately in the technology press, mostly raves about the concept itself. But how does it work?

Our friends at CNET have done some in depth testing and come up with some very interesting results, mostly positive. By going to their special web page, you can watch a 90 second video on how it works, then go over to their in-depth testing page and read all the specifics.

If you are intrigued as I am about the concept, you will enjoy reading the article. If you don't want to take the time, the bottom line is that the system works well. Windows runs just fine on the Intel-based Mac computer. Of course it should as Windows was made to run on Intel processors.

You do have to choose which operating system you want to use at startup...you cannot run the two side-by-side. However, it is easy to change from one to the other in midstream just by holding down two buttons together for a couple of seconds.

Overall, Windows performed quite well on the Mac computer. There were differences in some program performance, as would be expected. For instance, the music software "iTunes" ran faster on the Mac than Windows, but that it not unusual since iTunes was originally written for the Mac. Games ran much better on Windows than the Mac, but the Mac really isn't a gaming machine. But, by having both systems on your computer, you can enjoy the best of both worlds.

Of course, doing that would cost you a lot of money. I would love to run my graphic software like Photoshop on a Mac as it is preferred by most graphic professionals. But, at this point, I am not going to buy a few thousand dollars worth of Mac-based software that I already own in the Windows version. So, although I am very intrigued and happy to see that you can now have Mac OS-X running on the same machine as Windows, it is a bit too late in the game for someone like me.