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My windows workstation is pretty well setup. I dislike laptop keyboards because everybody has their own setup of the keys, and since I am a touch typist, I use a standard QWERTY 101 keyboard.
I am just starting Mac development.
What is a good keyboard to get for my shiny new Macbook Pro?
What should I look for in a good monitor for the Macbook Pro?
Is there a KVM switch that I can use to flip between the Macbook Pro and my Windows workstation?
I would get a standard US Layout Apple Wired Keyboard, a Dell 27" ultra sharp monitor... They use the same panels as the Apple plant for a fraction of the price.
as for a KVM switch, no experience with that, you can however install windows on your mac using bootcamp (recommended).
Our setup for developing with a MacBook Pro consists of:
Griffin Elevator (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/elevator)
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Pad (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB110LL/A)
A Dell monitor with Display Port such as the UltraSharp U2211H (http://accessories.dell.com/sna/products/Displays/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-9271)
A Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable from Monoprice (http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10246&cs_id=1024606&p_id=6006&seq=1&format=2)
Any mouse you feel comfortable with
Keyboard: I use the Apple keyboard with numeric pad (wired). I have tried other keyboards, but they tend not to work very well when I run Windows under BootCamp. (It sounds like you have a separate Windows machine, though, so this might not be a problem for you.) I have tried several keyboards and have found that only the Apple keyboards work really well with the Mac. The primary reason for this is the quick key shortcuts
Monitor: I use a Dell Monitor 24" my with Mac. It has multiple inputs including a DisplayPort, which will work well with your MacBook Pro. You just need the displayport adapter from MonoPrice (www.monoprice.com).
As an alternative, you mention the use of a KVM. In my experience, cheap KVMs are cheap and do not work well. I have used KVMs from several manufacturers. The one I have found to be the best is one from Avocent (www.avocent.com). They have KVMs that are called SwitchView Desktop KVMs and they work very well. They have ones that work with DVI ports. You can get a DVI adapter for your MacBook Pro.
If you are looking for a keyboard/mouse combo, I would recommend the Logitech products. I recommend the ones that are NOT Bluetooth. They can be plugged into the Avocent KVM and work perfectly.
Hope this helps!
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Trying to setup my both work laptops, windows, and Macbook connecting to 2 monitors, a set of keyboard and mouse and switch between them whenever needed? I thought of using a KVM but need recommendations on which one is better? Also I am reading software KVM's replacing hardware KVM's? So not sure which is the better approach. Any help is appreciated.
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Here's the problem - I need my Bluetooth Low Energy-Only device to be able to connect to Windows 7 computers. Preferably using a regular CSR dongle, if possible. Is there any way or workaround?
I spent the two last days googling stuff to make my designer mouse working on my Lenovo T450 under Windows 7.
The solution I found may not apply to everyone: your computer must have a Bluetooth 4.0 capability (which as I understand allows Bluetooth Low Energy (aka BLE or Bluetooth Smart) to work.
The BLE drivers are not native to Windows 7 so you need to install them: go to your manufacturer's website and download the latest Intel Bluetooth drivers. Depending on the make, they might have various combinations of drivers (sometimes with overall wireless drivers, sometimes Bluetooth separately,.. I had to try about 3 - 4 different without really knowing what they meant). Once those drivers installed, you should be able to see your mouse/keyboard and pair to them.
I had to reboot my laptop multiple times and had to download a lot of different drivers from various sources but the one thing that worked was googling: Intel Bluetooth driver "your laptop make and model" and downloading the drivers.
Ps. I have also downloaded the "Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center" application and although opening it and trying to use it did not help at all, it might have help setting something in the background that made the drivers get installed smoothly (not an IT person, I have no idea).
I hope it helps!
Good luck
You need Bluetooth hardware that supports Bluetooth 4.0 or higher. Then just install the driver for Windows 7. Don't use Windows' internal update service (its lying and will tell you that your driver is up to date). I used this:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/28510/Intel-Wireless-Bluetooth-for-Windows-7-
Well, Logitech Mx Anywhere 2 surprisingly started working with Windows 7 (Dell 380 Module on E6430 laptop) with IVT Bluesoleil Stack (unfortunately not freeware). Context menu of its icon in tray has "Bluetooth 4.0 functions", that allow adding BLE/Smart devices.
So I have a question about what system I should use to do some C# development. In my course this year at least half of my courses require me to be using Windows specific programs i.e visio, MSSQL, C# etc. I know there are alternatives but I would like to stick to these. I'm wondering about two choices and wanted to know what people could suggest - I am more concerned with performance issues. I have a Macbook Pro and I could run windows 7 on it under virtualbox where I could give it 4gb of ram. Remember I would need windows open a lot with potentially multiple programs running. I also have a desktop gaming rig from a year ago which is much more grunty and am contemplating just using that instead where I could run windows natively. I would prefer to use the mac, but really what I wanted to know is if anyone else uses windows under vb with 4gb of ram dedicated to it with no performance issues?
It depends on what type development do you want to do ? If you will develop desktop,web,console application 4gb ram will work fine for you but if you develop mobile projects or games it will be a problem future times. I have co-worker friend who using MacBook Air and developing C# programs he is using two OS one of them is orginal MacBook OS other one W8 if you have 2 section HDD you can create another OS on your notebook. I think best solution for this stuiation is setup Windows 8 to your computer.
I have two computers; one MacBook Pro and one desktop PC running Windows. For various reasons I prefer writing code on the MacBook, while I keep the desktop PC mostly for gaming and entertainment purposes.
Since I've gotten so used to programming on an OSX keyboard layout, I often find it cumbersome to start working on something while I'm on my Windows computer. And since I'm ridiculously lazy I also find it cumbersome to get my laptop out of my bag so I can switch to using that instead. This usually results in me not bothering to do much work while I'm on my desktop (which depressingly enough is most of my evenings).
I guess I'm looking for a way to quickly enable an OSX keyboard layout in Windows. I'd also like to run Ubuntu in a VM on Windows, and use the OSX keyboard there as well.
Possible?
You can use Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator to create a custom keyboard layout on Windows that mirrors the Mac OS one.
Ubuntu has an infinitely flexible and impossibly complicated keyboard layout system called XKB, which has limited documentation. Ubuntu probably already has all the data for the Mac keyboard layout you want stored among the hundreds of files in /usr/share/X11/xkb/, but figuring out how to load it will drive you crazy. You might have luck asking about this on Ask Ubuntu or the Unix stack exchange.
You could have a look at Synergy, using your Mac keyboard on both the PC and Mac.
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I've started developing with Delphi on the Mac and thought I would share my observations and see if anyone else had any advice or tips for Mac development with Delphi.
A while back I had some comment discussion about Delphi development on a Mac. It was in the comments of an answer to another question. With the passing of some months, I thought it might be worth writing up a quick summary for anyone thinking about switching VM host.
Overall OS X + VMware makes a very nice development platform for making Delphi apps.
Platform
MacBook Pro 17" 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo. OS X Leopard
VMware Fusion 2.0.5
Vista + Delphi 2007
Observations
moving an existing PC development environment is straight forward. VMware
can build a VM from a physical PC, or as I did, build it from a TrueImage backup. Existing host VMS's can just be copied across.
there is obviously a performance hit using a VM, but it's not really that noticeable. I'd say speed is at least as fast as my previous HP 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo
get plenty of RAM. 4GB or 8 if you can afford it. 4GB is quite usable
Delphi building a fair-sized app goes fine in a 1.5GB VM
allocate only 1 core to the VM - it's faster
use a virtual hard drive for the guest OS. It's much faster than running the guest from a BootCamp partition
the MBP has two video subsystems, NVidia 9400M and 9600M GT. Using the faster 9600M gives a much smoother experience when VMware is running
VMware Fusion doesn't have the WDDM driver needed to enable Aero. If your app has Aero features you want to test, you'll need to make a separate BootCamp Windows installation to try out the Aero features
the ctrl key vs command key of Windows and OS X will probably be quite annoying with the default settings. VMware let's you control key mappings, so you can set it so the Win vs Mac differences are minimised. You'll probably also want to tweak the keyboard and mouse settings in System Preferences
the Mac function keys (Expose etc) conflict step on the Delphi. The Mac function keys can be disabled in the VMware preferences.
if you are using a MBP, there are no PgUp, PgDn, Home and End keys. Apple got a bit too minimalist here. You get these keys using Fn or Cmd modifiers. There are irritating inconsistencies between some apps
two-finger scrolling on the MBP trackpad is a thing of beauty
if you don't have multiple monitors, putting Windows full-screen in a Space works pretty well
if you use Time Machine for backups, it will backup the entire VM (unless you have it broken into smaller files). You can make this more manageable by creating a snapshot. Time Machine will then only backup the much smaller change file. That file will gradually grow - delete the snapshot and make a new one (doing a backup first, of course :-)
Mac is a nice user experience, but it's not magic - they have their wtf moments too
What are you Delphi Development with Mac tips and advice? Thanks!
You can also try wxForms for Delphi from TwinForms.com
For making native Mac apps you might want to check out Lazarus. Its a bit like the older Delphis (which personally i prefer than to the newer Visual Studio looking interface) but its quite good and used in production environments.