Apple Mac OS X and EFI Live

[REDGAR]

Anyone using EFILive with VM ware or parallel to tune?
Just got a Mac Book Air and want to do this. I will keep the PC and use that but if I can do it all from one machine...I would like to.

[SalesNinja]

i would also like to know if anyone is doing this?

[Tordne]

I know there there a quite a few people do it. Not sure about using the FlashScan V2 as a pass-thru device for reading/tuning/logging though. In theory it "should" be fine so long as the visualization layer doesn't introduce to much latency with the USB comms.

[joecar]

I did it with VMware Fusion running WinXP (on virtual machine), it's fine.

I now do it with WinXP booted using Boot Camp (i.e. native machine WinXP), I like thie better.

[schwoch1]

SO I hate to drag up a semi old thread, but I am looking at the New Macbook Pro's to replace the POS Gateway that Best Buy sold me.......
Apple claims 7+ hours of battery life out of them, but that is running Apple OS I am sure. What is the average battery life that you all are getting while running in the XP side of things???? I have heard some reports of less than 1 hour, some say 2, it is all over the board. Don't want to dump $1100 dollars for a Mac and find out the battery life is less than the laptop I have now. I have an Imac for home use and I like the way the Apple OS works, feels,etc... so I think that a Macbook Laptop would be a good fit for me but unfortunately EFI Live (or any other tuning program) don't support OSX, so I still have to use windows for some things!!! Thanks for any replies received!!!!

Mike

[joecar]

I get 1 to 2 hours on a battery charge (it varies each time) on my older MacBook Pro.

[ScarabEpic22]

Heck I get 6.5-7hrs with mild internet surfing on my 17.3" HP dv7t Quad, Intel Core i7-2720QM quad core, 8gb, AMD Radeon HD 6770M, BluRay, etc. Thats using the Intel integrated HD graphics, if I run with the AMD card on its about half that. Even on the integrated graphics, playing 720p video isnt an issue (havent tried 1080p yet). And I paid about $1120 shipped with tax for it. If you really want to run OSX, buy an HP then run VirtualBox and run OSX in that. Im doing it now, works pretty well but there are a few quirks.

[joecar]

Yeah, the Mac is overpriced.

I'm thinking that a netbook might be a good in-car option since it is compact and cheap.

[schwoch1]

Yeah, the Mac is overpriced.

I'm thinking that a netbook might be a good in-car option since it is compact and cheap.
Yah, I will agree that the Mac's are overpriced, but they seem to be a better built computer than some of the other brands that are out there. It seems like every new laptop I get (have had 2 in the alst 4 years) always have hardware issues, hard drive failure, motherboard takes a shit, memory stick goes bad (first for me) etc. Our 3 year old Imac has had zero issues that I haven't created myself ;). I am convinced that if Apple sold paper at $10 a sheet, they couldn't keep it in stock!!!
I also thought the netbook route, but they are really tiny to try and type on, but I suppose one could get used to that. Battery life is phenomonal on the netbooks though. Maybe I will look into one of them and see what happens!!! Any brands to stay away from????? Seems to me like they are all bad, just some are worse than others :) I am looking for a strictly tuning computer, one that goes from car to car, not going to watch movies, surf the net, etc!!!

Mike

[joecar]

Apple does have very good quality, better than anyone else out there. And yes they could easily sell paper at $10/sheet (people would buy) and their stock would jump up an addition 100% :)

I find my MacBook Pro cumbersome inside the car (EFILive), and under the car (Picoscope)... the netbook form/factor seems less cumbersome... but you're right the screen/keyboard are too small; they do have excellent battery life.

I use a MacBook Pro because my employer has me lugging this everywhere I go since this allows me to easily ssh to all the servers in our lab (using VPN).

[ScarabEpic22]

If you want an in-car tuning laptop, a netbook is probably a good idea. Good battery life, usually dont run very hot, small form factor (screen size is the downfall). Im a big fan of Asus, only run their motherboards in all my custom desktop builds and have only had 1 fail in ~10 builds, and that was back when there was a huge scandal over a 3rd party vendor supplying inferiod capacitors. 6mo out of warranty, Asus sent me a brand new mobo, I paid to ship it there and thats it. The eeePc's are great, I think you can get them up to 13" now too. Small screen for tuning, but I usually only make small changes on the fly and do most of the work at my desk (if I can help it).

[NateD4]

Not sure how EFI Live impacts battery usage but my 3 year old MacBook Pro runs at least 2 hours on a charge in Windows 7. That was with a battery that exceeded its cycle count. With the new Battery I'm getting about 3.5-4 hours from it. The new MacBooks are way better for battery. Personally I'd never buy a non MacBook for a laptop. Its bad enough the boot camp drivers for the trackpad do not perfectly match the feel of the OS X ones. Then again who needs windows at all?

[joecar]

The majority of my apps run on Windows and have not been ported to OSX...

[68problemchild]

I have a newer Macbook pro and have been using it to tune with Parallels. It works fine. No issues at all.

Power consumption has never been an issue for me. Mine runs all day on a single charge however, I have not paid attention to whether it has a different draw running windows. Intuitively, this would seem unlikely.

I also run the Apple versions of Word, Excel, Outlook. They work great.

Also its not crashing with a virus daily like my Windows was. With a day and half rebuild each time Windows went out the $1000 mac was the best money I ever spent. Flawless operation since day one.

[ScarabEpic22]

Honestly if you are having virus/malware issues now in Windows, you're not running a basic antivirus. Microsoft's FREE Security Essentials is extremely good, better than some paid antivirus/antimalware solutions actually. Ive gotten maybe 2-3 virus/malware infected files in 4 or 5 years now, and all of them were from sketchy torrents and all were automatically discovered by AVG (what I usually use, been using/testing Security Essentials for a while now). I understand everyone's pain with viruses as I work in IT, but honestly its dead simple to install a free program that runs in the background and updates itself automatically.

Fun fact, did you know OS X is actually the LEAST secure OS on the market today? Problem is, no one writes viruses for it because it has such a small market share compared to Windows. Here's one I found quickly on Google, there are a ton more: OSX Security (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/analysis/1590073/apple-mac-os-x-secure-windows)

If you havent run Windows 7, it is a HUGE upgrade from XP (since most people skipped Vista). Just tested my new HP dv7t quad laptop on friday for battery life, with a 9 cell I got about 6.5-7 hours with wifi on and listening to pandora the whole time. And thats with a 17.3" screen, Core i7-2720QM, 8gb ram, 750gb hdd, and Radeon HD 6770M (using integrated Intel HD graphics on battery though). Think a SSD is in my very near future.