Month: July 2017

Installing Win 10 on a Macbook for FREE

Here are my notes for turning a Macbook Pro into a very nice Windows 10 machine for free using Bootcamp. This is not for everybody, I know, so why would I even do such a thing?

1. I find OSX hard to switch to when I am forced to use Windows all day on another work issued laptop. So this Macbook is hardly used.

2. Actually OSX is terrible. Objectively I like Windows 10 better.

3. Operating systems should just get the fuck out of my way. I’d be just as happy using Ubuntu but Windows is pretty good. Git Bash gives me all the Linux compatibility I need.

4. I do web development. That means I don’t need many binaries. Everything I need is platform independent. All my tools are written in Node.

5. I need to test on IE from time to time

6. Did a mention OSX is really really awful? They should just give up writing software. I am waaaay more productive using Windows or Linux.

7. The Macbook display and hardware is beautiful. Even Windows 10 looks beautiful on it.

8. It’s dual boot. No Macbooks were actually harmed in the process.

So let’s get started:

Download Windows 10 ISO file from
https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10ISO

You should choose the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition to install using Bootcamp. You can upgrade from that later.
i.e. Win10_1607_English_x64.iso

Run Bootcamp 
Set Partition size. Think about the right size now rather than trying to resize it later. Select the Windows iso
Format the BOOTCAMP partition 
Click next and let it do its thing

Windows will start, answer questions about preferred language etc
When asked answer “I don’t have a licence code” 
Install Windows 
Install Bootcamp inside windows

Make the fonts look the right size:

Control Panel > Display: Turn off custom scaling

Reduce sensitivity of trackpad for two finger scrolling:

Control Panel > Mouse > choose how many lines to scroll = 1

Select “additional mouse options” and set lines to scroll to 1

Reverse the scrolling direction for “natural” trackpad scrolling:

Use Regedit to swap direction of track pad:

Under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetEnumHIDVID_??????Device Parameters

(where ??? is different on every machine) search for properties named FlipFlopWheel and FlipFlopHScroll and set both of them to 1. They may appear a few times for different values of ???.

Turn background to black

(On an unregistered Windows, you are prevented from customising the wallpaper but they don’t stop you from blanking it out completely)

Control panel > ease of access > other options > show windows background = off

Optional: Make Command key work like the Control key

If you find yourself reaching for the left Command key a lot you might want to map it to the same value as the left Control key. The easiest way to do that is to use the free open source tool SharpKeys

http://www.randyrants.com/2006/07/sharpkeys_211/

Finishing up

Connect to WiFi 
Install Chrome 
Login to Chrome

My setup for web development:

Install Git Bash for Windows
> Use git from windows command prompt

Install VS Code 
Open command window Ctrl-`
On first run you’ll be asked if you want to customise command prompt 
Choose your preferred terminal shell 
Choose git bash

Install Node

My notes for turning a Macbook Pro into a very nice Windows 10 machine for free using Bootcamp (not for everybody, I…

My notes for turning a Macbook Pro into a very nice Windows 10 machine for free using Bootcamp (not for everybody, I know). Thanks to Emlyn O’Regan for the original tip.

Download Windows 10 ISO file from

https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10ISO

choose a Windows 10 Anniversary Edition

i.e. Win10_1607_English_x64.iso

You can upgrade from there later.

Run Bootcamp

Set Partition size. Don’t try to resize this later.

Select the Windows iso

Format the BOOTCAMP partition

Click next and let it do its thing

Windows will start, answer questions about preferred language etc

When asked answer “I don’t have a licence code”

Install Windows

Install Bootcamp inside windows

Tweaks:

To make the fonts look the right size:

Control Panel > Display: Turn off custom scaling

To reduce sensitivity of trackpad for two finger scrolling:

Control Panel > Mouse > choose how many lines to scroll = 1

Select “additional mouse options” and set lines to scroll to 1

To reverse the scrolling direction for “natural” trackpad scrolling:

Use Regedit to swap direction of track pad:

Under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetEnumHIDVID_??????Device Parameters

(where ??? is different on every machine) search for properties named FlipFlopWheel and FlipFlopHScroll and set both of them to 1. They may appear a few times for different values of ???.

* Turn background to black *

(On an unregistered Windows, you are prevented from customising the wallpaper but they don’t stop you from blanking it out completely)

Control panel > ease of access > other options > show windows background = off

Connect to WiFi

Install Chrome

Login to Chrome

My setup for web development:

Install Git Bash for Windows

> Use git from windows command prompt

Install VS Code

Open command window Ctrl-`

On first run you’ll be asked if you want to customise command prompt

Choose your preferred terminal shell

Choose git bash

Install Node

https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10ISO

Internet speed and cost by country.

Originally shared by ****

Internet speed and cost by country. This has to be the BS chart of the week. It’s what Akamai sees when stuff gets downloaded from their servers, but the problem is, the vast majority of stuff hosted on it has tiny file sizes. So what you’re basically seeing are speeds of downloads that last under a second anyway. The way TCP/IP connections work is that it starts slow implementing congestion control , tries to increase the window size and then ramps up the speed until it encounters packet loss or some QOS mechanism kicks in , and that takes a few seconds. This data is NOT representative of average broadband speeds. For example, there is no fucking way Romania has lower speeds than the US. I can have uncapped 1Gbps download and 500Mbps upload for 8.5 eur/month. And this is in a country with some of the fastest and cheapest internet connections in the world. The 20 meg average that shows here on the graph is only representative if you have a time machine and travel back to 1999.