[John Rofrano]

Hi Pauline,

Oh, I totally get it. My main computer is a 2010 Mac Pro, 12-Core, 24GB memory, 1TB SSD, Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition graphics card and it is still going strong. I have no plans of upgrading any time soon (I just added a USB 3.1 Gen 2 card for external USB-C storage). It gets the job done for me.

My current MacBook Pro is a 2018, 6-Core i7, 32GB memory, 1TB SSD and it rocks! If you can get a refurbished 2018 MacBook Pro I’m sure you will be more than happy with the performance.

Good Luck and Stay Safe!

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

I would also definitely shop for a sale. I just got an email this morning that Micro Center has the Apple MacBook Pro 16” Laptop, Intel Core® i9 2.3GHz Processor, 1TB SSD MSRP $2799.99 USD for $2479.99. That’s a $320 savings. That brings the $400 difference down to $80. It’s a no brainer. Don’t know of there is a Micro Center near you (it’s an in store only sale) but look for a sale. They are out there.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Todd Gruel] “Okay, technical clarification. Is the folder sharing and hybridization of files the same for all the virtualisation programs? Can I get away with avoiding formatting a partition as ExFat with all three options? If I can save the projects in a Mac-compatible format then it would be easier to back up, for sure!”

Yes, it is the same for all virtualization software. Part of the virtualization that they do is to create a virtual network within which you can share drives. It doesn’t matter what their original format is, they are accessed via this virtual network. This makes all drives look the same.

The only time you would format a partition as ExFat is if you were using something like Bootcamp with a “real” Windows partition. Bootcamp is not virtualization. Its Windows running natively on Mac hardware. In that case, it sees the “real” drive and the drive needs to have a format that Windows understands. But with virtualization, this is not the case.

[Todd Gruel] “Also, do you only get that prompt about whether you want USB drives to register as Mac or Windows drives the first time they’re plugged in (making this an important one-time decision) or does this happen every time the drives are plugged in? Can they register as both Mac and Windows drives simultaneously?”

You get prompted every time. The drive cannot be connected to both at the same time, but you could answer Mac the first time. Copy files from your Mac to the USB drive. Eject the drive from your Mac. Plug it back in, answer Windows the second time and the USB drive shows up in the Windows VM. Every time you eject it, and re-insert it, you will be promoted to attach it to either Windows or Mac. This assumes that the Windows VM is running. If you haven’t started it yet, then there is no prompt and the USB drive is attached to your Mac just like normal.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

I agree with the others that iZotope RX is the best solution. I haven’t used the Elements version but it’s worth a try but understand that street noise is not constant like an air conditioner and any noise that is not constant is hard to remove from the signal.

The Sony Noise Reduction Fx does a good job on constant noise but will do nothing for traffic or other street noise. RX is your best bet for noise like this.

As my good friend Douglas Spotted Eagle once said,

“A $50 mic close up will sound better than a $500 mic far away.”

Maybe it’s time to get a lavaliere mic. Using a shotgun mic in a noisy environment is not the best choice. A good cardioid lavaliere (not omni) might give better results.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

Ah OK, I thought you already had the software and knew now it worked. Let me fill you in because I’ve been using virtualization software for over 10 years. I teach a masters class on DevOps and Agile Methodologies at New York University (NYU) and I have my students do all of their class work in a Linux virtual machine so that I don’t have to deal with the differences between Windows and Mac. I use VirtualBox for my class because it is free. Its not as slick as Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion but you can’t beat the price.

[Todd Gruel] “What do you mean about virtualization software allowing you to share folders on a Mac drive? I was thinking that folders had to be separated according to OS formatting, ExFat for Windows and Mac OS Journaled for Mac, etc. “

When you create your Windows virtual machine you will be asked if you want to share any folders on your Mac with the Windows OS. It doesn’t matter how your drives are formatted; inside of Windows they look like network attached drives. The virtualization software takes care of turning them into what looks like a network share and Windows can read and write to them regardless of how they are formatted on your Mac.

Parallels Desktop will even ask if you want to share the home folder of your Mac as the home folder on Windows so that all of your files are available in both OS’s. I have always said No to this. I am very selective about what folders I let Windows see from my Mac. You might even want your project folder in Windows to actually be on your Mac and shared inside of your Windows VM. Then TimeMachine will backup your project files with the rest of your Mac. Problem solved! ?

I would download the 14 Day Free Trial of Parallels Desktop and play with it so that you understand better how this all works.

[Todd Gruel] “Using a USB drive would probably be best, I think. By map onto a virtualization, do you mean that Windows files can be saved onto a Mac drive directly when using some virtualization software? Is that safe?”

Yes, and it’s completely safe. When you start the Windows virtual machine first, and then plug a USB drive into your Mac, you will be greeted with a prompt that asks, “Do you want the USB drive to be connected to Mac or Windows?”. If you answer “Windows”, it shows up as a USB drive in the Windows virtual machine. If you answer”Mac” it shows up as a drive on your Mac.

You can also drag and drop files from the Windows VM to your Mac. So you could drag a folder from the Windows VM and drop it on your Mac Desktop and all of the files will be copied to your Mac. It’s pretty cool. (download the free trial… I think you will be amazed at what you can do)

[Todd Gruel] “I haven’t picked a program yet. Maybe Parallels? I just need something compatible with very old Windows OSes. Any suggestions?”

My son uses Parallels Desktop and I use VMware Fusion because I got it from work. Both work great. Both retail for $79 USD. Both have support that goes back to PC-DOS. I was very impressed with how easy Parallels Desktop set up Windows 10 for my son so I would say that Parallels might be a little more user friendly for someone who is unfamiliar with how virtualization works.

I don’t know how old of a Windows OS you need to use but here is a screen shot of Windows 98 running on my MacBook Pro with VMware Fusion. ?

I also have a VM that runs Windows 3.1 so it doesn’t get much older than that.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

If you just want to backup your project files you can use an external USB drive to do that while running the Windows OS in a virtual machine.

I use Scooter Software’s Beyond Compare to do this. It makes it very easy to compare files or entire folders and only copy the ones that have changed. It does not have an automated way to do this but I just run it after working in my Windows VM before I shut it down and backup all of my work. I actually back it up to a folder one of my Mac drives since most virtual machine software will allow you to share Mac folders inside the Windows machine.

What are you using for virtualization? Parallels Desktop? VMware Fusion? VirtualBox? All of those allow you to use USB drives from within the Windows VM or map a Mac folder into the virtual machine.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

Whatever virtualization software you’re using will store the windows operating system as disk images on your Mac as files. All you need to do is back up those files that represent the disk, and the windows machine is backed up. Something as simple as a carbon copy cloner batch job that copies them to an external disk every day would be fine.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

My son (who is a graphics designer and videographer) just purchased a new 16″ MacBook Pro 2.3GHz 8-Core Processor, 1TB Storage, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M and it is a beast! (I am jealous) The difference between the base model and this model is only $400. For that you get a 8-Core i9 instead of 6-Core i7, the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M instead of the 5300M, and 1TB SSD instead of 512TB.

Those upgrades are will worth $400 IMHO. I would not buy the base model. Remember, there are no upgrades. What you buy today has to last until you buy a new one. As a professional who is going to make money with your Mac, I feel the $400 is good investment because you will keep the computer longer because the 8-Core i9 is the latest technology as opposed to the Core i7 architecture which has been around since 2008.

Both my son and I use Final Cut Pro X and he is editing 4K like butter on that MacBook Pro. Photoshop runs really well (he mostly uses Photoshop and Illustrator from Adobe). I know Adobe Premiere doesn’t run as well as Apple’s FCP X on the Mac but if Adobe Creative Suite can’t run smoothly on an 8-Core i9 maybe it’s time to switch to something better. ? lol

As for Catalina, I wouldn’t be concerned if you are using the latest software. It’s only a problem for people who want to run older 32-bit applications because Catalina dropped 32-bit support. So you may not be able to use an older version of Adobe if it’s 32-bit. That’ something to think about.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

Agreed. Should have been done 3 versions ago when 10.12 Sierra changed the name to macOS

…or maybe we should rename it “Apple OS XI” 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Robert Withers] “I’ve heard that if you have Catalina on a computer you can’t re-install Mojave.”

I believe what you cannot do is to “non-destructively” go backward from Catalina to Mojave, but if you boot your Mac with the Mojave USB stick and you format the internal hard drive, it has no idea what operating system was on there. At that point I don’t see why you couldn’t install Mojave on it.

Here are instructions I found that tell you exactly how:
How to downgrade from MacOS Catalina to Mojave

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com