Rob Pegoraro
Monday, March 20, 2006 9:36 AM

It happened, and in much less time than I would have ever guessed.

With a little tinkering, you can load Windows XP on a Mac with an Intel processor, then boot into either that operating system or the usual Mac OS X. With such a software transplant, Apple's Intel-based machines -- the iMac, the MacBook Pro and the Mac Mini, the last being the subject of my column yesterday -- can justifiably be called the compatible personal computers in the world.

The software you need to do this didn't come from Apple or Microsoft. It came from the winners of an online contest -- two people identified only as "Blanka and Narf."  Their solution seems reasonably simple ... if you're the kind of person who happens to have an extra PC around, the right third-party disc burning software and a willingness to live without support for some Mac hardware within Windows.

First you create a custom copy of XP with the special boot-up files those two hackers cooked up; then repartition your Intel-based Mac's hard drive into Mac and Windows partitions; reinstall OS X; and load XP. I'm looking forward to trying this procedure out, and hopefully I'll have a report about it in next week's installment of this newsletter.

For the record, at first I had thought people would have XP running on an Intel-based Mac in no time, based on the early word from Apple:"Apple suggests you'll be able to install a copy of Windows alongside Mac OS X with moderate effort."

But when the iMac debuted in January and people discovered that its "EFI" bootup software wasn't compatible with Windows at all, I was a lot less optimistic: "Although the Intel Core Duo chip in the iMac will also soon grace many Windows laptops, other parts of this Apple's innards aren't compatible with Windows XP, at least for now." At that point, I figured that one emulation program or another would bring XP to OS X first.

Those efforts are still underway -- for instance, one called Q  that simulates a complete Windows computer, and another called Darwine that lets individual Windows programs run right inside OS X. At some point, Microsoft may reveal its plans for bringing Virtual PC to Intel-based Macs as well. But in the meantime, Mac users looking for the option of running Windows don't have to wait any longer.

Copyright and Wrong

Last Wednesday and Thursday, representatives of consumer-electronics, computing and entertainment firms gathered at the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington for the Consumer Electronics Association's annual Entertainment and Technology Policy Summit.  (Disclosure: I moderated one panel discussion Thursday morning.)

The most interesting part of this was the closing debate, which featured a lineup guaranteed to clash: Dan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Association of America; Leslie Harris, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology; David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers' Association (a late replacement for Recording Industry Assocation of America chairman Mitch Bainwol); CEA chief Gary Shapiro; Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge; and Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Moderator (and veteran industry analyst) Gary Arlen dressed for the occasion by donning a referee's zebra-striped shirt.

The expected fireworks ensued. One side accused the other of polarizing things, at which point the other said, "No, you're the polarizer!" That was no surprise. (Lest anybody think I'm trying to say both sides are equally screwed up, I'm not. See my last year-in-review column for just a few of my thoughts on this subject.)

What did surprise me, however, was the extremist position Israelite staked out. He asserted that intellectual policy has the same legal status as physical property, implied that anybody who disagreed might as well be a communist, and declared that the consumer-electronics industry has spent the last 10 years growing at the expense of the entertainment industry.

The first position was laughable enough that the lawyer sitting to my right all but shouted out, "Says who?" The U.S. Constitution is breathtakingly clear about this: Intellectual property -- that is, the creative work covered by patents and copyrights -- has only whatever temporary protection Congress sees fit to grant. It's not the same as physical property and never has been. If you're not clear on this, any first-year law student ought to be able to set you straight. (If you're a first-year law student and you're not clear on this, please consider whether you're really on the right career path.)

As for the "if you don't agree with that, there's another system out there called communism" line: Oh, please. As a general rule, dropping the C-bomb in a political debate is unlikely to do anything but convince undecided observers that you're not only dangerously unhinged, but that you're also seriously out of touch. (The current, correct version of this argument is, as we all know, "If you don't support me on this, then the terrorists win.")

As for Israelite's last contention, it merely showed a total lack of understanding of recent history. Would anybody in Hollywood really prefer life without the advent of the DVD player, which has made the studios billions of dollars in added revenue since its arrival?

Well, I can't say watching this debate didn't make for interesting theater. I'd like to think that nobody in a position of power takes those kinds of arguments with any seriousness anymore ... but I'm sure there are people in Congress who still do.

Tech-Support Offense of the Week

My Friday evening involved more work than I'd hoped -- a reader called, very angry and upset, some time past 7, to complain about how Symantec's Norton Internet Security had knocked him and most of his family offline by stopping their AOL software from connecting to the Internet. I quickly found Symantec's tech-support note about this problem (note the dismaying workaround procedure recommended there, without any advice about using somebody else's firewall program while you download the update to fix the update that kicked you off), then set out to confirm the phone number listed for Symantec's tech-support line in a story I'd read at News.com.

I could not find that number anywhere in plain view on Symantec's site; I had to fill out a form online with my name, e-mail address and phone number just to get it.

Having to go through that effort just to find a phone number -- one that you normally have to pay $29.95 per incident to use -- annoyed me greatly. Having to go through that around 8 on a Friday night annoyed me still further. So here it is:

800-927-3991

Web Chat and Weekend Roundup

I'll beonline at 2 p.m. today to talk about these topics and many more. Stop by if you can, or submit your questions early. If you miss the chat when it's live, you can read the transcript any time at the same link.

In my column yesterday, I review Apple's new Mac Mini and see how well it can do the job of serving as a digital-media hub for a home theater. (Aside from the worst wireless performance I've ever seen, the answer is: pretty well. You can only hope there will be a fix for that WiFi problem soon.)

Frank Ahrens takes a tour through history's back pages with Newspaper-Archive.com's searchable collection of old newspaper pages. Daniel Greenberg reports on his tests of Creative Technologies' X-Fi sound cards. And in Help File, I explain why you should be wary of anybody suggesting "turn off your firewall" when things stop working on your computer.

Questions? Comments? Send them to rob@twp.com.