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I'm pretty happy with Vim ;)

Seriously, I've found NeoOffice enough to manage the daily flow of doc/xls/ppt files. I mostly view those files, the exception being Excel spreadsheets I routinely send to other departments. The spreadsheets are dumps of SQL queries, which I can produce as CSV and later import in OO Calc, or run under Parallels a Windows 2000 instance (pretty snappy in my Macbook) and EMS SQL Manager for MySQL to get the report straight as an Excel file (and character encoding issues are handled better).

I don't know why there wasn't a link to Parallels Coherence in the article summary (Youtube demo on page following).

I just updated my version of Parallels the other day, and didn't even notice the buttons for Coherence. It is extremely cool!

- RG>

For those wondering, like I was, what this Coherence thing was about (since the submitter or editors decided not to include a link), here ya go: Parallels Coherence. It basically lets Parallels run without having to use the Windows desktop so windows Apps appear to be more like Mac apps. Kinda slick.

• You Apple's BootCamp which sets up a dual-boot for you. It is very easy to do. This lets you run a "real" version of XP/Vista and all the needed drivers come with BootCamp. BootCamp is a free download.
• You some virtualization software such as Parallels or VMWare (which I think is beta for OS X).

This is WWDC. It is a developer conference, not a consumer conference. Its focus has always been software (although WWDC has occasionally been the forum for hardware announcements). Apple is doing more and more product introductions as they're ready (e.g., like last week's new MacBook Pro introduction), and less and less product introductions at conferences and "special events".

Everyone expecting brushed aluminum iMacs and new Cinema Displays shouldn't have expected that in the first place. And an Apple-branded virtualization solution? It's been known since last WWDC that Leopard wouldn't have integrated virtualization. With three different solutions already existing, plus Boot Camp, why would you even expect that, no matter how nice it would be?

And who would care about this announcement? This isn't just "Safari for Windows". Jeez. It's the channel for development for iPhone, since all of iPhone's third-party development will be as Safari web apps.

...a link to the actual MacBook Pro web page and specifications, since that's what people here probably care about, as opposed to a "TechNewsWorld" article being the only thing linked in the summary?

Also, while Apple folks and other tech-savvy folks may know the Intel-based Macs run Windows, why does the news article not even mention that? For many people even considering buying a Mac, the fact that a laptop like this can easily run Windows natively or seamlessly alongside Mac OS X with packages like Parallels Desktop at least bears repeating.

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/upgra de

Congratulations! Your upgrade will be free :-)

That's what's happening here at my work; folks are picking up Mac Books and running mostly Windows on them (via bootcamp).

We're looking to get a decent site license fee for Parallels, though, so they can run Windows/Linux within OSX. Is really slick running other OS apps transparently within OS X. If we can get the license deal, next step will be to phase out Office 2004 and Firefox for Mac and go with Office 2003/IE6 for Windows on the Macs. Will be so nice to never have to deal with Entourage again.

Some of these things might have more to do with the OS than the build...I wouldn't mine buying a Macbook and then installing Windows Vista if I could (sorry, OS-X is really really slick, but in some ways I prefer Windows and I have some Windows-only apps).

Well, no, because it isn't available yet. On the other hand, Parallels works great for this type of thing.

Replying to myself since I didn't put the link:

Parallels Transporter

Have you tried Turbo Tax with WINE ( http://www.winehq.org/ ) or CrossOver Office ( http://www.codeweavers.com/ ) which is based on WINE? Also you could use Parallels ( http://www.parallels.com/ ), VMware ( http://www.vmware.com/ ), or QEMU (http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/) to run windows as a guest system so you could have Turbo Tax. Also if you use Quicken you could run it in one of those as well, or move to a software like Moneydance ( http://www.moneydance.com/ ). I moved from Quicken to Moneydance and it transfered all my data quite nicely and works on Win/Lin/OSX natively.

Just some Ideas,

I find it quite telling that one of the most popular applications for the MAC is a program that lets you run a different OS.

If you've been paying attention here for the last year, most of the commentary surrounding virtualization on the Mac has revolved around people finally able to dump their infernal Windows machine and do everything on a Mac instead. Parallels, along with Boot Camp, is quite possibly the largest driver of Mac sales in the last year. There are a few functions not available on the Mac [yet] and Parallels lets people run those few apps they'd miss from Windows. Yes, Paralleles does run Linux. I currently know more people who dumped their Windows machines in the last year than I know remaining Windows owners - and those aren't far behind.

Linked version with condensed summary. I wanted to find out more about some of them. Others may benefit too.

Ecto a blogging client (but the site seems to be down: try this for more info). Shareware, $17.95.
Transmit an FTP client. Shareware, $17.95
Sync Services -- comes with 10.4
BBedit text/html editor. $125, but worth it.
Missing Synch for Windows Mobile - synchronize with PDA/smartphones. $49.95/$39.95
OmniGraffle - diagramming / flowchart program. $79.95 / $149.95
ConceptDraw - another diagramming / flowchart program. $299
IChat AV - built-in to 10.4
AppleScript, Scriptdebugger - also built-in. No link. I'm getting lazy.
Microsoft Entourage -- part of MS Office.
Sketchfigher 4000 Alpha -- a game from the great Ambrosia Software. $19.00
TypeIt4Me - keyboard macro expander. $27
NetworkLocation - automatically trigger configuration changes depending upon where you are on the network (e.g., at home, work, etc.). $15
Apple Remote Desktop 3 - control / configure Mac systems remotely. $499 / $299 (unlimited / 10 systems)
MacLinkPlus - file conversion software (e.g., from WordPerfect documents to/from Word, and many others). $79
Parallels Desktop for Mac - virtualization software (e.g., run Win XP simultaneously with OS X). $79.
Remote Desktop Connection - connect remotely to a Windows desktop. FREE
Snap X Pro - screen / movie capture. $29
Boot Camp - dual boot Windows. I'm lazy.
PDF - Portable Document Format from Adobe? What?
Lingon - tool for making launchd scripts for 10.4.
Workgroup Manager - manage local systems - part of 10.4 Server.

---
Okay, a mildly interesting list. Here's a few more suggestions:

Cyberduck - FTP and SFTP client. Donationware.
VLC - cross-platform video viewer / transcoder.
Blender 3D - cross-platform 3D modelling / rendering.
Bookends - excellent bibliography software. $99
Celestia - cross-platform real-time 3D astronomy simulator.
Plot - a, uh, plotting / graphing program.
proFit - another plotting / graphing program, non-free. $95
WordService - adds a bunch of text reformatting tools to the Services menu, making them accessible in any program. The same page has a bunch of other useful and free services.

The original article lists PDF, but no tools. While its true OS X native support makes PDF pretty easy to use, there's still some tasks that are awkward and some useful tools out there to do t

That was then. This is now.

Macs run Windows XP now either using boot camp (currently free but in beta) or Parallels Workstation (~$80 but the applications run right on your Mac OS X desktop in Coherence mode).

Maybe you have already tried this, but I would highly, highly recommend Parallels for running Windows apps if you have an Intel-based Mac. Now that they don't have to translate from x86 to PPC on the fly, virtualization on one of these new Macs is nearly as good as the real thing. Jump into fullscreen mode, and you won't notice the difference. And check out the "Coherence" feature in the latest release, which lets you have Windows windows (not stuttering there) next to Mac windows.

VMWare Workstation officially supports FreeBSD as a guest. Parallels Workstation for Windows and Linux and Parallels Desktop for Mac OS X officially supports FreeBSD as a guest.

Of course, many other *BSDs will also work fine under VMWare and Parallels products as well, even if officially "unsupported".

He never godl you that he is running Vista in Parallels http://www.parallels.com/ on OSX! duh! Of course you need 4GB.

The future is now, and the spaghetti is Windows. Microsoft admits that no one person understands Windows. The real future of operating systems is virtualization. If Microsoft's Windows department has anyone with a lick of sense in charge, the next version of Windows will be a ground-up new operating system (Singularity), with legacy apps and drivers running in an included virtualized copy of Windows Vista, exactly like Parallels in Coherence mode.

Doesn't Parallels costs $80 which is more than $30. Parallels may hold some advantages over Bootcamp but I don't think gaming is one of them. This might be appealing to some.

As a web developer working at a design firm I am forced to work with both OS X and Windows daily for testing. Because we are a Mac-based office I use a Mac as my primary machine. Boot Camp was a pain in the ass for me because in order to test I didn't want to be forced to reboot my machine.

My solution was to run Parallels. On my Mac, a basic Intel-based 2GHz dual-core iMac, Windows XP runs without skipping a beat; even when running processer-intensive applications such as Adobe's Creative Suite.

If you don't plan on using Windows as your primary OS on your Mac Parallels is absolutely awesome, and for my purposes, a hell of a lot better solution than Boot Camp ever was.

Bullshit.

The Mac Pro was released on August 7. The Parallels release to support it was released on September 7, ONE MONTH later.

http://support.apple.com/specs/

http://www.parallels.com/en/news/id,9598

Buy a Mac to run Safari and Firefox, then buy Parallels Desktop (or if you bought a used/close-out pre-Intel Mac, Virtual PC. Pick up a copy of Windows XP to run the modern versions of IE, and you're done. You wouldn't need XP Pro, you could get away with Home Edition, so it wouldn't be a huge outflow of cash.

Now, is this because Windows is just what everyone is running in a VM, so all of the resources are going toward it, or is there some inherent difficulty in replicating these features in Linux.

This is a more than fair question, because Parallels users have been complaining, as a google search shows. Linux is open source down to its skivvies, and it should follow that it should be easier to understand/tie into/work with the kernel, develop kernel modules if necessary, etc.

Yet a closed OS like Windows has numerous advanced integration features available for it that are sorely lacking in Linux. What gives? I understand development getting priority on Windows since the market share is bigger, but...I didn't expect it to be so lopsided, or perhaps some sort of community effort (though it bugs me when the community is forced to "do" a company's "job" for them.)

The thread I cited above mentions one good point: Parallels has been rushing to get marketshare precisely because VMware was highly likely to jump into the pool. They're been shipping for a while now, are showing great progress and promise. The author points out that Microsoft has decided not to play, leaving VMware as the 500lb gorilla.

Hopefully once Parallels is comfy in their market share, we'll see more support for Linux. Or, perhaps VMware will take advantage of Parallels' deficiencies and provide good Linux support. Either way- competition will hopefully fix this problem!

Heres something I found in the furums:

Hello all!

Now you can migrate your Windows PC, VMware or Virtual PC Virtual Machines to Parallels Virtual Machines.

You will need Parallels Transporter Beta for this. The Mac version is bundled into Parallels Desktop for Mac Beta Build 3036. The Windows version containing both Parallels Transporter and Parallels Transporter Agent can be downloaded from here.

1. Usage models.

* Migrate remote Windows PC over network directly to VM on your Mac/PC
1) Install Parallels Transporter Agent on your Windows PC you would like to migrate
2) Run Parallels Transporter on your Mac/PC
3) Migrate using few easy steps of Wizard

* Migrate Windows PC locally or to any removable media and move the resulted VM to Mac/PC
1) Install both Parallels Transporter and Parallels Transporter Agent on your Windows PC you would like to migrate
2) Run Parallels Transporter on that Windows PC
3) Migrate using few easy steps of Wizard
4) Deliver the resulting virtual machine to Mac/PC using any removable media

* Converting VMware Workstation/Server or Microsoft Virtual PC VMs to Parallels Desktop/Workstation-compatible format and move resulting Virtual Machine to Mac/PC
1) Install Parallels Transporter on your Windows PC
2) Run Parallels Transporter
3) Convert VM using few easy steps of Wizard
4) Deliver the resulting virtual machine to Mac/PC using any removable media

2. Supported OSes.

Parallels Transporter Agent is the provider which allows online migration of Windows PC:

* Windows 2000
* Windows XP
* Windows 2003

Parallels Transporter is the application which finally creates Parallels virtual machines:

* Windows 2000
* Windows XP
* Windows 2003
* Windows Vista (experimental support)
* Mac OS X

We are extremely interested in your feedback - please share your thoughts or technical issues to beta@parallels.com mailbox.

Best regards,
Tim and all the Parallels Team

Yeah, there is Parallels which runs on Windows, Linux, and OSX.

I feel VMware is still king of the hill for most anything (especially Windows on Linux). I have yet to use any other system that can match it in terms of features, performance and compatibility. I know that sounds like an advertisement but it is one of the few pieces of software I have consistently bought the latest version of since it was first released like 7 or 8 years ago. It tends to be much less buggy than anything else also.

You can only do better if you're talking about running Linux on Linux. In those cases something like Xen or UML give maximum performance.

As I understand it, Boot Camp only supports XP Pro, not 2000 (or 2003) Server. However, you should be able to run IIS on XP. Under this solution you could not run OS X simultaneously, and there's not much advantage to having the Apple hardware over anything else.

Parallels will let you run 2000 server if you want - see here for supported guest OSs. I'm not sure how you would configure network access to the virtual host, but I'm sure it can be done. I guess this could be an option if you desperately need to run IIS plus OS X services and only have a budget for one server, though personally I wouldn't recommend it.

I develop web apps on a Mac. I use Parallels to test in IE6 and IE7. I also don't develop in .Net, so that's not really a concern for me.

1) FreeBSD is under the hood with most common base system utilities pre-configured from Apple at time of shipment. You can install Fink or Darwinports to get an apt-get repository of OSX-binary distributions of many open source packages as well.

2) Java is much better on the new Dual Core machines than it was on PPC mac. Can't comment on how fast it is in comparison to non-macs, though.

3) In general, Tiger is quite stable and things work as advertised, for the most part. It's the first OSX release since 10.0 that actually feels mature/complete, IMHO.

4) A huge amount of open source software will compile on these machines/on this platform. Not as much as is available for most Linux distros, but unless you have very specific/unusual needs, chances are whatever utils you are using at the command line have OSX ports available. Check this out: http://fink.sourceforge.net/

5) Meh. MacBook Pros seem a little fragile/too expensive to drop. If you are a rough user of your laptops it's not the best choice, but Mac laptops prior to the MBP do tend to last several years as long as they aren't abused. (in general)

6) The MacBook Pros that are Core Duo (haven't tried the Core 2 Duo) feel extremely snappy and responsive in the UI, especially compared to Tiger running on PPC which is dog-slow without a gig of RAM. Tiger (Universal Binary verison) seems to be a more optimized port than the PPC version was. I was really impressed, mind you, with how fast the Parallels Desktop software (see http://www.parallels.com/ runs Windows XP on these machines. Windows actually feels fast enough to be fooled into thinking it's the primary boot-up operating system, it doesn't feel virtualized at all. Not sure if this is to the credit of Apple, Parallels, Intel, or Microsoft, but the virtualization of multiple OS's on these new dual processor Intel-based Macs is a nice reason to look at buying them. Our accountant where I worked has always been forced to use this old Win3.1 app to send her payroll to the company that manages our pay, and so we had to use Parallels running XP on her new Mac for it, and it works like a charm!

7) It takes a little getting used to, but it works very well once your fingers are accustomed to it. Not sure how easy it is on your hands long-term. I've always found trackpads a little annoying in general, but I can't even hold a PS2 controller without feeling aches and pains in my hands.

Note, these are all just my own general observations, and that YMMV.

This is something I've really wanted to look into. However, I'd be curious if someone could get a sort of benchmark comparison of VS .NET 2003 development environment in a)Boot Camp b)Crossover Mac or c) Parallels

What is the trade-off on speed/functionality with virtualization/WINE-based?

Running Matlab (XP version) using Parallels on my 512MB MacBook works just fine. :-)
(I realize you can also purchase a Mac version of Matlab).
A word of advice for "switcgers", Apple is notorious for excessve memory costs.
If you need more than 512MB, it's easy to add up to 2GB on MacBooks yourself.
I've done that on most MAcs I've ha and saved a bundle (make sure you order the correct memory).
i assume most switchers (from PC's) are adept at adding memory. (I've nver seen a Mac PC comparison
I believe as they all reflect the high-priced Apple memory. Most techncal people I know add their
own lower-cost memory to Macs whether at the office or home.

And my $999 MacBook runs Windows XT via Parallels (good $71 investment from Amazon), although I prefer OSC by a longshot. Also no security problems to be concerned (and waste valuable time) with.

How about using parallels?...

... when Parallels just works.

(see, I can do a Slashvertisement too) :)

So connect three computers to the LCD and from the center you see Windows, Linux from the left and MacOS from the right.

Three computers? What a waste. We have virtualization these days.

I just upgraded to Parallels Desktop for the Mac Build 1910 http://download.parallels.com/RC/Parallels-Desktop -1910-Mac.dmg and the Windows Tools seem much better behaved and sound is now working much better than under Parallels build 1896. For those that don't like direct links to files you can download Parallels Desktop for the Mac build 1898 at http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/updat e/ and see how the somewhat more offical build does. The unfinished code is running the unfinished code quite well on my Macbook.

I just upgraded to Parallels Desktop for the Mac Build 1910 http://download.parallels.com/RC/Parallels-Desktop -1910-Mac.dmg and the Windows Tools seem much better behaved and sound is now working much better than under Parallels build 1896. For those that don't like direct links to files you can download Parallels Desktop for the Mac build 1898 at http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/updat e/ and see how the somewhat more offical build does. The unfinished code is running the unfinished code quite well on my Macbook.

I have Vista build 5728 running under Parallels Desktop for the Mac build 1896.2 and according to
http://www.nickhodge.com/blog/
you can get build 1910 at
http://download.parallels.com/RC/Parallels-Desktop -1910-Mac.dmg
although I have not tried it yet myself.

info about whether Jaguar is available now and what is this announcement in October we are supposed to wait for?
Jaguar is not here yet, but I don't have any doubt about it being released in 2006.

Shit man, are you as behind the times as the goof you replied to? Jaguar came out in 2002. Jaguar is OLD.

Cheetah: 10.0
Puma: 10.1
Jaguar: 10.2
Panther: 10.3
Tiger: 10.4
Leopard: 10.5

Both of you are talking about LEOPARD. It was announced that it will ship sometime during the spring of 2007. 2007. Not 2006. Leopard will not ship in 2006. So scratch that off your calendar right now. Spring 2007: sometime between March 21 and June 21.

This was all over all the Mac-related news last month. Were you in a coma?

By the way, take the advice I gave the other guy. Ditch Boot Camp unless you really like the idea of having a Windows virus wipe your Mac OS X partition. It doesn't need to read the filesystem (that's HFS+, not "HDFS"), it just needs access to the physical hard drive. And Boot Camp gives it exactly that.

Get Parallels. It allows you to work simultaneously in both environments at full speed. Remember, you have two CPU cores, so there's no real slowdown even if both are running full tilt. And you get to copy and paste data back and forth all night long. Not to mention the fact that Windows is isolated within the virtual machine, unable to directly access your hardware. It's really a no-brainer.

My brother who has a Mac book pro and uses windows in an emulator recommended it ito me but I heard it is slow.

Your brother was not using an emulator (unless he's a moron) and it is not slow. He was using Parallels which runs at native speed for everything but intensive 3-d graphics. If you need games in Windows, then you must dual-boot. Dual-booting is such a pain, though. Everything else is so easy in Parallels. It rocks.

a supported way to run WinXP natively on another partition and be able to access that data from OS X.

You don't want Windows on another partition. Running it natively (dual-boot, a.k.a. Boot Camp) gives it access to the physical hardware of the machine. Bad idea, because that means any Windows virus or spyware can instantly wipe out your OS X partition if it so chooses. No, no, no. Do not do that.

Again, Parallels is the answer. Not only does it run 100% full speed, not only is the data accessible both ways, but you get to use both simultaneously. This is huge. You can work in two programs at the same time, one Mac, on Windows, and copy/paste data back and forth between them at will. Would you really rather have to shutdown all your work, reboot, login, start everything up, just to copy and paste some data? Didn't think so.

ironclad assurance about the batteries

Not gonna happen. No PC manufacturer makes their own batteries, so these sorts of things may occasionally come out to the public after they've been on the market for awhile. It's a risk you take when you buy any product in any market.

info about whether Jaguar is available now and what is this announcement in October we are supposed to wait for?

Jaguar has been available since 2002. You probably mean Leopard. It is shipping in the spring of 2007. That means any time between March 21 and June 21, 2007. There is no announcement in October.

I want the XP side to work like an ordinary windows machine, not a slow machine. It should be a screaming fast machine.

My Macbook boots XP to the login screen in under 10 seconds. That's while OS X is still running underneath. It is fucking fast. No worries.

Or run them all in Parallel.

Well M$ may say that it is to hard, but i'd be inclinded to think it's just someone has done faster and better. I can accros this http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/m ac/ and have installed it for a group of architects using a heavy cad prorgam called Bently Microstation and it works perfect. Much better than the sluggish perfomance i experinced with VPC - only drawack is as of yet it does not support open GL for games but this is comming. Also great solution instead of boot camp, you do not have to keep restarting to use M$ app's so you can keep you e-mail open etc ... m

They don't want to pay a premium for a Mac and shell out for a copy of XP. Besides, at least for now, using both OSes requires constant rebooting, which makes the idea pretty much a non-starter.

I won't shell out for XP on a new PC forget about getting it to run on a Mac, but I think it's a smart move for Apple. I also don't like the idea of havig to reboot to switch the OS. Now I may get and use Parallels to run 2000 in a window. I've heard that with Parallels though you can't cut and paste between Windows and Mac, and that is something I would want to do.

And, FWIW, the "Macs are more secure" marketing point goes right out the window the moment you run Windows on your Mac, which further reduces the incentive to pay the Mac premium.

It only goes out the window if you do something such as allow file sharing between MacOS and Windows, but if you don't then when Windows goes out you can still use MacOS. If they aren't tied to gether as in file sharing when Windows get infected it won't infect MacOS. Now if files are shared then there may be a possibility something like a Word macro may infect MacOS. But why wouldn't you setup file sharing so you can use them in both OSes? So that could be a problem.

Besides, at least for now, using both OSes requires constant rebooting, which makes the idea pretty much a non-starter.

Wrong.

The new duo core CPUs have facilities for this. See Parallels for the first signs of alt tab'ing between OS'es.

In addition rumor has it that Leopard (the next version of OS X) will have something like this built in.

Apple does a great job of making products people want to buy.

With the iPods, they seem to be unstoppable. No matter what other companies offer, people want the iPod + iTunes more. With laptops, they make a sexier product than almost anyone else. Even the die-hard Windows folks I know are buying Apple laptops, running OS X + Windows via BootCamp or via Parallels.

To top it off, they do all this with higher profit margins than any other company. It's no surprise that their market share, and their stock, are both on the rise.

The article refers to Parallels virtualization software as $49, but that's for the "Win&Lin" version. The Mac version is $79.

Parallels Workstation is powered by a lightweight hypervisor, which is a thin software layer between Primary OS and host computer. The lightweight hypervisor directly controls some of the host machine's hardware resources and provides a "hypercall" interface to it for both virtual machine monitors (VMMs) and primary OS eliminating overhead and improving virtual machine speed, performance and isolation. Parallels Workstation's lightweight hypervisor also enables full support for hardware virtualization technologies like Intel Virtualization Technology ("VT") and AMD SVM (Secure Virtual Machine).

" Parallels Desktop enables Mac users to access Windows programs without giving up the functionality, power and usability of their Mac OS X desktops," said Nick Dobrovolskiy, CEO of Parallels. "We've broken through the barrier that previously kept Mac and Windows from effectively working together side-by-side, simultaneously, on one computer."

Parallels near-native performance and rock-solid stability is driven by its hypervisor-powered virtualization engine, and full support for Intel® Virtualization Technology, which is included in all new Mac Mini, iMac, and MacBook Pro computers.

Wake me when virtualisation on Linux is as simple as it is on OS X with Parallels.