Boot Camp Poker

Allright Mac Poker on Parallels enthusiasts, serious competition is here. CNET and Lifehacker have come out with reviews/comparisons of the two virtualization options. Lifehacker (which is a great productivity blog - add it to your RSS if you aren’t reading it yet) puts the question to the lazyweb blogosphere: What are you using, Parallels or Fusion. And the answer is? 54% Parallels 46% Fusion (N=~2000). Suprising numbers, since Parallels was first to market. I haven’t made the switch to Fusion, because apparently, moving back is difficult.

Fusion is no fly-by-night app, though. The virtualization software is being put out by industry leader vmware, who appear to be catching up quickly to the Parallels swsoft team - if they haven’t passed them already.

Some of the interesting aspects of Fusion:

• Uses BOTH duocore processors rather than only one
• Disk Images available to trial other operating systems
• Unity Mode =~ Coherence mode on Parallels, but some users like Coherence better
• Fusion seems faster to some

Overall - they still seem a bit even to me. I can’t afford to make the switch and as one user put it, end up in a: Parallels -> Fusion -> Parallels situation. However, competition is good. In the end, we are years beyond VirtualPC (ugh) and the Parallels/Fusion debate will only result in better final products from both.

Wow.

The newest build is awesome. As you can see from the screenshot above, coherence now has integrated the functionality of expose. This means that when you are eight tabling with poker tracker open on Parallels on your Mac, you can expose to see all the tables — AND whatever else you have open - Safari, etc…

I still haven’t explored all the other features but this is too cool to wait.

This beta includes the following new feature updates:

• Major enhancements to the look and feel of Windows programs in Coherence
• Coherence support for Exposé and Transparent Windows
• Support for overlapping several Windows and Mac windows in Coherence
• Ability to silently boot into Coherence mode
• Linux PC and virtual machine migration to your Mac using Transporter
• Ability to change your VM’s disk format using the updated Image Tool
• Ability to change Sound Devices ‘on the fly’
• iPhone support in Windows. iTunes in Windows can connect to your iPhone
• Note: Read the release notes for details.

If you’ve been wondering about Parallels, Boot Camp (or god forbid thinking about Virtual PC) but haven’t taken the leap yet, check out this interview with Ben Rudolph at CES in Vegas. He goes through exactly how it works and what is in the pipeline. From my personal experience - Parallels is a great piece of software which is revolutionary for a Mac User.

I was blown away, however, by conherence mode. Coherence mode makes the windows part absolutely transparent. That means the start button, the menubar at the bottem are all gone, and you can simply open up your PC native apps as if they were running on OS X. Unbelievable.

It’s fast too - Ben says that XP on Parallels tested faster on a Quad Core XEON MacPro than on a native PC. Wow.

Talk about eight tabling the donkeys at Full Tilt.

Parrallels is a great virtualization solution. I use it for work and to run Party Poker Ultimate Bet. They just released an update and signed a big distribution deal. Parallels is here to take over.

Today’s official word from Parallels:

What’s new in the Official Update of Parallels Desktop for Mac?

We’re proud to announce that the Official Update for Parallels Desktop for Mac is launched and it is FREE for all existing Parallels Workstation users!

Now it includes a number of great improvements & fixes that make Parallels Desktop for Mac even easier to use:

New! Installation Assislant built-in tool included. Click here to learn more…

New! Shared Networking

Works on ANY Intel-Mac with ANY memory configuration with no system modification. This includes Mac Pro towers with up to 16GB of RAM, and the full line of Core 2 Duo iMacs

New! Compatibility with developer build of Mac OS X 10.5, code-named “Leopard”

New! Support for Windows Vista

Solaris guest OS no longer hangs after suspend/resume

An improved Parallels Tools package

Full support for OpenBSD 3.8 as a guest operating system

G4U hard disk cloning tool now works in virtual machines

Better video output improvement and acceleration

Added multi interface USB devices support (including Windows Mobile 2005 devices)

Added isochronous USB devices support (including WebCam devices)

Keyboard support improvement: Eject CD key support, left/right Shift/Ctrl/Alt (Option)/Windows keys difference support

Added virtual disk cache policy option: Mac OS X performance optimized or guest OS performance optimized

Image Tool fixes

Optimized disk cache policy for Suspend/Resume feature

Windows ME Suspend/Resume fix

Shared Folders first time access acceleration

Clipboard synchronization tool fixes (unreadable symbols sometimes added during copy and paste)

Sound playback and recording improvement

If you’re new to Parallels Desktop for Mac, you can start using improved Parallels Desktop for Mac by downloading and installing updated version on a «clean» machine. Click here to get a free 15-day trial!

NOTE TO REGISTERED USERS:
If you already have your copy of Parallels Desktop for Mac you can update it easily - simply download updated file and install it over your existing version. You will NOT need to reinstall any guest OS or any applications when you update your Parallels Desktop for Mac. Don’t forget to update Parallels Tools after updating.