Parallels… Another reason to love my Mac
I went to the Raleigh ruby on rails group hack night last week with David Black and had a good time chatting with local programmers. I spotted someone with a MacBook Pro and headed over to ask for some advice on how to get lighttpd running properly. Not only did Jared of No Fluff, Just Stuff help me with a better choice of RoR web server (he suggested Mongrel and after spending a weekend with it I whole heartedly agree) but he also sold me on the whole Parallels thing.
Once I switched to Mac I really never had any desire to waste any of my precious disk space on Windows. I use Remote Desktop to take care of my few Windows needs. However RDP often fails to work properly and is slow. So when Jared showed me how freaking fast and reliable and how little disk space a Windows XP install took on Parallels I was convinced. Its crazy. Boot XP in 30 seconds, in FULL SCREEN mode and it feels like you are on the fastest PC available. Not only that but you can boot just about any OS such as SusE or Fedora in Parallels.
Important one: It functions way better if you follow this tip from Jared (reply to my question about two mouse pointers and slow response):
Regarding the double cursor..
Load the Windows VM, then make it a partial window (via [alt]+[Return]).
Then, from the menu bar, go to VM/Install Parallels tools. I think that takes care of it. They enhance various OS level integrations.
Parallels is great! I rarely “have” to use Windows, but when I do, it’s so nice to be able to open it from the dock in seconds like I do any other app without having to leave Mac OS. Much better than having to reboot to load Windows separately (via Boot Camp).