In LA

If you have a MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Intel iMac, or Intel-based Mac Mini, and would like to be able to run the occasional Windows application, there are a couple of options for you:

• Boot Camp - the only option for gaming due to the fact that none of the other solutions really support DirectX 9, but to use Boot Camp requires a reboot, a repartitioning of your hard drive, and devoting a decent slice of disk space to the boot camp partition (absolute minimum of 5Gb).
• Parallels Desktop - Runs a virtualized PC inside your Mac. Pretty quick and convenient. Can run Windows from a disk image or a boot camp partition. For a long time the only game in town. I use this.
• VMware Fusion - Newcomer to the mac from a company with a long history of virtualization products for Windows and Linux. From the sound of things, may be equivalent or superior to Parallels Desktop in features and function.

Boot Camp is free. Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion both normally cost $79, but today I see that Buy.com is selling VMware Fusion for $36.75 after rebates.

I occasionally run Windows 2000 on my Mac in Parallels to use Internet Explorer (IE) to use Chinese websites that only work right in IE, and to test websites in IE. I chose Windows 2000 because runs much faster than the bloated XP, the disk image is smaller (under 1Gb to start), and it runs the latest version of IE just fine.

If you want to be able to run Windows apps alongside your Mac apps, this does seem like a pretty good deal.

Technorati Tags: Apple, buy.com, Deals, hot deal, Linux, Macintosh, OS X, parallels desktop, rebate, software, virtualization, vmware fusion, Win2K, Windows, Windows 2000, Windows XP

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Apple, Deals, Geeky. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.