Virtualization Apps for the Mac

Vmware Fusion is program that I find invaluable. If you are like me and you have created a Bootcamp partition for use with Windows, you will love this program. Instead of rebooting into windows every time I have to use a windows specific app, I fire up Fusion and it runs my bootcamp partition while in the Mac OS. I still have the option to boot windows natively but it isn't necessary. Another feature of Fusion is Unity mode, which allows you to run both OS's at once. It appears as though you are in OS X but you can run windows apps and have them minimize to the dock, pretty fun. Parallels desktop is another application that does most of the same things as Fusion. I have tried both products but I like Fusion for the fact that you can assign multiple processors and you can address more Memory to your VM's. One other thing to mention about these technologies is that you can download pre-built virtual appliances (Disk Images) for testing... for instance you could get the latest beta of windows server 2008 or run the latest distro of Suse linux, already configured and ready to boot.

New Notebook - Enter the MacBook Pro

I changed jobs a few months back and I had to return my laptop, so It was a perfect opportunity for me to buy a new piece of equipment (the 13 other laptops I own weren't good enough). With the adoption of the Intel chipset for the Apple platform the Apples had been looking more and more appealing. Let me state that I am no stranger to the mac. I have 2 older G4's and iMac G5 and a PowerBook, but I was never ready to make the switch while living and working in a windows world.
So once Apple moved to Intel and once I was able to run Windows natively, I knew I had to have one. I bought the laptop and voided the warranty the same week. I cracked it open and loaded it with 4GB of DDR2 PC 5400 RAM and threw in a Seagate Momentus 200GB 7200 rpm SATA Drive......It's blazing! BTW, I bought the 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo in a 15" wide with the back-lit LED display. The Display is gorgeous, HD movies look unreal!