Month: December 2006

Parallels vs Vmware Fusion Update

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Vmware released the public beta of its Fusion product since I wrote about the closed beta I had. In that time Parallels has come out with 2 more beta versions of their software. The last time I wrote I said that the Parallels beta had the leg up in features over the Fusion product. With the latest versions of each software now installed and running on my Macbook Pro I can say for now that Parallels still has the lead. I still think that VMware will eventually win the feature race, but for now Parallels is on top. Why you might ask? Coherence mode for one still rocks in my book. Also the new ability to create a shortcut on your mac that when launched will run a VM and then open the specified application. If that wasn’t enough Parallels now lets you see each application that you run in a VM its own dock icon. They also are on par with VMware now with there ability to drag and drop applications between VM and host.

VMware Fusion still works better in my opinion with USB devices. I cannot get my Treo to sync with Parallels but it worked with Fusion since day one. Unfortunately Fusion is still slow. Partly due to the mandatory debug mode they impose, but it is still slow. Hopefully the production version will be allot faster.

I will write more as I have more feedback to give.

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Back to GSM

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After a false start earlier this year with Cingular I finally made the switch and went back to GSM. I picked Cingular over T-Mobile because of higher speed data network and a better selection of phones. I still don’t like some of the business practices of Cingular but high speed data is high speed data. I went with the new Treo 680 with the Palm OS. My switch also means I decoupled my account with my companies corporate account. It worked out since we needed to give someone a data plan that didn’t have it already anyway.

I love the 680 but I have two issues. First is the fact that it is very sluggish sometimes with its input. Not all the time, but enough to be a pain. jayson said that his Treo 700p did the same thing but my 700p never did. The other issue is with poor battery life. It is not as good as the 700. I ordered a spare battery that should help, but I would like to make it a day without switching batteries.

Another good thing about GSM is that for $30 I took my locked Cingular Treo and had it unlocked. Not bad since the unlocked model costs $400, and Cingular only charges $199 (after rebate).

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My New Macbook

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I haven’t written about it, but over a month ago I decided to sell off my personal Macbook and pick up a new Core 2 Duo Macbook. It is still the black one. I am one of those people apple gets an extra $150 out of in order to get a black one. I supped it up to 2gig’s of RAM, and bought a 160gig hard drive to give me extra space. I am using it as my primary home computer. So far I am very happy with its performance. I will see what Apple has in store when they have Macworld. For now I don’t want to goto a desktop since the pro line is too expensive even for my blood. The mini is still a bit under powered, and the iMac is an all in one and I like having a KVM at my desk. I tried the iMac twice and both times I ended up getting rid of them because of the whole multiple computer need.

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Parallels & VMware Fusion Head to Head

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Late last week I finally received the email I was waiting for giving me instructions to download the VMware Fusion Friends & Family Beta. It is the same version I saw a demo of at VMworld. My first impression is that I wish it was faster. To VMware’s credit the issue is that by design the beta build has debugging on. It is a closed beta after-all.

My first use of the Fusion was a test for my own personal edification. I cannot get Parallels to sync my Treo 700P with an XP VM. The main reason to use a Windows VM on my Mac at home is to use the windows version of Quicken. I cannot stand the Mac version. This get complicated when I want to sync my Quicken with Pocket Quicken on my Treo. I sync everything else with the Mac, so I just need this one windows program to sync. Up until now I have a Windows XP desktop around with an XP VM on it for me to sync my Treo to. I took that VM with Quicken on it built and run on VMware Workstation 5.5.3 and simply copied it over to my Macbook. I told Fusion were to find the VM, and let it run. After a minute of updating the VM Tools the VM was working perfectly. Within 5 minutes I was able to sync my Treo with the Windows VM. The trick I found was that I disabled the USB sync in The Missing Sync, since I have that software start when the Mac starts. This trick didn’t work with Parallel’s but was exactly what Fusion needed to see the USB device.

My work requirements are a bit more intensive for what I need in a VM than my home needs. At work since I use a Macbook Pro, I still need to access some Windows only tools. From time to time I also need to simulate our users working environment, so I need a Windows XP VM with our corporate software build on it. Getting the software build working in Fusion was as simple as copying the XP VM we have ready with sysprep onto my laptop and turning it on. After joining it to our domain, and updating the VM Tools I was up and running. This template VM of Windows XP SP-2 was built to work with VMware workstation as well as Server, so I had no problem getting it running. The drag and drop copy between host and guest worked exactly as advertised. Rob wanted a copy after I showed him how I can move stuff around between my Mac and the VM. The auto resizing of the VM window was also very helpful for day to day work. I didn’t have any stability issues with the beta, but I did have a very noticeable performance loss in the VM. Debugging does give you a noticeable speed hit.

If I had to rate the Fusion Beta against the current final build of Parallels I would say Fusion has all the advantages except for the fact that it is beta, and Parallels has been out for months. Fusion beats out Parallels in basic features. Add on top of that the fact that I can use existing VM’s we build for Workstation & Server it puts Fusion over the top. Of course if I had to rate the Fusion Beta against the beta of the next update to Parallels that I just downloaded I am not so sure. The Parallels beta offers a conversion tool from VMware to their format. Helpful yes, but not as good as having full two way compatibility between Mac, Windows, & Linux versions of VMware. Then there is the Coherence feature. The few minutes I had to play with it tonight has me wanting to give it a full workout tomorrow at the office. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so take a look at this photo posted on Flickr by someone to explain what Coherence does. And yes my friends it works just like as it looks. The video is a bit choppy, but it is beta.

So the jury is out on what features VMware will add to Fusion as it gets closer to release. Parallels also seems to be adding more features as they roll out updates. For me, if VMware can compete with Parallels on features they have the advantage simply because of the interoperability between their other products. For now I look forward to the next versions of both Beta’s. More opinions as I get them.

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