Vista, Parallels and the MacBook Pro

Subscriber Glenn Young wrote about power problems and vista running on his MacBook Pro:

Two comments, Terry

First, sometimes Entergy can solve voltage problems, and sometimes not. The “in house solution” is to use a variable ballast-transformer. These have a primary & secondary coupled by a moving, iron core.

The voltage in the primary causes the core to move providing variable coupling to the secondary winding. The voltage coming off the secondary remains constant within plus or minus 20% on the primary. These aren’t cheap, but they DO provide constant voltage.

Secondly, just a comment on Windows Vista. I’m running the Home-Basic version on my MacBook Pro and just LOVE it!

The virtualized Vista runs faster and more trouble-free on my Mac than on any PC I’ve yet to see.

I’m using a “Parallels” software that allows the Vista (or Linux, or any operating system you wish) to run virtually in the Mac OS. I don’t know why this works so well, but I’m profoundly impressed by how fast it is.

The virtual machine uses NO resources once it is shut down, and Vista is ready to use almost instantly when resumed.

Glenn

Thanks, Glenn. It sounds like the MacBook Pro is a cool system, especially with Parallels (www.parallels.com) installed.

I’ve been tempted by the concept of running virtual computers within my computer, but prices haven’t been too realistic (that is, not cheap) in the past.

Parallels puts an end to that complaint.

Parallels Workstation is priced at $49.99 for Windows and for Linux. Parallels Desktop for Mac is $79.99 (the Apple tax?).

It looks like Parallels can handle almost any operating system I might consider, either as the Primary OS or a Guest OS. They have an extensive OS list on the Parallels web site. I might have to find my old OS/2 Warp CD’s!