It’s no secret that, a few years ago, I bought a Mac and have subsequently dumped all my Windows PCs ad for everything I do at home – for myself, this just has never been a problem.
But there is one area where it has been a problem – work. I have no control over the VPN used to access our network and I’m not a fan of the software being used. One the strikes against it is that is PC only – despite the fact that it’s “supposed” to be browser based, it doesn’t work right outside Internet Explorer at the best of times and it certainly doesn’t work on anything other than Windows.
Well, so much for the brilliant concept of platform independence with browser-based solutions.
I have recently purchased this new Macbook with its Intel-based processor and that does open up some new possibilities. One option is Apple’s boot camp software, which allows the machine to be partitioned for dual-booting.
I’ll be damned if dual-boot Windows on this thing. For the very few things that I need to do in Windows, I’m not going to foul up the file system and waste the space for that.
What I did do, thought, was try the second option, a piece of software called Parallels Workstation. It’s currently in beta-test and can be downloaded for free. it allows you to create a virtual machine inside an OSX window and, as far as I can tell so far, it works incredibly well. The performance is good and the device support for the laptop works without problem.
For somebody out there thinking of making the (enlightened) switch to a Mac, but is worried about some old piece of “must have” software, Parallels workstation could be the solution.
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