Maybe we need to call it Perpendicular...

Parallels is sort of running cross-ways with the new cat right now. Oh, you can use it, but it's taken a bit of a step back from the seamless technological wonder that it was and is under Tiger. First, I was having a problem in that my XP disk image won't mount on my Mac desktop. I scoured the forums at parallels.com and thought I found a fix (see #17) in the thread.) Installing the macfuse program and restarting did get me an icon for a mounted drive on my desktop, but when it doesn't show any contents when I click on it. So close, yet...well, you get the idea.

A seemingly related problem has to do with associated files to run with Mac programs from within the Windows XP image. I try to keep my XP disk image as small as possible, so why install two copies of Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Office? In Tiger, I could set Parallels so that if I clicked on a PDF file, for example, it would launch Acrobat Reader on my mac to view the file. Or, I could use Preview if I wanted. In Leopard, I can still designate file types to open with mac programs, but I kept getting an error that programs could only launch files on disks with assigned letters or shared folders. The files were in drives with assigned letters and shared folders. So, I guess for now, we need two copies of Acrobat Reader.



Don't get me wrong, Parallels is still a great program, and it is very usable under Leopard. Today, the Parallels team announced a new beta version that will improve Leopard compatibility. However, Dwight Silverman warns that people are having problems with this initial build, so you might be advised to wait a bit longer.

Activesync: Synching with Bluetooth via Parallels on Mac

Thanks to the instructions on this blog, I was able to sync my HTC Advantage via bluetooth with Activesync running on my MacBook with Parallels. It works great!

Parallels & Gotomypc = Wow!

The cheesy Vista promo was "The Wow Starts Now", which soon became "The Ow Starts Now" or "The Wow Starts How?" or "Vista Sucks!" (oops! that one snuck in there). If you want "Wow", check out the combination of OSX, Parallels, and Gotomypc. You can access a computer that is set up on gotomypc directly from OSX using their "universal viewer," but that has very limited functionality. With Parallels running on my Mac. I can log into gotomypc using their java applet and have the ability to drag and drop files between the host and client computer. Now that my Windows image on Parallels is sharing the same My Documents folder and sports a much improved "Coherence" feature that treats Windows apps like just another Mac app on my desktop, I have amazing integration between Windows, OSX, and even that remote computer at the office. Like I said, "Wow!"