Parallels for OSX

It is rare that I find a product that is worth its price but Parallels, a desktop virtualization package, is definitely worth the $39...

The software is simple.. it allows you to run multiple OSs on the same machine (as guests) without rebooting. The software has been around for a while, but the recent move by Apple to put Intel processors into their hardware allowed Parallels to include OSX as a host system (windows and linux were already available). So my MacBook Pro can now run OSX like always and run Windows XP as a guest without rebooting! I had to download the software and check it out. I love products that do what they are supposed to do.

Installation is stupid easy and the documentation walks you through the creation of a guest OS. The longest part of the install was the XP install. I haven't used XP at home for a while now (and haven't installed it for even longer), but man are there a lot of patches (I have a 2002 version).. it took about an hour to download all of them! Still I haven't ever seen Windows boot so quickly as it does as a guest. This is going to be great as a work solution as I am usually forced to use Windows by my clients.