One of the best parts is running Windows and [...]]]> I just purchased my dream machine. A MacBook Pro, 15.4″ wide matte LCD, 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram, 150GB HD. Plus I got a Microsoft bluetooth mouse that works on the mac very well. My old ibook is still around but happily resting.

One of the best parts is running Windows and Mac OS X on the same machine. I’m as big of a Windoze hater as the next mac zelot but… I use Windows for work. Testing web designs in different browsers mainly. Windows actually does somethings a bit better. (blasphemy!) So I use both.

I set up Windows XP SP2 with Apple’s Boot Camp. It can resize hard drive partitions without destroying the data you already have. (not many mac apps can do this) This enabled me to dual boot. In order to use Windows I had to restart the machine and hold down the Option key. This gave me ability to select the OS I wanted to boot too. But only one OS at a time…

Because my work requires me to go back and forth testing on different browsers I needed to do something a bit quicker. (Despite the fact this is the fastest booting machine I’ve ever owned) Plus what follows is just cool as hell.

The solution was to use Parallels to run a real Windows install virtually. You might ask why did I create a whole new partition to install Windows on when I could have just created a virtual machine?

Parallels Desktop for Mac will boot a Windows install on a partition just like it’ll boot the OS in a file. This way I can boot into the Mac OS then start the Windows OS with Parallels then use Apple + Tab keys to switch back and forth between different applications in different operating systems. Parallels even shares out a Mac directory so you can read and write to it from Windows.

This setup is much quicker than using Alt + control or Alt + Enter to leave the Parallels virtual machine. Its so quick it actually keeps up pretty well with the speed of my work.

A big leap forward in productivity and power IMHO.

end geek transmission… thank you ruby!