Mike Cohen

Parallels Desktop 4.0 is a big win

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I own both Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion, and I’ve switched back and forth between them several times since each has its advantages. For a long time VMWare’s linux support was better and it supported more hardware features, including power management. Fusion 2.0 even made it possible to run Mac OS X Server in a virtual machine. However, running Windows in VMWare always felt sort of clunky with “Unity” and their integration was never quite as good as Parallels, even with the improvements in version 2.0

With Parallels Desktop 4.0, which was released today, Parallels is back on top. Their already excellent Windows integration got even better, with the ability to show Windows task bar notification icons in the menu bar. Desktop 4.0 also improves their Linux support with shared folders and it now lets you virtualize Mac OS X Server, which were the big reasons to use VMWare.

Other nice features include a new “modality” view, which shrinks the VM window and lets you float it over other windows, so you can keep an eye on lengthy operations like software installation while you work in another application. Parallels Desktop 4.0 can still show a screenshot of the VM in the dock icon, which is one feature I always missed in VMware.

Parallels’ new Adaptive Hypervisor really does live up to the hype. It automatically optimizes VM performance based on demand, so when you switch between Mac & Windows applications it will always give priority to the active application. They also reduced the CPU usage for idle virtual machines dramatically. Just having a virtual machine open no longer uses 20% CPU or more.

I had two virtual machines running Mac OS X Server and Ubuntu Linux 8.10 running at the same time on my MacBook with only a very slight slowdown.

You can get an additional 10% off all Parallels products with the coupon code MACM-VXKD-SALE .

Rating apps when you delete them

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iPhone firmware 2.2, which is supposed to be released next Friday, Nov. 22, asks you to rate applications when you delete them. Does anyone else think this is a bad idea?

We’re going to see a lot more negative ratings when people have to rate an application before deleting it.

I’d estimate that not more than 1 out of 100 purchasers (most likely even a smaller percentage) rate applications in the store, so a lot more of those ratings will now come from people deleting the application. Since they’re deleting the application, most likely they didn’t like it for some reason. If they really like the application, they probably won’t be deleting it.

People who dislike an application are usually more vocal than those who like it and more likely to post a review, so even if 1/100 of the users hate an application you’ll see many more negative reviews since the people who like it don’t bother to post a review.

links for 2008-11-10

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  • Gideon Levy / Let's hope Obama won't be a 'friend of Israel'
    When we say that someone is a "friend of Israel" we mean a friend of the occupation, a believer in Israel's self-armament, a fan of its language of strength and a supporter of all its regional delusions. When we say someone is a "friend of Israel" we mean someone who will give Israel a carte blanche for any violent adventure it desires, for rejecting peace and for building in the territories.
    (tags: obama politics)
  • YES WE CAN HAS
    LOLcats + Obama = Awesome
    (tags: lolcats funny obama)

R.I.P. Myriam Maeba

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Legendary South African singer Myriam Makeba has died following a concert in Italy. I’ve been in shock since I read the news this morning, as she was one of my favorite singers.

Here’s a vintage performance of her most well-known song, “Pata Pata” to remember her by.

links for 2008-11-08

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Malicious fake WordPress site

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Lorelle warns about a malicious fake WordPress site that looks like the real one, but isn’t. There is no WordPress 2.6.4. The latest version is 2.6.3. If you “upgraded” to “2.6.4″, then you have installed a fake trojan version (more details here and here). If you’ve “upgraded” to 2.6.4, delete your wp-admin and wp-includes folders and replace them with fresh copies from wordpress.org. More detailed instructions for cleaning up are available here.