Update on Parallels (i.e., XyWrite on a Mac)

[David Auerbach auerbach@xxxxxxxx]

1. From the Desk of David Pogue: Breaking Down the Walls
Between Mac OS X and Windows
==========================================================

I'm a bi-platform kinda guy. Not just because I need to be
conversant in both Mac OS X and Windows for my job, but also
because my life revolves around certain Mac programs and
certain Windows programs.

On trips, I literally used to pack two laptops: a Mac for
creative stuff, and a Windows machine for the speech-
recognition program I use to write books, Dragon
NaturallySpeaking.

A year ago, that all changed. Apple started building its Macs
around Intel chips. Using Apple's free Boot Camp utility, you
can start up the one laptop in either Windows or Mac OS X
(Windows not included).

There's a huge problem with that, of course: the business
about restarting every time you want to switch. That's time-
consuming, and you can't copy and paste between Mac and
Windows programs, or refer to one while you're working in the
other.

One solution is a program called Parallels Desktop for Mac
($80, Parallels.com). It lets you run Windows *in a window*,
right on top of Mac OS X, so you don't have to restart when
you want to run a Windows program. You can copy and paste
between Mac and Windows programs, and you save a lot of time.
Parallels can run any version of Windows back to version 3.1
(and even DOS, Solaris and so on), and it's about 90 percent
as fast as running a dedicated Windows PC.

I reviewed Parallels in the Times last year
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/technology/13pogue.html).
Today, however, the company has released version 3.0 -- a $40
upgrade -- that breaks down the walls between the two
operating systems even further.

* You can drag and drop files from the Windows desktop to the
Mac desktop, or vice versa. You can also right-click a
document in either universe (a Word file, JPEG, PDF or
whatever); the Open With pop-up menu, which lists programs
that can open it, now lists both Mac and Windows programs. So
if you're working on the Mac, you can right-click a Word
document and have it open in Word for Windows.

* A feature called Coherence mode hides the Windows desktop
and other trappings. Instead, each Windows program behaves
exactly like a Mac program, floating right there in its own
window among your other Mac program windows. (Coherence
debuted in Parallels 2.5; in 3.0, it's been refined. For
example, you can now specify when you want Windows programs'
icons to appear in the Macintosh Dock while they're running.)

 * A Mac program called Parallels Explorer lets you
manipulate the contents of your virtual Windows "hard drive"
even when Parallels isn't running.

* You can now set up shared folders in either direction. That
is, you can plunk the icon of a Macintosh-world folder right
there in your Windows world, for easy opening, or vice-versa.

* If you sometimes use Apple's Boot Camp program, Parallels
can use the same copy of Windows, so you don't have to
install Windows twice. In 3.0, this great, space-saving
feature also applies to installed copies of Windows Vista,
not just XP.

* Shared Networking. I love this one a lot. In Parallels 3.0,
Windows "hides" behind the Mac's networking; it's completely
invisible to hacks, pings and bots on the Internet looking to
infect you. Your "Windows PC" is therefore much less likely
to wind up becoming a "zombie" or "bot" that does the bidding
of spammers behind your back.

* 3-D graphics. This is a huge one for gamers. People used to
say that Parallels was great -- but that it couldn't handle
the 3-D games. The new version, however, works with both
DirectX and OpenGL 3D, underlying technologies that drive
games like World of Warcraft, Half-Life 2, and Unreal
Tournament. All of these are now playable on the Mac running
Windows. (I haven't tested them, though.)

This feature also assists with 3-D drafting programs like
3DMark and video and sound editing software like Sony Vegas.

* Transporter. This utility can bring over your entire world
-- programs, documents, settings, and all -- from a real Windows PC,
or from an old Mac running Microsoft Virtual PC,

either over the network or using a FireWire cable.

* USB 2. Parallels 3.0 does much better with high-speed
connections to printers, scanners, flash drives, external
hard drives, BlackBerrys and other smartphones -- and
headsets.

That latest improvement should mean that I can finally run my
speech-recognition program on the Mac without having to
restart in Windows. (In previous versions of Parallels, the
computer recognized only bits and pieces of what I said, and
with horrible accuracy.)

First I thought I would try the built-in speech recognition
in Windows Vista.
Unfortunately, it was a disaster. Words were dropped, words
were misrecognized, and the whole thing was slow as molasses.

So I tried NaturallySpeaking -- and I got exactly the same
results. No matter what I tried, I just could not get speech
recognition working in Windows Vista.

My contact at Parallels told me that he had heard from a
number of customers who were successfully using
NaturallySpeaking on their Macs -- in Windows XP. (Nuance,
the company that makes Dragon NaturallySpeaking, doesn't
officially support its use on Macs no matter how you're
running Windows. It has, however, received many requests and
is exploring the possibilities.)

Fortunately, the cool thing about Parallels is that you can
create as many "virtual machines" as you want, each one
running a different operating system on your Mac. (Web
designers in particular enjoy this feature, because it lets
them test a certain Web design in every conceivable browser
and operating system.)

So off I went to create another virtual machine, this time
one that ran Windows XP -- and presto! I had true-blue speech
recognition running on my Mac, complete with the ability to
copy and paste my transcribed utterances into my Mac e-mail
program, word processor or whatever.

Better yet, Windows XP doesn't bog down the rest of your Mac
programs the way Windows Vista does. On a 2-gigabyte Mac like
my MacBook, Parallels is much, much happier running XP than
Vista.

Remember, you're running two operating systems at once.
Windows Vista, on my 2-gig laptop, took a minute and a half
to start up, and introduced serious sluggishness whenever I
tried to switch from one Mac program to another. That's a
sure sign that I've run out of real RAM and am forcing the
Mac's virtual memory system to swap what's in memory to and
from the hard drive in a frantic attempt to keep everything
alive.

I recommend Parallels highly. Whether you're a Mac person or
a Windows person, the point is that you can now run 100
percent of the world's computer software on a single machine,
faster and more easily than ever.

(P.S.-- Parallels will soon have competition from programs
like VMWare Fusion and CrossOver. I'll review them when
they're available in final form.)



David Auerbach
Department of Philosophy & Religion
Box 8103	
Raleigh, NC 27695-8103                  http://
slowfoodusa.org
auerbach@xxxxxxxx                  http://
slowfoodtriangle.org