Why Are More People Becoming Mac Fans?

I’m known at my job and with friends of being a Mac fan, which is true. It wasn’t always like that however. I’ve spent the majority of my IT career behind a keyboard of a PC (well, and a Linux machine when I was a Redhat Server Administrator) 😉 Customers and friends often ask why I use a Mac, and I thought that this experience of a blogger who works for a site called Tuaw summed it up nicely. Just like he mentions- Macs are not perfect- but even when things go wrong, the overall experience has been way less frustrating than experiences that I’ve had with a PC.

http://www.tuaw.com/2012/12/18/your-trusty-tuaw-blogger-tries-windows-8/

And people wonder why Mac’s are gaining marketshare, not only for the consumer, but in the enterprise as well.. 😉

Interesting graphic on Mac’s market share:
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apples-mac-gains-share-as-u.s.-pc-sales-drop

Parallels Desktop for Mac v7 – Brief Overview

This is a brief overview of Parallels Desktop for Mac v7 and shows how the upgrade process worked on my MacBook Pro ’11, running OS X Lion 10.7.1.

What’s New

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This version of Parallels Desktop for Mac (build 7.0.14920) includes the following new features and enhancements:

OS X Lion Compatibility
– Support for Full-Screen Apps introduced in OS X Lion.
– Launchpad integration: add Windows programs of your choice to Launchpad and use the Windows folder to access other Windows programs from Launchpad.
– OS X Lion-style animations when opening new Windows programs windows in Coherence.
– Support for Resume introduced in OS X Lion.
– Support for running OS X Lion in a virtual machine.
– Ability to create OS X Lion virtual machines using the recovery partition on Macs running OS X Lion.

Space Upgrade Takes

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The install program shows the upgrade will take 554.5 MB of space.

Virtual Machines (VM’s) Still There!

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Looks like it found my VM’s okay.

New VM Video RAM Setting

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New Share Webcam Camera with Windows Feature

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New VM CPU and RAM Options

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Up to 8 CPU’s and 8GB RAM can be assigned to a virtual machine (VM).

Parallels Tools – Install Automatically Started

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When I launched the virtual machine, the Parallels Tools automatically performed an upgrade.

Windows Apps in Coherence Mode – Lion "Full Screen" Mode Option

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Under the "View" menu bar when running a Windows application in Coherence mode, there is a new option to "Enter Full Screen", which is using Lion’s Full Screen feature.

Hide "Status Bar"! Finally!

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One thing that has always bugged me about running a VM in a Window with Parallels (and one minor thing that VMware Fusion did a lot better), is the "Status Bar" at the bottom of the VM window. There was never an option to remove this bar, which caused you to loose some screen realestate for your VM. Now, there is a "Hide Status Bar" feature under the "View" menu! Thanks Parallels!

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The status bar is pointed to in the screenshot, which you can now hide.

Dock Icon Shows All Windows for that Program

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If you press and hold the mouse on the Windows application icon on the Mac Dock, it will show you all of the windows for that application, which you can then easily select. This makes finding the right window when you have a lot open much easier.

Showing "Jump List" for Windows Program

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Another option that I don’t remember being able to do in v6 was to "Show Jump List" when you press/hold the mouse on the Windows application from the Mac Dock.

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This shows you the Windows "Tasks" options for that program.
This is allowing you to access the Windows 7 feature that you would do in Windows, by press/hold the mouse on the program icon in the "Quick Launch" bar and move the mouse "up".

That’s It So Far!

So far that’s the changes that have stood out to me. I’ll make another blog post if I find many more.