... and a Very Happy New Year

Have you ever noticed how people read and store information in different ways? Do you know why people are like that? Me neither; I think it's something to do with unique snowflakes. I'll give you an example of what I mean.

I decided it would be fun to look up the meaning of the Times Square ball dropped on New Year's Eve. Everybody reading this probably knows what I'm talking about, because according to the all-knowing Wikipedia from which I receive 85% of my information, a billion people watch this event on TV every year, many of whom aren't even in the United States where it takes place. 

Basically the ceremony involves a bunch of very intelligent people who get together, make a giant ball out of metal and flashing lights, string it up on a pole in the middle of Times Square in New York City, then lower it as time approaches midnight on New Year's Eve. Afterwards they take it down and put it away for next year, or sometimes they make a brand new one and donate the old ones to David Bowie who uses them as yard ornamentation.

The significance of lowering the ball has something to do with time synchronization used in harbors back in ye olde time. A history buff might read up and think "oh really? I'll bet the time synchronization helped navigators chart their boat schedules. I wonder how that carried over into the ball drop tradition of today."

Other readers might think about the Times Square celebration and say "oh look at all those people! I bet that's a good time, maybe I'll go one day and experience that." It's one of the largest public celebrations of the year. Good times, right?

Well, I'm a dunce when it comes to history and large crowds make me a little paranoid, so instead I focus totally on the geek aspects of the New Year. What's interesting to me at first is that they've updated the Times Square ball several times (the original was made of wood) and through the years have changed the custom around as well. That makes it sort of a "make-it-up-as-you-go" holiday and I begin to wonder who exactly makes those decisions. As if there's a committee of old guys who sit around and mumble to each other, making comments like “I think we should use all blue confetti this year, yea or nay gents?”

Then I steer away from conspiracy theory and focus on the technology of the ball itself; especially when this year’s ball is so cool. It’s a new model to replace the 2000-2008 one, designed by Paul Gregory of Focus Lighting (very creative architectural lighting shown on their site). It's bigger than previous ones - 12 feet in diameter. It weighs over 11,800 pounds and they even made a new pole which hoists it higher than ever before - 475 feet above Times Square. It's 20% more energy efficient than last year's model, which had been remodeled for the 2008 drop with computer synchronized LED lighting. It's also going to stay hoisted up on the pole all year round from now on. Doing what, I do not know; looking pretty for tourists I suppose. I just hope it's electrified or the pigeons are going to have a fun time decorating it.

Happy New Year everybody! See you again in 2009.

Happy Holidays!

As snowflakes drifted slowly through Window XPs

little Susie VM awoke from the breeze

In a virtual castle with Mac OS walls

danced virtual penguins down Guest OS halls

She got up from bed to inspect a parade

of wand waving mice riding pogosticks made

out of candy canes, jellybeans, licorice and

some rubber bands tied into knots at the ends

To avoid the con-fusion of a holiday Scrooge

she ducked under a table, not a moment to lose

For the Scrooge passed on by with plugs in his ears

grumbling on about the noise of holiday cheers

Then just at that moment from the corner of her eye

she caught glimpse of an elf eating snozberry pie

His boots and his trousers and jacket were red

and he wore a large top hat with bells on his head

Susie shuffled and crawled to the fireplace wall

where wrapped presents lay by a tree, eight feet tall

The tree was still standing, but some needles were shed

when the elf sneezed a snow storm and then at length said:

"I carried this message through white frozen blizzards

for grown ups and children and ogres and wizards

Merry Christmas to all and we wish you all well

Happy Hannukah too, from the team of Parallels"

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to Work(station) we go

We’ve been focusing a lot of attention on Parallels Desktop for Mac lately, and the point has been brought up that it's left our faithful and much appreciated Parallels Workstation fans feeling forgotten. Point taken. We feel like neglectful parents, giving our public attention to one child only – Workstation is our baby too, and there’s no chance we’d forget about it. In fact we haven't, we just haven't talked about the work being done in its favor.

What’s been good for one child has been just as good for the other. Much of the development effort towards Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac was spent updating the software’s codebase. A codebase which will act as the pillar upon which Parallels Workstation will shine. 

It’s always frustrating to see one product get updated while the one you use doesn’t get the same treatment. Trust me, I’ve been there many-a-time. Hopefully this news relieves some of that frustration. Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac might have released first, but our Windows and Linux projects are not long to follow and are being aggressively developed as we speak. It’s very exciting for us. We can’t wait to give details, and we will… soon.

Watch this space for further information.

Blog they told me, pa rum-pum-pum pum

Hello blog readers, time to make my holiday wish list!

It’s way past time to make one, I know. Shopping time is nearly over; Black Friday is long gone and yes, obviously I was one of the lucky survivors. You see I have an excellent strategy for Black Friday shopping that I enacted years ago, due to my small stature. I'm prone to being trampled. My strategy is to hide like a coward under my warm blankie come Nov 28th, and wait until the madness ends. Online shopping for the win.

Without further ado, I give you my 2008 Holiday Wish List!

(I know, you're on the edge of your seat)

• The Dark Knight: Duh.

• An Olympus wide angle DSLR lens: Fisheye goodness

• Valve software’s Left 4 Dead: "WOO! We made it!" - "Son, we just crossed the street..."

• Harman Kardon GLA-55 Speakers: Saw these on Amazon last week. I don’t even care if they sound that great, they’re beautiful. Just in case the $999.99 price tag is too much for my holiday shoppers, I found these as well. I'm pretty sure they're just clear plastic, though.

• An early release of Snow Leopard: No comment

• Some new geeky Twitter followers

• Trained tortoise with comfy saddle: For leisurely office travel. I would migrate from room to room whilst blogging on my MacBook. I’d name him Louie and he would be treated like a king; fed only the finest greens and… whatever else it is tortoises eat.

• Tiny robots which reenact the American Civil War: No practical use here, so don’t look for one. At least one of the Generals must be voiced by Tommy Lee Jones (superfluous link).

While doing official research for this blog, I sat down and had a chat with our lovely Seattle tech-support to see what was on each of their personal wish lists. One requested a bottle of thirty-year-old single malt scotch and another wanted a quantum computer. I'm giving them all holiday string cheese instead, I'm sure they'll love it.

Now seeing how it's not very politically correct (yeah sure, this coming right after the booze joke) to name a single holiday entity to send my wish list to, I will be sending out copies of the list to all the following holiday patrons:

Santa Claus

Robot Santa Claus

Hanukkah Harry

Steve Jobs

Stephen Hawking

Lex Luthor

Robin Williams

So now that my list is out in the open, it’s time to hear from the community. Don't be shy! Is there a special MacBook out there what caught your eye? A movie perhaps? An album? Socks? How about a “features” wish list for your favorite Parallels software? Post them all in the blog comments below or on our Facebook page.

Cheers, and Happy Festivus!

Spaces: The Final Frontier

 

Here’s a quick video tip that Apple published on their business theatre page:

http://www.apple.com/business/theater/#tutorial=spaceperos

You can get a lot of use out of a single monitor using Coherence in Desktop for Mac - running Windows and OS X applications side by side. Many Mac users out there are already used to separating their work areas with Spaces instead of joining them together. The thing is; these two features are by no means mutually exclusive.

The video linked above is a quick tip guide to get Parallels Desktop for Mac running in its own work environment using Spaces. The setup is very simple.

Like many people out there that now use Desktop for Mac, Windows was my primary (and only) OS for a long time. So when I got my first Mac, it took some getting used to before I began utilizing a good portion of the OS X features that Apple includes. Now I separate reading environment, writing environment and my instant message/chat environments. When I’m in the office I use a second monitor and when I’m at home I use Spaces and Coherence at the same time for maximum swank.

Now watch, let me show you how I can play Audiosurf in one space while downloading music in another space and still pretend to work in anoth-

… oh hang on, I think I hear my boss coming.