Well, you all already know how impressed I’ve been with using VMWare Fusion on my Macbook for those times when I need to dip into the Windows world for something, but today I really stressed out that virtual machine and it handled it like a charm.

The basics, I had to dump a series of Excel spreadsheets into one sheet, so that I could use the magic of COUNTIF and SUMIF to match data across all of them at once and get a sum. Unfortunately, putting all of them together left me with over 300,000 rows, which our Excel 2003 at work just wasn’t going to deal with. So I fired up the Macbook and the Vista VM with Office 2007 on it, and hooked up an external drive to it with all that spreadsheet data. I then proceeded to build that 300,000 row sheet and then do my counts and sums. You’d think working in a spreadsheet with 300,000 rows on a virtual machine running off a laptop would be painfully slow, but it really wasn’t, at all. The only time it paused was when I asked it to calculate the sums of 2000 records all at once, but let’s face it, any machine would pause for that, virtual or not!

In short, I love being able to do something that resource intensive and still have OS X running stuff at the same time! It’s quite awesome.

Before anyone asks, or calls me names, I am aware that I probably could have done this same processing in Numbers just in OS X, but it needs to get done, and get done correctly, and I haven’t been around the block enough with the iWork suite to feel like I could have gotten it done very quickly, so Excel was the choice for me, at least this time.

I got an email from the VMware Fusion team today, letting me know about their “My Switch to VMWare Fusion” contest. All you folks who’ve been looking for a reason to use the video tools on your Mac, well how’s about a chance to win an Air? (Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with VMWare, I just really like using Fusion on my Macbook!)

My Switch to VMware Fusion

The VMware Fusion team is proud to announce a new video contest, entitled ?My Switch to VMware Fusion?: http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/switchtofusion/video-contest.html

As part of our new campaign (http://vmware.com/switchtofusion) encouraging Mac users to switch to VMware Fusion for Windows on Mac, we are kicking off a video contest wherein users who have already switched to Fusion pull together a 60 second video on why they switched to VMware Fusion to run Windows on their Mac, and post it on the web. 

There?s no better spokesperson than happy, delighted customers, which is why we see this customer validation as central to our campaign.  Marketers can say all kinds of things (trust me, I know), but unvarnished peer references really count.

The great thing about the Mac, is that it has all the tools to make a great video documenting a ?Switch to Fusion? from iMovie, to the iSight, and so on.  The VMware Fusion team has pulled together all the necessary resources in an easy ?how-to? tips and tricks document on the video contest page.

When they?re done, all participants have to do is submit their finished work via the online form on the ?Switch to Fusion? video contest page.  We?ll be blogging them as they come in: http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/switchtofusion/

T-Shirts for All!  And a MacBook Air for one!

In thanks, every single participant will get a VMware Fusion team t-shirt exactly like the team had at Macworld, and a ?My Mac Loves VMware? bumper sticker.  All they have to do is submit their work on the video contest page!

What?s more, one lucky videographer whose video best demonstrates why it was important to switch, why Windows on the Mac is important, and does it with the highest production value, will walk away with a fully tricked out MacBook Air, complete with VMware Fusion and a copy of Windows!

Blogs too!

Not into video?  That?s ok.  Users who simply blog about their ?Switch to VMware Fusion? will get a ?My Mac Loves VMware? bumper sticker, and the best story of a Switch to Fusion will get a shiny new iPod touch.  Can?t run Windows on it, but it?s still cool!

Why This; Why Now?:

A perfect storm of events has come together to make now the perfect time to Switch to Fusion, and there?s no better spokesperson for this message than our fabulous users who have already made the switch.

1. The Market Has Spoken: The software had been garnering critical acclaim in the market, from bloggers, to review sites, and more.  We?ve pulled all this information together on the ?Switch to Fusion? minisite: www.vmware.com/switchtofusion .  The upshot is: we?ve been on the market for a little over seven months, and consensus is that VMware Fusion is a fast, stable, and powerful way to run Windows on your Mac, and like your Mac, ?just works.?
   Thousands of users have already switched to VMware Fusion, and there?s no more credible source of advice than a peer.  That?s why we want to encourage our awesome user base to share their experience more broadly!
2. Switching Tools: VMware Importer for importing Parallels and Virtual PC-based VMs is available as a free download.  Just drag and drop your current Parallels or Virtual PC VM onto the utility, and it will create a new VM that is a perfect copy of your old one, ready to run on VMware Fusion.
3. Competitive Rebate: Users in the US and Canada who buy VMware Fusion, and submit proof of ownership of Parallels or Virtual PC can get a $30 rebate, bringing the cost of VMware Fusion down to $50?the typical price of an upgrade!

It just occurred to me that I never posted something about my Macbook Pro that impressed me mightily, and which I’ve taken advvantage of a few times over the last few weeks.

Yes, the simple act of closing the lid on the Macbook, putting it in my backpack, taking it out later, hitting the space bar and having it pop up exactly where I left it. A hibernation mode that works the way it’s supposed to!

I’ve owned a couple of Windows laptops, and supported dozens of others, and I have never seen this work the way it was supposed to, until now, on a Mac!

One other note about the training, I used my Macbook Pro for the presentation. I was curious to see how it would work out. Obviously, I needed my Windows Virtual Machine to run Summation, but once I got through a little hiccup connecting the MBP to the projector over in our training center, (oh ok, mirror the displays, that works better.) the rest of it ran without a hitch. In fact, with the VM window maximized, no one even noticed a difference, despite the Mac Menu bar being visible.

One person who did notice was our training coordinator when I first went over there and he was helping me get setup. He asked why I went with a Mac. My reply? Now that they’re using Intel chips and I can use VMware Fusion to load a Windows VM with all of the Windows tools I still need to use, I chose a Mac because I could.

Hmm, I write a pretty positive review of VMWare Fusion, and I get a thank you email from Pete Kazanjy, Fusion Product Marketing Lead. Then, in a follow up, he lets me know about the Team Fusion Blog.

So, if you’re interesting in keeping up with the latest Fusion news, check it out.

I spent a good part of the Super Bowl setting up a Virtual Machine with Windows vista on the Macbook Pro. The setup was actually pretty easy. The one complaint I had was that even though the easy setup program when you start the VM asked for the Windows Product Key, when I went to Activate Windows, the product key didn’t match. Strange. I was able to activate it by retyping the product key, so it should be no big deal, but I dislike retyping things.

After that I got the OS updated, put in a few more programs and watched the end of the game. Today, I finished up, getting Summation installed, and after some struggles, finally got the VPN client connected to work. (Note to self, make sure the VM is using Bridged Networking instead of NAT, apparently that matters with the VPN software!)

I really can’t complain, I’m loving running Windows and OSX at the same time. I love being able to explore Leopard and learn about using it, while still having access to the Windows stuff I need. Just plain awesome!

Updated: One other thing, when I put the VM in Unity view, where the Windows Start button sat down alongside the OS X Dock, and I could launch programs from either place, and each program I opened in Windows minimized to the dock as a separate window, it blew my mind a little. But in a good way.

Here’s something I’m sure some people never expected to see me working on…

So far, so good. I’m not having too much difficulty getting things setup the way I like, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by silly little things that are just nice. For example, the fact that the power cord is magnetized on the end, so I only have to get it close to the connector on the laptop. For some reason that seems pretty cool to me.

I am not overly impressed with the touchpad, but I generally dislike touchpads anyway. Luckily, my MS wireless mouse works just great!

Once I have the OSX side setup the way I want, it’ll be time to get VMWare Fusion and get a Windows VM setup. Responses on that last entry seem to favor just using a VM instead of Bootcamp so far. Thanks for the feedback!

OK, so the Macbook Pro arrived today and I’ve been spending a good part of the evening downloadng updates, getting some tools and generally getting it setup the way I like. One of the projects I’m going to start on soon is getting Windows to run for those things that I simply need Windows for, like our work VPN. My question is, what do you guys recommend, creating a Windows partition using Bootcamp and then pointing VMWare Fusion to it, or just creating the VM in Fusion and calling it a day on Bootcamp. Which gets better performance, and which is easier?

How do you have it set up?

After years, and years of making my living supporting, and working with, Windows PC’s I ordered a Macbook Pro to replace my aging laptop this weekend. There’s no hope for me now, is there? I’m doomed to be a fanboy and have a Steve Jobs crush, aren’t I?

OK seriously, one of the first things I’ll be doing with the MBP will be using Bootcamp to setup a Windows partition, (I need to use a Windows VPN client for work, and the Summation software I am now certified to train on both internally and freelance, won’t run on the Mac.) and my main desktop at home will still be my Windows machine, so let’s not get carried away. Still, I’m excited to see what the Mac can do as my laptop.

So, now that I’ll be getting my hands on my own Mac in a week or so, what are the must-have downloads I need to get? I already know I’ll be hitting Firefox, but what else do you guys recommend? I figure I need an FTP client, blogging tool, and pretty much anything else I’d use while on the road. If you were getting a new Macbook, what would be the first things you’d download?

My wife was doing a little on-line shopping today on her Mac and ran into a couple of sites that wouldn’t accept her credit card information. The transactions failed in both Firefox and Safari.

They were small, local shops, not national retailers, and the credit card information was accepted just fine working in Firefox on my Windows laptop, so I’m wondering if this is something that just happens some times with a Mac or if there’s something else I should be looking at on her machine? Anyone run into this?