Presented in chronological order:

• v1.5 – IDEs of…April: Came at a perfect time for me, because I had just switched to CFEclipse recently. So it was great confirmation for me and I enjoyed the Eclipse plugin recommendations. This episode is good for anyone still using Dreamweaver or HomeSite.
• v1.6 – Version Control: Also had great timing, because I had already committed myself to exclusively using Subversion but hadn’t yet set up my Subversion server. While you’re at it, check out the follow-up episode on v1.29 – Source Control Revisited. These episodes are a nice way to be introduced to version control for web development.
• v1.10 – Design Pattern Safari: Probably one of the most classic episodes and a must-hear. All about design patterns like beans, DAOs, etc.
• v2.01 – Rise of the Virtual Machines: Discussion of virtualization technology on both Macs and Windows. Great discussion, because I think this is an important technology for web developers; I am a big proponent of virtualization.
• v2.02 – Cryptology and Security: This was very interesting because of the information that was discussed regarding encryption, hashing, and salt.
• v2.15 – Mark Mandel on Transfer: Very good consideration of the popular ORM, Transfer.
• v2.27 – Selenium: Discussion on testing your apps on the client side with Selenium.
• v3.06 – Open Source BlueDragon: Discussion with Vince Bonfanti about BlueDragon going open source.

I will miss Matt’s Vista rants.   Thanks to both of you for all of your hard work.

If you’re hankering for a podcast to listen to, Brian Meloche is picking up where Matt and Peter left off with a new podcast called CFConversations. W00T!

It worked great. Instructions were very clear and the process was mildly simple.

Well, I finally took the time to find out how to do this from the command line. It's simple.

Get the current state of the virtual machine. Is it running or not?

And start it.

There are many other things you can do as well. Just man vmware-cmd.

Those solutions are geared to respectively increase convenience. Bootcamp requires an inconvenient reboot. Then virtualization software allows us to boot up Windows without rebooting our Mac, and we can even use Mac apps and Windows apps simultaneously albeit with Windows in an encapsulated environment. Finally, CrossOver aims to take the convenience to the next level by eliminating Windows and enabling Mac OS X to execute Windows apps!

One article at LinuxWorld called CrossOver Office "the best way to do the wrong thing". I contend that CrossOver is the worst way to do the wrong thing. If I have to run a Windows app on my Mac, I certainly want it to run as smoothly as possible, just like the rest of my Mac experience, and I want it to run like the developer intended. Largely, dual-booting and virtualization don't compromise the behavior of the app I'm running. When you run your app with CrossOver, however, you don't know what kind of performance you'll get. Your app may just die; it may run but be full of bugs. The reports coming from the web show that your experience will be very hit-or-miss.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not knocking the WINE project, which is the basis for the CrossOver codebase. A project to port the Windows APIs to another platform, although ambitious, is fascinating and, frankly, perfect as an opensource project. The problem I have is with the attempt to commercialize this technology that is great as a free resource but destined to never deliver a level of quality that befits a commercial product.

Why? There are so many variables and pitfalls to porting an API that the technology will never be able to work for even a large percentage of Windows apps, let alone all or the majority. And the technology can continue to be refined, only to see a Windows upgrade completely shatter the compatibility of future apps, and the development process of tweaking the port starts all over again. And from an opensource perspective, that's fine. That's the strength of an opensource initiative. It's not such a great model for a commercial product.

What would you rather do? Buy CrossOver for $59 and be able to run only a few apps with it, and perhaps with a few bugs at that, or buy Parallels for $79 and be able to run practically all Windows apps with it, nearly bug-free? Of course, the price differential increases if you need to purchase a copy of Windows. Nevertheless, your experience will be infinitely more reliable if you use a virtualization solution like Parallels.

For the tech geek who likes tinkering with new software, this solution is worth a gander, especially while the free public beta is available. However, if you just need to get down to business, I recommend sticking with virtualization.

This really isn't news, as there have always been alternatives to Virtual PC, even when it was owned by Connectix. There was SoftPC/SoftWindows and RealPC, now defunct; still in existence is the WINE Project, which is technically not an emulator; finally, still alive and well, although limited and/or difficult to use, are DOSBox and MacBOCHS, products of the open source community and Apple's open acceptance of that community.

But now there is GuestPC. Weighing in at $69, it appears to be the cheapest alternative that does not sacrifice ease of use. Compared to Virtual PC's $129 price tag, depending on how well this alternative emulator operates, it just may be a great choice.

Check out the Top 10 Questions About Virtual PC from Microsoft, then scroll down to Question #10, "Does Virtual PC make my Mac more vulnerable to computer viruses?"

Indeed, in the answer, Microsoft openly acknowledges that Mac users are obviously exposed to the same vulnerabilities of a PC while they are running Virtual PC. Obviously--thankfully--these viruses will not be able to operate while any virtual machines running Windows are deactivated, and even if viruses do propagate to a Mac volume (by means of shared folders, for instance), they will not be able to run under the Mac environment. Nevertheless, the door is open for Mac volumes to be littered with virus files if a virtual machine running Windows is infected on Virtual PC. Indeed, this happened to me a few years ago, and it was a pain, because the virtual machine running Windows littered my Mac with virus files.

Microsoft is certainly forced to make such acknowledgments, and it is oh so sweet!

I found out about it here: eWeek: Microsoft Releases Virtual PC 7.

It is very nice to read that Microsoft managed to eek out between 10%-30% more speed in this version, making it an upgrade worth considering. I'm sure the upper end of that percentage range is reserved for G5's, since VPC 7 is now optimized for G5. Nevertheless, any speed improvement is welcome.

This is particularly exciting since Microsoft will be making Virtual PC 7 part of the Microsoft Office Suite, Professional Edition, as indicated in eWeek's article, Office 2004 for Mac Hits Store Shelves.