I downloaded the Parallels trial and tried it with Windows 2000 by installing windows under the Parallels environment. It worked like a dream and it installed all the correct drivers the moment I selected Install Parallels Tools from the menu.

My trial expired and I decided to buy it online, I also decided to buy Windows XP to replace my old but very original Windows 2000 and to use XP with Parallels..this is where the problems began because I read that I could use a boot camp partition for Paralells and it sounded like the perfect scenario.

I installed boot camp and then installed Windows XP together with my new licence from Microsoft. I installed the drivers and checked that windows was working perfectly under boot camp, then I activated Windows XP on my MacBook Pro.

Next I licenced Parallels and removed the Windows 2000 configuration and virtual hard drive from parallels..not easy as you need to do it manually. Then I re-installed Parallels and took the option to use the boot camp partition. It started very slowly and then windows said it had noticed a significant change of hardware and needed to be re-activated within 3 days..oops. So I clicked “Activate Windows” and it failed.

I did a search on Google and found hundreds of other users had the same problem, some of them stuck in a perpetual loop of having to re-activate windows by phone when switching from boot camp to parallels… I was not impressed.

My other gripe is that running Parallels with windows that’s on a boot camp partition is slow and cumbersome. This makes it not practical to start a Windows App in coherence mode, which is the main reason why I licenced Parallels.

My solution was to have Windows XP on boot camp and have a fresh install of Windows 2000 running from a virtual hard drive in Parallels, so I can at least use my windows apps in coherence mode…this is important to me as there are one or two apps that I need but I do prefer the Mac OS for most of the time. Also I need to be able to boot to windows via Boot Camp for apps that need to use the 3D graphics card (Flight Simulator is the only one at the moment).

In conclusion.. Parallels is great, but don’t even think about using it with a boot camp partition.. it’s awful, instead install a virtual drive and use it like that..much better.

I have always been a big fan of real wireless data. Not the Wi-Fi rubbish that is about as useful as a cordless phone, but GPRS. EDGE, 3G HSDPA or EV-DO technologies which allow real wireless freedom.

Since I changed to a MacBook Pro I have had to use a mobile tethered to my my Mac by a USB cable, not very elegant and to be honest the data rate has never been able to match my trusted old Sierra Wireless 860 which will not fit in the Mac’s Expresscard slot.

I just found salvation in the form of a Novatel Merlin XU870 supplied by www.edgethailand.com.

The card is a dream to use, supplied from Edge Thailand complete with data sim card and easy to use software for both Mac and PC, and it’s quick too.

Now I’m truly mobile once again, thanks to Tim at Edge Thailand.

I finally bought the MacBook Pro 17″ that I had been promising myself for ages, and to say that I am pleased with is an understatement to say the least. It’s fast thank’s to its Core 2 Duo 2.33ghz processor and 2gb of memory, and the screen it totally amazing.

Being located in northern Thailand there is never very much choice when it comes to buying Mac hardware, but fortunately my local Mac dealer MacZone are very helpful and thoroughly professional, which is not always the case with dealers in Thailand. I emailed them on the Friday to ask how long it would take them to get one for me (it’s not a stock item) and by 2pm the next day they had one sent by courier to their office in Chiang Mai for me to collect.

Anyway, I still have a few lingering doubts about my ability to totally give up on windows, so I decided to run Windows XP via Parallels. This introduced the first of my problems, as I found it totally impossible to buy a genuine copy of Microsoft Windows in Chiang Mai (Only the second biggest city in Thailand), so I called my friend Tim in Bangkok and asked him if he could pick one up for me. After a few hours of scouring Bangkok’s IT malls he had the same result.. Nobody is selling “real” Windows XP.

The Biggest IT retailer in Thailand “IT City” had Windows in stock for 3999 baht but it has a big sticker one the side of the package stating “Not for retail sale, only to be supplied with a new PC”, I pointed this out to a bemused sales assistant who suggested that I go next door and buy a fake copy for 100 baht ($2.50) the same as everyone else!

Now let me make my position clear, my decision to buy “Genuine” is not on moral grounds, it’s simply too much of a headache running unlicenced windows and putting up with error messages. Even when it’s cracked you know that the next update may well cause all the error messages to start again.

In the end I bought a Windows licence online direct from Microsoft, for 3910 baht, which is just over $100. They said that the CD would take up to 4 weeks to arrive, but they sent it Fed-Ex from Singapore and it was here the next day!

So, now I’m the happy owner of a 17″ Macbook Pro with genuine Windows and MacOS, but I didnt get on too well with Parallels so I ended up with a plain Boot Camp partition.