Virtual Box

If you've ever:

• Been curious about what a different operating system (say Ubuntu or Windows Vista) looks and feels like
• Need to run the odd Windows application (say Quicken) on your Mac
• Have a Vista machine but long for the simpler, nimbler days of Windows XP without blowing away your existing Windows installation
  
• Wanted to surf in a safe environment without worrying about Bad Things on the Internet (viruses, malware, etc.)
  

Then you should go get the free VirtualBox (the latest release, version 2.1, just dropped today). It helps you do all of those things, it's free, and it's pretty lightweight on system resources. (There are a few caveats, so talk to your resident geek to understand what this approach will protect you from -- and what it won't protect you from, such as phishing attacks.)

I just upgraded to the 2.1 release using my Mac as the host. I'm running Ubuntu, Vista and XP and guests. Now that VirtualBox supports the fancy technology in modern Intel chips (VT-x) to speed up virtualization, it's smoother, faster, and more responsive than ever.

It's not for resource hungry games (this is what I keep my old Dell around for), but for all the scenarios I mentioned above, it's amazing free software. I have no idea what Sun gets out of it, but don't let that bug you: just go get it.

Just as OpenOffice is not quite as powerful and full featured as Microsoft Office, VirtualBox is not quite as powerful or full featured as VMware Fusion or Parallels. For example, its implementation of "Seamless Mode" which mingles your guest OS windows with your host OS windows is a hack compared to Fusion's. But you can't beat the price. For the simple things I need out of a hypervisor (that's what nerds call this kind of software), it just works.

Aside from games, the only thing that doesn't work all that great is streaming video from Netflix. (streaming from Hulu and most of the major broadcast networks works just fine.) But now that the Netflix can do that directly to a Mac, I just watch on my Mac.