I’ve reached a sort of nirvana at home with my whole computer situation. Having bought a 24″ iMac a few months back, I was really struggling with how to replicate my Outlook productivity to the corporate Exchange server. Entourage simple choked on the size of my email in-box, and separate mail, calendar and contacts just doesn’t cut it once you’ve become accustomed to the integrated workflow of Outlook.
So the other day my IT group created a Windows XP VM with VMWare Fusion. I took the CD home and within a few clicks, had a Windows desktop running on the iMac. I’m blown away at how well it works, how fast it works, and the fact that it worked without a hitch.
Keeping two monitors on my desk, but chucking my old tower, I have this insanely clean setup, and literally the best of both worlds, the iMac for all my home media and Windows for many of my work productivity apps (and any other Windows app I want to be running).
The other day, I accidentally discovered I could literally drag files between the two OS desktops, and the files converted on the fly to the required formats. Unreal!
Add in AppleTV, and my favorite family photos (with accompanied sound tracks) are now wireless streaming to the plasma in the living room. Rhapsody and a wireless cable from the iMac to the whole house Bose system and 3 million songs and tons of playlists can be listened to in any room independently.
The whole thing is friggen cool.