Day: August 30, 2015

Parallels 11 allows you to run Windows 10 on your Mac!

Parallels 11 arrives with support for Windows 10, El Capitan

c|net – By: Sarah Mitroff – “Parallels, the software program that lets you run OS X and another operating system side-by-side on a Mac computer, is getting an upgrade. Version 11 ushers in support for the two newest OSes in 2015; Windows 10 and the forthcoming OS X El Capitan. It also promises to be much faster (up to 50 percent in some cases) than the versions before it.

Parallels Desktop for Mac is a virtualization system that has been letting people run Windows and other operating systems on their Macs for years. The system can run different operating systems without requiring separate computers for home and work. It also allows software developers to protect their host computers by isolating possible viruses to the affected operating system.

With the upgrade, you get three product choices with this launch: Parallels Desktop 11, Parallels Desktop 11 for Mac Pro Edition and Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition. Parallels Desktop 11 gets several performance improvements, including up to 50 percent faster boot and shutdown times and 20 percent faster file operations, both for Windows.

You’ll also be able to use Windows 10’s always-on Cortana feature, where you can ask Microsoft’s digital personal assistant for directions, restaurant recommendations, sports scores and more, even when you’re in OS X. Finally, a new Travel Mode tells your Windows OS to use less power when you’re away from a charger, giving you better battery life for your Mac.

The Pro version is brand-new this year and it’s built for developers with support for Docker, Visual Studio, Chef and other developer tools. The Business Edition is for IT departments, with built-in administrative features to manage other machines running Parallels, plus extended support from the company.

If you already have Parallels version 9 or 10, you can upgrade to version 11 for $49.99 (£34.99, AU$64.95). You’ll also get an offer to upgrade to the Mac Pro Edition instead for $49.99 (£34.99, AU$64.95) per year, which also comes with a free subscription to Parallels’ remote-access program, Access. For new customers, Parallels Desktop 11 costs $79.99 (£64.99, AU$99.95) flat-out, while the Mac Pro Edition and the Business Edition each cost $99.99 (£69.99, AU$125.00) per year individually.”

We are revisiting Piriform’s Speccy, because it has been updated, and because it has a neat feature you can use after the Windows 10 update to find your Windows 10 license string, in case you need to re-install!

Piriform Speccy – See Inside Your System

“See what’s inside your PC

Speccy is the place to start if you need to know what’s inside your PC. See a quick summary, or dive deeper into every aspect of your PCs hardware so you can make informed upgrade and purchasing decisions.

Speccy gives you detailed information on every piece of hardware in your computer. Save time trawling through your computer for stats like CPU, motherboard, RAM, graphics cards and more. See everything laid out for you in one clean interface.

See real-time temperatures of critical components so you can easily spot problems before they occur.

Speccy allows you to save your scan results directly as a snapshot, XML or text file for easy sharing. Handy for making sure your new computer has the right specs, or if tech support need to diagnose an issue with your computer.”

Now you can share one Echo between multiple accounts… THAT is cool, because my wife has Prime!

Amazon Echo now plays music, books from multiple accounts; gains BART schedules

ZDNet – By: Kevin Tofel for Mobile Platforms – “The Amazon Echo got a little more useful on Friday both for families and for those who live in the San Francisco Bay, California area.

Folks that use BART, the regional rail line north of Silicon Valley can travel times read aloud by Alexa using the Echo’s new BART Times skill.

To use it, first enable the Skill in the Amazon Alexa app and then say, ‘Alexa, open Bart Times.’ Alexa will first ask for your home and destination BART stations.

To test the process, I chose South San Francisco and Montgomery Street. Alexa then told me when the next three trains depart and arrive between the two.

While that’s useful, not everyone lives in the Bay Area. For everyone else, Alexa can now play audiobooks and music from multiple Amazon accounts. Until now, the Echo was tied to content from a single account.

Again, using the Amazon Alexa companion app, you simply add a second Amazon account to the Household Profile setting. Once that’s done, simply say, “Alexa, switch accounts” to flip between them. You can also ask ‘Alexa, which account is this?” to determine the one currently in use.

It may sound like a trivial change but the multiple account support will be welcomed by many. Amazon’s Echo can surely be used by a single person but since it works with one universal interface — voice commands — it’s useful in a household with several people.

Not everyone wants to listen to the same music or audiobooks in a home, however, which makes the new account switching support so handy.”