VMWare Fusion is an application for the Mac that lets you run Windows as a virtual machine. No need to reboot into Windows to play games, you can just startup Fusion and run any Windows app right from your comfy Mac OS desktop.

They’ve launched a new public beta (version 2), which you can download and try out for free. It’s beta software, so it’s not for critical stuff, but should work fine if you’re curious about the software.

I gave it a go on my work machine. Installation was easy, and it automatically detected the Boot Camp partition I’ve been using to run Windows with. Starting the Windows machine was easy, and it felt prety responsive.

…Until I tried to run a game, that is. I started up Fable, a not-too-recent game with low graphics requirements. After a few screen hiccups, the game started, but Fusion warned me that “some shaders are not supported, and some elements may not display.”

I clicked past the warning and started a game anyway. Lo and behold the missing shaders were: me! The main character displayed as just a pair of eyeballs floating in space. Really creepy, and kind of a deal-breaker for me.

So I shut it down. Or rather, tried to shut it down, but had to force quit and reboot my Mac to regain control of the machine.

It didn’t perform well for me, but I’d still suggest giving the free beta a shot. Who knows? You may find it does everything *you* need it to do, and be worth picking up a copy of Fusion 2.0 when it comes out.

I’ve hopped on yet another Web 2.0 bandwagon by joining Twitter.

My username’s mindbat (of course). Join up, and let’s Follow each other about all day (it’s not as creepy as it sounds, I promise).

I was all set to install an application built using Adobe’s AIR platform when I took a minute to actually read the End-User License Agreement. What I read made me cancel the install, rather than agree to the EULA.

What was so bad? Well, for a development platform that’s supposed to let users run web apps from their desktop, regardless of their operating system, AIR can apparently only be used once:

2.1 General Use. Subject to the terms of this agreement, including the important restrictions in Section 3, you may install and use a copy of the Software on one compatible computer. The Software may not be shared, installed or used concurrently on different computers

Did you catch that? They’ll let you install it once, on one computer, and that’s it. How useful is that? I migrate between a Mac computer at work and a Linux computer at home; this EULA means I can only have use AIR programs on one or the other, but not both.

As if that weren’t crazy enough, Adobe still has the balls to claim they offer AIR with no warranty and no guarantees. So not only do they restrict where I can install and use their “free” software, but they also won’t take responsibility for any damage it causes.

I was excited when I first heard about Adobe AIR. No more. AIR’s EULA places Adobe firmly in the doesn’t-care-about-user-freedom-at-all camp, and that’s a camp I’ve left behind.

This is what my Palm TX should have been.

Granted, the Palm was a good organizer and datebook. But in the 21st Century, who cares about an electronic datebook that can’t load Facebook or YouTube properly? I don’t need a calendar application, I need to be able to get to my Google Calendar.

I do need to be able to watch videos without a lot of hassle. I do need to be able to read pdfs I’ve just downloaded. And I do need better text input methods than Graffiti.

The Nokia N810 delivers all this and more.

Here’s how:

1) Web browsing: The Nokia’s Mozilla-based browser renders web pages correctly, with all their CSS and Flash intact. And on the tablet’s 800×600 display, they look great.

2) Ebooks: The Nokia’s built-in pdf reader loads pdfs straight from the web and displays them perfectly. I don’t need to have them converted first, like I did with the Palm.

3) Handwriting recognition: The Nokia gives me true handwriting recognition right out of the box. Instead of being stuck learning someone else’s shorthand (Graffiti), I can train the tablet to recognize my own personal chicken-scratch. That makes it the first device I could see replacing my many notebooks.

I’m writing this on my brand-new Nokia N810 Internet Tablet!

It’s got trainable handwriting recognition, a fully-featured web browser, and Linux under the hood.

Goodbye, Palm. Hello, Open Source!