I told Parallels that I would write a post on my blog about their product if they failed to fix the terrible bugs they launched Parallels 4 with. Well, it's 9 months later and the bugs still haven't been fixed. So, I'm following through on my promise. Do not buy Parallels 4.

Parallels 3 was a solid application. In fact, I still use it on my Mac at work. If you have a copy of Parallels 3, and you're thinking about upgrading to 4, DON'T DO IT. Parallels 4, in a word, sucks.

First and foremost, Parallels 4 is buggy. And I'm not talking about rare bugs, I'm talking about common bugs that force you to restart Parallels. They launched with these bugs and they still haven't fixed them. The worst bug is related to the way they changed the keyboard conversion support.

Parallels 4 Keyboard Support Is Not Good

Parallels 3's keyboard support is great. They completely changed it in 4, ignoring the wisdom of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Well, they broke it and for no good reason. They made it more complicated than it needed to be, and the new system doesn't work like it's supposed to. When a company justifies a new version of their software by making it more complicated and break fundamental functionality in the process, it makes you question not only their judgment, but their commitment to the interests of their customers.

Aside from the keyboard mapping being complicated and not working nearly as well or reliably as it did in 3, Parallels 4 will commonly "stick" the Windows key. The only real way to "unstick" it is restart Parallels. Once it happens, you can't type anymore, and if you type "L" by itself, for instance, Windows will ask you if you want to log off. This bug is one I would consider a show stopper, and it happens every single session. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. To knowingly release and sell software with a show stopping bug in it shows a lack of care to the people who paid money for their software.

I bought Parallels 4. And I believed them when they said they were going to fix the issues. I'm not able to get a refund because they tricked me into waiting until I couldn't get one anymore, by lying to their frustrated customers with promises of fixing these issue. If you think "lying" is too strong a word, you tell me what it means when you tell your customers that you are working on a fix in November and December and it's June and nothing has been done.

Is it too hard to fix? Are you telling me that you screwed up your software so bad that you can't fix it? And the change you made was not only entirely unnecessary, even if it worked made your software harder to use anyway? And you can't roll back to the simpler system that actually worked? In nine months? I don't buy it. Most likely, you're just working on Parallels 5 with the money you fleeced from existing and new customers on Parallels 4. You're knowingly selling a broken version to finance your next version. Ponzi would be proud.

Parallels 4 is not stable

Parallels 4 crashes. A lot. I'd say once every few days. Parallels 3 crashes maybe once every few months.

Parallels 4 is slower than Parallels 3

Windows XP running in Parallels 4 is noticeably slower than in Parallels 3. Don't believe their marketing. I installed Windows XP into Parallels 4 on a PowerMac 2.8 GHz Quad-Core with 4GB RAM (and a fresh install of the latest OSX 10.5) and I was running Parallels 3 on my MacBook Pro 2.33GHz with 4GB RAM. Windows XP on my slower MacBook Pro ran SO MUCH faster than my MacPro desktop it wasn't even close.

Parallels has terrible customer support

They denied knowing about the keyboard bugs which were so ridiculously common that there was no way they didn't know they existed when they released their software. They knew it was there, they knew it was a show stopping bug (you have to restart Parallels to fix it!), but they sold their buggy software to people anyway. This would be forgivable if they fixed it right away. But, they didn't, and still haven't. I've installed each update they've released for it, and the bugs, instability and slow performance persist.

I bought Parallels 4 the day after it was released and was disappointed. Those keyboard bugs happened within 5-10 minutes of using Parallels almost every single time I ran it. I went on their forums and reported the bugs, including detailed descriptions of how to make them happen every time.

At first, their forum staff denied that these bugs existed and implied that I must have done something incorrectly. When more people started reporting the same thing, they said they would look into it. Well, weeks went by and they finally acknowledged there was an issue, but they downplayed the bug and promised they would fix it. Well, that was October, and now it's June, a full nine months after Parallels 4's release, and they still haven't fixed it. People are still complaining on their forums, but Parallels has long since stopped responding.

Don't Buy Parallels 4

I haven't ever used VMWare Fusion, but I know people who have and are very happy with it. I am recommending it entirely based on how poor Parallels 4 is. If you have a copy of Parallels 3, be thankful. It's solid. Stick with it. Do not waste a penny on Parallels 4 or give that company any of your money. They don't deserve it.

10.0.2 is an awesome update. It adds stability, improves performance, and added a JSFL command to publish an .fla without opening it.

Unfortunately, I just found a bug with Expose that I can replicate every single time.

Create or open an .fla file.
Create or open another .fla file.

Expose. Everything is fine.

Click on the tab for the first .fla.

Expose. Flash is broken into pieces.

Click on the tab for the second .fla.

Expose. Everything is fine.

This is reproducible 100% of the time.

If you open multiple .fla files and you have any tab other than the first one selected, Flash is broken with Expose.

Gaia 3.1.2 has some awesome new features, including Runtime Font Loading (AS3), the new ByteArrayAsset (AS3), the ability to set the preloader delay, adds a missing function in IStyleSheet, panel performance optimization, and the ability to deauthorize the panel.

Runtime Font Loading allows you to easily access dynamically loaded fonts in any page or swf asset in your site.

The new ByteArrayAsset enables you to load raw bytes into Gaia. One use is to load in Bitmap or swf assets and create multiple instances of them from the same bytes.

The Gaia panel performance has been optimized to drop the framerate down to 0.1 when inactive, and only run at 10fps when active. You can also deauthorize the panel in case you buy a new computer or reinstall your operating system.

You can read more in the official release notes: http://www.gaiaflashframework.com/index.php/topic,1808.0.html

Apollocoders is a dead mailing list. Nobody posts there anymore. It's moderated and I've waited days for posts to show up. Stick a fork in it, it's done.

Introducing AIR Tight, the new Adobe AIR mailing list, a la Flashcoders/Flash Tiger.

Sign up now!

http://groups.google.com/group/air-tight

Gaia 3.1.0 adds some requested panel updates including relative class path injection, custom class path support in templates, spaces in folder paths, a new API method getSitePosition(), and some minor code edits in preparation for the upcoming HaXe version!

I'm extremely excited to attend FITC Toronto this month (April 26-28th). Not only is it my first time to Toronto, which I hear is an amazing city (I hear it's the best in all of Canada), not only am I speaking about my Gaia Framework, but the lineup this year is incredible. If you haven't bought your ticket yet or are still on the fence about going, you should definitely get on it before they're all gone. I love going to Flash events and here's a few reasons why this one is particularly awesome:

First up is Lee Brimelow. Lee is one of my favorite evangelists and is representing again, this time with an introduction to ByteArrays and a Flash CS4 Workshop. Plus, he'll be doing another of his famous Adobe Master Collection dead drops, which is guaranteed to have people running around Toronto at all hours hunting for it (myself included)!

R Blank always brings his trademarked energy and excitement and this year is no exception. He's giving a presentation called "Get off your ass and start using AS3 already!", and any presentation with expletives and exclamation points in its title must be good.

I'm definitely checking out the MTV Jackass on AIR presentation. I've about this AIR app and it sounded insanely bad ass. I'm looking forward to finding out more about how they built this.

It almost goes without saying that I'm looking forward to the legendary parties, getting to meet and hang out with the super stars in the industry, see old friends, and make new ones. It's a fantastic opportunity to network and have fun. I can't wait.

You can see all the presentations here: http://www.fitc.ca/event_detail.cfm?festival_id=79

And you can get tickets here: http://store2.fitc.ca/ticket_type.cfm?e=26

Looking forward to seeing you there! FYI, I'm giving my presentation on Gaia, Sunday April 26th from 1:40-2:40 (hint hint).

Cheers,
Steven Sacks

The Callaway Golf "Hit It Pure" game we built at Hello Design won an FWA on April 4th! Awesome!

Nemo Design is a design agency in Portland, Oregon and they used the Gaia Framework for their company website. It's well done and uses some of Gaia's cool features like overriding the preloader at runtime.

Keith Urban is a country music star and his new website was built using the Gaia Framework.

It's got some nice photography and interesting transition styles which look like they're triggered using Gaia's event hijacking. It also driven by a dynamically generated site.xml.

http://www.keithurban.net

It's my birthday, bitches!