As we pointed out yesterday, more and more Americans are buying Macs, but going to the iSide doesn’t always mean you can leave Windows behind. Since 2006, every Mac that Apple sells has also had the ability to run Windows using Boot Camp.

However, for most users, the best way of using Windows on a Mac is using a virtualization program like VMWare Fusion, Parallels, or Virtual Box. These programs let you run Windows alongside Mac OS X all on the same machine.

As a Mac user who often likes to test Windows-only programs (like the Google Chrome browser) or needs to use Windows for a nascent VPN here and there, virtualization is the best way to keep me using the programs I like on both platforms as the same time. Today, VMWare is taking pre-orders for VMWare Fusion 3, scheduled for release on October 27th.

VMWare Fusion 3 was designed to take advantage of both the recently released Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and the upcoming Microsoft Windows 7. I spoke with Fusion’s Product Manager Pat Lee last week, and he told me that more than 50 new features and enhancements have been added to VMWare Fusion to make the experience of running Windows on the Mac that much better.

Faster Performance, Improved Integration

VMWare Fusion was released for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and wasn’t really designed for the under-the-hood enhancements of Snow Leopard. VMWare Fusion 3 was designed for Snow Leopard and it natively supports the 64-bit kernel and allows users to run 64-bit guest operating systems, even if their Mac is running the 32-bit kernel.

Lee told me that he thinks VMWare Fusion 3 will offer Snow Leopard users the best way to run Windows, Linux or Leopard Server on their Macs. VMWare has also improved its Unity mode (where Windows applications appear alongside Mac apps in the dock and in the menu bar) and made accessing files, apps and documents from your virtual machine even easier and more seamless.

Aero is Virtualized. Finally

Over the past few years, the actual performance of virtualization tools has really started catch up with running a system natively — except for one area — graphics. Virtualized setups still lag behind when it comes to 3D graphics and gaming, but that gap is getting smaller and smaller.

What I think is some of the biggest news about VMWare Fusion 3 is that it is the first Mac virtualization system to support Windows Aero (in Windows Vista and Windows 7 and Flip 3D. iMac, MacBook Pro and Mac Pro users should all have the ability to see Aero’s glassy goodness inside the VM. If you purchased a MacBook or Mac mini with one of the newer integrated Nvidia graphics chips, you can take advantage of Aero too.

Admittedly, Aero support is more superficial than productive — but this is a huge step in bridging that gap between native and virtualized system performance. VMWare Fusion 3 also supports OpenGL 2.1 and Direct X 9.0c — which means that depending on your graphics card, you can even play games in Windows without having to use Boot Camp.

Move Your Old Windows Machine to Your Mac

A large percentage of individuals buying a new Mac are also new to the Mac platform. Even if you plan on keeping your old computer around, getting all of your files and photos transferred to your Mac can be daunting — especially for the new user.

Similar to what another virtualization company, Parallels, is doing — VMWare Fusion 3 includes a new feature that will let a user connect to their old Windows machine across the network and copy that computer into a new virtual machine that they can access on their Mac. That’s actually pretty cool — especially if you have some other ideas for things you might want to do with the older hardware.

VMWare Fusion 3 is available for pre-order starting today at at VMWare’s site, the Apple Online Store and Amazon.com for $79.99. Existing VMWare customers can upgrade via VMWare’s site on October 27th for $39.99 (if you recently purchased VMWare Fusion 2, you can upgrade to 3.0 for free).

Mac users — do you use Windows on your Mac? If so, how? Let us know!

Tags: apple, mac os x, Snow Leopard, virtualization, vmware fusion, Windows 7

Read more here:
VMWare Fusion 3 Makes Running Windows on Mac Almost Fun

It’s been almost a week since Google Wave went live; we’ve toured Wave inside and out, tried to help folks get invites, and even pointed you to the first Google Wave search you should know. But can you use it yet?

Did You Get a Wave Invite?(polls)

So far the only people I know who’ve received their invites were people who were in the dev preview, people who were invited by someone at Google, and the rest of those who were part of the very early 100,000 invite pool. Which is to say, I don’t believe that anyone who’s been invited by another Wave user has gotten their invitation yet. I quickly sent out my Wave invites to my fellow Lifehacker editors as soon as I was in, but as of now none of them have received an invitation.

If you've gotten your Wave invite—especially if you were invited by someone who gained access to Wave just last week—tell us about it in the comments.

Update: Apologies for the prematurely closed poll—should be open now!

Read more here:
Have You Gotten Your Google Wave Invite? [Reader Poll]

Exactly one year ago today, the Google Chrome browser was launched to the world. And, in Google-like fashion, they took the unconventional route of announcing Chrome via comic book. Do you remember all of the discussion around Google’s decision to enter the browser market?

Now, 365 days later, Google is commemorating Chrome’s first birthday with some impressive stats. To get the full picture of where Chrome stands today though, we need to look at all the numbers.

The Chrome Road Ahead

While Google’s commemorative blog post talks a great deal about birthday cakes and birthday balloons, the numbers-oriented company did reveal a plethora of interesting facts about the browser. Here is what Google shared:

“Since September 2, 2008, there have been:

– 51 developer releases, 21 beta releases or updates, and 15 stable releases or updates
– Over 20,600 bugs filed (4367 of them were duplicates, 3505 have been fixed, which leaves a whole lot left to go!)
– 11 external committers and bug editors, 46 external code contributors
– 50 Chrome Experiments
– 26 posts on the Google Chrome blog
– 12 Chrome Shorts, a collection of short films about Google Chrome
– A sequel to the comic in Japanese

More importantly, we’ve improved by over 150% on Javascript performance since our initial beta.”

Those numbers are impressive, but they’re almost entirely development-related. The stat that industry analysts, media, and early adopters care about though, is market share. So in 12 months, how much ground has Google made?

The answer: not much. According to stats from Market Share/Net Applications, Chrome only has 2.84% of the market, far behind Internet Explorer’s 66.87% or Firefox’s 22.98%.

Still, it’s only had a year, and it isn’t even officially out for Mac yet (disappointingly). And big developments, like the the Google/Sony deal to pre-load Chrome on Sony PCs are going to boost its market share.

More time is needed before we know whether Chrome was a smart project or a failed endeavor. Will Google push Chrome even harder as it fixes the bugs and makes it into a viable browsing alternative? Or will Google lose focus as it builds the related Google Chrome OS? Only time will tell.

Tags: chrome, Firefox, Google, google chrome, internet explorer

Read more here:
Google Chrome Turns One: Has It Been a Success?