New with Parallels?!?!?!

Just got a Mac book pro recently and have been looking into what types of Apps I can run with one. I have been looking at parallels and have only found information on running games on it. I was just curious if anyone could help me out with what is the best parallel and what besides gaming can you do with one?

Thanks
Mac Newbie

The main reason for running a program like parallels or other virtualisation software is that you can run windows/linux etc on your mac computer along-side OSX, it runs another OS inside a window while your still using OSX. The other way to do it would be to use Bootcamp, now Bootcamp is great again for running windows or linux etc, but with Bootcamp you choose which OS to run when turning on your computer. This means you can't access OSX while running a different OS but this way you get all your hardware running one OS instead of multiple.
Hope this clears things up and isn't too confusing.

- Simon

Definitely read the stickies at the top of this forum before proceeding. To run windows, you can either use Boot Camp or create a virtual machine. To do the latter, you can use Sun's VirtualBox (free), Parallels or VM Ware Fusion - the latter two cost $$ (although they have 30-day free trials), although they have more features. The main reason NOT to run a virtual machine is if you do a lot of gaming or other software that requires native access to video hardware. Productivity applications, surfing, and most games run great in virtual machines. In either case you need to purchase a full retail or "system builder's OEM" version of Windows.

With that as a backdrop, take a look at the two sticky threads at the top of this forum and then post back if you have specific questions.

Cheers