Orchid software on Mac

[David Edgley]

All,

Do any of you have personal experience running AQ Plus 3.0, Wildcatt, or OrchidWiz on a Mac using Parallels? Mac OS 10.4 or 10.5?

David

[K Barrett]

Yes I do.

Sometimes its a bit twitchy. For example today at a show AQ Plus loaded wrong. I had to close it and reload (which only took a matter of seconds to accomplish) but in the meantime I was the only judge at the table unable to pull up awards on Cym tracyanum on my neeto freeto macbook. I felt like an idiot.

Now that's probably user error. I sling the computer around, carrying from one place to another and I'm not really gentle with it. But occasionally these errors happen at home, too. I have to leave a program and restart it in order to get it to function properly. Having said that, from what I understand Parallels is more stable than the one that comes with OS X Leopard, and it has the capability to share programs from XP to OS X, so IMHO its worth the $90.

I've used the old OS X Tiger and the new Leopard. (Sorry I don't know the version #s.) and I use XP Pro on the microsoft side

Sometimes when I open XP the computer says the screen resolution isn't optimal for viewing, and I have to change it. (When I look at the monitor settings they are at 1200x 800 - which is the max the Mac Book will allow)

Parallels comes with Kaspersky anti-virus software which scans the harddrive on startup. I finally shut that feature down becasue I don't surf the web while on the microsoft side of the harddrive, and a virus can't cross the partition - or not usually from what I understand. That scan would slow the computer down a bit.

I've had no troubles with Orchid Wiz. I've had troubles using a memory stick to transfer data when updating the AOS Pacific Central web page and the California Sierra Nevada web page to my laptop. Parallels asks whether you want the device to run in Windows or Apple, so there's a step I'm not used to.

Other than these user errors Parallels works fine and I'm happy with it.

K Barrett

[Ray B]

I was one of the first adopters of WildCatt, and was very happy with it for several years, buying every update as soon as it was released. Then Alex came out with OrchidWiz, and it was such a major improvement that it made no sense to continue with WildCatt.

The Grays had talked about an upgrade to WildCatt, but I have never heard of it being tested or released, so it appears - to me anyway - that they have given up on the idea.

[David Edgley]

There haven't been very many on topic replies to this posting. Is KB the only Mac user out there? I'm getting one through my employer to replace my very old Dell and the options were a cheap Toshiba or a Macbook Pro with Parallels. No struggle with that decision!!!

So - any other experiences with AQ Plus, Wildcatt, or OrchidWiz on a Mac under Parallels? I don't really care which program you like better. I'm just looking to find out if your choice works well for you and if you have any recommendations.

Thanks again, David