![]() All so George Lucas can continue to fund his attempt to grow the world’s fattest neck. Now it wasn’t enough to fork out £60 for the latest gouge of the Star Wars franchise, you had to pay another £25 for the ‘season pass’ to unlock new levels. Adobe pulled the same stunt with Creative Suite, the accountancy software firms cashed in (of course), even the sodding games makers got in on the act. Once Microsoft had proved it was possible to convert millions of your own customers from occasional buyers to monthly donors, everyone wanted a piece of the action. ![]() Now they just scrape £70 a year from your disposable income and add amazing new features such as… and, erm… No more waiting three years for a new version of Office that you probably wouldn’t buy anyway. Instead of selling us a new copy of Office once every ten years, when they’d actually added enough new features to justify the upgrade, they launched Office 365. For only(!) £6 a month, you’d have access to an ever-updating set of apps that dropped new features in as and when they were ready. Took us all for the cash-soaked frivolous idiots we clearly are. Because nobody got viruses in those days, right? The only swines who got away with charging a subscription fee were the antivirus companies, on the somewhat flimsy pretext that they were continuing to deliver updates that kept your PC safe. You liked a piece of software, you paid the price, you got to keep said software in perpetuity. Parallels Toolbox for Windows is the straw that broke the camel’s back.Ĭast your mind back to the halcyon days of PC software. Color me on the fence.The software industry has spent the past five years on a monumental piss-take. In addition, compared to the cost of all the other apps I use, the price of the tools is great, if you don't already have a big investment in comparable apps. Maybe my confusion about the tools derives from the fact that they are included with a Parallels 12 upgrade, which makes the upgrade a good deal if you need the tools as well. However, if you haven't acquired a similar collection, perhaps these will appeal to you. Then again, I'm a longtime Mac user so I already have apps to do almost everything Parallels Tools can do. I just have an aversion to subscription software. And given the number of tools involved, maybe the subscription is a way to keep the price down, or to obscure the ongoing cost of ownership. Or maybe these tools aren't for a VM at all, but are an independent product for the Mac. So I cannot use them in any case unless I upgrade OS X. I actually use Parallels 11-in OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks. No mention of which versions, besides Parallels 12, these tools work with. Well, maybe it's cheaper than a Parallels 12 upgrade if all you need are the tools. Note: price is for a yearly subscription. You can record from an external microphone if it is selected as the input source in System Preferences > Sound Record Audio - Use this tool to record audio from your computer’s built-in microphone with a single click.Mute Your Microphone - Mute your computer’s microphone to prevent unauthorized or unwanted listening by other apps.No need to wait until the password-protected screen saver kicks in Lock Screen - Immediately lock your screen to prevent unauthorized access to your computer.Hide Desktop - Use this tool to hide all the files, folders, and other icons on your desktop when you’re doing a presentation, sharing or recording your screen, or taking screenshots.Download A Video - Download your favorite videos from the Internet: YouTube, Vimeo, and many more.Ensure a task won’t be interrupted by disabling settings that would allow the computer to go to sleep Do Not Sleep - Prevent your computer from going to sleep and your display from dimming.When activated, all notifications and the Dock app animations are disabled Do Not Disturb - Avoid distractions so you can focus on the task at hand.Convert A Video - Optimize your home movie or television shows for iPad or iPhone.Time Management - A set of handy, easy-to-use time management tools to keep you productive and on task.Take Screenshots - Screenshot a screen, active window, or area.Record Your Screen - Record a video of a screen, active window, or area.Unarchive any archived files, RAR, zip, and more Archive Your Files - Compress files with one click to use less storage space.Parallels Toolbox offers a set of tools, with no complicated settings, to simplify everyday tasks.
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