VMWare Player
I’ve discovered something that is exciting. It is a new product from VMWare called the VMWare player. Not heard of VMWare? They create products that allow you to run multiple operating systems on 1 computer. The technology is like an emulator. Emulators are big with game players as they allow you to run all your old Atari, Nintendo and other games. It works by a rogram that runs and interprets instructions just like whatever old computer it is emulating. You can then run the programs and instructions of that other system. Needless to say I now have all my old Atari games on a floppy disk.
Back to VMWare. It is similar to emulators. They have a product that allows you to create a ‘virtual’ computer. Within this virtual computer you can install a completely different operating system to run. Why would you want to do that? There are many different reasons, but for designers some of those are:
1 - You can set up multiple systems with different versions of browsers. This is excellent for testing web sites with version 5, 5.5, 6, and 6.2 of IE for example. For a web designer, this will allow you to see your site as others may see it. For a web developer or programmer, this also allows you to test different code with different browsers easily.
2 - You can test beta software. Ever test some beta software and have your system get really screwy? You can eliminate that.
3 - If you don’t have a firewall you can set up a virtual pc to be your firewall. You can do this, but I still would rather have Zone Alarm
4 - If you’ve been wanting to test out Linux this is a perfect way to do it. This also allows you to utilize LInux programs without having to have a dedicated system.
With the VMWare player you can’t do one thing. That is create new virtual computers. You need the Workstation ($190) for that. With the VMplayer you can only use an already created virtual computer. This is still of benefit as many vm’s have already been created for download. If you have the workstation you can create a virtual computer for others. Keep in mind though that you can’t use this to install an os illegally. So you can’t borrow a copy of Win xp and install it on all your computers.
The other problem is that it doesn’t install on Mac and you can’t install a mac os as a VM.
This doesn’t solve every problem, but if nothing else it is way cool to have multiple os’s to play with. 
For web designers doing web sites and web apps, this is a great way to view your sites using different browsers and test the functionality from coding and scripting with different browsers.
PC magazine review
Read others feelings and reviews of VMWare player