Well, well, well, today was a good day for free virtualization software. Yep, both VMWare and Microsoft released free products, available for download as you read this.
VMWare’s product is of course the long-awaited VMWare Virtual Server. In response, Microsoft has released Virtual PC 2004 (w/SP1) as a free product, and announced that the upcoming 2007 version of the product would also be a no-cost release.
If you are looking to start leveraging virtualization, any of the current free products can get you in the door. And don’t think that either of these are low-feature, buggy software – actually, both products (including Msft’s Virtual Server 2005 R2) are class-leading packages.
Not sure which to use? Depends on what you want to do – if you simply want to run another copy of Windows on your PC, Virtual PC is your best bet. If you want to run Linux or need more options, then VMWare Virtual Server is your choice. If you need to run several Windows Server installs, MS Virtual Server 2005 R2 is the one you want.
Another note – VMWare hosts a number of free “virtual appliances” – that the community has created. All I’ve looked at run one version of Linux or another, and have Open Source applicaitons running on them. From a straitforward desktop Fedora or Suse install, to a LAMP platform, to a virtual PBX in the app “Asterisk“, you can find a number of useful, pre-built virtual systems. ‘Tis a good day to virtualize.
Now here is a nice trend – Firefox usage is on the rise again. According to this article by Nate Mook at BetaNews, Mozilla’s Firefox browser is gaining additional significant market share.
With over 15% of the US market and just shy of 13% worldwide, Firefox has become a significant force in Internet browsing. Opera is also doing quite well in the current “browser wars” at a solid 1% of the worldwide market. Firefox will be releasing v2.0 later this year (around the same time as IE7) that should push the bar even further for browser innovation. While I wish I could say that IE7 is just as good, the reality is that it still has a lot of room for improvement. The enhancements and new features such as tabs and RSS support make a big difference, but overall IE still lags on a number of areas – especially performance and expandability. Via: BetaNews
It may have been interesting to see a market develop for home IT services in years past, but I guess I’m not thrilled with the idea of supporting consumers who simply don’t understand technologies limitations. Thankfully, technology has improved greatly since I started playing around with computers and software back in 1980, but it still has a long way to go to function as easily as a DVD player.
Still, this is the type of thing for shops like Avatar Consultants and others – the real fun with consumer IT services is the media integration, wireless streaming solutions and such that can be meshed together quite easily with today’s technology. Cheap WiFi and disk storage, plentiful broadband options, pervasive mobile devices, and free services can mashed up into any number of unique solutions for anyone interested in letting their imagination wander.
Well, wait no longer! Microsoft has launched an inside live site dedicated to introduce anyone interested to their new “Web 2.0” properties. Though I think they need to add more detail, they have started with two mini-interviews of Windows Live developers.
More information on the site is available by clicking on the Windows Live logo at the top of the “inside live” site.
I’ve realized something. I need all my posting tools, content creation ideas, and storage of all this to be online. While I currently do most of my writing offline in OneNote, I’m finding that I would prefer to have my tools online in some way.
A lot of work I did months ago was in Writely – and I’m starting to return to this tool instead of locally installed software. The nice thing about Writely (and Zoho Writer among others), is that your data is stored online, available from practically any browser. The online tools like these also have the basic formatting and all-important spell check (for me at least) features that make writing blog posts a simple task.
What’s missing from these types of online tools are research features. Now, I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for here, because of course there is no shortage of places to look for information online. This is the place where OneNote shines, because you can Cut & Paste, clip, and copy all types of information into your OneNote notebook in all types of organizational structures. The online tools don’t have something like this.
However, even the abiltiy to aggregate the research notes for a post or article don’t make it easy to form that into a readable format. Of course that is where the creativity in blogging (or any writing for that matter) comes in.
The reality of things as I start to work on more and more writing chores comes into focus, and I believe that I’m going to end up with two different methods for blogging. One online with the Writely’s and Zoho Writers of the world, and one with local software like OneNote & Word. The reason for this is because of the differing styles of posts – long & short. Long posts really need supporting information like links, definitions, pictures, and more. Short posts are really in the conversational form that blogging has long been associated with and simply requires that I stay on topic – though it would be nice to spell things correctly. 😉
The really dirty secret of blogging with OneNote is that the HTML output from both OneNote and Word is horrid – even the 2007 versions that are in beta. Hopfully this will improve over time, but as nice as it is to create a long post in OneNote, the work involved to clean up the HTML is lengthy and not easy. Several posts have ended up in Writely anyway so I could work on the HTML before posting the damn thing on my blogs.
I’ve had some great hints, tips and tricks from several people on the OneNote development team & forums, but for blogging, the product has a long way to go. The biggest problem with OneNote/Word is that Microsoft (it seems) just can’t get deal with the fact that other products and developers can handle presentation as good or better than they can. Fonts are the worst part of OneNote/Word posting – every damn paragraph definition, they have to embed the font being use in the product. Hint – every blog handles the default font for the blog. Oh well, the reality is that I’m moving back towards online tools that I can reach from almost anywhere – I think this will work best for me going forward.
As governor, the State Capitol will stand for unity and common sense.
In addition to the POW/MIA flag that has long flown over the State Capitol, we will fly two flags when I am governor: the Wisconsin state flag and the American flag.
