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What are the benefits of virtualization? This was a question asked over on Lockergnome Q&A recently, and I thought the answers may just benefit several of you out there. Now, we know that many of you already use virtual machines. Why not leave a GOOD comment on the video, explaining to those who don’t why it is they might want to look into doing so? See how that works? We all help each other! Remember – YOU were a n00b at one time, too!

Virtualization isn’t emulation: it’s using the computer hardware to run an operating system within an operating system. You can run umpteen dozen operating systems at the same time – all doing something different if you so choose. I run Windows 7 in a virtual machine on my Mac so that I can quickly and easily do anything I might need to do within Windows.

In my mind, the largest benefit to a virtual machine is when you’re trying something new. Take a snapshot of your current VM… try out whatever it is you have your eye on. If it doesn’t work – no big deal! Just revert your VM to the snapshot and you’re good to go. That’s a beautiful thing, in my mind. You can instantly go right back to where you started without having to back everything up, reinstall your operating system and adding your programs/documents back.

Which VM software do you recommend – and why? Keep in mind that I have coupons for Parallels, VMWare and even more!

Why Do You Need a Virtual Machine?

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Some people have trouble gaming inside of VMWare. It tends to throttle their CPU. However, in the newest version of VMWare Fusion one of the toggles have been removed. You can change quite a bit of settings to optimize your virtual machine explicitly for gaming purposes.

It’s going to hit your CPU no matter what. You’re running software. Make sure that you’ve allocated the most RAM that you can to the VM. Maxing out your CPU won’t kill anything, no. I run my live stream on the Mac Mini every day. It’s run for the past three years, even though the Mac Mini’s CPU is throttled almost constantly.

Yes, the games are going to throttle your CPU. It could happen with XP outright, let alone when it’s running inside of the virtual machine. That will have more overhead.

In terms of mitigating that, it’s not really possible honestly. The latest version of VMWare will take care of most of it for you. Play around in your settings. Check your hard-disk buffering status. Optimize what you can – wherever you can.

It’s not going to kill your computer, no. You’re safe to keep on gaming.

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VMWare CPU Usage in XP

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VMWare Fusion 3.0 is finally here, and is the best way to run Windows on your Mac. Using a Mac doesn’t mean abandoning your Windows applications and devices. Ditch your PC and safely run your favorite Windows programs alongside Mac applications, while continuing to use your Windows-only devices on your Mac. Instantly launch your favorite Windows applications directly from your Dock or the Apple menu bar at any time. Easily switch between apps and minimize them to your Dock, just like you would with Mac apps!

This video was recorded by Kevin during Macworld 2010.

Would you like to cover conferences, trade shows, and events in exchange for promotion in our YouTube channel and social media networks? Email me to facilitate the process!

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Do You Use VMWare Fusion?

Having a secure password for anything and everything is a no-brainer. Sadly, though, many people still aren’t very careful with what they use. When you choose a password, you really do have to be careful. If someone hacks your Twitter account, it’s true they won’t have access to your sensitive data (such as your social security number). However, they can wreak havoc on your reputation by posting some really awful things if they wanted to.

To help protect against this, Twitter has hard-coded 370 password no-noes into their registration page. This is a set of words that are definitely not secure, and Twitter won’t allow you to use them during sign up. If you want to see the list, simply view the source code of the registration page. Do a search for the words: twttr.BANNED_PASSWORDS, and you’ll see them all listed.

You really should make use of a secure password generator, such as the one that you can add to Firefox. Don’t take the chance that someone will inadvertently guess what you’ve used. Protect your reputation as much as you do your personal information.

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Check out the newest apps and software in our downloads center today!

Twitter Bans More Than 370 Passwords

I noticed a thread today on Geeks that is talking about how discussions always end up turning negative in some way. This got me to thinking about conversations I have all over the web – on Geeks, over at Lockergnome, here in my blog, and even on sites like Twitter. It seems no matter what you’re trying to talk about, someone is going to be negative in some way. The people in this particular thread are right – it truly is annoying.

I’m not talking about differing opinions. Those are great, and I welcome them. Hopefully, you like hearing them as well. Having different viewpoints on things allows us to stretch our minds in directions they may not have otherwise gone. It can make us look at things in a whole new way, from a completely different perspective.

The negativity I’m referring to is exactly as it sounds – negativity, for no reason other than to be rude/demeaning. You’ll be having a conversation that’s going along nicely, and some person pops their nose in and starts going off on a tangent about something that may or may not relate to your discussion. They may even be completely rude about it, or directly “attack” someone involved in the thread/post. I really hate that. What’s the point of it? Why must Internet trolls even exist? Can’t we just like shoot them out of a cannon or something?

Seriously, though, why does it seem so difficult these days to have a completely intelligent conversation with others without the fear of someone taking it down a road it should never go? What are your thoughts? Are you seeing more and more of this lately, and how do you get past it to continue your discussion? What else are you reading and/or participating in online that has your mind stretching?

• Harvest Moon: Animal Parade for the Wii has marched straight to retail.
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• Blockbuster is planning to rent movies on SD cards?! Maybe we should stick with Netflix.
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• Parallels reups on VMWare
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• Could YouTube be a crime-fighting tool?
• Topsy is fast becoming the new currency of the Web.
• Nearly 60% of US doctors report that their patients are having difficulties paying their bills.

We have several excellent new Apps and Programs available today in our downloads center for Windows Mobile operating systems, as well as for OS X!

[awsbullet:conversation starter]

Can Online Discussions Always Be Positive?

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Yes, it’s possible to have Linux and Windows installed on the same PC – and why wouldn’t you have both? You can install Linux using a live CD or even a USB drive. You could also use something like VMWare Fusion, as well.

Of course, you don’t need a coupon to run any flavor of Linux, as it is open source software. That is the biggest draw for many of you out there who use it. However, today I wanted to show you a new option I ran across that I think you will like. If you’ve never used Linux before, you may want to think about running Linux on top of Windows.

Using Portable Ubuntu allows you to do just that. It is an Ubuntu system running as a Windows application. For those of you who are hard-core Linux users, Portable Ubuntu is handy when you need to work from a Windows-based machine.

Portable Ubuntu allows you to run Ubuntu as if you’re using Ubuntu itself – but you’re actually using Windows. You’ll find the package manager, the bar that runs across the top of the screen, and more. You can even browse the Ubuntu file structure from right within Windows.

This is absolutely without a doubt the easiest way to use Linux from within Windows!

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How to Run Linux on Windows (Ubuntu)

This is Billy Doyle’s submission for the HP Magic Giveaway. Feel free to leave comments for this article as you see fit – your feedback is certainly welcomed! If you’d like to submit your own how-to, what-is, or top-five list, you can send it to me. Views and opinions of this writer are not necessarily my own:

So you’re a geek. And you just got a Mac. Now what? I’m in that position too, and I’m going to share a few things I’ve been doing to turn my Mac into the prefect geek control center.

Use the apps it came with!

Your Mac came with a bunch of great apps like the iLife suite, iChat, Spaces, etc. So use them! For example: Even if you don’t use iChat as an instant messenger, it has lots of other uses too! Paired with notify.me, it can become a news ticker that can keep you up-to-minute on happenings on any site with an RSS feed! Or, use it with the ping.fm bot on Google Talk to update your status with two clicks!

iPhoto is another great one. Not only does it store and organize all your beautiful pictures, but you can use plugins to do all kinds of cool things. Download the Pixelpipe plugin, for example, and create an account if you don’t already have one. Then you can instantly push your photos up to all your photo sharing accounts!

Run Windows!

OK, now you’re thinking: Why would I want to run Windows on the computer I bought to stop running windows??? Well, I have a reason: Not everything runs on the Mac. Gasp! How could that be? Well, it’s true. And no geek would want to have to be in the position of not being able to run that killer app you just can’t possibly live without, right?

Now, here’s the disclaimer: This one’s optional. If you don’t have a copy of Windows lying around, it isn’t mandatory that you run out and get one right this second. But if you do, this is something to consider.

So, if you’ve decided that this might be a good idea, you’ve got two options: Boot Camp or a virtual machine. Both of these have advantages and disadvantages. Boot Camp allows you to run Windows in a partition by itself. This gives you the full power of the Mac’s hardware, but you have to reboot to switch operating systems. A virtual machine allows you to run Windows “in a box”, as a program inside of OS X. This has the advantage of letting you switch between systems instantaneously, but it also can slow down your Mac depending on how much of its resources you grant the VM.

If you go with a VM, or virtual machine, you have a few choices. The two big names in virtualization for the Mac are Parallels and VMware Fusion. They both retail for $80. If you don’t want to pay for your WM software and don’t mind a bit of a steeper learning curve, try VirtualBox. It’s from Sun, and it’s what I use right now. I wont go into depth on Boot Camp here, it has a simple setup wizard. Just click the Spotlight search icon on the menu bar, type “boot camp” and hit enter.

Accessorize!

Your Mac comes with everything you need to get started. Key phrase: get started. Sure, you could probably live without cool things to plug into your Mac, but why take the chance? Here are a few gadgets I recommend to enhance your Mac experience:

• Griffin Simplifi – It’s an iPod dock with a built-in multi-card reader. Who could ask for more?
• Chumby – Sure, it doesn’t actually plug in to you Mac, but it does provide you with an RSS ticker, weather gadget, screen licking dog, and much more, all packed into a cute little Wi-Fi enabled beanbag!
• Timecapsule– Here’s one from Apple itself! Back up your machine wirelessly. Available in 500GB and 1TB flavors.
• Bamboo Tablet – Here’s one for all the artists out there: A drawing tablet! You can always graduate to a normal Wacom tablet if you need a bigger one.

Never stop geekin’ out!

There are lots more tips that I didn’t cover here, and even more that I couldn’t possibly cover, because I don’t know they exist! So, the number one thing you can do to turn your new Mac into the ultimate geek control center is:

Don’t stop looking for more ways to make it awesome!

There are always more things you can do to your Mac to make it perfectly suit your level of geekosity. Add a touchscreen! Set up live log file readouts! The list is endless. So, I provide you with one more link, the ultimate resource for Mac geekiness. Now go, click the link, and begin your geeky Apple-related adventure! This is the link!

How To Turn Your Mac Into a Geek Control Center

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Apparently, Virtual Machines are a hot topic! I’ve had a few calls lately asking about them, the differences, and my recommendations. This caller is buying a Macbook Pro, and is wondering what he should use as far as running Windows programs. He has a copy of Photoshop, and wonders what program he needs on the Macbook in order to use Photoshop to its peak performance. He’s also curious as to whether he should use Rosetta.

What exactly is Rosetta? You’ll never see it, you’ll never configure it, you’ll never have to think about it. It’s built into Mac OS X to ensure that most of your existing applications live a long and fruitful life. Here are all the instructions you’ll need: double-click the application icon. Behind the scenes, Rosetta dynamically translates most of your PowerPC-based applications to work with your Intel-based Mac. There’s no emulation. No second-class status. It looks and feels just like it did before. On a Mac, you’d expect nothing less.

If you want, you could always use Photoshop inside a Virtual Machine, using something such as Parallels or VMware. Or, you could use Boot Camp, which is included with OS X Leopard. Boot Camp supports the most popular 32-bit releases of Windows XP and Windows Vista. When you use either operating system on your Mac, your Windows applications will run at native speed. This is exactly what the caller is looking for! Windows applications have full access to multiple processors and multiple cores, accelerated 3D graphics, and high-speed connections like USB, FireWire, Wi-Fi, and Gigabit Ethernet.

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Boot Camp vs VMware or Parallels

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I was involved in a conversation on the 888-PIRILLO line the other night, when the talk turned to using Parallels. The caller has been using Parallels, but has been having a lot of troubles with the CD drive not wanting to mount. It has been SO long since I’ve used Parallels. I asked if it’s happening on all builds, or just one Virtual Machine. My first suggestion, of course, is to try a second VM. If it doesn’t connect there, there may be an incompatibility with that drive and Parallels.

You might also try downloading a trial of VMware. They not only are one of our sponsors, they have an excellent product. Parallels has gotten a lot better lately. Some people swear by it, and some swear by VMware. I think either one is a fantastic product. I give more attention to VMware for a couple of reasons. One is that it can support two processors, instead of just one. The second reason is that it has been around as long as I can remember, much longer than Parallels. To me, longevity shows that a company knows what they are doing.

You can find Parallels Coupons and VMWare Coupons at Coupons.Lockergnome.com.

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Parallels or VMware

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This caller had two questions for me! The first was that they are having a difficult time installing VMWare Tools in Linux inside a Virtual Machine. The second question dealt with iPhone Hacking.

I’ve had to do this before. You’re probably not going to run through a GUI installer. You’re going to drop into a terminal. I believe it’s VMware-install.pl is the command. VMware Fusion is a sponsor of ours here at the live show. The VWmware Tools software, which if installed in a Virtual Machine, is designed to help make the useability and virtual integration between the host machine and the virtual machine seamless. The Linux one is a little different. When installing, it mounts as a virtual CD. You should have a zip file on there. Drop to a command line within Linux, and CD to that directory.

The second question the caller had was “I am currently paying about $70 a month for the iPhone AT&T bill. I am wondering if I should unlock it, and go with another provider”? My answer is to stick with AT&T. If you run into any support issues in the future, you’re hosed. You have no options. It doesn’t make any sense to me. $70 is admittedly a lot of money. You have to do what you are comfortable with. I just don’t recommend Jailbreaking.

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VMware and iPhone Hacking

Marcus Asmussen writes:

First of all, I would like to congratulate you on your recent purchase of a Mac Pro, I have been using one myself for the last 12 months after years of using windows based machines have never been happier with a computer than I have been with my Mac Pro. Just wanted to share 1 or 2 tips with you and maybe a few of your subscribers that may be holding out on a Mac purchase. One of the best programs I have been using I discovered through your site is VMware Virtual Desktop, which I have been running on my Leopard installation since its release. Prior to VMware I was using Boot-camp to run a few windows apps that I still use and PC based games. One of the great things about Leopard of course is Spaces, which allows you to run multiple desktop instances at once. While I use Spaces for everyday tasks, one of the most practical and useful things I now use spaces for is VMware virtual desktop.

Spaces allows me to keep a Full-Screen instance of windows open on my desktop while simultaneously switching back and forth using keyboard shortcuts between my Leopard desktop and my windows desktop. Also with its latest release; VMware will take your existing windows partition used for Boot-Camp and utilize that for your Virtual Desktop environment, so no other VMware specific partition is required. I still use Boot-Camp for gaming, but for every other task I once would boot into windows I now save so much time just by clicking over into VMware using Spaces, and with my Mac Pro Having room for 4 internal hard drives when setting up windows through Boot-Camp I have a separate internal hard drive for windows so no partitioning is required at all with boot-Camp Hope you or some of your subscribers find this tip useful.

P.S As for extra RAM, I am now running 5 gig at the moment and find that sufficient, as it stands right now Kingston RAM prices have dropped tremendously for the Mac Pro, still expensive by comparison to other pc system RAM, but far shy of Apple pricing. Enjoy your Mac Pro.

Yeah, I’m still tossed up on the memory… gotta order that soon.

Building a Mac Pro Pro

I’ve been a fan of VMware for quite some time now, stretching back years (long before they were sponsoring my video endeavours) – and I’m not alone in my fandom. Gus Munguia is with me:

Hi Chris, I see that you have written a few things about VMware. I have been using VMware products since 1999 when they were in Beta. I would like to share with you what I have done using the free version of VMware (VMware server). One of our PCs got hacked several months ago so I finally decided to do what I a have been thinking about for over a year.

I wiped the PC and installed Windows XP with no TCP/IP protocol. I then installed VMware Server and built a Virtual Windows XP machine and allowed it to get an IP address from the router. This virtual machine connects to the internet and is configured with a non persistent disk, which means that every time that it restarts all changes are lost and it is always in the same state.

I do not need to worry if the virtual machine gets hacked because everything will be lost when I reboot it. Since my real (physical) machine has no ip address and no TCP/IP stack, there is no way for it to get hacked from the internet.

I have been running like this for about 2 months. My virtual machine runs pretty fast because I installed an additional 2 GB of RAM on my physical machine. On the virtual machine I have enabled the Windows firewall and turned off automatic updates. I also do not have any Spyware protection or Anti-virus on the virtual machine since any infection will be lost upon reboot. You would be surprised (or not) on how much faster a machine runs with out Anti-virus or Spyware protection.

Of course there are some issues such as saving IE favorites and loading new software that become a little harder to do with this type of configuration. I have developed procedures for doing these things offline (while not connected to the internet). There are other things that I have done to assure that my physical machine does not communicate with the virtual machine such as disabling the VMware adapters (VMnet1 and VMnet8) and removing other protocols.

There are a few other issues that I have worked around. I currently have 2 physical machines configured like this; one has a wireless network adapter so I had to do some registry manipulation so that it can talk to the access point and not get a valid IP address. I tried putting 127.0.0.1 but the connection was not reliable. I ended up putting in a private IP with a mask of 255.255.255.254 and this has been working so far. I will eventually get rid of the wireless and install CAT 6.

So far this configuration has worked pretty well for me and I hope to eventually have the physical machine run Linux so that I do not have to worry about possible licensing issues with running 2 simultaneous versions of MS Windows on the same machine. I was wondering if you or anybody else has done something similar and would like to share their experiences.

I’m not sure if anybody has answers for Gus, or possibly other ways to use VMware and its line of products?

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Sharing VMware Experiences

Albert asks:

So my question is: Is there a way to basically run two instances of your operating system, or basically running two computers on your own one system and monitor? I don’t know how to describe it really. What I want to do is basically have two instances of my computer running on a split-screen type thing on my one monitor. This is because I have a program that won’t let me run two instances of it at once. I have two computers setup to the internet, and I have to run across my room every time I want to do something on the other computer. I even got one of those “switch” things that makes my two computers connect to my one monitor. But that is still really troublesome, and I’d rather see if I can do everything from one computer and monitor.

Dude. It’s all about Virtual Machines. VMware saved my bacon with Vista, and it’s saving my bacon on OS X. They’ve recently come aboard as a sponsor so, in the interest of balance: I’ve also written about Parallels and other VM programs before.

Virtual CPU

Exclusive Coupons: $10 off for Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac.

There are two camps forming: one side who loves Parallels for the Mac, and another side who loves VMware Fusion for the Mac. It’s great to see that with a recent patch, many Parallels performance issues were minimized. Kevin emailed me about it the other day:

I normally wouldn’t send you a link to one of my articles, but I think you’ll appreciate this one. Since we cater to a mobile audience, I looked at how Parallels hits your battery life with their v2.5 a few months ago. It was so bad that I couldn’t run Vista on my MBP for too long when out and about. And the fan noise when running Parallels on the 2.33 GHz C2Duo….let’s just say it was embarrassing; like the Mac had a constant case of intestinal gas.

I just revisited the same basic tests with the newest release of Parallels and found a vast improvement in how effective the new virtualization software is.

I’m only running Vista on the MBP for Outlook 2007 since Entourage is stuck in 2003 for now.

I was loving my installation of Fusion when I was in Germany. I wasn’t using Outlook 2007 in a virtual machine, but I was relying on IE7 for OWA 2003 (Outlook Web Access). While a OWA Light 2003 works in Firefox, it’s beyond unusable. I have to wait for Rackspace to upgrade their servers to Exchange 2007 / OWA 2007 before I would consider using a native OS X browser to access my inbox.

Lord knows if Entourage 2008 will be any better than the current version of Entourage (I’ve only seen one screenshot for it, and it looks marginally better). The latest screenshots of the Mac Office Suite UI overhaul look very promising, however.

Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac Update

I say VMware, no contest. Tony Ring is pulling for Virtual PC:

First off, I last saw you way back in the TechTV days – the Screensavers with Kate and Leo. Sadly, TechTV jumped the shark for me when that show morphed out of existence. Tonight I was cruising the net looking for help with Vista problems and ran into you on YouTube, watched some of your videos on Vista, and wound up here.

I have a suggestion for your scanner and fax problems under Vista. Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. I believe that they give it away for just this reason. So, you might be thinking that it’s crazy for them to expect you to use some other product to work around the issues Vista DOES have, etc. etc.

Let me digress. I am an independent software consultant. I make my bucks doing implementation and configuration work for fat monsters like Oracle PeopleSoft. It keeps me traveling and my wife on a perpetual shopping spree, so all is good I suppose.

The nature of what I do means I deal with multiple large clients that each have private networks with BIG IT BOSS GUY security schemes. They give me access to do my thing, but it quickly became impossible for me to reconfigure my laptop to each different network environment every time I visited a client. Because of this I was forced into using Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 and now 2007.

I set up completely independent virtual environments for each client with all their domain crap, Novell crap, and you name it crap. When I get to their site I fire up the virtual machine I have for them and literally pick up where I left off when last working there. As a side benefit, I’ve gravitated toward keeping all of my files related to that client in their virtual machine instance. It’s really awesome and I can’t think of life without it.

Digressing further – you may wonder how I get away with all these “different” copies of XP? Well, I think this is legal so I will explain. Virtual PC has a thing called a Differencing Disk. It works like this. You create a base virtual machine and load your one licensed copy of XP on it and activate it. Then you configure another virtual machine as a Differencing Disk off of the base virtual machine. You can then customize the differencing instance as much as you like without changing the base disk in any way. Need to set up a second special instance? Just create a new differencing disk and customize it for the new client. You can effectively set up the same XP instance a dozen different ways. So long as I don’t use more than one instance at a time I’m pretty sure it’s legal. The nice thing is that when you’re done with a differencing disk – like you tried some new software and decided you really don’t want it – you just delete the disk and set up a new one. Nice and clean. You never have to reinstall XP again. Great stuff.

Well, this started out as a tip for you, so I guess I better get there.

I too have problems with my scanner at home and MUST have it to scan my weekly receipts and bill my clients. Vista choked on it. What did I do? I set up a differencing disk virtual machine running XP and installed my scanner on it. I also installed everything I need to make it a nice place to go and do my weekly billing. All in one package. I fire it up, do my work, shut it down and go back to wrestling with Vista and enjoying every minute of it.

In this way it’s easy for me to keep Vista.

Why do all this to keep Vista?

I’ve only been running Vista Business for a month or so now, but I can tell you the networking seems much more secure for someone who is on the road a lot. It is much, much better at handling rapidly changing network environments. My fingers would wear down if I tried to explain all the issues I used to run into with XP. My best guess is that some of the environments I used to hook into would push firewall rules or something into XP that would then cripple my ability to connect to other network environments. It was maddening. Vista is, thankfully, completely immune to this so far. What a relief!

I have other problems with Vista, and I’m just learning it. I was watching your video and realized the virtual pc route might save Vista for you.

Virtual PC may be free, but VMware is still better (for all the reasons I’ve previously explained). If all you want to do is test software, then I suppose Virtual PC is perfect – but if you’re looking for full power and compatibility, you have to look far beyond what Microsoft is handing out.

VMware vs Virtual PC