Category Archives: Hardware

VMs on RAID save Bacon

I was recently computing happily along, not suspecting anything, when suddenly things began to go terribly wrong. Web pages stopped loading. My email connections timed out. I could not remotely access my clients’ networks. The situation was serious. Then my wife told me that she could not get to any web sites. The situation had…

Core i7 VirtualBox Server: Why Virtualization?

When I’ve talked to a small business owners about using virtualization in their IT infrastructure, one of the most consistent questions I’ve gotten – well, after “what’s that” – amounts to “why – what’s the advantage?” This is certainly a valid question, and it’s one I had to think about in order to articulate the…

Core i7 VirtualBox Server

I’ve been using virtualization technology for several years now – first with VMWare (Workstation, Server, and Player), and then with VirtualBox.  I tried Xen very briefly while looking at OpenSUSE, but never did use it on a day-to-day basis.  Until now, I had only ever used desktop OSes (operating systems) (mostly Linux, but some Windows…

Okay, well, back to Ubuntu!

In my post Returning to Windows After 15+ Years I wrote that I was switching to Windows 7 after using various distributions of Linux or FreeBSD for over 15 years, and provided a brief explanation for the move. After several months it became apparent that the honeymoon with Windows 7 was over, and I wrote…

MacBook 13.3

I liked the Mac Mini so much that I bought a Apple MacBook 13.3, with an Intel Core2 Duo P7550 at 2.26 GHz, 2 Gb RAM, 250 Gb SATA2 drive, DVD+-R/RW/DL, and WebCam with microphone.  I wanted a very portable notebook computer with good battery life so that I could carry it to client sites…

The Perfect HTPC (Home Theater PC) is…

…an Apple Mac Mini with 4 Gb of RAM?! Particularly when combined with an iPod or iPhone that has an app installed that is capable of acting as a remote control for FrontRow. Hardware Configuration To help you understand my enthusiasm, it might be helpful to provide an overview of our home entertainment infrastructure.  We…