Our resident geek (RG), a designation we'll keep for as long as geek is a benign term, likes things and beings that do not really exist.
Ghosts at Halloween, invisible friends as a child, invisible friends as a grown up (commonly called gods), it's all par for the course to this reclusive person.
No wonder that RG's greatest geek pride and joy is having written a text processing program in C under Microsoft DOS running on an Apple Macintosh.
25 years ago.
Today, this is called "virtualization", and it has become big business indeed over the past years. Virtualization means fewer computers (hardware) running more "computers" (operating system plus applications). It is at the very heart of the whole "cloud computing" thing. If you want to look like you are up to date on current computing, use three buzzwords in a sentence like this: The three big fields in computing are: mobile, Big Data, and virtualization.
Just don't talk about hardware.
Or, if you do want a bit of hardware cred, use the car image: modern cars are nothing but computers on wheels that can incidentally transport people and goods. Make sure to slip "Internet of Things" into your discourse.
Okay, you have one or two computers at home and enough problems or "glitches" with those and with the internet connection, why would you add a "virtual machine" (the technical term for virtual computer) to the array of problems?
You will also learn that the machine may be virtual but any issues with it are as real as they can be.
The best reason to get yourself some "virtual PC software" is less hassle when you buy a new computer. Just copy the whole thing to your new box like any old file.
If you search the blog, you can find a description of VMWare and using it with the Ubuntu Linux operating system.
Today, we'll point you to an unexpected software freebie. Unexpected because it is branded 'Oracle'. In case you click this link today, you'll get to see some more Oracle bashing SAP, fun for a few minutes and very boring afterwards.
Today's freebie is not Oracle's Java (tm) programming language software. Though free, Oracle would charge you money for Java if they could, believe me.
No, the freebie here is your ticket to a virtual computer. It is a software package that will make a new operating system believe that is is running on its own computer.
Download your free virtual box, install it, then dig out that original Microsoft Windows DVD, or - much better - get a cute Linux operating system version and install it from withing the running virtual box.
Get or make an ".iso" image and tell the Virtual Box it is a DVD (under "Settings", "Storage", click the plus sign next to the little CD icon).
For no fuss, no hassle, try Ubuntu. It just works.
For a more challenging install, you can try openSuse. For that one, you need a powerful PC, and you should be prepared to run its installer, Yast, again in order to get a network/internet connection.
If you feel really nerdy and want to brag in a job interview, you might want to try RedHat. Now, RedHat went all Enterprise on us years ago, and you know what they say: Once you go Enterprise, you...
After all the geeky problem solving, anybody up for some satire?
Since Oracle likes to bash German based SAP, despite the fact that SAP is a big reseller of Oracle database products, why don't we give you a simple description of Oracle?
Oracle is like a combination of Walmart plus Ikea*, which means your software, 'designed by Oracle' is produced 'god knows where', and comes in the IT equivalent of a flat pack, and you are left with a bunch of components unless you get expensive suits to assemble everything for you.**
Their current slogan, "Hardware and Software, Engineered to Work Together",*** follows the time honored principle of construction developers naming new neighborhoods after what they paved over. The "Peach Tree Orchards" neighborhood won't have any peach trees, it's where peach trees used to be.
* Crucially, unlike Ikea, Oracle does not have a lifetime no-questions-asked return policy.
** Making their integrated software work correctly turned out to be such a headache that they do offer virtual machines with pre-installed suites and preconfigured boxes.
*** [Update 21 Aug 2015] Today, the web site is all about the Cloud, once again with the qualifier Integrated. This is a great slogan because a non-integrated cloud is nothing but invisible vapor, as any meteorologist will confirm.
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