average admins

I have been running Microsoft Windows XP in Parallels, a virtual machine application for Intel based Macs, on my MacBook and have been very pleased. I do however have a question about Windows XP specifically, although this question may apply to other versions of Windows. Why does Windows XP seem to run better in virtual machines than on actual PC hardware?

I use Win4BSD, a virtual machine application from the makers of Win4Lin for FreeBSD, on my FreeBSD 6.x laptop to run Windows XP and have experienced the same result there. I ran Qemu before that with the same results.

I know Chris uses VMware Workstation on Debian Linux with Windows XP installed and has expressed the same thing about his experiences. Actually, Chris said he had even better performance out of Windows XP by running Windows XP in his VMware virtual machine and then using rdesktop, an open source Remote Desktop Connection client, to connect to the virtual machine. Crazy!

I haven’t used VMware on a Windows box in quite sometime so I don’t know if there are performance gains by running Windows XP in a virtual machine on Windows XP. So, maybe someone out there in aa land can chime in on that. But, the question remains: why does it run better? Is the virtual hardware more fine tuned to run the necessities of Windows XP? If anyone out there has any knowledge behind Virtual Machine internals, please let us in on the secret.

I am also very interested to see if anyone else’s experiences mimic my own. Is it just me? Am I getting lucky? What’s the 411?!

Until next time…

We’ve all seen dual monitor setups and several of us use dual monitors which is very nice to have. Well the conventional way to run a dual monitor setup is to either have a video card that supports two monitors or to install two video cards in your machine. I know you’re thinking…”yeah yeah yeah, I already know this”. Anywh0, a year or so ago a few fellow Average Adminers researched high and low to find a way to run a true dual monitor setup on a laptop (two external monitors). Why…you ask? So that we could use a laptop as a primary workstation and have the same or similar feel as a desktop, by using dual monitors, a docking station, etc, and have mobile computing at the same time. Simple task you would think. Well not so simple we later found out. After lots of research we found a device or two that would allow you to run dual or two external monitors on a laptop, BUT if i remember correctly neither one worked exactly how we envisioned they would and not only that, they were very very pricey. One of the devices was in the $400 range I believe. And none of the devices were capable of displaying very high resolution. Ouch!…needless to say, we laid that idea to rest. Well it seems now (at least a year or so later) that there are some better more affordable solutions available. One that I accidentally ran across recently is a USB to SVGA adapter. I don’t personally own one so who knows how well it really works and handles multiple monitors but it sounds like this would have done the trick. It’s USB so that’s convenient, capable of displaying 1280X1024, and pretty affordable at only $79.99. Got pretty good reviews as well. Where was this a year ago?

USB 2.0 to SVGA Adapter

It has been quite some time since I did any serious wardriving. I used to use NetStumbler on my Windows XP laptop but when I started using FreeBSD I never really did any wardriving, just the occasional snooping with Kismet. It’s been well over a year since I did the whole wardriving thing with a GPS and everything… and that’s too long!

When I was doing my wardriving in Windows I used NetStumbler, as I stated before, and a Garmin eTrex Legend handheld GPS to capture the GPS coordinates every time a wireless network was detected. I used the GPS data to make custom Google Maps of my journeys.

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Last night, my brother-in-law, Caleb, a.k.a. Nfinight, and I got down on some Battlefield 2142, and when we play, we get on my TeamSpeak server so we can talk to each other even though we are playing in different rooms of the house.

Well, Caleb’s PC headset has somehow been destroyed so I loaned him my Xbox headset adapter that allows you to plug your Xbox headset in to your PC for a mic and headphone(s). Since he was using my normal rig I had to come up with something quick to be able to talk to him. Here’s the snazzy scenario!

I paired my Plantronics Voyager 510 with my MacBook via Bluetooth®, fired off TeamSpeex, a Mac OS X version of the TeamSpeak client, changed the input and output to my Bluetooth® headset, and I was on my way.

My office is kind of messy and where my gaming rig is I didn’t have enough room to place the MacBook on my desk… Good thing I was using Bluetooth® which is supposedly good for up to 30-35 feet! I put my MacBook on the other desk in my office and talked to Caleb like it was nothing. Some times I just have to use my brain a little and this time it paid off.

The MacBook, Bluetooth® technologies, and TeamSpeak equaled a great team based gaming experience when hardware and space resources were low!

Until next time…

http://www.dslinux.org/index.html

How freaking cool is that? Linux on the ol’ DS.

Hey, Joey, you got a DS for sale?

I recently purchased the M-Audio FireWire 410 and everywhere I read, i.e. during the installation, in the printed manual that came with the device, and on their web site, it says not to hotplug (to plug in or unplug while the machine is on) the device because it could render the device or the FireWire interface unusable. If you would like to read more on this from M-Audio, try the below article:

Caution: Do Not Hot-Plug FireWire Devices

I have never heard this about FireWire devices. I figured FireWire was like USB in that you can plug a device in and unplug the device while the machine us up and running. I know that you should “Safely Remove Devices” by stopping the USB service or whatever for the device before unplugging it (although I have never personally had any data lost by not doing this with storage devices… knock on wood) but still, USB is hotpluggable.

Does anyone out there have any experience with FireWire devices and can you confirm that this will indeed cause harm to the device or to the FireWire port? Is this just specific to this device? This is my first FireWire device and I don’t want to take any chances with the FireWire 410 or my MacBook.

Jeff

I came across this on Tech Republic this morning. I haven’t seen some of these machines for a _very_ long time and I’ve never seen some of them.

How about you?

Dinosaur Sightings: Computers from 1980-1983
The 1980s was a decade when cool cops patrolled the streets of Miami and Reaganomics drove US fiscal policy. It was also the decade when PCs went mainstream. This gallery showcases several 1980-1983 machines from Steven Stengel’s vintage computer collection.

Dinosaur Sightings: Computers from 1984-1989
As the year of George Orwell’s totalitarian future passed us by, PC technology took tremendous steps forward-including the first GUI. This gallery showcases several 1984-1989 machines from Steven Stengel’s collection.