Tuesday, September 09, 2008

desktops of my mind

My desktop machine running virtualisations of Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux in VirtualBox virtual machines, and wireless virtual networking with pocket pc via MyMobiler.

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6 Comments:

Blogger Father Park said...

Well I, for one, am thoroughly confused....

9/9/08 7:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good to hear from you, Mike, hope all's been well with you.

Yeah it's a very cluttered screenshot, so your confusion is understandable.

A virtual machine, such as these implemented using VirtualBox (from Sun Microsystems, creators of Java, OpenOffice, etc.), is basically a 'computer' running as a discrete system within a host system.

In this example the 'host' is my desktop machine. The virtual machine(s) are allocated some of the memory, disc space, networking and other resources of the host system. But essentially it operates as a system independently of the host.

A virtual machine is useful if you want to run another operating system without partitioning your hard drive.

Or if you want to evaluate a possibly buggy software installation before installing it on your host system.

Or if you require functionality that's unavailable in the host operating system; e.g., WinXP has a range of application software unavailable in Linux, but you might prefer to run Linux for most applications, so...

Et cetera.

10/9/08 12:02 PM  
Blogger Kathy Farrelly said...

I'm still confused.(Taht's a ditzy blonde for ya!)
Yo Mike! Glad you are back, too mate.

10/9/08 5:44 PM  
Blogger Father Park said...

Yeah, right. That's about as clear as me holding forth on the possibility (or not as I would argue) of the ancient Macedonian kings being "elected" (or not); their policies being approved by (or not); their monarchy being agreed with (or not) by a supposed "assembly" of the Macedonian army under arms. Piffle.

And you, Jacob, might likely understand it as much as I did your explanation.

Been very busy. I didn't neglect "Fish Friday" so much as by-pass it: we put Rear Admiral Curt-Arse six feet under on Friday. I didn't think we needed another Curt shot and I didn't think another would do.

I can tell you there were inches between myself and Curt last Saturday after the Crown Hotel at Camden wake. Those inches allowed me to clamber out of the five foot, nine inch hole I woke up in....

10/9/08 9:40 PM  
Blogger Father Park said...

Been attempting to get a book written as well. Starting a new religion would be easier.

Great (hi)story line: bloke dies at the hight of his power having conquered a world empire, which empire is already crumbling and there are some dozen or so marshals positioning for power. The next twenty-five years see a roller coaster of alliances made and unmade; marriages contracted and repudiated; wars involving an ever dimishing number of those troops who conquered the empire and great battles involving anything from 70,000 to 190,000 men.

Should be easy eh?

Have put three abstracts - based on material I've worked for this project - to Ancient Warfare. The mag is doing some issues in the new year on this theme (the Diadochoi). If I don't hear back I'm thinking I'll write 'em and run them here. Then again, I've toyed with the though of an ancient history blog. Early days and still thinking whether that's what I actually want to do.

Got to write it all yet...

10/9/08 10:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm okay, guess I need to work a little more on my exposition of this kind of topic...

Anyway, all that sounds great, Mike. Feel free, of course, to post anything you want here, but perhaps a dedicated blog might be the go so that the horses aren't scared off by all the sick, very sick US/Israel bashing, supporting fascists and uncaring about Palestinians that reputedly goes on around here.

Perhaps you could also do a Complete Idiot's Guide to Ancient History for people like me, Peter Costello, etc.

Good too that you took time out to farewell your friend, the good Rear Admiral.

10/9/08 10:47 PM  

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