Applications – Page 4

Virtual Box: VMs for the Rest of Us

A lot of my desktop time is spent in Linux, even though lately I’ve been trying out Windows Server 2008 as a desktop OS (as a side note, it’s pretty dang good). At any rate, being a full time web developer now, I need to be able to preview everything with IE. DeVry also requires me to use Office 2007 for my school work. So, there’s still a need for Windows. I can’t cut myself free of it yet. I’ve been trying for over 10 years.

There’s always the dual boot solution. I still do that on my main box. My secondary (I call it my server) runs Ubuntu Server OS only. My wife’s desktop boots to Linux all the time. She tried Windows 7 but wasn’t very impressed. All our laptops are dualboot as well.

This isn’t a great solution if I just need to check a few things in IE though. This is where a VM comes in handy for me. There are many other uses, but for the most part, in my daily life, that’s what I use a VM for. I also quite frequently use a Windows XP VM for writing Windows code.

Another handy thing about VMs is that they can be stored on an external storage device and carried around everywhere. It’s basically like having your computer on your thumbdrive. The only catch is you need VM software to run that virtual machine. The most popular virtual machine software is VMWare. This is, however, an open source solution as well, Virtualbox.

Now, I love VMWare. So, there’s no need to argue your points for VMWare. I know them. When I suggest Virtualbox, I’m only suggesting an alternative. I know VMWare server is free. BlahBlahBlah. I’m mearly suggesting that people should give Virtualbox a try. It really is a great product. I’ve had very few issues with it at all. The ONLY bad thing about it that I’ve found is related to its virtual networking. It’s harder to make custom network interfaces with Virtualbox than VMWare. At least that’s my experience. This is especially true with the Linux versions.

This network problem isn’t really a problem for most people. I just noticed it because I was trying to set up a Windows domain for testing purposes one day. I wanted four VMs of XP and a 2k3 VM in a virtual lan cut off from the rest of the world. I then wanted to test group policy and such on the internal domain. It’s been a while ago so I can’t remember the exact details but I remember that it was difficult to make happen on Virtualbox at the time. It may have actually just been user error on my part.

I believe Virtualbox was bought by Sun not too long ago. It was around the same time that Sun bought MySQL. Those were two of my favorite open source products. So far it doesn’t appear that Sun has screwed them up, but I’m sure it’ll happen eventually. I can picture the future for both of those applications as being filled with Java bloat. It may be one of Sun’s goals to slow MySQL down to Oracle speeds and to do so they’ll force users to run MySQL in a Solaris VM on Virtualbox. Who knows?

Either way, Virtualbox is working great as of today, and I highly recommend it. Oh and by the way, it runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X. So, even your Mini can run it.

If you want to finance your career you should learn about students loans because it’s one of the few loans you will be able to take out in the future. When you are a student you will have to work for years at a high salary before you are able to begin making payments. The average student loan debt for undergraduates is $25,000, and it is expected that there will be about $1.3 trillion in student loan debt by 2020.

We all hope that our kids won’t have to take out loans to start their lives off in life, but it is the reality of today. That said, there are students out there that find the loans and work out how to avoid it altogether. For that reason we have compiled a list of the 7 things you should be doing if you are thinking of a career in student loans.

#1. Get Started ASAP

Just because you can’t afford a student loan doesn’t mean you can’t start your education. The sooner you start working towards a career in student loans the better. The last thing you want to do is spend years working towards an internship before you have made a commitment to something, because then you will never get that opportunity to work. There are plenty of places you can start right away. Check out this list of student loan companies. You can get started with a one-year option or you can work your way up to a five-year plan. #2. Understand The Loan Terms When you are looking at a student loan company, you will want to understand the terms of the loan so you can make the best choices. Some of the terms are specific to the type of loan you are getting and others are common in all types of loans. A good rule of thumb is to take a good look at the terms of any loan you are considering because all of them will be a part of the agreement. You will want to have a basic understanding of the loan terms so you can make the best choices for yourself when it comes to paying back the loan. Let’s look at the following information about paying back a loan:

A Good Loan Terms

The loan interest rate is the interest rate you are going to be charged when you make your monthly payments. You can expect to pay about 3% to 4% on your loan. You may find a lower interest rate on a savings or checking account at a branch of the bank. You can also try using the calculator on the lender’s website or by calling the lender to ask.

The term of the loan is usually a couple of years. Usually the lender will tell you the exact length of the term and the payment schedule. Some banks will give you an estimate of how much you are going to pay every month. The loan interest rate is the interest rate that you will pay each month on the loan. The interest rate will increase as the length of the loan increases. Generally, if you can get a lower interest rate, you may be able to get a loan for a shorter amount. It is a good idea to ask the lender what the interest rate is on the loan you are considering.

Before you start your loan application process, check with your bank to see if they offer loans in the states where you live. Get more info here.

Attention: Free Office Software Download

As a follow-up to an earlier post about someone selling Open Office on eBay entitle “Amazing eBay Sale” I thought I would give some advice on where to get Open Office and how to install/use it, for those who don’t know already.

OpenOffice is free software anyone can download. It isn’t what you would refer to as shareware. It is open source software. There are many awesome open source software solutions out there. OpenOffice.org is the absolute best office suite available for free. There is a word processor (like Microsoft Word) called Writer, a spreadsheet app (like Microsoft Excel) called Calc, a presentation application (like Microsoft Powerpoint) called Impress, a database application (like Microsoft Access) called Base, and a vector image application called Draw.

Some will argue that these applications are not at good as their commercial counterparts. I tend to be of the mindset that OpenOffice has most everything that a normal office worker would need or want. So it does everything they would ever need it to do and it’s around $400 cheaper. The price makes it very attractive.

However, if one is a student, Microsoft practically gives away Office 2007 as long as you have a .edu email address. Really though, $60 is a high enough price for a regular user. It’s great software, but perhaps Microsoft got a bit greedy. Their greedy turned a lot of people to pirating. I prefer using OpenOffice to pirating any day. I won’t be breaking any laws if I download and use a copy of OpenOffice. I can get everything I need to do done with OpenOffice. It gives Microsoft the incentive to make their product better.

Amazing eBay sale

I realize everyone needs money, but I can’t believe what some people are making money from. For instance, I just found this on eBay:

OPEN OFFICE PRO 2007/VISTA/XP FOR MICROSOFT WINDOWS NEW – eBay (item 260364170325 end time Feb-24-09 14:29:46 PST).

Someone sold a “retail licensed” version of Open Office for $52. Two of those a day and you have a decent payday considering that Open Office is completely free. Hell, I may try selling a few copies of it myself.

I’ve seen people sell Linux and Open Office on eBay before, but I’ve never seen one of them go for that much money. That’s pretty expensive for a free piece of software. Of course, there are some that will argue that yes some people don’t have broadband and may actually benefit from these auctions. Well, that may be the case but that isn’t the type of people they are marketing to.

They are fooling people who don’t know any better. They are making them think that they are getting a dang good deal on some software. It’s actually pretty genius.

I’ll be off burning some Open Office disks.

Google Gears for Linux 64 bit Redux

Earlier I posted that there was no Google Gears for Linux x64. Well I found a solution here.

Earlier I posted that there was no Google Gears for Linux x64. Well I found a solution here. I was able to install it in a few minutes and I’m not in WordPress “turbo” mode. There are a few applications that take advantage of Google Gears. The key feature of Google Gears is that it allows web applications to run offline. I believe that it’s used by WordPress to cache most of the application locally. This allows it to run much faster. Hopefully this helps some of you find Gears for x64 Linux. I should have looked a little more before I posted that last entry about it being non-existent.

Xlack Download Someone help

For years I’ve used the Xlack perl script plugin for xchat in Linux. Recently a friend of mine asked me if I had the zip laying around anywhere. I thought I had it but to my disappointment I don’t have the installer. I still have the script installed on one of my computers but like I said, I don’t have the installer. This means that I only have the English version of the script, I think. I’m going to look through my archives/backups but if anyone else has this, leave a comment please.

Note: This has been resolved. See this post!