Virtual Machines

What is a “virtual machine”? Virtual Machines are the new wave of future processing. Basically, what happens in the case of a virtual machine is, a super machine is created and divided into a number of machines managed via a core operating system. After the construction of the host system (system hosting the virtual machines) a master Operating System is installed which provides virtualization capabilities on which multiple standard Operating Systems can run.

Benefits of Virtualization

Virtualization is a technology that provides many benefits. Among them are speed, centralization, and economy. When considering the benefit of speed for instance, there is a tremendous benefit as communication between machines is now available at bus speed instead of ethernet or other means of “external” communication. Centralization puts management of multiple machines at a central interface. This allows you to minimize management time windows and concentrate on other issues that are more important than maintenance routine. Bordering on economy is the minimization of physical construction. This includes hardware that is necessary to power and construct multiple, independent machines, communication medium, UPSs and any other hardware necessary to support your specific requirements.

Redundancy

Another excellent benefit of virtualization is the minimal points of physical failure. Even though you are located on a single, central machine, redundancy is provided by the “redundancy structure configuration” of that hardware. In other words, to provide an adequate level of physical redundancy, the configuration of your host machine must match that of multiple external machines to an extent. This of course is provided by multiple instances of the hardware from which your host is constructed. Multiple instances of the hardware structure includes but is not limited to, RAID arrays, power supplies, CPUs, and external mediums of communication. At any rate, redundancy is critical and should be a well maintained priority of your System Structure.

Sources of Virtualization

Who provides resources for virtualization? There are quite a few sources for virtualization Operating Systems available and you may wish to consider different developers depending on the specific purpose or environment in which you plan to implementing your virtual system. Some of the major providers like Vmware and VirtualBox have multiple levels of virtualization available, ranking from a starting point such as desktop environments all the way up to an enterprise solution.

Virtualization Environments

Virtualization at this point is quite popular and is often implemented in ISP-like environments where the demand multiple servers to perform a specific task is high. Although not extremely popular on a more local or personal basis, even small businesses and home users may begin to see implementations of this technology. Virtualization for small businesses and home users will most likely be a prescription for Multimedia and other hardware intensive applications.

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Firefox is Very Versatile

Firefox, the browser by Mozilla, is indeed a very versatile creature. If you consider the multiple levels on which you can use Firefox it is quite amazing. Today I would like to cover a couple of the more popular features available. One of the features that I like and find extremely handy, is the “Forecast Fox” Add-on. This feature basically allows you to view the weather for a given location in a few moments by integrating a little weather station if you will, into any of a number of locations in Firefox.

Simple, Easy to Understand Layout

You are presented with a simple layout that features a radar button for an geographically expansive outlook at the weather, followed by the current state of the weather and the current temperature. This is followed by two other panels dictating tomorrow’s and the “day-after’s” forecasts (noted below).

How Do I Install ForecastFox

Adding Forecast Fox to your Mozilla Firefox browser is a simple matter. Follow the instructions below:

1. Visit the Mozilla Add-ons page here (you’ll download the Add-on here).

2. Do a search for “Forecast fox” by typing forecast fox into the search box noted below (I personally like the enhanced version of the software).

3. Click on the version that you like, it will take you to the page dedicated to that version specifically.

4. Click on the “install now” or thus related button.

5. You will be presented with the software installation dialog:

6. Clicking on “Install Now” will let you install the software into your browser:

7. Once the installation is complete, you will have to restart Firefox:

8. After the restart is complete, you will need to tell Firefox to make use of the addon. You may accomplish this by:

1. Clicking on “Tools” in the menu.

2. Next click on Add-ons.

3. Click on “Extensions”.

4. Click on “Enable” under the Forecast fox Add-on:

Installation and Initialization Complete

This should put the dock into your browser. It may be necessary to restart your browser once more. Once the doc is in place, you simply need to tell it where you would like to track the weather. You may accomplish this by right-clicking anywhere on the weather interface and selecting “options”. This will present you with the Options dialog box and allow you to type in your zip code (this allows Forecast fox to track the weather for your location) If you’re putting this on a laptop and you travel frequently to multiple locations, you can add another profile and switch to that profile when you are at that location to have Forecast Fox show the weather for that location specifically:

After you type in your zip code, click on “OK” to close the dialog box. Forecast fox should begin showing the current weather as well as the two-day forecast.

Easy Weather Access

From now on, whenever you want a quick peek at what the clouds overhead are doing, simply point your mouse over the little, green, radar symbol and it will pop-up a little weather map showing cloud conditions in your area.

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Skin? What’s this About Firefox Skin?

Firefox has a skin, believe it or not, Firefox is quite the dermatological agglomeration. When I say Firefox has a skin, I mean that the look and feel of Firefox can be changed to a look and feel with a completely different atmosphere. This can easily be accomplished as is made available to you by the community of Firefox interface developers.

A Plethora of Skins

The amount of skins and styles that are available for your Firefox browser is varied from the simple, cool, and professional, to skins that will make you go hmmm. Take a look here at the types of skins available, you can go simple, bright, large, cool, smooth, modern, old, have a Mac OS look… etc. etc.

How do I Get These Wonderful Skins?

Obtaining skins for Firefox is simple and free… just like the browser they are made for. If you do not have Firefox, you can download it here. If you would like skins for Firefox, you can download them here. Installation is a snap, they take the same path as do the installations that were performed above (the Forecast fox Add-on). Just follow the same instructions choosing instead, whichever skin you would like.

Backing up Your Valuable Information

One of the most important things you should do to your data is duplicating it. When I refer to duplicating… I refer to backing up your data. The entire idea of a backup is redundancy. Your data should be backed up on as regular a basis as possible.

Digital Information is Physical Information

There is one thing that Computer/Digital Data cannot survive, that is physical destruction. If your hard drive or other storage media suffers an actual physical demise, there is virtually no way that the data that existed on the media (while it was viable media), can be recovered. Obviously this refers to complete destruction, say as in a fire or other catastrophe in which the physical media is reduced to a clump of metal/charcoal or some form of shredded metal or storage media. Although possible, data recovery may be extremely difficult even if conditions are more favorable. The point is, you may save yourself an extreme amount of headache by simply synchronizing your data with a location remote to the primary physical area of your information.

Location, Location

The area you synchronize your data to, should be as far away from the primary location (the location the data is generated) as possible. This will aid in a situation in which a destructive force is generated that covers a large geographical area. If your primary residence (point of data generation) is in Tampa Florida and Tampa is destroyed by hurricane “charlie”, the last thing you want is for your backed up data to be stored elsewhere in Tampa, or even elswhere in Florida.

A More Ideal Backup

A more Ideal situation would be to have your backup in an area that is not subject to the same destructive forces as your area is, perhaps somewhere more to the top/center of the map (in the case of Tampa). This may provide a better location as these areas are less subject to forces generated or governed by a close proximity to large bodies of water, or plate techtonics (variables Tampa is also subject to). Of course there are many other variables to consider, and the more distinctly, remote locations your data is replicated to, the better.

Backups for Immediate Reconstruction

The other backup system you should have at your disposal, is a backup I refer to as the Immediate Turnover Backup System. An Immediate Turnover System is no mis-nomer… it’s name is the definition of it’s functionality. What an Immediate Turnover System does for you is, save time. Although backing up your data to remote locations is the best option as far as data security and effective redundancy, creating backups and restoring backups at remote locations can be very time consuming. An Immediate Turnover grants you your data Immediately upon the occurence of a local failure. For instance, if your local hard drive in your desktop machine fails and you have properly configured a local backup, you will have the data that was on your desktop’s hard drive, on a hard drive or other media ready and at your disposal. Of course (as before mentioned) this should not be your only backup as it would provide little redundancy in a local catastrophe such as a fire etc.

Where Time Machine Comes In

You know that local backup I was refering to a few moments ago? Well, that is where Time Machine comes in. In the case where you need a local backup (as does most everyone) an application such as Time Machine is ideal for the job. Configuring Time Machine is a snap. If you wish for a secure backup with minimal configuration, plugging in your external drive and saying yes is pretty much all that’s required.

Time Machine… Under the Hood

When attaching an external drive to your Mac, you may use virtually any HFS formatted drive. Other options that you have include: another Mac with Leopard installed and personal file sharing, a Xsan storage device, or a Leopard Server. Time Machine is sort of a specialty type of a backup. Time Machine basically allows you to go back to any day in the past (given that you had your backup installed and configured on or before that date), and view your system exactly as it was at that point. This is a leap above typical backup software that simply creates a copy of your files but provides no feel for the state of your system at that time. It also features intelligent backup scheduling such as during a system shutdown. Your Backup will pause and resume it’s work when your Mac becomes active again.

Restoring is a Snap

When the time comes for you to do a restore on your Mac, using Time Machine is a snap. Simply select the date and time you would like to recover to, and your machine will be restored to the exact state it was on that given day and time, even on your new Mac.

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