Ben McMurry

As a tech enthusiast, I'm often asked to give assistance to friends and family when they have technology questions or problems. Recently (1.5 years ago), I switched entirely to macs. I really do love them. They look nice and they work excellently. They last long and have good resale value. One thing that I have to do though, is stay familiar with the world of Windows. I'm also a big fan of Linux. Virtualization becomes essential for me. VmWare recently released a new version of their windows on mac virtualization software. I'm not new to Virtual Machines. I started using them a lot back when VMWare made the free VMWare Player available and Microsoft did the same for Virtual PC. I had previously been using Fusion 2.1. I decided to update to version 3.0 because I could do it for $19.99. I don't regret it either. Fusion 3.0 comes with lots of new features. The first thing that I notices was a great increase in speed. I found that my new XP vm was quite snappier. Keep i...

Late last night, when I was going through my feeds in Google Reader, I came across the news of the Google OS. It seems like a great idea. One thing that really attracts me to it is that it could substantially increase the utility of affordable desktops for educational purposes. Right now netbooks are burdened with windows xp or properly equipped with a lesser known and more intimidating flavor of linux. I think linux is perfect for these machines, but new users aren't keen on switching. Now that Google is working on an OS built on the linux kernel and heavily integrated with the web, we might see a broader group jumping on the linux train. Google is one of the few corporate forces with the power and momentum to get linux into more machines. Linux runs great on low profile systems and is highly extensible. So, as far as education goes, I can definitely see Google OS making the cheap netbook and other cheap desktops a good selection for educators to use in labs and classrooms. Instea...