I would like to take this time to write about one of my favorite pieces of Open Source software, Virtualbox. If you have a newer PC that was made in the last 5 years with multiple cores, Intel i3, i5, i7 as well as the AMD Athlon X2, Phenom X3 - X4 and now the FX 8Core, then you are most likely able to use virtualbox to run almost any OS available. Have a Windows Vista machine and want to run Ubuntu or CentOS, create a new machine using the Virtuabox Client. Virtualbox has many different virtual machines that you can create from Windows to Linux, BSD to Mac OS/X and even other machines like Haiku.(Open Source BeOS clone)

I have been using this software now for the better part of 3 - 4 years, since before Sun was purchased by Larry Ellison and crew. Oracle has done a good job of supporting this software since the acquisition. Try the software and let me know what you think in the comments section below. I will try and add some basic tutorials in the future on how to use the software and setup you own virtual machines.

We have all heard the buzzword of Cloud Computing and most of us use it in one way or another oftentimes without even realizing it. Cloud Computing is defined as: the practice of storing regularly used computer data on multiple servers that can be accessed through the Internet... and typically has the word Cloud in it due to the diagram in which it is depicted. See the image below provided by wikipedia.org.

It is funny to me that when computers were first used, they all belonged to a larger server and only displayed the information the server had for it. Then with the advent of the personal PC, data started to seperate from the networked server and the end user. Ultimately people stored all of their data on their personal computers and servers acted as large data warehouses for companies only. Now, with the advent of the Internet came the ability to view and search data that was in those servers and people on PCs could once again gain access to that information as the older legacy systems came online. One problem was that people had been storing documents, pictures, music and etc. on their PCs and if their hardware failed, most likely the data was gone as well. Now, with the Internet and access to all of these servers with idle storage and the cost of storage going way down, companies had the great idea to make space available to end users for either free or a minimal charge. Google has lots of cloud storage as well as Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive, Apple iCloud for those of you who use Apple products, Microsoft Skydrive and even Ubuntu One which is not just for use on Linux systems. So, the computing world has come full circle by putting everything back on the server and interconncting all of the systems once again. Please tell me what you think and if you use Cloud Computing in your daily life.