Virtual Machines - Moving to a New System Pt. 2
I've been robbed...
Shortly after my laptop was replaced, it was stolen. Not the best experience, but made easier by having client stuff in virtual machines and by having gone through the experience of replacing a laptop already once. See November 2009 blog.
The Good News
I was working only one client at the time of the theft. Fortunately, I keep client files in a virtual machine, locked under a separate password that would require a bit of know-how to get around. I'm not sure how it would be done.
The Better News
I keep back ups of the client virtual machine on a portable hard drive, and virtual machines move from machine to machines quite well. All I had to do was move the virtual machines to my back up system and I could continue working.
Note: It's tempting to run the machine off the portable hard drive, but that's noticeably slower. It also stops being a backup at that point.The Bad News
Although the virtual machine ran, none of my back up systems were as powerful as the work horse that got stolen. I had to bump up the RAM to make them usable for client work. I really missed my work horse. If I had to do it again, I'd rent a better machine while I figured out what to do about a permanent replacement.
The Best News
The police recovered my laptop. Not trusting what could be on it, I wiped the drive and re-installed from the clean backup from the portable hard drive (see previous post). Re-installing all the software on the base system was a pain, but I could take my time with it because the virtual machines had the client specific tools already installed.
So I'm still a fan of virtual machines. Next steps? I'm told serious developers use VMware. And I'm thinking of giving Subversion another shot. So many things to try.
Virtual Machines - Moving to a new system
More reason to be grateful to Virtual PC.I recently had to replace my laptop in the middle of a contract. I find replacing equipment stressful at the best of times, but deadlines made this so much worse. And Virtual PC made it so much better.
Even with a few glitches, getting up and working on client material was relatively quick.
- All of the files required for the client project were in the Virtual PC file:
- Draft documents
- Reference documents from the client
- Specialized tools for document development
- Client installed software
- The file is backed up every week to a portable drive.
- Setting up Virtual PC to run on the new system is simple.
- Copying the client vmc and vhd files to the new system is simple.
- Loading an existing Virtual PC (vmc file) in the Virtual PC console is simple.
- It ran the first I accessed it, though I adjusted the display settings for my bigger and better resolution.
What glitches slowed me down?- The only Virtual PC issue that slowed me down was internet access. The virtual PC wouldn't access the internet and it didn't give me any information why (--at least not that I recognized). Once I figured out what was wrong, it was simple to fix.
- In the Virtual PC Console, highlight the machine to change.
- Click the Settings button.
- In the Settings dialog, click Networking. The panel to the right displays the network adapters defined for the virtual machine.
- Select the correct adapter from the dropdown list.
- For information about available options, see this MS article about networking settings in VPC.
- Click OK to save your changes.
- I chose to change my firewall software for the new laptop. Note to self: stick to stuff you know when under deadline pressure. According to the laptop manufacturer, XP SP3 and Comodo firewall don't always play well together. Neither is now installed on my system. Maybe later, when I have time to play.
What saved my life?I finally remembered to ghost the hard drive of my new system. It was post initial startup, so it isn't quite "out-of-the-box" clean. It is prior to any software install, so it's close enough. I've used that image twice.
The first time because uninstalling Comodo didn't. As admin, I didn't have access to uninstalling the firewall. Tech support guy thought there must have been a glitch in the install. As a bonus, restoring the drive from the image removed SP3, which may have contributed to the problem.
The second time because I'm stubborn and I don't always believe it when I'm told I can't. Had to try the firewall install in case it really was a glitch. I know. Deadline.
All setI'm all set now, and working the deadline project again. Thank you extended warranty and laptop manufacturer, thank you VPC, thank you Ghost, and thank you tech support guy.
Confusing Words
The English language is such a charming thing. The
Confusing Words website hosts a lists of 3210 words that are troublesome to readers and writers. Only 3210?
It might settle a few arguments for you.
Cheers.
Origami Photo Cube - Kasahara
I toyed with a
water bomb photo cube last time, but didn't like the fractured folded sides. It's too finicky and time-consuming to set it up.
Kunihiko Kasahara's Solid Figure II, on page 87 of the Origami Omnibus has 5 smooth sides and 1 side of 4 triangles. The finished cube is bigger, it has only one fractured side, and it's easier to set this one on any of it's sides.
The photo placement template (
view full size template) is more intuitive, as is the photo cutting template (
view full size) for the fragmented side.
The folding pattern is copyrighted, and I haven't found one like it on the net so borrow the book from your local library. My library has a surprisingly large collection of origami books.
Labels: origami
Origami - Photo Cube (Waterbomb)
I was curious what it would take to create an origami photo cube. Thought of a water bomb first, so that's what I figured out first. It worked, more of less.
I worked out the pattern to cut a photo into properly shaped pieces for what ends up being the two folded sides. Even with properly cut pieces the two folded sides are finicky and don't work well for all pictures.
If you want to try it, I've attached the templates and some notes below.
Water bomb photo cube template (
view full size) and photo cutting template (
view full size):
The first folds are shown to give you an idea of the orientation for the segmented photos.
Photo 1 is split in two with the centre cut being the outside edge of the template.
Details of the folded sides are labeled in for only one side of photo 5. Photo 6 works the same way as photo 5.
5e needs to be upside down, relative to 5a. as does it's opposite small triangle.
The cutting template is scaled for the above water bomb template, though the size displayed in this blog doesn't look like it.
My final pattern, photo cube, and folded side looks like this:
If you look closely, the middle two triangles of the folded side are wrong-side up, because I didn't turn them upside down in the template.
Ultimately, the template should make the two middle triangles bigger and they should be offset to minimize the exposed white space. The two narrow triangles over them should also be wider and be offset.
Not liking the messy folded sides, I'm going to make a photo cube out of Kunihiko Kasahara's Solid Figure II, on page 87 of the Origami Omnibus. It has 5 smooth sides and 1 side of 4 triangles. It's easier to set this one on any of it's sides. Next time.
Labels: more-time-than-sense, origami
Googling - files on a website
Haven't used these before, though I can't imagine that they're new.
In the google search bar, type:
site:
For example: presentation site:apyxis.com
- produces a list of all the articles from the site containing “presentation”.
To see only items with the word(s) in the title use INTITLE or ALLINTITLE,
for example, intitle: site:
To see only items with the word(s) in the URL use INURL or ALLINURL,
for example, inurl: site:
Information about advanced google operators is available here: http://www.google.com/help/operators.html
Virtual Machines - Preserving your working system
This is probably a little braver than most tech writers want to be, but it might solve a few problems for a consultant or two.
Virtual machines allow you to test software without polluting your registry and file system with garbage that doesn't get removed, even with an uninstaller. Your system has to be up to running an operating system within an operating system, and setting one up can be time consuming. The time required can be annoying especially since you're creating something specifically so that you can throw it away. Still, if you're having to install software temporarily, this is a good way to keep your working computer clean.
IT professionals have been using virtual machines for years, but your average tech writer, not so much. This is probably a function of all the things we don't know about our systems. I started to think about it when installing client alpha software caused problems on my working machine. I know installing client software on my working machine is bad. I just didn't have any working alternatives. Virtual machines give me a option for next time.
I chose Virtual PC, because all the information I needed was where I could find it. Do some reading before you start. There are a few additional things to keep in mind about Virtual PC.
- You need at least 1GB of RAM, more is usable. I have 2GB.
- You need your operating system installation disks.
- You need enough hard disk storage for the Virtual PC install and the operating system files, and for the files for what you're trying to accomplish. I started with XP just under 4GB and rapidly exceeded 12GB.
- It uses space, apparently without reusing it. While testing DVD slideshow software, it balloon to 25GB quickly even though it was only using 12GB effectively. The compacting function saved 1GB. Woo-flipping-hoo. Look up the terms "virtual machine bloat". I've included a link to an article about compacting a vitual machine by copying a disk image of the virtual hard drive.
- Virtual PC includes an add-on that allows you to access the base system's CD drive and allows you to drag files between the base system desktop and the virtual PC desktop. As far as I can figure, you can't write to the base system's CD/DVD drive.
- You can close down a virtual machine without saving the changes, that means that it resets to it's previous state and you lose any changes made during the session, including data.
To learn about virtual machines, see this Wiki article on
virtual machines.
Wiki provides a
comparison summary of virtual machines.
Microsoft's Virtal PC 2007 has it's own
introduction and download section.
Microsoft's
Virtual PC installation and setup instructions didn't get me into too much trouble.
Enhancing Rollback by Using Virtual Machines by John Paul Cook is very useful. It's written for Virtual PC 2004. Note the section title, Compacting a Virtual Hard Disk Using Image Copying Software.
If you get far enough to need compacting, you'll need a bootable disk with disk imaging software installed. I use a BartPE disk with an ancient version of ghost. If you don't already have a BartPE disk for troubleshooting, see
BartPE for information and instructions.
