Don Zeigler

Let me start off by saying that in 2006, your humble writer (the biggest computer geek in south Bluefield)  had no real familiarity with what a “virtual machine” was. I had heard the term and assumed (somewhat correctly) that it had to do with running more than one operating system on a single machine.

Three years later I’m rather well acquainted with the concept of virtualization and the deployment of virtual machines, so it’s time for you non-geeks to learn what a VM is all about, and why they’re so useful.

In technobabble, a virtual machine is a computer application which presents simulated hardware to an operating system running as a process on a host system. To put it more simply, a special computer program that you run on your desktop or laptop “impersonates” a separate physical computer. In other words, a computer inside a computer!

So, what’s the purpose in this? In the IT world, there are purposes aplenty. Since different types of operating systems can be run at the same time, including legacy and bleeding-edge systems, compatibility issues can be easily investigated and data migration can be performed in a simple copy operation. Operating systems running in virtual machines are also very simple to back up and restore to any given state. Malware (viruses and spyware) that affects a guest operating system running in a VM cannot affect the host system, and a process that crashes a guest OS will not crash the host.

Additionally, an operating system stored as a virtual machine can be copied and run on completely different hardware within seconds, reducing system downtime in critical applications where hardware failure could be catastrophic. Although it is common to run the same type of operating system in a virtual machine as that of the host machine, often VMs are used to test or deploy different types of systems in parallel.

So, what does all this mumbo-jumbo mean to you, the home user? Scenario: you own a computer that runs Windows Vista. You have some applications you need that worked fine under Windows XP but absolutely refuse to run under Vista (even using Vista’s “compatibility” mode). Or perhaps you have some older computer games that ran under MS-DOS but do not play nice with any versions of Windows, period.

A virtual machine is the answer to both these not-really-hypothetical situations. You create a new VM, then install XP or MS-DOS into it, and voila! You’re able to install and use those older appplications and games as if you were using a separate physical computer.

Virtualization is not the only solution available to the home user in these types of cases – you could elect to perform a “real” installation of the operating system you need onto a second hard drive or new partition on your existing drive and set up a dual boot. But you would then need to reboot your computer every time you needed access to one operating system or the other. With a virtual machine, setup is fast and easy with no need to buy another drive, partition your existing drive, modifying your master boot record to allow a dual boot – the other OS is always just a few mouse clicks away.

Virtual machines are expecially useful to home users who choose to run something other than Microsoft Windows on their computer. (Yes, Virginia, there *is* choice other than Microsoft) For an example, I have been running Linux as my main operating system for some years now. Once in a while, I need to run Windows for a few legacy applications that have no equivalents in Linux world. Instead of dual-booting or keeping a Windows desktop around, I simply launch my Windows XP virtual machine, which has those applications installed, do my work, then exit back to my Linux environment.

As should be obvious, the possibilities are many for home use: the XP user can keep virtual machines on hand with earlier (or even later) versions of Windows installed. The person devoted to Macintosh machines can now run a Windows operating system in addition to their Mac OS. Linux users are able to run Windows for those applications that as yet have no counterparts written for them under Linux.

And for us techno-geeks, virtual machines are also a great tool when it comes to learning about, and troubleshooting, various operating systems. Nothing beats hands-on experience, and now you can get it without having to have 3-4 computers laying around.

XP Virtual Machine

The computer I’m typing this on has four operating systems installed: Linux as my main or primary OS, then three virtual machines running Windows Vista, Windows XP and FreeBSD. Attached is a shot of XP running inside a window on my Linux desktop. At any time I can hit a special hot key and switch the XP VM to full-screen mode, and it’s like running Windows directly – Linux “disappears” until I hit the hot key again.

Now, where do you get the software to create and run virtual machines? There are several choices, but the two most popular are VMWare and Virtualbox. The former is a commercial product, the latter is “open source” or free for most use. Check the links for more information and downloads.

And of course, you should be the registered owner of a copy of the operating system you wish to run in a virtual machine!

I am a musical creature of the 1970s and not the 1980s. I went through my teens during the era of what’s now called “classic rock” – bands like Aerosmith, Kiss, Queen and Journey were in their heyday. I remember when “Off The Wall” came out but never had any interest in listening to it, although on the few occasions when I actually tuned into a top-40 radio station, the title track seemed to always be playing.

So no, I was not a Michael Jackson fan per se. In this light, it’s worth noting that when I first saw the Thriller video, I was as impressed as any hardcore Jackson fan. It was slick, well produced and years ahead of anything else in that genre. Don’t forget this was long before MTV made music videos a part of our culture, and most of them at this time were not very memorable on a technical or musical basis.

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t quite understand all the fuss at the time over Michael Jackson himself. The one-glove bit was ludicrous. He could sure dance and sing, but the ever-present sunglasses, carefully curled hair and outlandish clothes made me snicker on more than one occasion.

By the time “Bad” was released, Jackson was already a joke to many. His music had become overshadowed by his odd behavior, plastic surgeries, accusations of child abuse and everything else. Jackson gradually deteriorated into just another sad case of too much fame being gifted to someone who wasn’t equipped to deal with it.

And yet, the news of his death a few days ago gave me pause. I’d forgotten, as had millions of others, how important he was to the way the music industry had evolved and changed; how incredible a performer he’d been; how much skill and craft could be found in his music.

The debate rages on about how his personal life must or should be reconciled with his artistic one. Some feel that the two cannot be judged separately; that his artistic legacy is forever tarnished or ruined by the things he did and/or was accused of doing. But can we honestly criticize Michael Jackson’s actions without considering how his own suffered abuse no doubt shaped his later life and reported actions?

I’m not sure, yet I don’t want to free him from all blame for his actions, either. Can we negate the influence he had on generations for his music, when in fact many classical artists universally revered today in academic circles would be condemned by the public for their personal behavior if it were revealed in the tabloids the way Jackson’s was?

These questions are not raised to negate the severity of issues of child and sexual abuse, should they ever be concretely proven in Michael Jackson’s case. I only mention them because he’s left a very complex and not at all neat and clean legacy behind.

It will only be in decades or even centuries that we are able to state who were truly the legendary and influential artists and creators of our time. Will Michael Jackson be on the short list? I think he will. His personal life and behavior should, in the long run, be irrelevant to his importance and impact on the world of music.

People often confuse their hard drive and their memory (the RAM, or Random Access Memory) of their computer. Both hold information, and both are important to the functioning of your computer.

Your hard drive (or hard disk) can be thought of as the filing cabinet of your computer.  Even when your computer is turned off, the hard drive is still storing all of your files (such as your email or a recipe you save with MS Word), your programs (such as MS Word itself) and everything else the computer needs to be useful for you.

When you turn your computer on, some of the data that is on the hard drive is pulled into memory – it is what your computer is “thinking” about.  As you need to the computer to think about more things, those things are brought into memory.

For example, if you decide to surf the web, your web browser (such as Internet Explorer) is pulled into memory so the computer can “think” about it.  It is also left on the hard drive, so it is really in both places.

If you ask your computer to think about too much, sometimes the computer has to, in essence, take notes on what it is thinking about to make room for the new stuff.  Hey, we all have to do that, right?  The computer does that by putting some of what is in its memory back onto the hard drive using what is called “virtual memory.”   This allows the computer to work with those notes faster than it would if it had not noted the data at all, but it still slows things down.  You can often tell if your computer is doing this a lot of you hear the hard drive “grinding” as you move from program to program. Memory is completely released when you shut your computer down.

The most common item to upgrade when you want to increase the speed of your computer is its memory.  Most people do not have to increase the size of their hard drive – modern ones hold massive amounts of data.  It is not uncommon to have 300 or 500 or more Gigabytes of hard drive space on a new computer, where 1 or 2 Gigabytes of memory is typical  on a modern computer (if you do not know what a Gigabyte is, just suffice it to say 1 or 2 units is a lot smaller than 300 to 500!)

If the above is confusing to you, know this: for most people, the best way to extend the life of an aging computer is to add more memory.

I can show you how – Internet radio broadcasting has never been more affordable or easier to set up. Many thousands of individuals and companies all over the world are doing it already, both for their personal enjoyment and for business purposes.

For a small investment of $200 or so (depending on the software you choose), plus an inexpensive account with a web host that specializes in streaming audio, you can be “on the air” in not days, but HOURS.

Convey your message and/or music to an audience of millions around the globe. Any computer user with Internet access, a web browser and a media player such as Windows Media Player installed will be able to hear you!

Whether you’re interested in Intenet radio purely as a hobby, or as a means to promote your product or service, contact me today for information on how Internet radio works, and how you can go “live” with minimal expense.

Going through some boxes of books this evening, I ran across one of my favorites that I haven’t read in many years – Cosmos, by Carl Sagan, an adaptation of a bygone series on public television. Opening it up and browsing through a few pages brought back a flood of memories.

In 1980 I was 22 years old and a heck of a lot thinner than I am today. My main interest back then was rock and roll… I was pretty proficient on the guitar and loved to play along with my favorite bands when I dropped one of their records on the turntable.

I also thought Carl Sagan was one of the coolest guys in the world.

Sagan hosted a new series on PBS titled Cosmos and from the first episode I was hooked. As a youngster I had been fascinated with astronomy. I had several telescopes and devoured any books I could find on the subject. Over time my interest waned as I moved on to other things.

But now here was Sagan, suave in his red turtleneck and buff jacket, surrounded by special effects and Vangelis music and telling everyone (but especially me) about how the cosmos is everything that ever was, everything that is, and everything that ever will be. Heady stuff.

I’m still a great admirer of Carl Sagan, primarily because he did something I see as immensely important: he popularized science and with patience and good humor brought into people’s homes. He did it through Cosmos, most obviously, but he also did it every time he popped up on The Tonight Show and talked with celebrity fluidity about what was going on in the universe. He was the people’s scientist.

Getting science in front of people in a way they can understand — without speaking down to them — is the way to get people to support science, and to understand that science is neither beyond their comprehension nor hostile to their beliefs. There need to be scientists and popularizers of good science who are of good will, who have patience and humor, and who are willing to sit with those who are skeptical or unknowing of science and show how science is already speaking their language. Sagan knew how to do this; he was uncommonly good at it.

I have an idealized version of Carl Sagan in my head, of course, one that is notably absent any number of flaws that the real Carl Sagan had to have had simply because he was human. My connection to Sagan comes from some limited number of hours of television and a finite number of books, and in both cases the man was edited for my consumption.

What I do know is that I like his ideas. I like his love of science. I like his faith in humanity. I like how he saw us reaching for things greater than ourselves, because it was in our nature and because it was a fulfillment of our nature. I like how he shared his enthusiasm for the entire universe with everyone, and believed that everyone could share in that enthusiasm.

Dr. Sagan left us much too soon – he was only 62 when he died of bone marrow cancer in 1996. However, he did leave behind some great printed works, and his television series can still be found on DVD. Even if astronomy or astrophysics are subjects that doesn’t interest you, Sagan wrote on topics as diverse as the evolution of the human brain to morality and the abortion debate.

Reading the above, it seems like a tribute to be given at a funeral, written 12 years too late. But for some reason tonight, I had the urge to write about a great scientist, author and human being, and to share it with whoever might happen to stumble upon it in their web travels.

Thank you, Carl, for making me wonder again after I thought I had grown too jaded to do so.

Carl Sagan

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Your memories deserve more than something thrown together by someone who has figured out how to use Windows Movie Maker. I use quality media and the same software used by the big photo studios. Contact me today for more information on this new item!

As a former employee of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, I was shocked and saddened to learn of the sudden death of longtime executive editor Tom Colley on Saturday, January 10. I worked with Tom for nearly nine years, and his dedication to his profession, his community and his newspaper were truly inspiring.

I was a graphic artist and as such did not work with Tom on a daily basis. However, I also wrote an opinion column for many months back in 2006, and thus got to know Tom a lot better as he worked with me to hone my writing skills and get my message across in limited editorial space.

This was an exciting time for me and Tom really enjoyed the often heated public responses to my unashamedly biased approach to politics, religion and local issues. He sometimes joked to me that page A-4 of the Thursday edition, which was when my column ran, seemed to be the only page of the paper read on those days. This was when the BDT had an electronic message board tied to the online edition, and we would really get a kick out of the discussion my columns generated.

Tom even told me that he would sometimes receive extremely nasty emails or phone calls concerning something I had written. But to his credit, he would run what I wrote and let the chips fall where they may. He always said that feedback of any type meant people were genuinely interested in the topic at hand, even if they didn’t agree with the conclusions of the writer.

Thanks, Tom, for allowing me the opportunity to connect with our readers, and for your always steady hand at the wheel as we went through ownership and staff changes. Through it all, Tom never lost his vision of what the BDT should be, and of the responsibilities of the news and editorial staff.

More than anyone else, Tom WAS the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. The paper will continue, and no doubt someone will ably step into his position and carry onward. However, it simply won’t be the same newspaper without Tom sitting in his office on the third floor.

My job entails spending a lot of time online researching trends in the real estate market. The below info is a little dated, but still pretty significant, since I’ve seen nothing to indicate the trends noted have changed any since this information was published.

The Newspaper Association of America released some data in March 2008 on the general decline in advertising revenue in newspapers. While total newspaper advertising dollars fell a dramatic 9.4% last year, Real Estate classified advertising revenue fell a staggering 22.6% from $5.16 billion in 2006 to $3.99 billion in 2007.

This is clearly driven by several major forces:

• The real estate audience is no longer reading newspapers, having shifted its attention to the Internet, which is now the primary research tool for real estate research. This makes it more difficult for newspapers to sell ads to their customers. The National Association of Realtos reports that 84% of buyers used the Internet in 2007 compared to less than half which used print media.
• The traditional classified advertising products are in many cases not cost-effective compared to their digital alternatives. With free Internet real estate listing services, why would one buy newspaper classified advertising? Also, as rates have been going up over the years and these products are often sold via expensive telesales operations, it is extremely hard to compete on price with internet advertising
• The change in the housing market means that agents and brokers are feeling poorer and spending less marketing money. In addition we have seen the dramatic decline of the home building industry. When they are spending, they are actively looking for cheaper alternatives as they shift their ad budgets to online sites.

Ad spending in newspapers in the real estate industry has held up for longer than other industries such as autos and recruitment, but today’s market is forcing a change of behavior in how brokers and agents allocate their budgets. This will lead to a positive impact to the real estate advertising Industry as a whole as it emerges from the current decline. But there is no doubt it will take a few years.

Ad spending is more complex in the real estate industry and not purely driven by the transaction. It is also driven in a large part to appease sellers to get the listings and for brokerages to advertise to retain agents. These marketing decisions are not made on a strong financial basis and until the Industry can work to change the mindset of sellers and agents there will be lots of inefficient spending in the future.

While the news for print real estate advertising is not good, let’s face it – it was inevitable. The triple whammy of the housing market, audience migration and the slowing economy is making a tough job even tougher for the newspaper industry. While there have been numerous efforts from the newspapers to build online services these have yet to prove themselves universally successful and definitely don’t make up for the decline in overall advertising dollars. These institutions have been around for decades, and have enormous revenue streams, but it’s going to be interesting to see how all this shakes out over the next several years.

So, while the trends mentioned above are very bad news for the newspaper industry, it’s great news for the real estate industry and consumers. Removing costs and shifting ad spending to more efficient means will help brokers and agents build profitable businesses and also benefit home buyers and sellers as it helps take unnecessary costs out of the process.

This rates among the more stupid tech ideas I’ve seen. A company named 40A has released a fork of the open-source Firefox web browers called Blackbird. Okay, choice in browsers is good, and Firefox is a great foundation upon which to build an alternative browser. Blackbird works like just about any other web browser with one important exception:

When using Blackbird’s built-in search feature, results will skew towards African-American news sources and blogs in an effort to highlight those resources.. A search for “Barack Obama” in Firefox’s search box, for example, will bring results like BarackObama.com, Wikipedia, and Chicago Tribune. But the same query in Blackbird’s box will return results from AOL Black Voices and blogs.bet.com.

Ed Young, the CEO of 40A, argues that the browser “isn’t about exclusion, but rather inclusion.” Sorry, but to me, Blackbird exemplifies the latter – a browser that is attempting to more or less isolate a group that comprises as much as 14% of the U.S. population is nothing but a bad idea. And by skewing search results in favor of websites that meet 40A’s criteria – whatever it may be – for being a “good” news site, the company is doing users of the browser a disservice by de-emphasizing other sites.

This country has taken huge strides in doing away with the great racial divide. We’ve elected a black president. 40A has every right to build and market a web browser. But who in their right mind would want to use something that, even if only so slightly, returns us to a segregated society?

The nation’s job market was dealt a savage blow this week as a slew of companies announced more than 34,000 layoffs, and the government reported that nearly 2 million jobs have been lost this year, through November.

On Friday, the Labor Department said that employers hemorrhaged 533,000 jobs in November, the largest monthly loss since December 1974. This was much worse than the 325,000 expected by a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

The annual unemployment rate also increased to 6.7% in November, from 6.5% the prior month.

“With the loss of over half-a-million jobs just last month, the U.S. job market is now shedding jobs at a truly alarming rate, a rate that is measurably worse than past recessions,” said Jared Bernstein, senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute, in an e-mail to CNNMoney.com.

The government also revised up its losses for the prior two months, to 320,000 for October and 403,000 in September. In total, it reported job cuts of 1.9 million for 2008, through November.

Those losses exceed the 1.5 million job cuts that occurred in a 12-month span from 1990 to 1991, according to information from David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor’s. But Wyss said the current unemployment rate pales in comparison to 1982, when the rate was nearly 11%.

“I don’t think this is the 1930s, but it’s certainly the worst recession we’ve seen since 1982,” Wyss said in an interview on Thursday.

Job cuts continue to mount in December. Thursday was particularly bloody, when 11 companies announced 24,914 layoffs, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas and company reports.

Then on Friday, engine-maker Cummins said it would eliminate at least 500 white-collar jobs by the end of 2008, and General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) released plans to lay off 2,000 workers next year.

And this is just the latest bit of bad December job news. On Wednesday, State Street Corp., Jefferies Group and The Carlyle Group announced job cuts totaling about 3,000. On Tuesday, U.S. Steel said 3,500 workers will be “affected” by the “temporary idling” of manufacturing facilities in Keewatin, Minn., and near Detroit and St. Louis.

The total layoffs announced in the first week of December: 33,914.

AT&T (T, Fortune 500), a Dallas-based telecom operator, said it would slash 12,000 jobs, totaling 4% of its workforce.

AT&T attributed the staff cuts to “economic pressures, a changing business mix and a more streamlined organizational structure” in a news release.

The telecom also said it would take a charge of $600 million in the fourth quarter to make severance payments. It said it would reduce its 2009 capital expenditures from its 2008 levels.

Credit Suisse Group (CS) said it would cut 5,300 staff jobs, 11% of its worldwide work force, as part of a restructuring effort. The majority of the cuts would be to investment bank jobs, said Chief Executive Brady Dougan.

In addition, the Zurich, Switzerland-based company said it would eliminate 1,200 contractor positions.

DuPont (DD, Fortune 500), a chemical company based in Wilmington, Del., said it would cut 2,500 jobs.

DuPont Chief Executive Charles Holliday said his company was making the cuts “in response to current market challenges” and to increase the company’s competitiveness in the coming year.

DuPont said it expected a loss of 60 cents to 70 cents per share for the fourth quarter, including an 40-cent-per-share charge from the company’s restructuring plan. Going forward, the company expects full-year earnings to be $2.25 to $2.75 per share in 2009.

Full-year earnings of $2.75 to $2.85 are expected for 2008, said DuPont, down from its previously announced range of $3.25 to $3.30 per share.

Viacom Inc., (VIA) an entertainment company that includes MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures, said it would cut 850 jobs, or 7% of its workforce.

Viacom Chief Executive Philippe Dauman said it was restructuring its company “to adapt to the challenges presented by the current economic environment.”

In addition to the job cuts, New York-based Viacom said it was suspending senior level management salary increases throughout 2009. The company expects the restructuring to result in pre-tax savings of $200 million to $250 million in 2009, but it will take a pre-tax charge of $400 million to $450 million in the fourth quarter of 2008, or 42 cents to 48 cents per diluted share.

Car rental company Avis Budget Group (CAR, Fortune 500) said it has cut more than 2,200 jobs and taken other steps to meet its goal of reducing annual costs by $150 million to $200 million by the middle of 2009. The company will close its claims-processing facility in Orlando, Fla., as well as its customer contact center in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Avis CEO Ronald Nelson said the company will continue its “relentless focus on cost containment” so that when economic conditions improve Avis can “achieve our ultimate goal of restoring our margins to previous levels.” In the past weeks, Avis said it has frozen management salaries and downsized its planned fleet.

This follows a slew of bad employment news on Wednesday, when State Street Corp. (STT, Fortune 500) said it was cutting from 1,600 to 1,800 workers, or 6% of its total workforce.

The Boston-based company, which provides financial services to institutional investors, said these job cuts would occur between now and the end of the first quarter of 2009. Two-thirds of the cuts will occur in North America, with the rest in Europe, Asia and the Pacific region.

Also on Wednesday, Jefferies Group (JEF) said it was shedding 18% of its work force throughout 2008, as part of a wider restructuring plan to “restore profitability in 2009.” The investment bank said it planned to end the year with 2,150 staffers. That’s 358 less than it started with. The company also said it was closing offices in Dubai, Singapore and Tokyo.

The Carlyle Group, a private equity investment firm based in Washington, said Wednesday that is laying off 10% of its work force, with most of the layoffs occurring in the U.S. offices. The Carlyle Group, has more than 1,000 workers, according to the company.

“The markets are terrible and we need to adjust accordingly,” said Carlyle spokesman Christopher Ullman. “We’re making the adjustments to deal with the current realities of the economy.”

Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, said in an interview on Thursday that the job losses are likely to drag into next year. But he said it’s difficult to project how long the current recession will last, and when the job market will hit bottom.

“When we see the job losses and the job picture getting worse and worse and worse, it is confirming that the recession is accelerating, that it is intensifying to the down side, but it doesn’t tell us where were headed in the future, said Achuthan, who focuses on leading indicators.

“The bad news doesn’t stop with the fact that we’re in an intensifying recession and that it’s going to continue into 2009,” said Achuthan. “The risk on the horizon is that the recovery, when it does come, will be a jobless recovery.”