Data that Matters

DATE: 7-October-2008
Filed Under:Portable Applications, Virtual Machines, System

I remember setting-up my first Windows based personal computer back in 1997. The system had a 2.1 GB hard drive and I don’t remember how much RAM came installed, but I remember upgrading the RAM to 80MB and I thought that was plenty of memory. It ran Windows’s 95 well. My first experience with Microsoft Windows was Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 was a big improvement over Windows 3.1.

As technology advanced I found I needed more capacity and performance out of my system. Since then I have purchased three Windows based PC’s and currently have two desktop and one laptop computers. Computers have been a liberating and creative impetus for me and for the masses. Technology has come a long way since 1997.

Our computers are now empowered, can run applications on portable devices and run multiple operating systems from within a host system. We can also play inside a box, learn UNIX or play ROM style retrograde games inside emulators. If you have the necessary system resources, you can run all these programs and applications at once. In the world of technology It is an exciting time to be alive.

Window’s 95 introduced me to a fully fledged graphical user interface which was much better than the DOS Shell or the primitive Windows 3.1interface. When I booted Windows 95 for the first time I remember being spell bound. I became one with that computer, spent many hours on that system and online in exploration.

Portable Applications

There is so much you can do with your computer. You can now carry portable applications, which are self contained miniature programs on devices with capacities larger than the capacity of my first computer’s hard drive. You can carry your data and the data creation tools to edit or to create. You can carry troubleshooting utilities, word processors, browsers, and security software to name just a few of many types of portable software available for your USB device.

There are few sites that get a lot of press. One in particular, PortableApps gets the lion’s share of publicity, which it should. PortableApps features many portable applications and a system that includes back-up software and a sleek menu.

There are few other sites that also offer a wide verity of portable applications:

• Kikizas.net offers a wide range of applications, many of which are unique to this site.
• Free SMUG features many of the same portable applications available for PS’s for the Macintosh.
• The Great Geek Manual offers a large collection of portable applications including a collection of portable games.
• No Think Manuals offer a list of portable applications many of which are unique to this site.
• Get USB offers 55 portable applications in several categories and includes a portable operating system and several games.
  

Portable Operating Systems

In addition, you can carry a whole operating system on your USB device. I carry Puppy Linux on a 512MB USB drive. Puppy includes a full complement of programs, tools, games, and utilities. It is easy to configure and you can create content, edit a web page, or go online. All bookmarks, history, and content go with you.

Emulators

If running miniature applications and operating systems from portable devices were not enough you can run an emulator from your desktop or your portable device. Emulators emulate a specific operating system. Popular use of emulators is to run old Atari and other ROM type games. Many of these retro games have been ported for specific emulators.

Emulators like DOSBox are used to emulate DOS so users can play their old DOS games. ZSNES is a Super Nintendo emulator and Atari800 is an Atari 800, 800XL, 130XE and 5200 emulator

There is the Basilisk II an open source 68k Macintosh emulator and the Mac-on-Stick – that allows you run Mac OS Classic 7 portably. Cygwin allows you run UNIX natively on a PC and DOSEmu that allows you run DOS programs on Linux.

There are two major and competing creators of Virtual Machine software Microsoft and VMware. Microsoft released their first Virtual Machine software with Virtual PC 2004 and their most recent virtual machine software is Virtual PC2007. Virtual Machine 2004 and 2007 allow you to create and play virtual machines. Virtual PC 2004 and 2005 are best suited for Windows 2000 and XP, while Virtual PC 2007 was created for Windows Vista, but will work on Windows XP.

Virtual machines allow you run an operating system from within a host operating system. Virtual Machines are more versatile than emulators, but also require more system resources. Virtual Machines allow you to run just about any operating system from inside your system. Virtual Machines are great when trying out a new operating system and applications before actually installing the software. They are also great for training and troubleshooting purposes. Imagine being able to run Linux from with Windows or taking Windows Vista for a spin before making the final decision to purchase or install the software on your PC.

Although VMware offers a set of virtual machine solutions they only offer their virtual machine player for free. However, VMware does offer a large collection of pre-built and configured VM’s for download. There are VM appliances for all sorts of Linux distributions. You can also find VM’s for Server 2003 and 2008.

If you prefer an open source alternative you can try VirtualBox which supports a verity of platforms.