VMware MVP: Windows and Android... on the same phone

At this week's VMworld Europe 2009 conference in Cannes, VMware execs took the stage to demonstrate how the company's mobile hypervisor technology can let users run Windows CE 6.0 and Android on the same mobile device. In this case, the device was a Nokia N800 internet tablet, and it took advantage of the company's Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP), announced in early November, to squeeze the two competing mobile OSes onto the same ARM-based device.

The Video is here from Youtube

My ESX 3.5 lab on the cheap.

After doing a bit of research online i decided to settle for 2 HP d530 computers rather than building a quad core Intel computer (as some websites i visited suggested)and it did prove a wise choice too.
Both computers combined cost me less than $300 complete with 300GB HDD and 4GB ram each compared to over $600 for just the Quad core processors and supporting motherboard.

I have Vmware ESX 3.5 installed on both machines already and performance is unbelievably stable and reliable, i am able to manage both machines via VI client via wireless link. The ESX servers are tucked away in a room connected to an APC UPS, a gigabyte switch connected to an Apple time capsule for internet and wifi access. They both run headless, no monitors, no mouse, no keyboards , just power and network connections.

Since am currently studying for both a 2008 Server exam and the VCP exam, this is going to be like killing two birds with one stone.
Already have a 2008 domain setup on one of the ESX boxes complete with the new server core installations, DNS, AD, DHCP WDS and i plan to make the best use of my new d530s.

If you haven't been able to make up your mind on what machine to get to run your ESX test lab(Note that i said test lab), if budget and power consumption is also a major factor to consider then you can't go wrong with this babies. I have been able to run 5 VMs on each box so far with acceptable performance. I had my reservations too but now am sold.

One huge challenge i thought i might face was getting the hardware, with ebay and other websites not accepting Nigerian activities on their site, it was going to be a battle. For a brand new system i could easily have worked up to a local HP rep and picked up the equipments but not this D530s, first and foremost they are pretty old, dating back to the days of Pentium 4. (Lol!!, i say that like it was some decade ago.My set came standard with 40gb IDE hdd, 512 ram and a 2.6 HT processor. So i had to swap the drive for a Sata drive, upgrade the ram and that was all.)
So off i was to the local computer village to begin a bargain hunt, luckily for me, i found a very large consignment of them just waiting for me, nobody was buying them, the dealer was only too happy to let me have them. They were in perfect condition and to be honest i would have happily paid $300 each for them but i wasn't about to tell him that.
I had them tested, 2 blew up in the process( the dealer had forgotten to regulate the power to 220v , which is what we use in Nigeria) but we eventually found 2 mint looking ones which had been properly regulated, i opened them up, pulled out both HDD and memory modules and traded them for 2GB of ram. (I wasn't about to take 2 40GB HDD and 512mb modules back home to add to my clutter of IT junk).

Once home i installed the HDDs and ram i had sitting around, connected the power cord, monitor, keyboard and mouse, popped in the cd and voila, clean boot.

Installation was complete in less than 10 minutes. No issues at all.

I will find time to write a more detailed breakdown of what am doing( Hopefully) Right now am just too excited everything works straight out of the box, fully supported.

Quite a number of people have called me over the past couple of months to thank me for the anti virus application for usb flash drives, am glad it worked for all of you but next time guys do try and drop a comment on my blog, for those of you that have already, many thanks.

Nigerians love freebies and if that freebie is really cool, they love it even more. Well if you thought the ability to install applications like office, anti virus, browser www.portableapps.com on your removable drive was super cool, then wait for this.
I have got loads of hidden site with cool features for free that i will be letting out one at a time.
How would you like to get your very own 'blackberry' for free? Yeah absolutely free, no questions asked.
Ok maybe its not really a free blackberry but really how would you like to receive mails from any mail box (yahoo, gmail, hotmail, office mail) delivered to your mobile phone just like a text message.

I have been using this feature for about a year now and it works solid, i get all my mails sent to my mobile phone just like an sms. While in my case i use a pocket pc with windows mobile 5, the solution works for quite a number of standard phones too.
If you are interested, visit a website hosted by a good friend of mine www.port88.org and sign up for free, you could be up and running in minutes. The technology is called direct push and comes with Microsoft Exchange 2003 with service pack 2 installed.
The value of such a solution to your business and personal life is really remarkable, especially when its free.

My wife runs a pretty successful online web hosting business www.24cubehosts.com
You can get your own domain name and hosting space on windows or Linux from 24cube for as little as N5000. Call 24cube on 07028011867

When potential clients visit the company's website and make inquiries or place orders, using the online form, a mail is sent to the support team, which is received immediately on their mobiles as an sms, complete with the client's name, email, address, message and phone number.
They are always so surprised when i call them immediately to confirm their orders.
Visit port88.org and start enjoying this facility, MTN,Celtel and Glo will charge you for gprs bandwidth o!!, but its minimal, depending on how you configure your phone to receive the mails, you could pay as little as 20kobo per mail.

The coming together of Fedora Ambassadors
Great things are here at last!!!!!!!!
Yesterday i sent a mail out to other Fedora Ambassadors here in Nigeria and guess what? They replied!
At least 2 of them as at the time of this post. It's super, duper news. They apparently all share the same idea about a planned Fedora event but have never actually had the time to put it together.
one wrote; ....we shud try to c what we can put into action. Already we have acquired a domain name for the Fedora Nigeria project. Pls i feel we shud try to set a date and meet to c what can come up. In lieu of this, we can as well collaborate online since we are mostly online always.

and the other wrote ......Am very happy that somebody has finally kickstartd an activity in Fedora Nigeria. Considering the activities in mail list, i cant but agree that we are not doing anything. I will be very intrested in the project. Infact I even tried to start a project of my own, but i have been shufling from Lagos to Abuja, but at the beginning of the year i moved (more permenatly) to Lagos
Working as a unit am sure we can achieve this.
It appears my plans of staging a Fedora event might actually take place this year after all.
It's scheduled to be a massive event so you guys just keep watch.

The challenges of being a network administrator could be quite daunting especially if access to funds/tools is limited. To a large extent if you can afford to buy the right software, it could make your life a whole lot easier, rather than having to cut corners. One example is anti virus - An absolute must if you intend to use a computer and share files. One of the fastest ways of spreading viruses now is via thumb/flash drives. We all have and use them.
The network i manage is quite secure, i have a Linux gateway configured with clamav, spam assassin, squid, snort and iptables at the perimeter of my network, inspecting every single packet that comes in and goes out of my network. I have a symantec anti virus gateway server running on my mail server with clients running on all workstations. I have a dozen or so apple computers as well , even though viruses can't harm these machines, copying files from an infected mac to a pc will definitely infect a pc.
Laptops have also gotten so cheap now that all my users have at least one. They bring these laptops to the office, these laptops usually run virus scanners with outdated virus definitions. They copy files from their laptops to the office computers and vice versa, from the apple computers to their laptops, all with flash drives. A vicious virus cycle begins, viruses begin to pop up everywhere, the network begins to slow down, users begin to scream - the IT guy is not doing his job.
Company policy states that users can't connect their personal laptops to the company network, so you can't update their anti virus scanners.
So what is the way out, you might ask?
What if i told you, you could install an anti virus (fully updated) on your thumb/flash drive?

What if i told you that not only could you install a fully functional anti virus on your flash drive, but that you could also install a full office suite, media player, web browser, photo editor, ftp, client, apache,pdf reader, im client on the same removable storage drive and move them around with you, in your pocket.

Enter PortableApps
Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.
PortableApps provides a truly open platform that works with any hardware you like (USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, etc). It's open source built around an open format that any hardware vendor or software developer can use
The Portable Apps Suite™ is free. It contains no spyware. There are no advertisements. It isn't a limited or trial version. There is no additional hardware or software to buy. You don't even have to give out your email address. It's 100% free to use, free to copy and free to share.
For more information on this super cool tool please visit www.portableapps.com - it's free

Ok, so i have been gone for quite a while, but alot has happened since then. I have been setting up new linux boxes (mostly gateways and firewalls), winning a couple of awards, getting a promotion and also assisting my wife in her new business (Linux Solutions)along the way. I initially had some difficulty getting into my blog account after so long, it wasn't that i forgot my password or username but the entire blog engine on blogspot.com was apparent changed during my absence.
Well am back and all i can say (for now at least is that am back to stay).
I received a couple of comments on my previous posts and wanted to say a big thank you to you guys - Eze Uba and Victor. Your words were really encouraging. Thank you. Victor if your offer to help still stands after so long, am sure we can work together on this one.
So the planned Fedora/Linux Seminar didn't hold as intended but , am not giving up yet, nope, am starting the whole campaign all over again, i will be visiting nairaland again to post a similar article on the forum to attempt to draw out guys to work with me on this one.
Nigerians by nature love free stuff (awoof) so i don't see how this could fail, the seminar will cover other Linux distributions besides Fedora.
It will seek to enligten users on the use of linux, the various distributions out there, selecting a distribution, using your linux computer, installing and removing applications and a whole lot more.
As intended the seminar will be totally free, not a kobo to be paid in anyform whatsoever i.e no registration form fees, no manual or cdrom fees; nothing all you have to do is come in and attend the seminars.
We willbe giving out free linux cds, stickers and manuls at the seminar
I know for a fact that there are a number of Linux enthusiasts out there that would be willing to share their knowlegde with newbies, give me a call or drop me a line
Linux as an os is totally free, you download it off the internet, burn to cd, install on your machine and that's it, mostly comes complete with just about everything you need without you having to pay for a damn thing.

At the top of my post i mentioned that my wife has started her own outfit called 24cube located at www.24cube.co.uk, its an opensource company targetted at home users and SMEs rather than the big companies. The catch to the 24cube is that they use almost entirely free software, they don't charge you a dime for the application itself, they work with you to build the solution around your needs and operations. More on 24cube later, feel free to check out the company site at www.24cube.co.uk.

So Victor, let's spread the word on this project, while me attempt to make linux a whole lot more visible in Nigeria. You have officially be appointed project partner

Today i took that giant step and decided to proceed with my planned linux program, it appears there will never be a perfect time, i will just have to make do with what i have.

I posted the information below to the most popular user forum in the country today and am counting on Nigerians to make the program a hugh success.

I have absolutely no plans whatsoever to make one naira from the project, its absolutely "open-source free".

www.nairaland.com

Warning!!! I kind of type very fast, so their might be a couple of typos here, just overlook them ok? Idea is need.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/StanislausMartins

http://fedoraunit.blogspot.com

Hi guys, my name is Olusegun Martins, am a fedora approved ambassador here in Nigeria and in the spirit of open source (free software) I am putting together a fedora Linux training event scheduled to hold before the end of the year.
For those of you who haven't heard about fedora, it’s probably the most widely used flavour of Linux distribution available today, it was curled out of red hat but is now a fully fledged operating system on its own. The fantastic thing about Linux and open source is you don't really have to spend a dime for the quality of software you get.

The training will be in form of a presentation, and basic hand on practical to teach you the essentials of Linux computing. You will get to know how you can leverage the power in just about anywhere.. be it at home, in the office or even (especially) as a dedicated server. It will probably span a period of 2 days (Weekend) and will try to be as in-depth as possible.

Fully installable Fedora Core 5 cds (the most recent), T-shirts and training audio cds will be given out free to the participants.
It's absolutely free, no registration, no hidden cost, nada, zilch is required just come down enter your name in the register and you are good to go.

Due to the magnitude of the intended project I am looking for individuals who will be ready and willing to dedicated time, venue and resources to the success of the project for absolutely nothing other than name mention.

The event is intended for everybody, not just advanced computer users but everybody, if you can browse the web, access your email, use Microsoft word then you qualify, as a matter of fact you qualify even if you can't do any of the mentioned but are willing to give it a short.

The most important right now is securing a venue, speakers and a date so planning can be based round that. So if you have like a large enough hall preferably in Ikeja, Lagos and are willing to let us use it for 2 days please reach on the provided numbers and email or send a photo of the location to my email add.

If you consider yourself an authority on linux and are willing to talk at the event , kindly contact me as well
You can get more information about me and the intended project either via my fedora wiki page or my blog site.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/StanislausMartins

http://fedoraunit.blogspot.com

segunmartins99@yahoo.com
018989193
08056157941

So here's my first post ever and am so glad it on fedora.
Unfortunately i did not get to install or configure any linux computer today so i won't be telling you i did.
The life of a Sys Admin is a tough one my friends, i run an IT department with staff strength of just about over one, yeah i said one and that mean there's two of us. The new guy is "new" so he's still trying to find his footing and am doing my best to help assist me.
As if my job load wasn't enough my boss just handed control of the pbx system in the office to my department, now we do systems management, Network maintainace, central ups maintaince, help desk, database administation, email and collaboration management, document management and believe me when i say the list just goes on and on, it just won't stop.( We got a staff strength of almost 150)
Back to linux, i actually powered it on this morning on my laptop via my vmware workstation and finally got vmware tools to run on it, the virtual machine runs much smoother with the tools installed. Check out the link below if you need help on the matter

http://www.thoughtpolice.co.uk/vmware/howto/fedora-core-5-vmware-tools-install.html

Am wondering if i have said enough on fedora to justify my first statment.

Open source is just fantastic, its remarkably unbelieveable, the stuff you get for nothing will just about blow you away, fedora linux comes bundled with a very competent office suite + project management application that is very compatible with microsoft's office suite. A default installation will serve you well as a desktop pc complete with mozilla's firefox for web browsing, thunderbird for email and even an instant messaging application.
Taking your fedora a bit further will empower you to actually run a server, a fedora box will serve just about anything and guess what?.. it will do it for free... yeah enterprise grade computing and server computer for zilch, nothing, nada.
I wont say am an advanced user of linux and that's the fun part, you really only need to be able to run your windows machines and you should be confortable in less than an hour or playing around