A Holodeck for Your Computer

Here's another tech blog for you coming in a bit late (supposed to be on the weekend) but here none-the-less.

Today we're going to go deep into geekdom and talk about a really old technology that's enjoying a revival of late. It's called 'virtualization.' Here's what it is.

Most of the time (like this time I'm using to type up this post) your computer is running along not really being used to it's fullest potential. Similar to the previous post's brain analogy. So, to use that time would make your computer more efficient and you'd get a bunch more done right (just nod your head)?

Virtualization takes advantage of this fact by running more than one computer on your computer.

Here's a brief summary of how it works. If you've seen Star Trek you'll get the following references if not, sorry. In Star Trek the holodeck is a place you can go that will create a world for you to interact with as if you were interacting for real. It is 'virtual' in that sense. They make software that can do the same thing. This software creates another computer, a 'world' if you will, inside your computer that's all virtual. So you can load a lame operating system like Windows XP or a more venerable one like Linux or Mac OS X and then load all of your programs as if you were loading them on the real computer. But then you can create another one and load Windows XP again (for your wife/child/other) and let them use that one. So, just like all the coppertops in the Matrix your operating system is none the wiser that it's really running in a fake world with fake memory and a fake processing unit.

So why oh why would you ever want to do that? There are many scenarios but consider the following. How many computers do you have in your house? The average family has at least one computer per member and some (like me) have more. So with virtualization you could buy one physical computer and monitors and turn that one computer into 4. Wierd. But imagine the electric bill!

Now imagine that you are a big fan of the Macintosh operating system but you really need to use Quicken but all you have is the Windows version of quicken. No sweat. You can fire up your 'virtual' copy of Windows XP with Quicken loaded on it and go to town bouncing those checks.

Well, that's probably not quite what your looking for when visiting the cultural tap, ah well. Feel free to comment where it falls for you on the geek-o-meter.