port7 – co – uk

Random musing mode here, so a challenge I am currently facing here is a dependence between a OS image on a estate of legacy hardware. We can’t upgrade the hardware because the OS will not support newer hardware, and we can’t upgrade the OS because the newer OS won’t support the older hardware, so we are at a sort of impasse.

When you virtualise a OS image, what it gets presented to it with some virtualisation technologies is a bunch of virtual hardware. So you can move that OS image onto another bit of hardware running the virtualisation software with no changes to the OS image regards drivers or anything. This potentially has fantastic benefits in reducing long-term TCO, and also greater freedom with hardware vendors.

If you virtualised the desktop, and just run one image per desktop, you don’t get the benefits of consolidation from the virtualisation but you do get independence from hardware vendors, which certainally to me in my current situation would be great.

Anyway, I may explore this concept further…..

Good news on the $100 laptop, they have finally seen sense and allowed us people in the developed world to purchase them. The deal is that you basically pay for 2 of them, one you get to keep the other goes to a child in the developing world.

People have been asking for this for ages, so it’s good to see it happening (well not yet, but at some point)

Anyway the story is on the BBC.

Also the link on the BBC is borked so to put your name in the hat to get one go to xogiving.org.

So, still on holiday here in sunny(ish) Cornwall.

It’s been good, loved playing on the beach with Niamh. We had a great meal today at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Cornwall, a nice starter of local mackerel on potato salad, with a main of pulled pork citrus pasta. Julie and Niamh had roast lamb on lumpy mash. We also had the most delicious home made Dandelion and Burdock, as well as some homemade herbal cola.

Also did a fascinating trip yesterday to Portcurno which as well as having the most fabulous beach, it also where a whole bunch of international communication cables have come ashore since 1870. There is a great museum detailing the history of it all. It is staffed by a bunch of volunteers, many of whom trained there as old Cable & Wireless engineers, they keep a lot of the old kit working and are obviously in there element.

Made me wonder, what will I do in my retirement, help out in a museum maintaining antique computer kit?

Anyway the pictures can be found at….

picasaweb.google.com/portseven/Cornwall2007