{"id":41,"date":"2010-04-22T14:39:31","date_gmt":"2010-04-22T21:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/?p=41"},"modified":"2010-04-22T14:40:41","modified_gmt":"2010-04-22T21:40:41","slug":"virtualization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/?p=41","title":{"rendered":"Virtualization"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven’t really done much in the past with virtualization<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve never really needed it.\u00c2\u00a0 This changed recently when I realized that I no longer felt like dealing with the snail’s pace of Windows XP on my netbook.\u00c2\u00a0 The netbook is supposed to be small and nimble.\u00c2\u00a0 Mine felt bloated and slow.<\/p>\n

However, it was my only Windows machine with even marginal security.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, if I needed to do anything securely with a credit card number from within Windows, then I pretty much had to use the netbook.\u00c2\u00a0 My gaming rig is almost a console in its simplicity.\u00c2\u00a0 It works and works well for games, but the autologin with administrator rights is just a little<\/em> unsafe.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I got a copy of VMWare Fusion, installed Windows XP on it, slapped on some antivirus software and a few other things I consider necessary when using Windows.\u00c2\u00a0 I like using VMWare Fusion on the Mac, because the virtual machine can be run entirely cut off from the internet and the entire data store can be thrown in an encrypted sparseimage for security.<\/p>\n

The entire process was shockingly quick and painless.\u00c2\u00a0 I even have the ability to drag and drop files from the Mac’s Finder to Windows Explorer and it just works.<\/p>\n

VMWare’s networking is dead simple to use, but quite powerful.\u00c2\u00a0 Two clicks is all it takes to switch between any of these configurations:<\/p>\n