Archive for July, 2009

Installing VirtualBox OSE on Ubuntu 8.04

Tonight I wanted to play with a couple of Linux distros on my desktop and I decided to install VirtualBox since it’s free and already has packages in Ubuntu for it. That turned into a much longer process than I thought, but not too bad. There’s a couple of steps that the open source edition’s installer on Ubuntu that are missed.

I installed VirtualBox through the Add/Remove Applications GUI application. When I ran VirtualBox, created a virtual machine, and tried to boot it I was greeted with an error:
VirtualBox kernel driver not installed. The vboxdrv kernel module was either not loaded or /dev/vboxdrv was not created for some reason. Please install the virtualbox-ose-modules package for your kernel, e.g. virtualbox-ose-modules-generic..

Apparently you have to install an additional module which Ubuntu conveniently left out. To get the correct module for any running kernel that you are using:
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-modules-`uname -r`

Fine. My module is now installed. I went to boot up my VM again..
The VirtualBox kernel driver is not accessible to the current user. Make sure that the user has write permissions for /dev/vboxdrv by adding them to the vboxusers groups. You will need to logout for the change to take effect..

I had to add my user to the vboxusers group in order to gain access to the VirtualBox module:
sudo usermod -G vboxusers -a user

Log out and log back in and voila, VM boots.

Slightly irritating, but not too bad.

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Filed under How-Tos / Tips : Comments (3) : Jul 22nd, 2009

Have We Forgiven Microsoft for Vista or Changed Our Minds About Apple?

Have we forgotten about the Windows Vista release, or are we ready to give Microsoft another chance? Just a few short years ago, around this time, we were getting ready for the release of Windows Vista. Microsoft was hyping its new security model and consumers were busy complaining about changes they had made and how slow Windows had gotten. Meanwhile, Apple was busy with an advertising campaign slamming PCs for being virus ridden and not being “cool” among a few other things.

During the year that followed, Microsoft released Windows Vista. No matter the cause, it was a trainwreck of a release. It was too slow for consumers’ PCs, it had different locations for the same old buttons (not a bad thing, in my opinion, but people complained long and hard), and it wasn’t compatible with software that consumers were running.


Microsoft Embraces GPL?

Satan better invest in a parka and that theoretical pig better invest in a parachute in case its flight is short-lived. Microsoft today released a Linux driver for its Hyper-V virtualization layer under (here’s where it gets interesting) the GNU GPLv2. Yes, the same Microsoft who at one time told us that the GPL was “anti-American”.

By releasing the drivers under the GPL, they’ve not only validated Linux as a value-add to run on top of Hyper-V, but they’ve also validated free software as a whole by contributing the code to the community the way any other open source vendor would. Ironically, Microsoft is actually ahead of several other companies in releasing their drivers under the open source GPL license. The driver is no doubt a move to help boost its Hyper-V market share, but it’s a critical move that Microsoft needs to get customers who would have otherwise chosen a product like VMware, KVM, or Xen. Greg Kroah-Hartman from Novell says that Microsoft will be maintaining and adding new features to the code as well.

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Filed under News : Comments (1) : Jul 21st, 2009

All My Data Are Belong to Google

I just got my Google Voice invitation today. It’s pretty sweet. It allows you to give out one phone number and configure it to ring multiple phones depending upon who is calling and when they are calling. It also packs voicemail and SMS into a convenient place along with a host of other features. The other thing that it does is it completes the communications circle of products that I use from Google.

After thinking about it for a few minutes, I use Google for everything. It knows my web searches, my web site’s stats, and manages my ads. I also use Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Reader, now Google Voice, and occasionally Google Docs. When I get lost I pull out the Google Maps app on my phone. I’m even playing around with their Android operating system and am considering buying a phone based upon it when Verizon gets a model. Wow. That’s one heck of a list when I fire them off one at a time. I’m not even using all the services available to me.

It’s no wonder Microsoft wants some of Google’s search market share. Whenever I search I come up with new Google services to sign up for. One of the biggest advantages for Google up to this point (at least for me) as been the fact that Google didn’t have an operating system. This caused them to have to integrate and build tools for other operating systems. Microsoft has the luxury of building its own OS plus its online offerings so it can integrate easily into its own products. We’ll see what happens when Chrome OS comes out, but that’s a long way out. For now I guess Google’s got all my data..

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (2) : Jul 20th, 2009

What the Print Industry Can Learn from the Open Source Model

The conflict between traditional print media companies and Google has been heating up for some time and Google appears to have had enough. The “Hamburg Declaration” effectively said that publishers (including several major newspapers in Europe) are tired of other news aggregation sites using their content for free. Google’s response to the declaration last week was an effective “fine, we don’t have to help you”. Reading between the lines: they want part of Google’s earnings on search. But why should Google give them any? It’s not like anyone forced them to not innovate. The market and old business model have snuck away from them, but how can they get it back?

While it’s true that these news publishers can turn off search engine indexing, can they live without it and at what cost is it to them for it to exist? As Google is quick to point out, their search engine and Google News sites send over a billion visits to newspaper sites a month. Of course, we can only imagine what kind of traffic impact that a loss of search engine referrals would have to any single newspaper site unless they tell us, but I would imagine it would be a pretty big hit. Assuming that these site owners know how to place their ads (a crucial skill for any newspaper), a loss in traffic should mean a loss in revenue.

Okay, so if they can’t do without Google and other search engines, then just what can they do?

Well, for starters, I’d encourage them to pick up a copy of “Who Moved My Cheese” to change their mindset. Seriously, read it. For those who have read the book, their cheese has officially been moved. They’re sitting at the empty cheese station all pissed off at the rest of the technology industry demanding that someone put their cheese back. Guess what? It’s gone. It’s not coming back.

Second, find alternative ways to reach readers where they are. If Google News is such a popular site even though it’s pointing to their site, it only means one thing: consumers want different packaging. I’m among the part of society that grew up alongside the Internet. I don’t go to Fox News every day to get my news. I know that there’s information overload out there and I need to learn to filter. That’s why I use search engines, an RSS reader (though not as much anymore), Twitter and the technology section of Digg to get the news I want and nothing more. I don’t go to Fox News’ home page hourly or daily (depending upon your desire for news) to get my news. I follow the types of information and people I’m interested in on Twitter to get updates as they are coming without all the noise in the way. There are millions of others out there like me and we’re not getting any younger or fewer.

So, how do publishers re-package their content? That’s the million dollar question (well, hopefully multiples of that if you can get it right!). The Wall Street Journal has taken a unique twist to the traditional subscription-based model and allow readers to read the first article they are linked to from Google, but then force the user to pay for more content. Not a bad model, really. It’s classic. Get ‘em in with a freebie (with absolutely no strings attached) and then convince them your content is good enough to buy a subscription. Of course, there may be a few oversights in their implementation, the idea is there.

Along with “Who Moved My Cheese”, they also need to read NIN’s Trent Reznor’s take on business models in the music industry. The music industry suffers from a big problems for its artists. They are no longer making as much money due to piracy. Is this a problem? Well, it’s certainly questionable, but guess what? It’s not going away. It can’t be prevented and people are in general going to not pay money for something if they don’t want to. Their cheese has moved as well. Reznor seems to have figured out where the new cheese is at (okay, I’ll stop with the cheese references).

His strategy? Give the music away. Yes, give it away. When you give it away, you can build a bigger fan base. When those fans like you enough, they will pay for other things than the music. Sell HD music video downloads. Sell limited editions of the album on CD (yes, a lot of people do still like to run down to the music store and buy CDs).

For the print industry, just replace words music and fans above with newspapers and subscribers. So, just what can you sell to consumers? I don’t know. If I knew, I wouldn’t be telling you, I’d be beating your business into the ground. If Google News is the packaging that consumers want, then give them more of what they want. Compete. As Matt Asay says of iTunes and free content: the content by itself is okay, the packaging by itself is worthless, but the combination is killer.

While Sam Zell of Tribune Co. asks “If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?”, I have to ask: If all the newspapers in American did not adjust to the way users are finding and using their content, how profitable would those newspapers be? The answer is that they’d be extinct, just like Google if there was no content for it to aggregate and index.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Jul 17th, 2009

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