Virtual Box, the perfect testing platform?

Summary: Virtual Box just might be the perfect testing platform.

I'm now running Windows XP as my base OS, but I'm also running Ubuntu 7.04 and Vista 32 within XP. Virtual Box makes this not just possible, it's relatively easy, as long as you've got the ram for it. Virtual Box allows you to create a virtual pc within your machine and allocate it diskspace (which can expand dynamically) and ram. You can then install most OSs on that virtual machine. I had Vista and Ubuntu up and running in about 1.5 hours, and that was nearly all unmanned installation time.

With 3 GB of ram I've generally got more than I need for everyday tasks, so I can dedicated 512MB to Ubuntu and 1024 MB to Vista and everyone runs smoothly at the same time. Also, when you shutdown the virtual pc's you get the ram back for your host machine.

Virtual Box is open source and can be obtained here: http://www.virtualbox.org/
If you have trouble, be sure to check out their forum. The answers to all my questions were easy to find.

There are a few other programs that do this, one released by Microsoft, but I prefer open source whenever possible.

Sounds ideal right? Well, almost. You can't really do anything that requires significant hardware acceleration. So, no games. Also for me, I can't test the visual part of the Virtual Patient. The biggest benefit is, while Vista is still having growing pains, I can play around with it, without worrying that I'll need to spend time fixing it before I can get back to work.

Dvorak, Yay or Nay?

Sadly, for me, Nay. I used Dvorak for 4.5 months. The first month was difficult, I even got headaches from practicing. It's particularly difficult to learn Dvorak for someone who already types well with Qwerty. I learned to type very young, so Qwerty is pretty well ingrained in my subconscious. I touch type in Qwerty at 65-80wpm, depending on the content. After 1 month, I was typing in Dvorak at 50wpm, a respectable speed. After 4 months, I was back up to my old speed of 65-80wpm, and I may get faster. So what's the problem?

The main drawback is portability. I work in a lab, with 6 other people working on the same machines, I also use campus labs, as well as work on other people's personal machines. It's relatively easy to switch the keyboard layout in XP and Linux, but those few moments, switching it every time I open a new program, add up to quite an annoyance, particularly for short term use.

I've heard some people can switch from Qwerty to Dvorak and back seamlessly. I don't seem to be one of those people. Though, when I made the choice to switch back to Qwerty it took about 1 working day to regain full speed. Overall, it was a worthwhile experience. But until my home profile follows me around automatically, I think I'll stick with Qwerty.

Vista 64 Review

Summary: Vista64 isn't quite ready for primetime, at least for primetime as a dev environment, but it's getting there.

Programs that don't work:

• Dragon: there's currently no 64 bit version of Dragon and no eta on when there will be... kinda a deal breaker for developing the Virtual Patient much at home.
• TortoiseCVS - Solution: using Eclipse CVS (it's not integrated with the file system, but it has a nice UI)
• Asus ProbeII - Solution: just hope my temperatures are ok
• Daemon tools - only UltraISO works for mounting ISO's so far, and it's commercial
• BlueSoleil - No WiiTools. The dongle actually seems to get recognized by the Vista Bluetooth stack, but the Vista stack doesn't keep a connection with the Wiimote, it'll just make the connection and then drop it.

Drivers that don't work:

• Webcams - there are currently 2 usb webcams in existence that work with vista64, they're both expensive, $100+, and both from Microsoft. Solution: supposedly, Unibrain has vista64 drivers for the Fire-i, will be trying them this week.
• Audio drivers - my microphone works, but it doesn't sound good, can't be sure that's completely the drivers. Also the front panel audio plugs don't work any more either (they were fine on XP).

Other comments:
The only 64 bit programs running on my system came direct from Vista during installation as well as, amazingly, Maya. Everything else is run using WOW64 (Windows-on-Windows 64-bit), basically an emulator. It would have been much more effective to give a 32-bit Vista which emulates 64-bit, as OS X does now. WOW64 works well enough for most programs, but I'm currently seeing a significant frame rate drop on the Virtual Patient (24fps, down from 45fps).

Positives:
Visual Studio loads and closes WAY faster, couple of seconds instead of up to 30 seconds. Maya has some slight performance improvements. Of course, I also happened to put an extra 2GB of ram in just before I installed Vista, so I may just be seeing those improvements. I think the load time improvements are mainly due to Vista pre-caching.
The search/filter features are great. Very easy to use, just start typing in an open folder and it starts filtering, it's not instant, but it's fast.
The gadgets bar is entertaining. Weather, a calculator, funny clocks, can change the desktop on a timer, and a quicklaunch (not really necessary if you remember the name of the program you want).

Wrapping Up:
Vista 64 is almost ready. Give it 6 months and everyone can use it for everything. On the other hand, if we didn't develop specifically for Windows, I'd probably switch to Ubuntu and use Eclipse for all my dev, it just makes me happier.