Free Virtualization Software for your Windows PC

Virtualization software helps you run multiple operating systems on the same computer.

For instance, you can use a virtualization tool like Apple Boot Camp or Parallels to run Windows on your Mac computer or you may use the free Virtual PC program from Microsoft to run Linux, DOS or even multiple Windows environments inside your Windows PC.


Virtualization tools aren’t just for geeks.

You may use these programs to try out other operating systems on your computer without disturbing the existing setup. Or, if you have upgraded to a newer OS, you can create a virtual machine of your previous OS and use it to run older programs that aren’t supported in your new OS. Or if you want to run multiple versions of the same software (like Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS5), you can install one of them on your main OS and the other inside a virtual machine.

Virtualization Software for Windows

Although desktop virtualization programs have been around for many years, they are more mainstream now than ever before.

In order to run virtualization programs like Windows Virtual PC or VMware Player, your computer needs to have a processor that supports hardware virtualization. Most newer processors already support this but you may also use the free SecurAble utility to determine if your computer processor supports hardware virtualization or not.

If the CPU inside your Windows PC supports virtualization but you are unable to use a Virtualization program, chances are that you need to enable that feature via your BIOS. Microsoft offers an easy guide on how you can turn on virtualization through the BIOS dashboard.

If your computer has an older processor that does not support hardware virtualization, you can still run virtual machines using Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Box, as they don’t require it.

Windows Virtual PC and Virtual PC 2007

Windows Virtual PC, that is designed to run previous versions of Windows seamlessly inside Windows 7, has made desktop virtualization even more ubiquitous. Programs installed in the virtual operating system will show up in the host computer’s Start menu, and you can even set them as the default program for handling a particular file type.

Windows Virtual PC can run on all editions of Windows 7, but users of the Home edition will have to create their own virtual machines from an original Windows installation disk or from old Windows installation. In addition to running Windows XP, you can also use a Virtual PC to run Windows Vista, XP, Windows 2000 and even some versions of Linux including Ubuntu, OpenSuse and Red Hat Linux.

Virtual PC offers some unique features like you can store changes on a separate virtual hard drive than the operating system, and there’s support for undo disks so you can roll back changes made to a virtual machine. Windows Virtual PC requires hardware virtualization and won’t run on computers that don’t support this.

The older version of Virtual PC, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, is still available as a free download. Virtual PC 2007 can run on any computer running Windows XP or newer and does not require a processor that supports hardware virtualization. This makes it useful for Windows 7 user who want to use the XP mode but do not have a processor with hardware virtualization.

VMware Player

First released in 2005 as a free solution to run pre-built virtual machines, VMware Player 3.0 is now a complete basic desktop virtualization solution that allows you to create, manage, and run virtual machines.
VMware Player supports 64-bit guest operating systems and you can send print commands to the printer attached to the host OS. VMware offers a Unity mode that lets you run programs from a virtual machine alongside programs running on your main operating system.  You can also launch programs in the virtual machine via a program menu that appears above your standard Windows start menu.

VMware requires Windows XP and newer, including 64 bit versions, and you can run Windows 95 and newer, Linux, DOS, BSD, etc. as virtual machines. If you are running VMware Player on Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, you can import your virtual copy of XP from Windows XP mode and run it directly in VMware Player.  Finally, VMware offers a wide range of preconfigured virtual appliances that allow you to test and run programs and operating systems quickly and easily.

Sun VirtualBox

VirtualBox is equally at home on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and supports a wide range of guest operating systems (except Mac OS, which is not licensed for virtualization).

VirtualBox can run a wide variety of virtual machines from other desktop virtualization programs. It will even run the XP mode from Windows 7, allowing you to run XP mode on computers that lack hardware virtualization support. It can capture snapshots of a virtual machine and these are handy if you want to roll back changes later.

Finally, VirtualBox allows you to run a guest OS seamlessly with your host OS through Seamless Mode.  This places the guest’s taskbar in your host OS’ desktop, which lets you fully control the guest OS right inside your standard host desktop.

Comparison of Virtualization Software for Windows

 

	Windows Virtual PC	Microsoft Virtual PC 2007	VMware Player 3.0	VirtualBox 3.0
Quick Description:	Designed for running Windows XP Mode, Virtual PC integrates Windows Virtual Machines seamlessly with Windows 7.	The older version of Windows Virtual PC, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 allows XP and Vista users to easily run virtual machines on their computers.	Easy to use and free, VMware offers fully integrated support for Windows and Linux guests	Sun’s open source answer to virtualization, VirtualBox excels at running Linux on Windows, and also allows computers without hardware virtualization to easily run virtual machines.
Runs on:	Windows 7	Windows XP and newer	Windows XP and newer, and most current editions of Linux	Windows XP and newer, Mac OS X, and most current editions of Linux
Requires Hardware Virtualization:	Yes	No	Yes	No
Create Virtual Machines	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Run Virtual Machines from other virtualization programs:	No, only supports VHD virtual hard disks.	No, only supports VHD virtual hard disks.	Supports virtual machines from all VMware products, Windows Virtual PC and Virtual Server, and Symantec backup and recovery images.	Supports all virtual machines using the Open Virtualization Format; this includes support for virtual hard drives from Windows Virtual PC and VMware.
Supported Guest operating systems	Windows XP and newer, other operating systems (like Linux) may work but not officially supported	Windows 98 and newer, IBM OS/2, other operating systems (like Linux) may work but not officially supported	Windows 3.1 and newer, DOS, Solaris, FreeBSD, and most current editions of Linux	Windows NT 4.0 and newer, Solaris, most current editions of Linux
Supports 64 bit guests (on computers with a 64 bit CPU):	No	No	Yes	Yes
Desktop Integration:	Yes, Run programs from supported versions of Windows directly from host’s Start Menu.  The programs are automatically published to the host’s Start menu, allowing them to show up in Start menu search as well.	No	Yes, in supported operating systems using Unity mode.  This puts a small menu above the standard start menu to launch programs from the virtual OS.	Yes, in supported operating systems using Seamless mode.  This puts the guest’s taskbar in your host’s desktop, allowing for full interaction with the guest operating system.
Supports USB peripherals:	Yes, supports all USB devices connected to the host system, even if they are not recognized by the host system.	No	Yes, supports all USB, Parallel, and Serial port devices connected to the host system.	Yes, supports all USB devices connected to the host system.
User Manual:	Online	XPS file	PDF	PDF

Download Free Books for your Kindle Reader

The Amazon store now has more than 360,000 books that you can download and read on your Kindle e-book reader.

Read Kindle Books without the Kindle Reader

If you don’t have the Kindle device, you can still enjoy any of these Kindle books on your Windows computer using the free Kindle for PC application. Amazon is also working on a Mac version of Kindle Desktop but until that happens, you can download the free Kindle app from iTunes store and read books on the move using your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Find and Download Free Books for Kindle

While most eBooks available on the Amazon Kindle store are paid, here are some simple ways by which you can find and download free books for reading on your Kindle Reader or your Kindle Desktop application.

# 1. Google Books on your Kindle

Project Gutenberg, Google Books and FeedBooks are some popular sites that offer a large collection of public domain books in the standard ePUB format.

The Kindle for PC application cannot read ePUB files directly but you can use the excellent Stanza program (from Amazon itself) to convert these public domain books from .epub into .mobi format that you can then import into Kindle Desktop for reading*. That means you now have millions of out-of-copyright books for your Kindle for free.

You can also use Stanza to convert PDFs, HTML web pages and other Office documents into .mobi format for reading inside the Kindle App but I see little reason why would anyone want to do so since the reading experience is not all that great.

# 2. Find Free Kindle Books on Amazon.com

Before your proceed, please log-in to your Amazon account, choose “Manage your Kindle” and change the country associated with your Kindle account to “United States”. This is important because most “free” content on the Kindle Bookstore is currently restricted to North America.

OK, now let’s explore ways to find free Kindle books:

#  2.1 Big Deals – This is more of an official listing of Kindle books that are currently available as a free download on Amazon.com to Kindle users. You should also check the Bestsellers category on Kindle Store as it again lists quite a good number of free titles.

#  2.2 Sort by Price – When you search for a Kindle book (or any other item) on Amazon.com, it displays search results by relevance.

If you change this default sort order from “Relevance” to “Price: Low to High”, you’ll get a list of all Kindle books that match your search keywords and are available as a free download. For instance, here’s a list of Kindle books that are related to “India” but cost exactly $0.00.

# 2.3 Listmania - This is another resource where you can discover Kindle books that are available for free.
Listmania Lists are basically a list of products compiled by Amazon users. You can use search phrases like “free kindle books”, “kindle freebie”, “penny kindle book”, etc. to discover lists that may free books you are looking for. For instance, here’s one Listmania List of 27 classic books for Kindle that are absolutely free and here’s another one that also includes copyrighted books.

# 2.4 Use Google – Here’s an unofficial method to help you find Kindle books that are available for free on Amazon.com.

You can use the following search query in Google to search the Amazon store for free Kindle books – just replace the search-phrase in green with the name of the book, author, book category, etc.

intitle:kindle site:amazon.com "you save * (100%)" search-phrase

For instance, here’s a list of free Kindle books related to Abraham Lincoln while here’s a list of Kindle books on Shakespeare that are again free.

Note: Kindle Pricing for International users 

If the cost of a Kindle book is mentioned as $0.00 on the Amazon Store, it will still show up as $2.00 for you if the country associated with your Kindle is something other than United States. This is because Amazon charges a $2 roaming fee for “international downloads”.

You can either temporarily change your Kindle country to US or use the “Transfer via Computer” option when buying a book and you won’t be charged that extra $2 fees. Thanks Dhamini Ratnam.

Feeds Recommended by Google Reader now available inside FeedDemon

If you are subscribed to "n" number of blogs inside Google Reader (or FeedDemon) but have the time to consume more content, Google Reader offers an interesting feature for you called Recommended Feeds.

It works something like this. Google Reader looks at all the feeds that are you currently subscribed to and then, like any other music recommendation service, it generates a list of new feeds that may be worth adding to your reading list.

It does this by comparing your interests with the feeds of other Google Reader users similar to you. If you are someone like me who prefers reading feeds inside FeedDemon (for various reasons), the good news is that you can now get these "recommendations" directly inside FeedDemon without having to visit your Google Reader page.

Nick has released a new build of FeedDemon that includes this useful feature (among other performance enhancements I guess). You can select Reports -> Recommendations under the "View" menu of FeedDemon to see the full list of feeds that have recommended by Google Reader for you.

You can subscribe to any of these feeds directly inside FeedDemon or dismiss a recommendation by clicking the "not interested" link and it will be subsequently removed from FeedDemon and Google Reader queue as well.

Watch 4 Days of TED India in 4 Minutes Video

Shruti Rajkumar of CNBC-TV18 has done a nice video recap of the TED India conference that happened in Mysore earlier this month. Do hit the HQ button inside the YouTube player for better quality video.
The (official) video recordings of TED India sessions aren’t available yet (except that of Pranav Mistry) but you can subscribe to this page and get notified as soon as new TED videos are posted online.
You should also check the lively TED India photoset on Flickr that has captured nearly every amazing moment of TED.

Pull Images from any Web Page and Turn Them Into a Nice Photo Collage Online

What you see on the right is a butterfly-shaped photo collage made with photographs of Obama (see large version) and it took me less than 15 seconds to create one. Wondering how?

That was simple. I did a simple search for "obama" on Google Images and then copied the search URL into shapecollage.com. Within seconds, the tool pulled all the photographs of Obama found on Google Images and turned them into a nice photo collage.

This collage is interactive because if you click any of the thumbnails in this pile of photographs, it will open the full resolution picture on original website so you don’t miss the context. Internally, Shape Collage uses an HTML image map to maintain this image-to-source mapping.

And here’s another photo collage created using book covers of New York Times Bestsellers as found on Amazon.com. Click on any cover to view the corresponding product page.

You can also create collages by merging photos from multiple sites into one – like a single collage for your Flickr and Picasa albums.

The Shape Collage Online web application is a complement to the Shape Collage desktop software, which includes additional features including the ability to generate high resolution collages.

An Image Editor and Screen Capturing Tool for your USB Drive

PicPick is an useful Windows utility that includes a decent screen capture program, a Paint like image editing software and a whiteboard tool to help you draw freehand on the desktop using your mouse (handy when you are giving presentations).

During screen capture, you can select the "Capture Window Control" mode and capture objects that extend multiple screens (like a long Word document or a lengthy web page). And like SnagIt, PicPick can send screenshot images directly to another programs after capture or it can automatically upload them to an FTP server.

Portable Image Editor

The image editor included with PicPick sports an Office 2007/2010 like ribbon interface and supports tabs so you can edit multiple screenshot images / photographs from the same window.

If you are a web designer, you can use the built-in crosshair tool to determine the coordinates of any point on the desktop screen or for capturing the exact dimensions of an object (in pixels).

And since the software doesn’t require installation, you can put it on a USB drive and use it on any computer.

Write Your Own eBooks in the Browser with Acrobat.com

If you looking for an online service that will let you write and publish your own ebook in a format that is compatible with most ebook readers (including Sony Reader, Nook and Amazon’s Kindle), check out Adobe Buzzword at the new Acrobat.com.

Adobe Buzzword, if you are new, is an online word processor (like Google Docs but "more beautiful") that you may use to create and edit documents in any web browser. The service supports collaborative editing so multiple authors can work simultaneously on the same document from their respective location.

Now if you are looking to write an ebook in the browser, Buzzword can be a great choice as the service can export documents directly as EPUB files, a format that is supported by all popular ebook readers including apps like Stanza that let you read ebook on a mobile. Simply compose a document inside Buzzword, export it as an ePUB file and then import it in your ebook reader.

Other than creating new ebooks from scratch, you may also use the Buzzword application to convert your existing Word (.doc and .doc), or Open Office (.odt) documents into the ePUB format without requiring any desktop applications.

Afraid of Flying? There's An App for That

Afraid of flying? My wife is. She is so frightened that a very short flight, from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles will send her into a panic attack. Her fear is so palpable, she gets me frightened. Well, there's an app for that.

Mental Workout, working with Virgin Atlantic and its Flying Without Fear course, (which the airline claims has a 98% success rate), has released an iPhone app to help with fear of flying.

Here are the features of the Flying Without Fear app:

• Personal video introduction by Sir Richard Branson.
• In-flight explanation video from start to finish of a flight.
• Common questions answered by General Manager of Flight Operations, David Kistruck.
• Relaxation exercises and fear therapy by Relaxation Counselor David Landau.
• Fear attack button for emergencies with breathing exercise and quick tips.
• Personalized program with daily advice and exercises, preparing you for your next flight.
• 2,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles when joining the program.

It's unclear if a simple iPhone app can take the place of a course, but Mental Workout managed to get the endorsement of Whoopie Goldberg:

"I was a sceptic. I hadn't flown in 13 years but after doing their program, I understood that while my fear was real, there were many things I didn't know or had misinformation about, which they were able to clear up. So what happened? The program works. I now fly. It's that simple."

The price is a mere $4.99, but one might wonder why it's not possible to get "validation" like when you visit a bar (for your parking), and get a refund if the app manages to get you on a Virgin Atlantic flight. On the other hand, you won't be using those miles, otherwise.