A bare-metal hypervisor can be installed directly on the physical machine that will host virtual machines, rather than needing to be installed on top of an existing operating system.  It offers benefits in terms of performance, convenience and licensing costs.  This type of virtualisation has been available for some time on servers through products such as VMware’s vSphere, Microsoft’s Hyper-V and Citrix’s own XenServer.  Citrix are not the first to offer a bare-metal hypervisor for PCs, with Virtual Computer’s NxTop product having been around for more than a year, but they are the first of the major players in virtualisation to have released such a product. 

The other aspect to XenClient is the distribution and centralised management of virtual desktops.  Virtual desktop machines can be created on a server, called the Synchronizer, and then distributed securely to the client laptops over the corporate network or the Internet.  Virtual desktop machines can also be created directly on the laptop, giving the best of both worlds, e.g. a corporate desktop image deployed from the Synchronizer running alongside a personal virtual desktop created on the client laptop.

At this stage the hardware requirements are fairly restrictive.  The main requirement is that the processor has VT technology enabled and not just VTx, but VTd as well, which is not available on some processors that are VT-enabled.  I installed the XenClient hypervisor on a two-year-old Dell Vostro 1500 laptop that has a VT-enabled Intel Core 2 Duo processor.  The installation displayed a number of warnings, due to the lack of VTd on the processor (and one about the graphics adapter), but the installation completed.  However, XenClient would then hang when starting up, so clearly hardware compatibility was a problem.

XenClient is a product that I would personally find very useful (as soon as I can get my hands on a laptop that will run it!) and I can see big advantages for organisations that have significant number of mobile users.  The ability to deploy and update virtual desktops to machines that are not always connected to the corporate network and to run multiple isolated environments on the one laptop makes XenClient a very appealing proposition.  Given the maturing state of server virtualisation technologies, it is really about time a product such as XenClient was available at the PC end.

From a business perspective, so far I have found more uses for the device when I am away from the office than when I am sitting at my desk, which is probably to be expected. 

It is a great device for catching up with e-mail while sitting on the couch at home.  I receive a lot of e-mail with news from the IT industry and other messages that don’t require me to act or respond immediately, so I tend to deal with those of an evening.  Previously that meant pulling out and firing up my laptop, but the iPad is a much more convenient device for that type of activity, being much lighter and effectively always on.

I have also installed a Remote Desktop app, so I can log in to client servers from anywhere with the iPad and perform system maintenance tasks, again without having to boot up my laptop. 

One of my colleagues has trialled the device for reviewing PDF documents during a training session, instead of printing out the documents for the same purpose.  The feedback so far has been positive, but we are searching for the best app to allow annotation of documents, which is not possible with the native PDF reader on the iPad.  iAnnotate looks like it may be a contender.

I have only begun to scratch the surface in terms of apps that may be useful, having installed a few apps with which I was already familiar on the iPhone, such as Evernote, which allows me to take notes on the iPad and access notes I have created on other devices.

So far, I haven’t found anything I can do on the iPad that I can’t do with my laptop, but I don’t think that is really the aim of the device.  I have found things that are much more convenient to do on the iPad, which is really its big selling point.  I don’t know that I have yet justified the cost of the iPad, with the model that I am using coming in at around $1000. 

I will also be interested to see how the HP Slate compares when it is released (rumoured to be in October).  A device of similar dimensions, but with additional features such a camera and USB ports, it will run Windows 7, which will be a bonus in terms of compatibility, but may have its drawbacks in terms of overhead and complexity.

The products that will go out of support on 13th July are Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP with Service Pack 2.

In the case of Windows 2000, this product is now ten years old and the only option for those wanting to have access to continued support from Microsoft is to upgrade any Windows 2000 systems, to at least Windows Server 2003 in the case of servers or at least Windows XP with Service Pack 3 for PCs.

With respect to Windows XP, it is important to note that Windows XP itself will be supported for a few more years; it is specifically Windows XP with Service Pack 2 that will go out of support this month.  To maintain support from Microsoft Windows XP users need only install the free Service Pack 3 for Windows XP.

In addition, Windows Vista with no service packs (known as the Release to Manufacture, or RTM, version) went out of support in April.  If you are running Windows Vista, you need to make sure you have installed at least Service Pack 1 (and preferably Service Pack 2) to maintain support.

iPhone 3G or 3GS users can get some of the benefits of the new iPhone by installing iOS 4, which is now available for download through iTunes.  You will need to install iTunes 9.2 in order to be able to download and install iOS 4.  New features in this release include multitasking, iBooks (Apple’s book reader and book store first introduced with the iPad), improved e-mail features and the ability to oragnise apps into folders.

So, what does this mean to you as a Telstra customer or a customer of another telco? 

Probably the most important result of this agreement will be that the NBN now has a much better chance of actually being completed according to the government’s plan and of being economically feasible when it is.  In a nation of the geographic size of Australia, it would make little sense to have two national broadband networks, replicating significant effort.  It is hard to see how NBN Co’s network could have been economically feasible without Telstra’s huge customer base.

This should mean that access to the national broadband network will be cheaper than it would have been had Telstra not come on board.  NBN Co will have a much larger customer base than they otherwise would have, so will be able to spread costs. 

Better competition should also mean good deals for broadband customers when the NBN is rolled out.  Other ISPs will now be on an equal footing with Telstra (though Telstra’s large existing customer base means they have something of a head start) and there can be no suggestion of Telstra being able to price competitors out of the market through being both a telecommunications wholesaler and retailer.

This deal removes a huge barrier to the success of the national broadband network and makes it far more likely that Australians will have access to broadband speeds already enjoyed in other parts of the world, without having to break the bank.

Flash is a web technology that allows web sites to provide rich content to visitors, such as video, animation or interactive content.  It is widely used by web site developers to create visually appealing sites, but requires the web site visitor to have the Flash plug-in installed to be able to view the site.

Apple do not support the Flash plug-in on the iPhone or the new iPad, which means that users of those devices cannot view the Flash-based content on web sites.  For some web sites, this means that the site becomes unusable as the site is largely based on Flash.  Apple’s reasoning behind this is that Flash is inefficient and unreliable and that the functions that Flash performs can be done through other technologies, such as JavaScript or HTML5.

Until this argument is resolved (which may never happen), web site owners are left with a dilemma.  Do they continue using Flash-based web sites that cannot be used by iPhone or iPad users?  Or do they incur the costs of redeveloping their web site to remove Flash and ensure compatibility across all devices?  Certainly, Apple is suggesting the latter. 

This really became an issue with the release of the iPad.  When the issue affected only the iPhone, it was somewhat acceptable as users don’t tend to expect exactly the same experience on a phone as they would expect on their desktop or laptop computer.  The iPad, however, may well be used by many as their primary method of accessing the web, so the lack of Flash becomes a greater issue.

It appears that Apple are not going to give ground in their stance against Flash, leaving web site owners with a decision to make.  Whatever choice you make, you need to be aware of the implications.

Firstly, here are a few Microsoft sites covering the issue, from a pro-upgrade point of view, of course!

• Top 10 Benefits of Office 2010 – This list was created for the Office 2010 Beta, but it applies equally to the final product.
• Microsoft Office 2010 Beta FAQ – Another list created for the Office 2010 Beta, but it covers a lot of topics that are relevant to the final product, including the system requirements – you may need to consider PC upgrades if your PCs don’t meet the required specifications.
• See What’s New in Microsoft Office 2010 – The Microsoft Showcase site has a number of videos showing some of the new features available in Office 2010.

For a more independent view, here are some reviews of Microsoft Office 2010 from various sources.

• PC Advisor magazine
• Computerworld
• TechReviewSource
• Wired.com
• CNET
• Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows
• The Guardian newspaper

As for me, my experience in using Microsoft Office 2010 so far is that the whole package feels zippier – the individual programs start up quicker and performance in general feels better. 

The biggest changes seem to be in Outlook, which now has the ribbon interface in keeping with the rest of the suite.  There are some useful e-mail handling features in there that could potentially be real time savers.

Office 2010 is not the revolutionary update that Office 2007 was, but there are enough evolutionary changes in there to make it worth considering making the move to upgrade.

Google TV will bring together free-to-air TV, pay TV and web videos and other web content.  Finding a program, whether it be on free-to-air television, pay TV, YouTube or your PVR, will be as simple as doing a Google search or browsing through the Google TV home screen.

Google TV will come in two formats – built in to televisions from makers such as Sony or as a separate box similar to a digital set top box.

This is certainly not the first attempt at bringing together television and web content, but given Google’s reach and its roots in search, this could be the one that makes the breakthrough into the mainstream.

If you have automatic updates turned on in Adobe Reader or Acrobat you should be prompted next time you run those products to update with the security patch.  If you are not prompted, then I would suggest first attempting the update by selecting Help – Check for Updates from the menu and if that does not work, downloading the update manually from the Adobe web site.

Some suggest that no-one cares about privacy any more and while that may be an exaggeration, there is certainly a trend in that direction.  It is certainly not a trend that I personally subscribe to and I wonder whether those keen to put their lives online have really thought through what they are doing.

A new site called PleaseRobMe.com popped up recently.  The site reposted Twitter messages that included location information, indicating people who were not at home when they posted.  The aim of the site was not really to identify candidates for burglary, but to raise awareness about “over-sharing”, the tendency for people to post information to social networking sites that they may be better keeping to themselves.  The site no longer lists tweets as the site owners consider that they have made their point and it is one worth making.

There are huge benefits to be had from the proper use of social networking sites, both in business and on a personal level, but it is important to keep in mind the potential risks.