Author: kevin

Most of the MSDN Library content has already been available online for free, but there is some content that is available only to MSDN subscribers. Microsoft are now giving away the content as a free monthly download – see here for more details.

Microsoft seem to be on a spree of giving away free software right now, as they also just annouced that they are giving away their virtualization software, VirtualPC. Hoping to placate customers and developers frustrated by Vista being delayed for so long perhaps?

Microsoft have released their virtualization software that allows you to install and simultaneously run multiple different OSes on one machine for free – check here for the free download.

VirtualPC is a competitor to VMWare’s virtualization solutions – VMWare also started giving away their VMWare Server product a few months back.

You can also see an online demo here.

If you haven’t downloaded and played with Ubuntu Linux yet then I urge you to do so, becuase it is very slick. In this article by Tony Mobily on freesoftwaremagazine.com, he descibes Ubuntu as ‘Linux done right’, and from my own experiences with RedHat 7.0 and above, Fedora Core 1 though 4, Suse and now Ubuntu, I have to say that they have the usability really worked out – it is great to use.

Mobily goes a step further to say that he believes Ubuntu may be the downfall of RedHat – RedHat abandoned the desktop to concentrate on the server platform, and in doing so most likely lost a significant part of their user base. Ubuntu has tageted the desktop and got it right, and according to Mobily, SysAdmins previously working with RedHat are already moving to Ubuntu for it’s ease of use on the desktop, and for this reason may drive future decisions of which Linux server also to Ubuntu.