This post will show you step by step instructions of how to install the Google Chrome OS in a Virtual Machine. I chose to use VirtualBox to show the step by step, however you should be able to use VMware if you so choose.

The Chrome OS is a very basic Operating System that seems to be designed for use on a netbook. Now you can try out the OS on your current computer.

What you will need:

1. VirtualBox – available for download here for Windows, Linux, and Mac (VirtualBox is usually included in the repositories of most Linux distros)

2. The Chrome OS image – available for download here from gdgt -You will have to sign up on their site to get access to the file

***There is a Chrome OS image available for download as a torrent floating around somewhere. Just make sure it is a .vmdk file.

Now that you have VirtualBox and the .vmdk Chrome OS file

Open up VirtualBox and click New.

You should see the following screen:

Simply click Next.

You should now see the VM Name and OS Type screen:

You can name it anything you want; I simply named it Chrome OS. The OS type should be Other and the version Other. Click Next.

You should now see the Memory Screen:

You can set as much RAM as you would like. I kept it simple and just gave it 256 MB. I recommend that you don’t give any VM any more that half of the total RAM you have in your computer.

You should now see the Virtual Hard Disk Screen:

Click ‘use existing hard disk’ and then click the folder on the right.

The Virtual Media Manager window should pop up:

Simply click ‘Add’ and find the .vmdk file you downloaded from gdgt. Once you have clicked ‘Add’ it should show up in the Virtual Media Manager window. You will need to select it and then click ‘Select’ at the bottom.

You will go back to the Virtual Hard Disk screen. Just click next.

You should now see the Summary Screen:

Click ‘Finish’.

Now you should be back to the VirtualBox main screen and Chrome OS should be on the left side.

You will need to click ‘Chrome OS’ on the left (to highlight it) and then click ‘Start’.

Welcome to the Chrome OS

You will need to use your Gmail login info to login. Type in your Gmail username then TAB and type in your password.

Once logged in, you will see your email. The tabs across the top are as follows:

The Google Accounts screen:

The Gmail screen:

The Google Calendar Screen:

The Web:

So all in all, Chrome OS is a very simple and very ‘light’ operating system. This OS will be great for a netbook and will provide a great option for those looking for a very cheap computer/OS package. Take a look at the OS yourself and let me know what you think in the comments.

Are you a college student like me who has a different schedule every day?

While I’m usually pretty good about setting my alarm clock for the right time, it doesn’t hurt to have a backup plan.  I have come across a nice piece of software every student Mac owner should have.

Aurora is an alarm clock that runs on your Mac. It even integrates with iTunes on your Mac. You can set an alarm that goes off at a different time for every day if you want.

Want to sleep in on the weekend, but afraid you might forget to set your alarm for that 8am class on Monday? Aurora solves that problem. But what if your Mac is asleep? Or the volume is muted? Aurora will wake your computer and even unmute it if it has to.

Aurora even has a fade in option to ease you out of that deep sleep if you’re into that sort of thing.

Thanks to versiontracker.com for the images.

The newest version of Aurora costs 15 EUR at the project’s homepage. Of course there is a 14 day trial period before you have to buy a license.  There is even a 20% (3 EUR) student discount.

However, if you would like to try an older version of Aurora for free, here is the download link.

This post will begin the series on the newest release of Ubuntu. For more information on Ubuntu Hardy Heron, read my post from last Friday, “Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 LTS Released” or go to the Ubuntu website.

Since I already discussed the new features in the new version of Ubuntu, I figured the next logical thing would be to show how to install Ubuntu Hardy Heron. Don’t worry, it isn’t nearly as hard as you might think. In fact its probably easier to install Ubuntu than Windows (usually faster too :) ).

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To begin you should download Ubuntu from the download page (click here). Choose ‘Desktop Edition‘ and ‘Standard personal computer‘ unless you plan to install the server edition or the 64bit edition. Then choose the mirror closest to you. If there is more than 1 server close to you, try downloading from a couple to see which is the fastest. Remember that the download is ~700MB so it will take several minutes to download depending on your download speed.

After you download the Ubuntu .iso you need to burn it to a CD. If you are unsure how to do this please look at the posts “How to Burn an .ISO File Using Ubuntu…” or “How to Burn an .ISO File Using Windows XP“. Once you have burned the ISO to CD you are ready to continue with the installation.

Next reboot your computer and have it boot from the CD drive. The Ubuntu start screen should appear and ask you to choose a language. Choose a language by pressing ‘Enter’. Then choose ‘Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer‘.

After a few minutes Ubuntu will be in “live cd” mode. Here you will be able run Ubuntu nearly the same as if it were installed on your computer. This allows you to test your hardware and play with Ubuntu before installing it. If you have already tried Ubuntu, or know that you want to install it and skip the live cd mode, you should choose, “Install Ubuntu”.

At this point your screen should look something like this:

Once you are ready to install Ubuntu, simply click on the “Install” icon located on the desktop. If you are left with a black screen or any error messages, you should probably check out the Ubuntu forums for help.

Once the installer opens you should see the following screen:

The installer is again prompting you to choose a language. Once you have selected a language, click Forward.

Next, the installer will ask you to choose a city in your country and time zone. From this it will determine the correct time zone. Again, when ready to continue, click Forward.

At the next screen, choose your keyboard layout. These layouts are based on country and keyboard style. For most people, “USA, USA” will be the best choice. Once again, click Forward.

The next screen is where things can start to get a little tricky. Basically, there are 3 different options. Ubuntu can shrink your current partition (if you already have an OS installed, such as Windows), use the entire disk, or you can choose to setup your partitions manually.

If you already have Windows installed and do not want to lose any data, choose the guided setup to resize your current partition. BACKUP YOUR DATA TO BE SAFE!

If you already have an OS or data on your hard drive, and want to ERASE ALL DATA, choose the guided setup to use the entire disk.

If you need a specific configuration, choose the manual install.

I usually choose a manual setup since I dual boot Windows and Ubuntu. Below is my usual partition scheme:

Windows- (~20GB), formatted NTFS
Boot partition- (~250MB), formatted EXT3
Ubuntu- (~20GB), formatted as EXT3
Swap partition- (~1GB, since I have 3GB of RAM), with the swap format
Then, whatever hard drive space is left is usually formatted with NTFS (for storage) so that both Windows and Linux can read and write to it.

Once you have decided on a partitioning scheme, click Forward.

Now you should see a window asking you for a name, username, password, and name of the computer.

Just fill in the information making sure to remember your username and password. All of these settings can be changed after the install is complete. Click ‘Forward’ to continue.

Last but not least you are at the final screen in the install. This is just a summary of the configuration so far. Be sure to take a quick glance at this to make sure your settings are correct. When ready, click ‘Install‘.

A status bar will appear to show you the status of the installation. Typically the installation takes anywhere from 15-45 minutes depending on how fast your computer is and which partitioning scheme you chose. If you chose to resize your hard drive, this will take a substantial amount of time (a couple hours). However, if you are installing on the entire disk or to a formatted partition, the install should be fairly short.

And at last you are done! Simply click ‘Restart now’ to restart your computer.

Before it completely restarts it will ask you to eject the CD so that it will boot off the hard drive again.

This completes the installation of Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04.

For more information, check out these links:

Ubuntu Installation Guide

Installing a Dual-Boot with Windows and Ubuntu

NOTE: The two links above may be for different versions of Ubuntu but the install process is very similar.

Let us know how your installation went in the comments…

Do you use Windows XP? Do you like the look and feel of a Mac? Have you ever considered making your Windows PC look like a Mac? FlyakiteOSX is a program that helps you do this.

“The installer simply automates the process of replacing critical system files, setting registry tweaks, and installing extras such as cursors, sounds, visual styles, etc. FlyakiteOSX DOES NOT contain any spyware or ad-ware of any kind. All files needed for FlyakiteOSX are stored in the Windows directory in a folder named ‘FlyakiteOSX’ that is hidden by default. All registry values for FlyakiteOSX are written to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\FlyakiteOSX.”

The program is pretty safe, but it does make some system file tweaks so things could go wrong. Luckily, when you install the program it offers to make a system restore point so that if things were to go wrong you can easily fix it!

This is what your computer will look like after you install flyakiteosx

Click here to download — be sure to click the normal link to download it

Give flyakiteosx a try, if you like it, then keep it. If you don’t like it, you can uninstall the program and get things back to the way they were by just uninstalling it (through add/remove programs).

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If you are a Windows user and know someone who owns a Mac, you have probably heard the phrase ‘anything your computer can do, my Mac can do better’ . Obviously your friend is going to be partial to Mac since he owns one, but have you ever thought about which operating system is better for you? Everyone has different wants, needs, and uses when it comes to their operating system. Some people want an operating system that they are already accustomed to and familiar with because they are afraid to learn something new. Others want one that just works. They don’t want to worry about the blue screen of death, or viruses or any of that nonsense.

Below are some good and bad aspects of each operating system. Use these along with the links at the bottom of the post to decide what is right for you.

Windows:
Discover Windows Vista.

• Pros

1. Most popular operating system- software and hardware is geared towards computers running Windows. This means that almost all hardware will have drivers and support for Windows.
2. Games – Most games are written to run on Windows. If you are a gamer this is probably the operating system for you.

• Cons

1. Viruses/Spy-ware – numbers released in 2005 stated there were approximately 103,000 viruses that could potentially infect your computer; and you don’t want that.
2. Doesn’t run well on older hardware – I realize that as time goes on hardware will need to be upgraded. However, a good computer which currently runs Windows XP might not meet the minimum hardware requirements much less the recommended requirements to run Windows Vista.
3. Pricey – No matter which version of Windows you decide to buy, it is expensive (compared to Linux)!

Mac OS X:
Reasons to run Mac OS X.

• Pros

1. Great for media production – If you enjoy doing any kind of multimedia work (pictures, movies, podcasts, etc) this is probably the operating system for you. Not only does Mac have incredible programs like the iLife and iWork suites and Final Cut Pro, but it also has versions of Microsoft Office, and the Adobe suite designed to run on a Mac.
2. Can also run Windows – The new Mac computers have the ability to run Windows and Mac, as well as Linux. This gives you the most flexibility and the best of all three worlds. If you happen to have software that only runs in Windows, you can run Windows on your Mac.
3. Secure – While Mac OS X is not completely immune from viruses (yes there are a few), it is much more secure than Windows.
4. It just works! – If you are looking for an operating system that you don’t have to constantly fight with to get it to do what you want, keep Mac OS X in mind.

• Cons

1. Only designed for Apple hardware – Mac OS X is only designed to run on computers made by Apple, without having to do extensive hacking and breaking of copyright laws.
2. Not as many programs – Mac has less programs than Windows, including games. This is mostly because Windows is the most used OS.
3. Pricey – While each new version of Mac OS X is not that expensive, having to buy the new version every year can get expensive. Mac OS X is relatively inexpensive compared to Windows.

Linux:
Ubuntu Features

I realize there are a LOT of different distributions (flavors) of Linux, but I will focus on Ubuntu since it is one of the most popular distros. However, if you would like to see which distribution fits you best check out the following links:

Linux Distribution Chooser
What Linux distribution should you try?

• Pros

1. Open Source – This means that it is FREE and that the code is available for download. So if you are a developer, or just someone who wants to see what makes their OS tick, Linux is the way to go.
2. Secure – Linux is similar to Mac OS X in that there are a handful of viruses that can potentially inject a Linux computer, but this isn’t a drop in the bucket compared to Windows.
3. Customizable – There are an infinite number of plug-ins, programs, and widgets available for Linux. One of my favorites is Beryl which is now known as Compiz-Fusion. If you don’t believe me, just search Youtube
   for ‘beryl’ or ‘compiz-fusion.’
4. Runs on all platforms – Linux is designed to run on all kinds of computers. Both PC’s and Mac’s can run Linux. Using programs like Wine, you can run many Windows programs on Linux. There are also versions of Linux specially designed to run on old computers. For example, it is common to turn an old computer into a server (using Linux) where you store files.

• Cons

1. Can be difficult at times – Linux does require a little more knowhow than Windows or Mac. Whether or not Linux is difficult or not is dependent on which distribution you choose to install. The average computer user should have no problem using a distro like Ubuntu. Just because something is different, doesn’t mean that is it hard to use. Besides, who doesn’t want a challenge?
2. Few games – There are far fewer games that run on Linux than on Windows. However, look at the comment about Wine for running games in Linux.
3. Multiple monitor support – Using two monitors in Windows and Mac is usually pretty easy to setup. Some of the time it is more difficult in Linux. However, there are many tutorials on how to do this, and it is easy once you get the hang of it. Setting up multiple monitors is really dependent on what kind of video card you have (ie. if you have a cheap on board video card it will be harder to set up, if not impossible).

Here is a popular video that has aired on TV and is widely available on YouTube.

There isn’t an operating system that fits everyone. That being said, I would recommend doing a little research and playing around with each OS to find which works the best for you. And the best part is you don’t have to pick just one. You can always dual boot. In fact Mac can triple boot (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux). Look out for a later blog on how to dual boot the PC you already own!

Personally, I use Linux (Ubuntu) on my desktop and laptop. I have found that it is much more stable than Windows, and I like that I don’t have to worry about scanning for viruses, spy-ware, and other harmful files. It is nice to be able to enjoy using my computer. I still have Windows installed to play a few games (America’s Army, Trackmania, etc) and just in case there is something that I have to have Windows for (opening an MS Office 2008 file). Don’t just take my word for it, or anyone else’s for that matter. Do some research and find out which operating system suits you best.

Keep in mind that not all companies use Windows. In fact more and more are moving away from Windows, so familiarizing yourself with more than one operating system could only help you.

For more information, check out these links.

• What is the best operating system and why?
• A comparison of Linux and Windows
• Alternative to Microsoft Windows
• Why Linux is better