Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

I have been building / rebuilding a lot of virtual PCs lately.

We use them a lot in our software development because we need to be able to develop in the same environment as the client has. Many clients are still stuck on XP and Office 2003. So we build a virtual machine that has this OS and Office installation.

I have been accepted into the Office 2010 tech preview, and was trying to build a Windows 7 64bit beta virtual machine to load the 64 bit Office applications into. I was unable to do so and it relates to something to do with hardware virtualisation. Personally I think this is just an issue with the windows 7 64 bit beta architecture because I was able to do it using a fresh real hard drive.

On the way I have found some tools and websites that have been helpful.

• VHD Resizer and the VM Toolkit
• Microsoft Tech Net – lots of resources here about Virtual Server 2005
• Creating Virtual Hard Disks

Following a is a list of cool stuff I didn't have time to write individual posts about.

Random Web stuff

MyOpenID - If you don't know what OpenID is, think of it this way, one sign in authentication process for every website that supports it. Drupal 6 has it, Yahoo has it, lots of places have it - learn more about OpenID and get your own.

Tagurself - enter a feed link or a url and it generates a tag cloud for you.

TeamViewer - excellent remote desktop sharing software - and its free!

Microsoft SharedView - remote connection - sharing applications - great for training people how to do things remotely.