Virtual Box and Windows 7 RC

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After reading a few posts regarding VirtualBox, I decided to give it a try, and install Windows 7 RC to try out.

The posts that piqued my interest were from:

The How-To Geek (RSS Feed)

July 1st

Try Out a New Operating System the Easy Way with VirtualBox

July 7th

Use Virtual Box to Test Linux on Your Windows PC

Windows Secrets Newssletter

July 2nd (Paid Article – Langalist Plus) Test-drive Windows 7 in a virtual machine

I have tried VMware and Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007 SP1, with the Beta version of Windows 7, previously. I was able to get everything loaded, but could not get it to work with my DSL, nor my USB connection, so was limited in what I could do.

I downloaded VirtualBox v3.0.0.0 and installed it. Approx 15 minutes to install and configure. Then, I installed Windows 7 RC (build 7100) from the ISO I had downloaded. Everything works fine, in fact I wrote this post and published it using the Windows 7 RC virtual machine.

VirtualBox works well for me, so I recommend it.

My next thing, when I get the time of course, will be to try out the latest Ubuntu Linux, hopefully VirtualBox will make everything work for that also.

Microsoft Quick Reference Guides

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Thanks to the TechCheatSheets RSS feed today, I found some good quick references for Microsoft software, in PDF format. They are available at CustomGuide.

The one in the feed was for Word 2007 specifically and appeared 07jul09 as

Custom Guide’s Word 2007 Quick Reference

The following is from the TechCheatSheets.com About page:

About TechCheatSheets.com

Tech Cheat Sheets is a collection of the best cheat sheets and quick reference guides on the web. Arranged by tags, you can subscribe to a feed for only the tags you want to monitor. Visitors can also give the listings 1-5 star ratings.

I also got the Quick Reference Card for Publisher 2007, which I use for my newsletters.

There are also Quick Reference guides for Mac and Adobe software available at CustomGuide.

Check out both of these resources, very helpful in my opinion.

DSL Problems

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I have not been able to access the internet since July 1st, until late this afternoon.

I tried rebooting the DSL modem, router, and computer, numerous times. I tried connecting directly to the DSL modem from the computer itself. I contacted Earthlink numerous times. Nothing solved the problem.

Finally, I decided to try replacing cables, starting with the phone connection. Lo and behold, that was the problem, once I connected a new phone connection, everything worked fine.

This has been a good lesson for me, to practice what I preach. I have always told others check all the simple things first, such as making sure everything is plugged in correctly, and swap out cables first. If I had followed my own advice, I would have saved days of aggravation.

If something like this happens to you, remember check the simple things first.