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I downloaded Windows7 beta on the first day of it’s public release, but didn’t get around trying it. Finally I got a chance to install it today. The installation was smooth and straight forward.

This is how I installed Windows 7 beta on my Mac with Vmware Fusion.

Download

The 2.44 GB ISO file can be downloaded from Windows7 beta download page. It took me around 2 hours to download it using my 8MB home broadband. You’ll also be given a Windows 7 Beta Product Key together with the download to activate windows 7.

Create New Virtual Machine

Create a new virtual machine by launching the Vmware Fusion and going to FIle–>New

Click on Continue without disk, because we’ll be using the ISO image to install Windows 7.

Then, click on Use operating system installation disk image file and select the Windows 7 ISO file downloaded earlier.

Choose the Operating System. I had downloaded the 64 bit version so, I chose Windows Vista x64 Edition.

Enter the Account Name, Password and the Windows Product Key

I don’t need file sharing at the moment so, I disabled the windows sharing by choosing None.

Default config of the new virtual machine. I wanted to give more RAM to the new vm so, clicked on Customize Settings

This is where you can customize the hardware settings for your virtual machine. Click on Processors & RAM to increase the RAM size.

Increase the RAM to 2048MB (2GB)

Click on the play button to begin installation

The installation starts…

After couple of reboots and an approximately half an hour later it’s done.

The installation was seamless and I’m planning to use Window 7 for some time next week to see how good it is. The immediate next thing is an anti-virus. Complimentary McAfee anti-virus provided by vmware fusion is not compatible with Windows 7 yet, and a quick google showed Kaspersky, so I might install that.

GFI LANguard Network Security Scanner is a very easy to use yet powerful commercial Network vulnerability scanning, patch management and auditing tool. If you have a small network with few computers then it’s easy to keep track of the softwares installed and do the patching manually, but for larger networks it would be a nightmare to do everything manually. This is where tools like GFI LANguard NSS come in to help network/system admins. GFI LANguard NSS makes use of the vulnerability check databases based on OVAL and SANS Top 20, providing over 15,000 vulnerability assessments when your network is scanned. It is one of the best commercial network security scanner and patch management tool available.

I’ve installed and tested it in my WinXP SP2 running on my MacBook Pro Vmware Fusion, and this is what I found.

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Microsoft has released a table shaped, multi-touch sensitive computer called the Surface. It looks cool and more than one person can interact with the content through touch and gesture, without the use of a mouse or keyboard. This 30-inch table computer costs around $10,000 and is targeted towards big hotels, casinos, phone stores, restaurants and public entertainment venues. The Surface runs on Windows Vista and has Ethernet, Wireless and Bluetooth connectivity. Here’s a video of first look at Surface.

It’s an iWorld… and this is iHouse, without Windows!

I switched from Microsoft to Apple on desktop, but on mobile I’m jumping (trying) from Palm to Microsoft. I’ve bought a Dopod 720w, which runs windows mobile 5 smartphone edition. It’s gorgeous and slim, with bright screen, Wi-Fi, Edge, Gprs, push e-mail, excellent call quality and long talk time battery life. You can listen to the music or watch videos with it’s windows media player 10 mobile (supports AAC, MP3, WAV, WMA, MPEG-4 , and WMV files). I’ve been mobile surfing web for a while and discovered that my blog is not so mobile friendly. I found a neat script, with step-by-step instruction that converts your blog or web site mobile friendly in just 2 minutes.

So, here is my mobile friendly blog — http://mobile.nirlog.com, created in 2 minutes.

Browsing with my dopod

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This guide describes how to install and configure the OpenVPN Server in Linux and clients in Windows XP and Mac OSX. There are many advanced features in OpenVPN and if you’re interested in those advanced stuff, there’s a more detailed HowTo for you. This guide was created from my successful installation, so it works for me. If you find any problems or have suggestions please leave a comment. I’ll try my best to help. I’m sure, you know that you’re using this at your own risk

In our scenario, a small office network is protected by Linux firewall and we’ll implement the secure OpenVPN to access the internal office network (File Server, Database Server and Desktop PCs) securely from anywhere in the Internet.

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I’m using Synergy to share a single keyboard and mouse between my Mac, Windows and Linux machines. It’s a very useful software I’ve been using for quite some time. There’s a very detailed HOWTO at Engadget, if you want to set it up for yourself.

This is my desk — powered by Synergy

You have to watch them, both are classic stuff…

After switching to Mac, my Samsung notebook with Windows Xp has been free, so I decided to test dual booting Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux in this laptop. The downloading, burning cd/dvd and installation was easy and straight forward. Only special thing I had to do was to modify the menu.lst file in Ubuntu. This is how I did it:
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I’ve been using PowerBook G4 as my production laptop for about a month. There had been some odd moments but overall it’s been a wonderful experience and definitely there’s no looking back. I’m glad that I’ve switched. Now my laptop boots faster, everything looks more beautiful, I can do everything I’d been doing and I know for sure it’s much more secure.

One of the leading security firm Sophos has released a Security Report, where it finds Trojans have dominated the first half of 2006. This is what they had to say:

Most interestingly, new Trojans now outweigh viruses and worms by 4:1, compared to 2:1 in the first half of 2005. In addition, the continued dominance of Windows-based threats has prompted Sophos to suggest that many home users should consider switching to Apple Macs, to shield themselves from the malware onslaught.

BBC has a story about the same report and switch advice, Threat prompt Mac switch advice, which brought a lot of attention in slashdot and backslash. I totally agree with Sophos. Specially for the home users who don’t know much about the threats that Windows PCs are exposed to. Macs are sleek, they work out of the box, they can do everything a home user needs to do and most importantly they’re much more secure than Windows. So if you’re planning to buy a new computer, you should seriously consider buying a Mac. After all if you find that OS X really sucks, which I can guarantee will not. You can still install windows in intel Macs.