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[E322]Even Better Than The Real Thing

by Ted Belfoure, Ted

There are a preponderance of households all round the world that share their space, their food and their love with some kind of furry friend. Animal companions have been shown time again, in study after study, to reduce stress and cultivate health. The act of stroking a pet is an intrinsically restful one, and cannot even be outweighed by the time and expense incurred in looking after the little beasts. These critters become a part of our lives, and we dote on them like small children. But we wouldn’t feel the same way about them if they were only virtual – would we?

But it seems that we would. While children traditionally beg their parents for a pet to play with, these days it seems they are asking for something else too – a computer, complete with Internet access, to allow them play with a pet of a slightly different shade. A Neopet.

And with 25 million members spread all across the world, the people that bring us Neopets are clearly on to something. Combining aspects of the real life world and the virtual one, the Neopets universe seems to have tapped into something. While users fall predominantly into the age group we would expect, typically sitting in the under eighteen age group, Neopets appeal to people of all ages. Offering all the qualities of the typical household pet, with a few traits only to be found in the realm of computer-dom, Neopets seem like a fun way to cultivate a relationship with our furry friends, without having to deal with any of the practicalities of supporting and looking after a real world pet.

The Neopian world, however, does have what some see as a more sinister side. An Internet world directed at children where unknown individuals can log on and talk to whom they like is undoubtedly a concern for many parents, but what has gained the most publicity regarding the Neopets site is the exposure children encounter there to seemingly limitless advertising. Although real money transactions are forbidden in the Neopian world, many of the games played there involve the winning of Neopian currency, which can then be used to purchase items for your pet. Some argue that this introduces children to the value of money. Others are more concerned that the value of money is spoiling a nice game by introducing corporate sponsorship in child-friendly guises.

But there is little doubt about one thing – Neopets are just, according to the people who own them, as addictive as the real thing. Think you can’t get attached to a computer image? Think again – get a Neopet.

In most cases a work station or server only has a single operating system. For example, it could be Vista or XP for work stations, or it could be a Windows 2003 server. But what if you wanted a 'multi-lingual' server or work station? A computer can attain the ability to support multiple operating systems with the use of virtualization. That is, the virtual work station can handle either Vista or Windows 2000. Additinally, a server could alternately have multiple copies of Windows 2003 running, including one for your overall files, one to run the SQL, and another for your financial applications.

There is another important issue to consider when evaluating hardware capital investment: resources are the main factor driving today's work stations and servers. For this reason it is surprising to realize the unfortunate situation in today's business world: most computer hardware resources are greatly underutilized, with spare power to process and storage memory all left idle.

Most servers are working at only 15% capacity of the level of processing possible, and at 30% of the available memory. Virtualization maximizes these underutilized resources by forming a platform which enables encapsulated operating systems to max out your hardware capital. Addition of new servers is not necessary when the situation requires upgrades or additions, and instead new virtual servers can be added to the existing hardware. This can help to reduce costs in terms of new capital, energy use and storage space required for infrastructure.

Virtualization supplies small business with increased flexibility which cannot be supplied by a regular environment. There are plenty of businesses which use legacy applications which won't run on current operating system. A Windows NT, 98, or 2000 computer left running on the environment can cause big security risks and problems with administration - particularly if it's an old machine on an old operating system. These legacy applications can run virtually on another robust work station, instead of supporting a legacy work station. This makes them both secure and on-demand. Virtualization also enables you to build infrastructure without 'hardware sprawl.' If the company requires another server to accommodate growth or applications, you can annex a virtual server to the robust server, thereby keeping the implementation cost down because you won't need the next six-thousand-dollar server.

There are additional benefits to virtualization. For example, there is support for operating systems as varied as Unix, Linux, and Solaris, and complete work stations and servers can be made redundant or restored for ease of portability. These virtualized servers and work stations can be relocated to other machines without much difficulty in the case of system failure or the need to upgrade. It is possible to maximize these available resources and use virtualization to reach your resource availability goals.

Article Source : New Games For Ps2

About Author

Both Ted Belfoure & Nick Pegley are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Ted Belfoure has sinced written about articles on various topics from Games, Entertainment Guide and Keyboard Synthesizer. Dave is the owner of and