For those of us who work with VMware Player on a daily basis, this is great news. Of course, I couldn’t help downloading the Release Candidate and testing this new feature by myself, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to write a tutorial about how to create virtual machines in VMware Player:

1. In the main screen, click Create a New Virtual Machine and you’ll launch the New Virtual Machine Wizard. This wizard lets you choose between a CD and an ISO file to start creating the virtual machine.

2. In my case, I’ve selected an ISO file with Ubuntu 9.04. As you can see, this virtual machine can be created using Easy Install, which means you can perform an unattended installation after completing the Wizard.

3. Enter your personal details to start Easy Install. Bear in mind that these fields may vary according to the operating system you’re installing, but they’ll usually be usernames, passwords, and the like.

4. Give your virtual machine a name, and select a location to store it.

5. Set the maximum size of the virtual machine’s hard disk – the wizard will advise you on how much you need, depending on the operating system.

6. This is the last screen in the New Virtual Machine Wizard, which contains a summary of all the configuration options you’ve set. You can go ahead and finish the Wizard (which immediately adds the new virtual machine to VMware Player’s main menu) or click on Customize Hardware to edit the machine’s settings.

7. These settings allow you to tweak advanced options in your virtual machine’s configuration, such as specifying allocated memory, enabling a CD/DVD drive, changing the network adapter, or creating a shared folder between the host system and the virtual machine.

8. Once you’ve set everything up, you’re ready to go. Enjoy!

Today screen – It’s actually called a ‘Home’ screen now, but this is still the page where everything begins in Windows Mobile. Revamped to make it more touch-friendly, the screen consists only of text headings for the various apps and tools. The shortcuts on the Home screen are much neater and more intelligent than previous versions of the Today screen in WM. Now you can even launch individual Internet Explorer favorites directly from this screen.

Unlock specific tools – The phone unlocking capabilities are much improved in Windows Mobile 6.5, making them much more akin to the likes of the iPhone and Android systems. You can now slide to unlock specific items such as messages and missed calls.

Honeycomb interface – The new honeycomb-style Start menu interface is the flagship feature of the new Windows Mobile. It’s a vast improvement from the archaic-looking menu screens of the previous incarnations, and has been designed specifically for touchscreen use. Icons are spaced out much more, and can be scrolled up and down rather than having to fumble between different screens.

more–>New Internet Explorer – Finally, a usable version of Internet Explorer within Windows Mobile! It’s still not as classy as using Opera Mini or Skyfire but at least Explorer now displays more of the page on screen. It also comes with finger-friendly controls and an intuitive zoom function. What’s more, there’s a new engine in there that permits access to more functions and actions. It even promises Flash support in certain cases.

Windows Marketplace – OK, so Microsoft wasn’t very quick off the mark in launching its app store, but better late than never I guess. The store isn’t as well organized as some of its competitors, but with so many Windows Mobile apps floating in the ether, the store should never be short of content.

My Phone – You’ve probably noticed that Steve Ballmer is a big advocate of the concept of using the cloud to manage your life across multiple devices (he shouts loudly enough about it). My Phone is designed to give Windows Mobile users the ability to sync their contacts, calendar, tasks, text message, photos, etc. with an online account, so this content can be accessed from anywhere. From what we can see, it works pretty well, too.

General ‘look and feel’ – And here’s where the .5 comes from. The overall appearance of Windows Mobile 6.5 is definitely better than it was, and it’s much more conducive to finger use. However, there’s still something about the UI that makes it feel like it’s only half finished. The Home screen and the Start menu don’t sit very well together, for instance. Also, when you quit a program from the Start menu page it automatically boots you back out to the Home screen, which can be annoying. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn’t really much more than a shell enhancement and we’ll have to wait until version 7 to see if it really has a chance of stealing back market share from its new, leaner and meaner rivals.

By the way, if you fancy trying out the new OS, you can download the emulator as part of the Windows Mobile 6.5 developer toolkit. Let us know what you think.

Perhaps the juiciest editions though are the new skins, and there are some truly gorgeous new faces as you can see from the screenshots below. There is now also the option to download new skins from Winterface. The great thing about Winterface is that it also lets you tweak backgrounds within these skins and customize the headings for yourself. This app has got to be the best way to make Windows Mobile look and feel like a modern mobile operating system. And heaven knows it needs it.

Even safe mode wouldn’t work and to make matters worse, my CD/DVD drive is damaged meaning I couldn’t boot from a Windows disc. Fortunately, one of you pointed out that most Acers usually have a “hidden” recovery utility known as PQSERVICE which can be activated by pressing “Alt” and “F10″ on startup.

I’ve had the Acer Aspire 1414 for over 4 years now and had no idea this facility existed. For some strange reason, the bios does not allow you to boot from the USB drive in Acers (at least on my model) so PQSERVICE was my only hope. PQSERVICE is actually a hidden partition of your hard disk designed for exactly these kinds of emergencies. Note: activating it wipes your entire hard disk – any files, folders or programs you had installed will be automatically deleted.

As soon as I saw the bios screen, I pressed Alt-F10 and it immediately launched “Acer Recovery Tool 1.0.0″ a rough screenshot of which you can see below.

It appears to be a Symantec tool which works very smoothly and quickly. Within 10 minutes and a few auto-restarts, I had a completely new clean install of XP and wasn’t prompted to enter the Windows XP CD key at any point. It was a darn sight faster than reinstalling XP from a CD.

Although I lost some of my non backed-up files, folders and photos, it was a small price to pay to regain a functioning laptop which would otherwise have had to be thrown-away. Thank you OnSoftware readers and Acer – all is forgiven.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do this which is why I’m appealing for help. Why on earth the bios won’t let me boot from a USB drive I have no idea but it’s a glaring error by Acer. The problem started after using CCleaner to uninstall programs, clean the hard drive and “fix” the registry. On restarting, my Acer Aspire booted as far as the Windows XP logo before going straight to the blue screen of death and now won’t even let me start in Safe Mode. The Acer bios gives me only one other boot option – a Network Boot – which I’ve been unable to figure out. A search on the internet reveals network booting involves a scary world of PXEs and DHCP which I’ve found very hard to understand. All that I know is that I have to connect my Acer laptop to another laptop with an ethernet cable!

The blue screen of death error code I’m getting is a “C000021a (fatal system error) The session manager initialization system process terminated unexpectedly”. It’s clear that the problem is related to the session login part of Windows startup i.e. the bit where you click your username and enter your password to use Windows. I don’t see why this should stop me at least starting in Safe Mode but if I ever do get it started again, I’m going to remove the session manager completely. Beware all those that currently use it and CCleaner at the same time.

Adding a new user profile is straightforward on a Mac although new users may be initially confused by the fact that they have to unlock their Mac to make changes and also overlook the discreet but all important “+” symbol which allows you to add a new profile. Here’s how to do it:

• Go to the Apple icon in the top left and select “System Preferences…”

• Select “Accounts”

• If the padlock at the bottom of the panel is locked, click on it to unlock it. You’ll be prompted for your Mac admin password.

• Click the “+” symbol near the bottom left corner of the panel.

• You can choose to select from 4 different grades of account – Administrator, Standard,  Managed with Parental Controls or Sharing Only.

• Fill in your details and you’re done. If at any point you want to remove an account, just select it in the accounts list on along the left hand side and click the “-” symbol.

As I mentioned yesterday, it was a request from a reader who had problems with math that sparked off this series. Math is a particularly nasty problem area. You can hide your lack of ability pretty easily, and you don’t have to feel to bad about it, because most people agree with you. Math sucks! At some point though, you’ll have to tackle it. It will happen some day when you are least expecting it, when there’s no one around to ask for help, and no calculator for miles. Don’t get caught out. Start working on those skills now!

As with most things in life, it’s best to start with the basics – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Grey Olltwit’s Times Tables is a sweet British-made program that will take you from the beginning right to the very end. It tests you along the way and you even get a certificate of achievement when you complete it. Why the program has an elderly man standing around in his Union Jack boxer shorts is a bit of a mystery, but at least it will take your mind off the multiplication.

Math Ninja is a bit cheesy, but that doesn’t mean it won’t help you learn. It covers all the basics – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division – and lets you play at 8 different levels. The program’s pearls of ninja wisdom will keep you motivated, and by the time you are able for level 8’s calculations, you’ll have number skills to be proud of.

Math-A-Maze is definitely one to try AFTER you have revised the basics. It isn’t crazy difficult, but does require concentration and logical thinking. You are given a maze of numbers and mathematical signs and a goal. You then have to arrow key through the maze so that by the time you get to the other side, the number you are left with equals your goal. For a small program, there are actually a lot of options and, best of all, it comes with plenty of tips and solutions.BBC is always a good place to start), while almost every local government in the “developed” world will have free and easily-accessed services. Contact your local library or town/area authorities for more information, or search online.

Don’t get too down though, there’s some pretty stuff about math too – I promise! Believe it or not, the beautiful pattern above is actually the visual representation of a really complex math concept – fractals. Don’t worry about the science behind it – just stick it up as your wallpaper and look to it for inspiration when those times tables are getting you down.

Part 1: Introduction

Part 3: Reading

What is a snapshot? It’s similar to the Restoration Point functionality in Windows. VirtualBox snapshots save your current virtual machine as is, with all the software you’ve installed so far, as well as files and personal configuration options. You can create as many snapshots as you need for each virtual machine, and revert the system to any of them at any point. So i, for example, you saved a snapshot just after installing the OS, you can go back to it anytime and have a clean, newly installed system in two minutes and without having to go through the pain of reinstallation.

To create a snapshot in VirtualBox, all you have to do is click on the Machine menu in your virtual machine and select Take Snapshot. You’ll be asked to enter a name and a description for the snapshot, so that you can distinguish between different snapshots more easily. Then click on OK and you’re done!

To revert your current machine to a previous snapshot, open VirtualBox, select your virtual machine and click on the Snapshots tab. Right click on the Current State icon and select Revert to Current Snapshot, which will bring the virtual machine back to the latest snapshot you took. If you want to revert the system to an earlier state (for example, the first snapshot you took) you can do so by discarding all other snapshots, so that the first one you took goes immediately before the Current State icon.

A great new feature in VirtualBox 3.0.6. is the ability to share virtual machines. Simply click on the File > Export Appliance menu and you’ll be able to export the selected virtual machine – with its correspondent snapshots and all – to a standalone file that can be easily imported to VirtualBox again on another computer. This process requires the virtual machine to be switched off, and can also take a while, but it saves you all the trouble of configuring a new virtual machine from scratch on another computer.

I tried disconnecting peripheral devices, used TechTool Deluxe to test the integrity of my hard disk and memory, but found no solution. Looking at Console for a clue (I probably should have done this first), I found lots of serious looking errors occurring just before my system crashes. They all took the form of:

21.06.09 22:25:31 kernel NVDAOpenGL: Channel exception! status 0xffff info32 0x3 Fifo: Unknown Method Error
21.06.09 22:25:31 kernel 0000000b

Now, I may not be a Mac expert per se, but my experiences working with OS X, Windows and Linux told me that “NVDA”, “OpenGL” and “Channel exception!” pointed to the fact that something was gravely wrong and that it had something to do with my Nvidia 7300 GT video card. Which begged the question: is this a hardware or a driver issue?

Reading this helpful thread on the Apple Support forums, I’ve found that plenty of other iMac owners are suffering with the same problem. Consensus there is that it’s related to a driver/software fault… but this is confused by there being at least two problems which cause similar issues. User Asrenzo’s comment from yesterday helps to clarify the situation. After carrying out various tests, he feels certain that the software/driver theory is right. It seems that OS X 10.5.7 introduced a new, faulty driver for the Nvidia graphics card which simply stopped it from working properly.

“But what about the fix?“, you may be wondering. Well, the solution I’ve found is simple: install Snow Leopard. In my case, I backed up my entire home disk with Time Machine, erased and did a clean install, and then imported my apps, files and accounts from Time Machine. I’m not sure that the Time Machine bit is essential but I can say that not only does my 3 year-old iMac run like new now, I’ve also yet to see any Channel exception! or NVDA(OpenGL) errors.

If you’re suffering with frequent crashes and are at your wit’s end (and your Mac’s compatible, of course), try doing a clean install of Snow Leopard. It certainly seems to have worked for me.

As regards sending problems, it may not be Apple’s fault however. It seems that it could be related to a SMTP issues specific to different ISPs. Obviously, there’s no way that Apple could have tested Mail with every ISP in the world beforehand. One Apple forum user explains:

With some ISP, notably those that are cable, the SMTP is not separately authenticated, but rather is trusted based upon the IP address of the Modem they provide you. For such ISPs and SMTP, the authentication must be set to None, and no password or username enter for the Outgoing Server. It is simple for Mail to guess wrong about this, and you must set it right in the settings for the SMTP.

However, other uses have reported that changing SMTP settings still hasn’t worked for them. Here’s a collection of suggestions to help you get Mail working again:

Update SMTP Authentication

This is Apple’s only official response on issues related to sending problems. Go to the “Mail” menu and select “Preferences”. Click “Accounts” and then select the account the one having problems. From the SMTP server pop-up menu at the bottom choose “Edit SMTP Server List”. Click “Advanced” and then select the “Authentication” pull down menu and select the appropriate authentication type (from your ISP or the Mail Online Setup Assistant). Fill in the username and password and click OK.

Edit Outgoing Mail Server

Go to “Mail”  and “Preferences” and select “Edit Outgoing Mail Server”. Select “Advanced” and then change the radio button to Custom Port 25 (depending upon your ISP). Se the Authentication to “None” and click OK.

Move Mail folder to desktop

Sounds simple but apparently it’s worked for a number of users. Locate your mail folder in “/username/libary” and then move it the desktop. You can then import your mail messages by going to “File” and then “Import” and browse to the Mail folder on your desktop. You may find your mail is a bit disorganized after importing but you’ll just have to put everything back in it’s right place and folder manually.

Repair Permissions

Ideally this should be done just before and after your upgrade to Snow Leopard. If you’ve already upgraded however, you’ll just have to use Disk Utility to repair them afterwards.

Use Time Machine

If all of the above fails, then just use Time Machine to rollback to reliable old Leopard.