I’d forgotten that I had signed up for the JoliCloud¹ Beta a couple of months ago when I was trying to decide on a Netbook vs. a MacBook. Apple won and Steve has my money, but I got my JoliCloud Beta invite a couple of days ago.

The OS still looked cute and highly polished, if only in a GUI way. So I decided to try it out. Virtualization for the win!

Problem: Most Virts don’t like USB keys, at least not for booting. And that is precisely what JoliCloud needs. A bootable USB key.

Solution: After trying a variety of solutions with minimal success I found that the IMG file that you get from JoliCloud, you do have beta access right?, is a bootable HDD file that VirtualBox will recognize. So here are the steps I took:

1. Downloaded JoliCloud Beta Image File
2. Downloaded and installed VituralBox (Google It, I’m lazy…)
3. Created a new VM in VirtualBox
4. Assigned HDA to use the JoliCloud Beta Image File, set this to be the boot disk
5. Created a new Disk (HDC) for installation
6. Booted the VM
7. Ran JoliCloud in ‘Live’ mode
8. Played, installed some apps etc…
9. Used the built in installer and chose HDC as the destination. Defaults all around.
10. Shutdown the VM
11. Removed the two HDDs from the profile.
12. Assigned HDA to use the old HDC file.
13. Turned on the VM and it booted perfectly.

Pretty simple really. Glad I thought of it!

Really tho, VirtualBox, while nice is painfully slow. If you want to try out JoliCloud, build the USB key, walk into a BestBuy and reboot a machine into it. That is the only way to test it’s speed etc. Just don’t install it onto the store’s netbooks. It’s not nice to tease the GeekSquad nerds.

Okay, my free time is officially over. I got my Beta invite to Dungeons & Dragons Online.

See you next year.

I'm working with a developer who has placed his faith in a license scheme that makes little sense to me. He wants to tie a desktop application to a hardware component value, one of which is easily changed, the MAC address of the ethernet controller.

Now, I know no one likes licenses, he does want to protect his hard work and I can understand that. What can I tell him to help him out? In the very least I'd like to give him a path other than tying a license to a hardware component.

You may have seen the comercials, or perhsp heard the radio spots on any Rogers’ owned station. “Buy our Home Phone Classic Value Plan. And save $25 over Bell’s comparable plan.” I call shenanigans on that right there.

First of all, much like a pop band who’s third album is called ‘Classic Hits’, can you really call a package ‘Classic Value’ when you’ve been selling home phone service for less than three years?

But let’s ignore that for now. Let’s debunk the claims…

Rogers says you save $25/mn based on a comparable plan. The key word here is comparable.Rogers is able to compare it’s plans (and it does have one that is even cheaper: $21.95 w/ 250 LD mins) against Bell’s plans + long distance because all of the Rogers plans come with some minutes.

You can save $25 a month because the Home Phone Challenge¹ automatically adds Bell’s $19.95 Unlimited Long Distance Minutes package. (This is hilarious because they offer the exact same package but don’t select it by default when you take the challenge.)

If you deselect any of the features (voicemail, call waiting, etc) you will compare the Basic Value package against Bell. But even then, you are forced to select at least one long distance package from Bell for comparison purposes. I understand the ‘white’ side of this lie. You want to compare apple to apples. Rogers’ plans all come with long distance whether you want it or not.

You only save money over Bell because they are forcing you to take long distance minutes even if you don’t use them.

I hate these kind of mistruths in advertising. If I was an uninformed consumer and walked into a Rogers store and wanted to save my $25/mn and switched, the odds are I wouldn’t be saving much more than five bucks. If I didn’t care about long distance, the most I’d save is a dollar.

But in reality it is worse than that:

So there you have it. You may not get long distance, but you pay less with Bell.