In the last few years Virtualization has gone from a buzzword to a platform of choice in the world of Information Technology. Consumers already reap its benefits on a day to day basis as Banks, Internet Service Providers, online merchants, and many other companies have adopted the technology all the while transparent to the end user. The reasons why virtualization is attractive to companies are many but, to put it succinctly, it all boils down to efficiency which then translates to lower cost and higher availability.

Small wonders: the 2009 Ars USB flash drive roundup Since our last roundup in 2005, USB flash drives have become ubiquitous. So ubiquitous, in fact, that we wondered whether there was any difference at all among models. In our 2009 roundup, we find out the answer.

If you look at the SSD market today, you’d assume that it’s very different from what it was just six months ago when the X25-M launched. People are worried that the Intel drive has issues with degrading performance over time. Some vendors are now shipping “revised” JMicron drives with multiple controllers, supposedly fixing all of the problems I talked about last year. I hate to break it to you guys. As different as the world may seem today, it’s all very much the same. The Intel drive is still the best of the best. Yes, it, and other SSDs do get slower over time and later in this article I’ll explain why it happens and why it’s not as big of a deal as you’d think. The issues I complained about with the JMicron drives from last year are still alive and well today; they’re just somewhat occluded.

VMware has given the first demonstration of its mobile virtualization solution, which enables smartphones to run more than one OS. Ars explains why mobile virtualization is not only growing more and more feasible, but why it's inevitable.

This edition of Hard Disk Manager 8.5 is mainly a disk-partitioning utility, and in that respect it does the job very well indeed. The wizards make it hugely accessible, although it still isn’t perfect, and we like the push towards more OS and file system independence. The backup options are a useful extra for keeping things in order, although we’d still recommend using a proper file backup program such as Ghost or True Image along with it. But when you consider the power and range of features on offer here, it’s a decent investment for users on a budget.

Cons Help system geared more toward experienced users than novices; backup process slower than with some other apps; Rescue CD performs inconsistently

The boot management tool, once in place, refused to spot the main Vista partition on our hard drive, and thus wouldn't boot. If we booted straight to CD and loaded up the Hard Disk Manager from there, we could find a way in, but this slowed down the workings of the computer enormously.