Virtual machines are becoming popular in grid computing as they provide a way to abstract the grid resources and allow grid applications to be run without worrying about the underlying platform of the resource.

The one thing I notice on the way to university on the free shuttle bus, is that everyone is listening to their iPods. The white earphones all dangling down from their ears. I remember stories from the elderly who always have tales from people they have met on public transport, but it seems in the age of portable digital music players this social interaction has ceased.

I finally used some spare time to get my console move back on track. My Gentoo installation has finally been achieved and it looks like there are no problems. However, this is not on the same machine that I attempted the installation on before, it is a virtual machine running on top of my Windows Vista operating system.