Is there any program out there that can virtualize a whole hard drive partition? I want to use one of my (real) partitions in a VirtualBox virtual machine in real time, not just the virtual drive for the system. I’d imagine the whole process like this app i look for would act as a tunnel, appear as a virtual drive image that VB can use, act as a link and just forward all VB requests to the physical drive and the responses back. Is there such a thing out there?

Last weekend i finally managed to build my new computer. It’s really nice. My goal was to build one that will be able to run StarCraft 2 without problems, and even after years it won’t get all that slow. I think i managed.

• AMD Phenom II X4: quadcore beauty, for teh power
• 4GB Corsair DDR3 memory
• Gigabyte 880G motherboard: micro ATX, because that’s what i planned, even if it turned out different
• Saphire Radeon HD5670: not the strongest, but just what i need
• Western Digital CaviarBlue 1TB HDD: don’t really need that much space, but it was sooo cheap…
• LG Flatron 21.5″: for widescreen entertainment—it’s huge and bright
• plus a Logicool wireless mouse+keyboard, Sanwa woodbox speakers, Zalman CPU cooler, GMC case

I installed Windows 7 and Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, just as it was on the laptop. With Wendy‘s help i already migrated all my documents, music and video, just some programming stuff and the server root is left. And yeah, StarCraft 2 runs without much problem.

Since today all parts i ordered but the memory modules arrived, i decided to try to put it all together. It was not fun. First, it was damn hard to put the cooler on the cpu, but after a long time of trying and many cuts on my hand, i managed. Then i wanted to install the video card, and lucky i did. It turned out the case i got is a bit too “slim”, meaning just the card is taller than how wide the case is. Troublesome. Whatever, i’ll return it and get another tomorrow, since i’m going Osaka anyway.

What i could get to work was the screen. It’s huge. And it’s very bright (a bit too bright compared to my laptop so i’m still trying to figure out how to decrease brightness – edit since then i found the control buttons hidden on the screen so now my eyes are not burning out). And did i say it’s huge?

Also, i’m right now typing on the new keyboard and using the new mouse. The keyboard will need a bit of tweaking, because it’s japanese layout so even if i hack a hungarian layout on it there’ll be missing keys. There are a few unassigned keys anyway so i’ll figure somehow.

And tomorrow, yeah tomorrow i think i’ll get it all together.

Let me say this first: i’m not an Apple fanboy (though i do enjoy occasionally eating one, i especially like the light sourness of green apple) and i have an iPod because that was the best choice among mp3 players, but no other Apple products. Nor have i used any computers of their brand, not more than a few clicks.

I was just wondering what’s the big deal about the grand Apple quality. I somehow can’t see it. I bought my laptop used, and it was already old then, and yet i have absolutely no hardware problems, no visible dead pixels on the screen, no motherboard failures, nothing. It works, though it’s a five year old model now, so it’s slow like hell.

My scholarship arrived yesterday, so now i started planning. I want to build myself a desktop computer, that won’t get terribly old until i graduate, and will be able to run StarCraft 2 on max quality. Also, it would be nice if most of its parts (especially wireless, infrared and audio) would be fully usable with linux. I have a total budget of about 1000 usd for the purpose (with everything included). What i want is a powerful machine in a case as small as possible, and a over-20″ monitor. Of course as high-end as possible out of that money.