Nifty tool

Like any self-respecting techno-geek, I'm always on the lookout for new tools. I love to comb through SourceForge or Freshmeat, looking for new and interesting software. Ever since VMware released VMware Server as a free product earlier this year, I've spent a lot of time messing with it, trying new and interesting ways to use it, etc. I've been doing some really interesting stuff with it recently (I'll make an extensive post on this at some point in the near future), and have downloaded and experimented with dozens of the free Virtual Appliances. Just when I thought that VMware couldn't be any cooler, I found this: VMware Converter. It essentially takes an image of a running Windows machine and creates a virtual machine. They claim that you can image a hot machine without actually disturbing the machine being imaged. And it can all be done over Ethernet. And (this is arguably the best part), it is free. It can also create VMs from older VMware formats, Symantec Bacukp Exec System Recovery, and Microsoft Virtual Server/Virtual PC. I haven't had a chance to extensively test this yet, but assuming it lives up to their claims, this has so much potential, I don't even know where to being.

Kudos to the VMware folks.