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First, Meet our newest “Staff” member at ProfessionalVMware. Not sure what to call him yet, but he’s the smallest of the bunch, as you can see from the pictures.

Second, and likely just as important. ProfessionalVMware expanded recently and welcomes “ThePowerShellTalk.com” to our family of sites. ThePowerShellTalk, is the official site for the presentation & code examples that Pancil and I gave at Virtualization Congress 2009. We’ll continue to keep the site updated, and open to the community, as there is a strong need for PowerShell knowledge across all hypervisor platforms.

That’s all I have for the moment. As always, you can follow me on Twitter or drop us a note in the comments.

it’s here… or almost. We’ll (Pancil and I) will be presenting at the Virtualization Congress on Wednesday at 3pm, at the MGM Grand.

Posts will either be plentiful or rather sparse, depending on how much time we get. With the lineup that’s been put together, I’m sure there will be loads and loads of super content.

For the Turtle part of the post: The feeder guppies that were living with PoSH and Jeos had babies… so now there are 2 RES (Turtles), 12 feeder fish, and 1 sucker fish.

With luck, the guppies will survive log enough to breed again, and the tank will be relatively self sustaining.

As we (Pancil and I again) are talking about PowerShell and it’s use in multiple virtual infrastructures, be expecting to see an announcement or two in the near future!

Happy spring holiday from ProfessionalVMware.

PoSH and JeOS have moved upstairs and into the ProfessionalVMware.com ‘offices’. They also received a major upgrade to their filtration system (hint: they had none prior, and were getting regular water changes). Take a look:

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Forgot to do this Sunday, but below is a video of the VMware turtles being put back into their pond:

A few weeks ago I introduced you to one of the newest members of the Professional VMware staff, JeOS. This week, you get to meet his partner in crime, PoSH!

Like JeOS, PoSH is a baby Red Eared Slider, and like PowerShell for which he’s named, is still new on the scene, but is growing rapidly!

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I got a bit carried away this weekend on other projects (mostly reading, with a side of biking), so here is an early morning dose of turtle love for this Monday.

Picture by: Moha’ Al-Bastaki

Turtle Races!

The Flint RiverQuarium held their first Turtle Race on the facility’s water steps that same afternoon.

“This is something everyone in the community can do,” said Laura Calhoun, the event chair. “We need to do all we can to support it.”

Roughly 10,000 turtles participated in the race with four heats of 2,500. To adopt a turtle, participants were asked to donate $5 — which will go to benefit the RiverQuarium. As of an hour before the race 8,158 turtles had been adopted. This comes out to a making of almost $41,000.

“I was surprised by the turnout. (The adoption number) went beyond what our expectations were,” said Calhoun. “Based on today’s success we will do this for a long time.”

JeOS! Pronounced “Juice”. What a concept. Isn’t it? JeOS is still a relatively new concept in the virtualization scene. Build an appliance with “Just enough OS”. As it’s a relatively new concept, I’ve got a relatively new turtle (two actually, but you’ll meet the other later).

Meet JeOS:

JeOS is a Red Eared Slider, all of a few inches in size. Like the JeOS concept, JeOS the turtle will grow over time. He’s pictured on his basking rock, and in the second one, next to my Swiss Army knife of about 3.5” (imperial inches, for all 6 of my .EU readers

Picture by: Harold_5056@flickr

Because it’s still cold around these parts. At least, still cold for a Floridian living in Texas. Here is a comforting article about how these little guys survive the winter:

Questions about how various animals survive winter come across my desk (or rather my computer screen) rather frequently. Every species living in the temperate zone has to cope in some way with winter cold. Birds fly south as winter approaches. Mammals add a layer of body fat when cold weather arrives. Trees lose their leaves before they freeze. Turtles, one of the most conspicuous animals in warm weather, have special ways to deal with winter.
What happened to the turtles you saw basking on logs or sun-warmed rocks during spring, summer and fall? They have disappeared. Where did they go, and why? Turtles are reptiles, so their surroundings determine their body temperature. At body temperatures of about 40 to 50 degrees, most reptiles become sluggish, stop eating and seek hiding places to get safely through the winter.
Many aquatic turtles go into the bottom mud or under the bank where the water is cold but does not freeze. An advantage reptiles have over most mammals is that their metabolism drops with their body temperature, meaning that they require less oxygen. Some turtles can stay underwater for days at a time without taking a breath, as long as the water stays cold.

Source.

Good news for North Carolina Turtles, from thestate.com

A House subcommittee approved a bill (H.3121) designed to prevent the mass exportation of our turtles for food or the pet trade. The bill allows no more than 10 of certain species of turtles to be taken from the state by any individual, and no more than 20 by that individual in a calendar year. The species covered include yellowbelly, chicken, eastern painted, spiny softshell, Florida softshell, common snapping and box turtles, along with Florida cooters and river cooters.

In recent years, the Asian food trade has gobbled up millions of U.S. turtles. North Carolina enacted restrictions on turtle exports last year, and other Southern states have regulations in the works.

Because turtles don’t reproduce until late in their long lives, their populations don’t rebound quickly like many game animals, said turtle researcher Whit Gibbons. Worse yet, they are easy to trap in large numbers in ponds and rivers