Knowledge exchange site Stack Overflow and its cousins Super User and Server Fault created quite a stir when they were released by noted developers Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood. And though it should probably have been obvious, in the process of building out these niche sites, what they had actually done was build a knowledge exchange platform.

Now that platform, called StackExchange, has been released to the general public to build their own knowledge exchange sites. That is, if you're willing to pay a monthly minimum of $129US.

That's right; the smallest plan that is available right now would cost you $1,548US yearly. I hate to make this story about the pricing, but given how outrageous it is, it's hard not to. As someone who has struggled to launch sites, it seems to me that the only people that would choose this platform for a fledgling site would be people with money to burn. Now, Joel and Jeff are smart guys. Maybe they've simply figured out that people with money to burn are the best customers.

Another surprising thing about StackExchange is that of their four plans, only the most expensive one allows you to actually host the site on your own premises. That plan costs $2,500US per month - for the privilege of using your own bandwidth!

There's no doubt that StackExchange is a powerful platform. And anyone that claims they can reverse-engineer it in a weekend is insane. It's the kind of platform that you would love to see generating interesting little sites all over the place dedicated to tight niches like woodworking, late 60's Mustang restoration, DIY plumbing, or even whistling. But the pricing model that is being used threatens to make StackExchange virtually irrelevant -- to everyone online except for Spolsky and Atwood, that is.

Software gurus Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood released Stack Overflow last year, a site for software developers to pose questions and help each other out with answers. Since then they've been busy putting together more sites on the same engine. They now have what they are (just for fun) calling their "Stack Overflow trilogy": Stack Overflow, Server Fault, and Super User.

Since we already know what Stack Overflow is all about, let's have a quick look at Server Fault and Super User.

Server Fault

Server Fault is a question and answer site for system administrators. It's the place to go if you need help with networks, servers, or managing many user's PCs. Typical topics include configuring mail servers, Active Directory, routing, and network security.

Super User

Super User is, in my mind, the most interesting of the three. It's a site dedicated to computer enthusiasts, otherwise known as power users. They're the people out there that are not necessarily programmers, not necessarily network administrators, but still know how to make their computer system bend to their will, and if they don't know something, they can eventually figure it out. Super User might make the job of figuring out your next problem a little easier, since it allows you to browse a huge database of questions, and pose your own questions that other power users can answer.

Since Super User only released to the public yesterday, it's still pretty fresh and just getting going. But I suspect it serves a very large market that is hungry for a solution like this, and it will grow very quickly.

When you're running a Virtual Machine, you don't always need all the trimmings--usually your goal is to get a particular set of tasks done, and a full-fledged install of Windows has a lot that gets in the way of that and can slow you down. Jeff Atwood has a great tutorial at his blog about creating smaller virtual machines. He says that since Microsoft made the Windows version of Virtual PC free, he's "become obsessed with producing the smallest possible Windows XP Virtual PC image." While your run-of-the-mill XP install takes up more than 1GB, Atwood's tutorial squeezes it down to 758MB. Still big, but better. One of his steps involves the use of XPlite, an app that will cost you $39.95, which might not be an investment more casual VMers would want to make. His tutorial is aimed at Microsoft Virtual PC, but it's probably applicable to other virtualization solutions as well.