October, 2008

ImgBurn - Utilized for Vmware

ImgBurn is my favorite software to create images for my Vmware deployments. Nothing is easier then putting a CD in the drive, creating an ISO then putting the ISO on the ESX server to mount at will. To make this wonderful application portable, install it to your hard drive. Then locate the installation directory and copy the folder to a USB drive, that’s it, its that easy. Here is an insert from the official website. Sorry its kind of long, but i didn’t want to leave out the list of features! Go here to check out more features and to download the product, remember if you like the application and find it useful, he accepts donations…

—–

ImgBurn supports a wide range of image file formats - including BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI.

It can burn Audio CD’s from any file type supported via DirectShow / ACM - including AAC, APE, FLAC, M4A, MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, PCM, WAV, WMA and WV.

You can use it to build DVD Video discs (from a VIDEO_TS folder), HD DVD Video discs (from a HVDVD_TS folder) and Blu-ray Video discs (from a BDAV / BDMV folder) with ease.

It supports Unicode folder/file names, so you shouldn’t run in to any problems if you’re using an international character set.

ImgBurn supports all the Windows OS’s - Windows 95, 98, Me, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista and 2008 (including all the 64-bit versions). If you use Wine, it should also run on Linuxand other x86-based Unixes.

It’s a very flexible application with several advanced features that are often lacking in other tools, especially when it comes to burning DVD Video discs. It supports all the latest drives without the need for updates (including booktype / bitsetting / advanced settings on many of the major ones - i.e. BenQ, LiteOn, LG, NEC, Plextor, Samsung, Sony).

There is an image queue system for when you’re burning several images (which you can automatically share between multiple drives if you have more than one) and an easy-to-uselayer break selection screen for double layer DVD Video jobs. The Automatic Write Speed feature allows you store your favourite burn speed settings on a per ‘Media ID’ basis, right down to a drive by drive level. Data captured during the burn (write speed, buffer levels etc) can be displayed / analysed using DVDInfoPro.

Whilst ImgBurn is designed to work perfectly straight out of the box, advanced users will appreciate just how configurable it is.

Oh and let’s not forget the best thing about it…. it’s 100% FREE

—–

Cheers,
NS

Racked My First C3000 Blade Enclosure

Well Its done, I officially racked my first HP C3000 Blade Enclosure with an MSA (Modular Smart Array). I tell you when they say you need to follow instructions to rack this beast, they were right… It took 4 techs to carry this 180lbs server, and it wasn’t even fully populated yet! First thing we had to do was remove all power supplies and spacers, then we had to unscrew the actually guts of the Blade enclosure. Once the Enclosure was completely empty, just an outer shell, it took 2 of us to rack it. After it is racked you get to put it back together. Power supplies, MSA Controller, GBE2 interconnects, then the blades themselves. It was quite an exciting time for me, as I have never actually worked with this kind of technology.

The setup follows, I am going to be quick and dirty on the description!

The C3000 Blade Enclosure has 2 Blades, each Blade has a Quad Core 2.333Ghz Processor, 16GB ram, and 2x 72GB (Raid 0) hdds. The C3000 is connected to an MSA using 2x GBE2 Interconnects. There are 2 controllers on the MSA so we were able to create redundant connections from the GBE2 switches to the MSA( just incase one port dies). The GBE2 switches were also redundantly connected to a Cisco Layer 3 switch. All of this plugged into a nice R5500VA HP Rack mounted UPS.

We are going to run ESX Foundation on each Blade, and each Blade will control 600GB LUNS on the MSA. No automatic Vmotion, but at least if a blade drops we can move the VM’s to the other store and boot them up… pretty good Redundancy for an sound price, which is withheld! This is only the beginning!

Anyways I hope I didn’t bore you guys, and I really hope I made SOME sense.

Take care and again have a great night!

Advice on Roaming Profiles

They have one pro and some cons… mind you the pro is kind of all encompassing…

The pro is basically that you can have your profile on any PC in your organization. This means you don’t have to reset up outlook, favorites, desktops, etc… everything is there.

The Cons, Outlook and Outlook express can be finicky with Roaming profiles, sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. Depending on the size of the profile, the initial sync can take a long time (if you’ve invested in a gigabit network you have that covered). A warning here, DO NOT use offline folders with roaming profiles. it is a very bad combo and I have never really had luck with it. I have come across some companies where previous consultants setup roaming profiles, OKAY, but then they have My Documents redirected to the server AND offline folders set to My Documents. I mean who does that? I just had to laugh at that, then promptly disabled Offline files. I almost forgot that you have to make sure domain users or the users account is a local admin, this usually helps with roaming profiles.

Anyways enough about that… enjoy your evening!

NS

Noisy Powersupplies

Okay so I have this issue… I have a PC at home, its pretty nice, Core 2 Duo with 2 GB ram, 1 TB of combined space, XFX Geforce 8800GT XXX Edition, 22″ wide monitor and one heck of a noisy powersupply!!! It wasn’t cheap either, but its noisy and sometimes I cannot sleep with the PC on. So I am on the hunt for a new powersupply… but I need to make sure its quiet. I just don’t get how all the HP systems and DELL systems are always so quiet, even the cheap ones… I took to the net and soon enough I stumbled upon the VX Series from Corsair, check out the goods here. Basically the fan is dynamic up until it really needs it, this stupid fan I have runs at the same speed 24/7 which is ridiculous… I think I will be ordering the VX550w powersupply. Once it is installed I’ll let you all know how it turned out!

NS

Update… 10 minutes later

HX620W over at shopbot.ca (link here) got a great review and its only 100$ CDN I think ill be getting that one instead… this one is modular and can pump out more wattage at lower decibels!

Servers and Outgoing VPN’s

I ran into this one today. The client has a Windows Server 2003 R2 Server. They needed to enable a VPN connection to another company for data transfers etc. Upon disconnecting they figured nothing was wrong. A call came in that stated the remote users could no longer RDP into the server. The first thing I wanted to find out is if the host site had internet, so I opened up RDP and tried to connect, nothing, okay I figured internet was down. I called the client and got them to test the internet, it was fine… Next step I took was to get onto the server somehow, RDP was down, luckily we have remote software that can connect through SSL from anywhere to anywhere. I got connected to the server, checked for errors in event viewer, and there were no errors whatsoever. I checked the firewall, RDP port was still forwarded, ran ipconfig /all, and the local IP was the same. I did however notice that the VPN connection still had an IP address, which I thought was strange. I checked network connections and noticed that the VPN Connection was disconnected. Since I had no direct way to stop a connected(but really disconnected) VPN, I figured I would click connect. It connected fine. I then disconnected from it again and all of a sudden RDP was back!Moral of the story is, if you use a VPN to an external company for whatever reason, disconnect but also make sure you test with any remote users, as you may have inadvertently cut them off! NS

Tversity Multimedia Server

“Delivering any media to any device; an extensible platform independent Media Server that can serve any media to any networked device doing all the necessary conversions to overcome the limitations of any given device. “

Here is something that no multimedia freak can go without… streaming media from your PC to an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 to name a couple.

Go here to download the client application.

I use TVersity to stream my media to my Xbox 360, I can pretty much translate any media file into a compatible stream that the Xbox 360 can play. Works like a charm!

TVersity Wiki is also a good place to get info on how to configure and utilize this great app.

Any questions leave me a comment and I might be able to help out.

Regards,
NS

PartedMagic (no its not Partition Magic!)

Need to partition your hdd? Dont want to pay for expensive software?

Go here and check it out.

PartedMagic is an opensource partitioning tool, havent heard of it? Well Maximum PC wrote a small article on it that I managed to stumble apon.

Since I am a Windows Fan-Boy, I would suggest the pmagic-3.0.zip, use an app that can burn a cd from an iso.

Make sure your CD is set to boot first!

Boot into the GUI and start GParted (Gnome Partition Editor)

If your reading this blog them I am sure you can figure out the rest… if not go here…

Good Luck!

Regards,
NS

Google SMS?

Well here is an interesting one for you all… something called Google Txt

Go ahead… enter this contact into your phone (466453)

Now send it a text message… saaay “weather winnipeg” hit send…. about 5 seconds later you will receive a reply, as below

Weather:
Winnipeg, MB
11C, Mostly Cloudy
Wind: S 13 km/h
Hum: 72%
Tue: 10C-13C, Clear
Wed: 6C-11C, Mostly Sunny
Thu: 4C-8C, Partly Sunny

Or maybe your looking for sushi close to work….. so you enter “sushi R3M 2K8″ entering your local postal code will search for sushi places near that area.

(1/2)Local Listings:
Kenko Sushi
788 Corydon Avenue
Winnipeg, R3M 0Y1
204-275-3656

Meiji Sushi & G Martini Bar
659 Corydon Avenue
Winnipeg, R3M 0W3
(2/2)204-453-1120

Blufish Japanese Sushi Restaurant
179 Bannatyne Avenue
Winnipeg, R3B 0R7
204-779-9888

You can pretty much type anything you want… So go ahead, give it a try… and have fun!

Xbox 360 will not get Blu-Ray

Im a huge Xbox 360 fan, and I was hoping that Blueray would be integrated into the Xbox 360 experience but an audio interview by Aaron Greenberg squashes that dream. He basically says that the next gen entertainment will be all digital ie Netflix, has anyone seen the new interface that Microsoft is going to release for free? It looks pretty damn cool… anyways i gotta jet, feel free to comment…

here is the audio interview…

NewEgg.ca

I enjoy e-shopping on newegg.com as they have good items at good prices… now they have crossed borders and just opened their new website NewEgg.ca

Here is an inserpt from itbusiness.ca

“The Canadian market is catching up quickly in converting researcher to buyer. It will only be a matter of time before Canadians see that online prices are better and it will save a trip to the store.” Newegg.ca will offer a smaller selection of products than their American counterpart, but will increase their product-list incrementally throughout the next year and rapidly over the next few years.