My workflows have changed quite a bit over the years, with more focus being on the Windows side of things. That said, I havent stopped using Linux and still have a keen interest in both storage and management, which should be reflected here.

FreeBSD 9 – I’ve made the switch to this as my go-to server OS. The jails functionality and ports collections are amazing! This could run many of the functions listed herein, but at the very least is a great ZFSv28 test box for the uninitiated.

Astaro –  I’m still using Astaro after all these years, and Sophos purchasing them has not stopped the love. By far the easiest way to start using Squid, Quagga and OpenVPN.

GNS3 Workbench – I use this for testing Cisco configurations on my way to certification. Load up an IOS image, configure, test away!

Nexenta Community Edition – My ZFS primer was done a few years ago using Nexenta, and it is still the easiest way to get into ZFS, so it deserves the nod. The first time you see the speedometers you’ll be in love.

Solaris 11 11/11 - For newer versions of ZFS, you’re stuck with Solaris 11.11.11. You can download this for free, but won’t be able to get support and updates without a license, so I wouldn’t consider it production-ready.

Bactrack 5 – Time to test your wifi security. I’d recommend plugging an Alfa USB wifi device into ESX, sharing the device with the VM and scanning your access point in order to do quick audits.

Windows Server 2008 R2 – Not free, per se, but a good trial that should be enough to get you going on your road to certification. I use the Core install for DHCP and DNS when Windows integration is important.

Citrix XenApp – You’ll need to convert this one, but combined with the developer license, you’ll get 2 concurrent users, include the web access gateway. Click this for a tutorial on getting the developer license, which has always been a bit of a pain.

Plop Boot Manager – Great ISO for booting and testing USB sticks.

Amahi – Easy as pie mDNS and uPnP autodiscovery. I’ve written about this being a poor Windows Home Server replacement before, but to be fair they get an awful lot right at this point in time.

OSX Lion – A $20 purchase, and well worth it! Follow the guide here to get it all working in ESXi

Ubuntu LTS - Ubuntu is currently the most popular Linux distribution, can run a wealth of software. Finally took over OpenSuSE as my go-to distribution. The only thing I would mention is that unity does not work so well in ESXi, and if you require the whole desktop experience, you might be better off with Xubuntu or Mint.

• Windows XP/Vista/2008/7/8
• Mac OS 10.5.6+
• Flavours of Linux – Debian, RedHat, OpenSuSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS
• ChromeOS

• All of the above
• BSD: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD
• Solaris and Open Indiana
• ChromiumOS
• Gentoo

• Google Music – free sync for up to 20000 songs. My iTunes replacement that allows offline play for iOS and Android
• Adblock – A must. I block adverts on everything.
• Google Reader - It took a very long time for me to get used to the way Google reader works, but it might actually be the best there is at the moment especially considering the aggregation of many feeds into one.
• Mint – Personal finance application I could not live without.
• IMO – Goodbye Adium, Pidgin and MSN Messenger! IMO.im is not only a multi-instance web chat client that runs everywhere, it also runs on iOS!
• Kindle Cloud Reader – Never lose your place. The web client knows where you were on your Kindle, iOS device and syncs it up for you.
• Google Finance – For stock checking and even watching mutuals. Find out when the next dividend is, sort companies by financials and even display candle graphs.
• Aviary – Has just surpassed Picnik as my only photo editor, and is now also integrated with flickr. Note that there are many Aviary editors ranging from vector to audio and even video.
• Netflix Instant Queue - I’m sure you’ve heard of this, but did you also realize that it will resume from PS3, XBOX 360, iPhone/iPad on the web? Outside of the US, we’re not able to use “Instant Queue” but this app brings it back.
• Offline Gmail – Spotty wifi? Don’t worry, Gmail offline has you covered.
• Google Voice - This doesn’t get as much hype as it should, but is a great app that can not only make calls for you, but also send SMS.

• SSHFS and Meld – Complicated, somewhat bloated, but great BeyondCompare alternative
• *Commander Utilities – Midnight Commander derivatives can accomplish similar tasks using the ctrl+x,d shortcut
• Rsync – typically installed by default, easy to script

I chose Rsync as I wanted something more automated, but I do find myself using Midnight Commander from time-to-time to simply “get things done” when syncing files other than my images.

Here’s how I did it:

rsync -a -e ssh /volumes/PICTURES/ 'username@mymac:/Volumes/BIGRAID/'

Let’s break this down into smaller pieces:

rsync - this is the command that will do our heavy lifting and file comparison

-a - archive mode

-e - specify an RSH replacement

ssh  - use SSH

/volumes/PICTURES/ - this specifies the “Volumes” folder on my Mac, and the “PICTURES” drive within it. Replace this with the location of your items to backup

‘ - note the use of single quotes here. We’re using these in case there are spaces in the folder names, and we could have done the same above.

username@mymac - We’re logging on to the host “mymac” with the username “username”. You’ll probably want to change these. I use a hostname here, but you could just as easily use an IP address if you use static IP addresses.

:/volumes/BIGRAID/ - the colon denotes a subfolder on the server we are backing up to, and /volumes/BIGRAID in this case refers to a ZFS pool called “BIGRAID”.

Do you have a similar backup strategy for BSD/Unix targets that you would like to share?

First, to find the used snapshot space, run this command:
zfs list -o space
This will give you a detailed readout of your pools and snapshot space used.

Here’s my script to wipe ZFS snap shots, but I am certainly open to suggestion:
zfs list -H -o name -t snapshot | xargs -n1 zfs destroy
Again, caution is needed as this will remove ALL SNAPS from your pools.

Here’s a quick kit list and build diary I’ll try to keep up-to-date as I go along.

Kit:

• Dell Perc6i – this is essentially a port multiplier. I scored it from eBay on the cheap, though it was delivered from Israel, took awhile, and had neither cables nor mounting bracket.
• OCZ RevoDrive 120GB – Though the RAID controller on this card is not supported in Linux/Solaris, the drives show up as two separate devices as long as you make sure to put it in the right PCIe slot. That means it’s perfect for both ZIL (log) and L2ARC (cache).
• 2x Intel 80GB X25-M SSDs – these will house the virtual machine files to be deduped. Very reliable drives, and though they might not be the fastest in terms of writes, the speeds are relatively constant which is quite handy compared to solutions that attempt compression like SandForce controllers. ZFS will take care of that, thanks.
• (IN TRANSIT) 2x Dual Port 1gbit Intel PCIe NICs – I’ll use these for the direct connection to the virtual machine host. Currently one link is used, but when reading from the SSD drives the line is saturated.
• (IN TRANSIT) 32 Pin SAS Controller To 4x SATA HDD Serial Cable Cord – This is needed to plug in 8 drives to the LSI controller.
• 5x 1.5TB Seagate hard drives – These will be the bread-and-butter storage running in RAID-Z2 (similar to RAID 6).
• 3x 3TB Seagate hard drives – These might simply be a large headache, but the plan was to have an extra 3TB RAID-Z2 for backups in another machine. Unfortunately there seem to be issues with drives that are 4k presenting themselves as 512b. I may be able to get around this by hacking or waiting as they become more popular. For now 2 of them are in software RAID1 on a Windows 7 host, and the other remains in the external USB 3 case and is used as a backup drive.
• NetGear GS108T Switch – A cheap VLAN-capable switch should I decide to use more than 2 bonded ports (I doubt it), currently running the lab.

In short: not well at all.

First, the good things: when configured properly, Amahi offers DLNA/uPNP streaming and the ability to send h264 streams to iPod/iPad/iPhone devices. It also supports backups, disk spanning, remote access, dynamic DNS (*.yourhda.com) and a slew of other features that should have you salivating by now.

The bad? None of it works out of the box.

In order to set up an Amahi server, you must first complete a Fedora 12 install. That’s right, Fedora 12. Not 13 or 14, don’t be confused. Just like most open source software, Amahi suffers from circular dependency issues if you choose the wrong version and the wrong repository – be warned. (Note: if you want to use current versions of Fedora, make sure to change the repository to either f13.amahi.org or f14.amahi.org and realize that there are no plugins for either).

Fedora 12 is a relatively easy install, but when you’re manually setting IP configurations, you lose most of the WHS market in one fell swoop. Fail?

After the install has completed, you logon to Fedora and run the Amahi installer. You’re met with a logon screen. What username and password to use? Pick anything and you’ve just been made an admin. Security by obscurity or brainless UI design? I think it’s the latter.

This install will take almost as long as the Fedora build, which is counter-intuitive. Why not simply chain the install? Why not build a freaking fork that contains Amahi? I’m ranting here, but I find this bit incredibly odd, especially since Amahi has specific OS requirements.

OK, we’ve survived, we’ve realized that eth0 is the only card available to Amahi by now, and through process of elimination we’ve figured out which port Fedora has decided this is. We’ve realized the firewall has been disabled, we’ve entered the activation code and received an email letting us know that we now own http://im.yourhda.com

Huzzah.

Let’s start packing it full of media, eh? We’ll need disks for that, but they are in the case so we should be OK – let’s add a disk to Amahi and let the good times roll. Oh wait, you can’t do that. Why not? It needs to be done via commandline. OK, getting the sleeves rolled up is fun once in a while, disks added.

Let’s add some media to the disks. Done. the transfer speed is a good 10% faster than WHS, and 50% faster than Vail. Good news. But you have to use SCP to do it… The Samba sharing doesn’t actually work out of the box (fixed later in Fedora). More fail.

Alright, media is on the device, let’s play some. Pop on the TV, have a look for uPNP or DLNA devices. None. Hmm. Oh yeah, it’s not even added yet.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

Some quick observations:

• Open borders allows you to surround an enemy, then attack. This works wonders later on.
• The trebuchet seems a bit overpowered, and is definitely the best way to attack cities.
• The easiest way I know of to skip the first intro movie is to simply rename “Civ5_Opening_Movie_en_US.wmv” to something else.
• Alternatively, edit the “usersettings.ini” file found in “My Documents\My Games\Sid Meiers Civilization 5\”. Make sure to change “SkipIntroVideo=0″ to “=1″ on line 15.
• For a copy of the English manual for Civ5, head here
• How to turn on workers automatically keeping improvements
  In the My Documents folder go to the Civ V folder and then look for the “usersettings.ini” file.

  There is a setting called AutoWorkersDontReplace. Change the value from 0 to 1.

Unfortunately, Lightroom 3′s catalog is essentially a database of photos, and the more you put in it, the more slowly it will run. In this case, the MacBook Pro’s stock 320GB 5400 RPM hard drive just isn’t cutting the mustard. Simple actions like scrolling through images from the last import can be painful. Using Firefox or Chrome while importing makes everything crawl, and I’m forced to look for entertainment in Meat Space. The horror!

I know, “it can’t be that bad” is what you’re thinking. It is. Imports can take up to an hour. While on vacation, the last thing I want to be doing is waiting for imports of photos I’ve already taken while I could be out taking more photos.

I mentioned the fact that I use Windows 7 on the MBP. This is via either Boot Camp or VMware Fusion (running the Boot Camp partition). Things work swimmingly in Boot Camp, but I really have to be careful in Fusion because many of the newer Mac applications are RAM-hungry, and you start paging to disk quickly. Since the disk is so slow, you’re at a standstill within minutes.

So the problem essentially boils down to two things, both of which could have been resolved at time of purchase had I looked into the specs a bit further.

1. Not enough memory
2. Hard drive too slow

Costs add up

The memory upgrade, direct from Apple, via their online store, is a whopping $420. The hard drive upgrade from 320GB 5400 RPM to 500GB 7200 RPM is $158. Together I would have shelled out $578 in order to get the system where I think it needs to be.

Enter the Apple Technician

In the not-so-distant past, I repaired Apple laptops for a certified depot. It used to be pretty difficult as some of the Mac laptops had an inordinate amount of screws of varying sizes and dizzying teardown diagrams. I would say I was competent, but it really wasn’t something enjoyable. That said, I have been out of the game for a bit, and things have seemingly gotten much easier for the majority of Apple laptops. Often, you can simply remove the bottom case to gain access to wireless cards, Bluetooth, SuperDrive, hard drive and memory. And such is the case with the Macbook Pro 15″ i5.

Using the diagrams found at iFixIt, I was able to confirm that only a little bit of work would be needed to perform the upgrades. That means I save money on labour, which isn’t cheap.

Price Comparison

I was able to source hard drives at the 500GB capacity ranger running at 7200RPM for very cheap. I’d be looking at around $80, worst case. But being spoiled on other computers running solid state drives, I thought I should look into the option of adding an SSD instead. Though they have come down in price, getting larger capacity SSD drives can run upwards of $400 easily. Ouch. I decided to settle on one of Seagate’s newly-released “hybrid” drives that combine 4GB of superfast SSD with 500GB of traditional rotating platter storage. This should hopefully give me the best of both worlds. The cost? About $140. That’s definitely a few dollars less than the “off the shelf” Apple price, though it’s also double the cost of a typical 500GB 2.5″ hard disk. But speed is the issue to address, and I’m confident the HDD will address that. My only concern will be the speed of the platters may produce noise.

The memory for a MacBook Pro i5 is slightly harder to find. It took some poking around to find the exact speed and latency of the chips, as I want to make sure the logic board won’t complain, and no unforeseen issues would be introduced. After looking at Kingston’s website, I was able to deduce that the full specifications of the RAM are as follows:

• Format – 204 pin SODIMM
• Speed – PC3-8500 / DDR3 1066MHz
• Latency – 7-7-7-20

This is not cheap memory. We’re talking high speed, high density, low latency RAM. After searching high and low, I came across some Mushkin RAM that was Mac certified. I wasn’t even aware that Mushkin made Mac certified RAM, but boy was I happy. The cost for an 8GB pair of 4GB SODIMM modules was only $260! In case you’re interested, the part number is “996644″, and I still don’t see a better deal from ANY vendor for memory this fast with timings this tight. Even for PC.

Our current total is sitting at $400. That’s less than even the RAM would cost from Apple.

Going Forward

Not to miss any opportunities, I decided to go one step further. Removing the memory and hard drive would leave me with spare parts. These could be sold on Craigslist locally for cheap, or I could re-use them. Use for the hard drive is pretty easy: Time Machine backup. A $20 external AcomData 2.5″ Ruggedized Samurai enclosure would fit the bill well, but the last thing you want to do on vacation is lug around cables and accessories. In my experience, they either get lost or forgotten (or both). This may not be the case for everyone, but I actually rarely use optical media. My data is transferred using USB sticks if I need to sneakernet, over wifi or LAN if I need to backup (and again to another location off-site to be safe) and when I do make audio “mixtapes”, it’s not often as I use an iPod for music.

So here I have a useless device taking up space in the laptop. Some digging, and looking at the tear-down told me a 2.5″ hard drive could fit in there easily. Excellent, a use for the old drive that takes up no extra space! Of course, like many good ideas I think I have come up with first, someone had “been there, done that” before, and you can buy full kits online for cheap. I found two companies that sell these: MCE and OWC. I opted for OWC because I really don’t have a need for the external optical drive that MCE throws in for “free”, creating a $20 difference in price as I have a Lacie DVD-RW already. Cost of this part: $80. (MCE’s is around $100 if you still might need that SuperDrive)

The total now sits at $480. More than the cost of the RAM, but still considerably less than the over $700 cost to have Apple do this at time of purchase. If you had messed up and bought the lower-end 15″ i5 Macbook Pro, there would also be at least an hour of labour on top. Typically that would run about $150.

I’m left with 2x 2GB DDR3 SODIMM modules, which might be hard to get rid of at any price, though they make a good upgrade for Mac Mini users. I’ve looked high and low for DDR3 SODIMM “RAMDisks” to no avail. I realize these aren’t the best devices, and never really had a following, but it would certainly be handy to have on one of the servers. One can only dream, I suppose.

So there you have it, cheap upgrade, easy install, no regrets. Preliminary testing tells me that the boot time has been halved, and Lightroom is much faster, though it’s not as fast as running it on my Mac Pro with SSD.

At some point I will probably look at replacing the second internal drive with a solid state boot drive when I replace the Intel X25-M G2 80GB in the Mac Pro with a SandForce SSD, and I will make sure to post some speeds when that frabjous day finally arrives.

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs_lightroom3

You can also check out the new new features here:

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/03/video_whats_new_in_lr3_beta_2.html

This comes just in time for me! Can’t wait to try out the new features and kick the tires a bit. LR3 Beta 1 was slightly unstable when doing imports – hopefully they’ve addressed this.

I would love to be able to pre-order Lightroom 3 if I could, and simply have it the moment it’s available as most of the work I do involves Lightroom and Illustrator.

Enjoy the videos, folks!

Why, you ask? Simply because I thought I could… A little while after downloading the Windows Home Server trial, it became apparent that there was no selection for this operating system. No matter, I thought, it’s based on Windows Server 2003, so I should simply be able to select that, right? Unfortunately not that easy. First, the hard disk type selected by default by VMware Fusion is SCSI. Without a driver disk (virtual floppy), you’ll have no luck. Also, the amount of memory available doesn’t meet the Windows Home Server requirements.

My method?

Try these settings:

- Windows Server 2003 Web Server

- No “easy install” settings

- 512MB RAM

- Remove the default HDD

- Add an 80GB IDE HDD

- Make sure the ISO is mounted

Things seem to be working at this point.

Hope this helps someone, I trawled Google and the Fusion forums with no luck.

Shame we don’t get the accompanying CD, but all the same, this is a very good book (coming from someone who uses the first edition). 

Download here

I have a pretty strong feeling that this will make clients of both happy.

You can right-click just as if you were using a mouse, but without using your mouse, using the shift and F10 keys together.

For example, if you’d like to extract a .RAR in a directory, simply press END, cursor up, then shift+F10 and extract! Voila! Easy as pie extract in every folder in windows with 4 keystrokes.

More tips coming soon as the new year kicks off to a good start folks!

Here’s why: much of the money you get from this game is through sponsors. When driving any of these cars, you will not get any sponsor money, as they are all ready “branded”, to use the GRID term.

That said, it’s pretty neat to unlock all of the drift cars as I find those events next to impossible, and some of you may find that having the muscle cars unlocked is a nifty trick.

Finally, if you want to race the car you’ve unlocked and have the money, you can actually purchase a new car, brand it, slap some sponsor logos on it, and you can race that to you heart’s content while being showered with oodles of dough in the hopes of signing some million dollar rookie.

Good luck!

TUN58396
- All drift cars

MUS59279

- All muscle cars

F93857372

- Buchbinder 320si Livery

M38572343

- Free Pagani Zonda R

P47203845

- Play.com Livery

G29782655

- Unlock a BMW 320si for Use in Grid World and Raceday. Locked to Gamestation Livery

When attempting to access a Citrix secure web gateway on SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, you’ll get the following error: You have not chosen to trust “Equifax Secure Global eBusiness CA-1″
Here goes:
Install the root certificate by opening a root x terminal session:

wget http://www.geotrust.com/resources/root_certificates/certificates/Equifax_Secure_Certificate_Authority_DER.cer && cp Equifax_Secure_Certificate_Authority_DER.cer /usr/lib/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts/Equifax_Secure_Certificate_Authority_DER.crt && exit

Browse to your Citrix web gateway again and login, then run an application.

Presto!

(PARDON THE LINEWRAP, BUT THIS ONE-LINER IS WORTH IT)

I have a Call of Duty: WaW beta code that I don’t need.

I’m going to do a random draw from the first 25 responses, then give it away!

So far, the beta is awesome. This isn’t CoD4, but pretty darn good just the same.

Just so you guys know I’m not pulling your legs, here’s a pic of the email I got, as well as the text from the email:

Xbox 360 Multiplayer Code!

Thank you for registering on CallofDuty.com and welcome to the Call of Duty: World at War Xbox 360™ Multiplayer Beta*!

Here is your unique Xbox 360 multiplayer code:
XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

In order to participate in the Xbox 360 Demo:

   1. Receive your Xbox Live® Marketplace Token (above) and write it down.
      You will not be able to download the Beta without it
   2. Log into Xbox Live with your gamer profile
   3. Access Xbox Live Marketplace through the Xbox 360™ Dashboard
   4. Click Redeem Code
   5. Enter your Xbox Live Marketplace Token when prompted
   6. Start the download
   7. Join the fight!

Download the instruction manual (432 kb PDF).

And remember, we want to hear from you! Please come back to CallofDuty.com and give us your feedback, what you like and what you’d change to make Call of Duty: World at War the best experience possible!

* The PC Beta is coming up next! Stay close to CallofDuty.com and check your email for details soon to come!

We can fix number 1 by simply getting more RAM. I find Craigslist to be of great use here. Number two is a bit more difficult as G4 processor upgrades are ridiculously expensive once you consider the cost of a Mac Mini, and also requires a bit of tech savvy under the hood as you’d be swapping CPUs.
Not to worry, though. Here’s a way to convince OpenFirmware that your CPU is 867mhz, and allow the installer to boot, install, and get you off and running:
Boot into Open Firmware, I have covered this extensively here:
Once in OpenFirmware, issue the following commands (for single CPU):
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
boot cd:,\\:tbxi
For dual CPU:
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@1
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
boot cd:,\\:tbxi
Note that all we are doing is over-writing the CPU clock-frequency (speed) property for each CPU installed, at boot time.
Also, if you need to boot another device, try:
printenv boot-device
This will return a list of boot devices to use when booting the installer. I used this in order to boot a Firewire device that had had a disc image (DMG) restored to it, making things a bit easy and faster.

Good luck!

So without  further ado, here is the script that will install kext files for you – be warned – you’ll need to know how to get the kext file in the first place, as well as the filename.

Easy right?

Let’s get started.

Open the Terminal application by going to Applications / Utilities / Terminal.app – you will see it in the Utilities folder – it looks like a command prompt.

Once terminal has launched, type in the following command:

sudo -s

Enter the root or first user password that you inputted during the setup process.

This tells it to run any other commands after this one as the root or superuser account, allowing you to edit files you normally would not have permission to edit.

Here’s an example using IOATAFamily.kext, a popular ATA driver. You’ll want to replace this by your own driver name. Also, you’ll want to make sure the file is unzipped, and sitting on your desktop. Oh one more thing, you’ll want to edit YOURUSERNAME with… your username

Hope that helps!

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080707/LAM083LOGO)

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030403/SQUARELOGO)

SONG SUMMONER: The Unsung Heroes is a Role-Playing Game that transforms your iPod(R) songs into powerful “Tune Troopers” that you can control in battle! As the protagonist Ziggy, you will embark on an epic journey to rescue your brother from the clutches of the Mechanical Militia! Intriguing characters, an epic story and a tactics-based battle system combine for a rich RPG experience previously only available on home and handheld game consoles.

SONG SUMMONER: The Unsung Heroes
Publisher: Square Enix, Inc.
Platform: iPod nano with video, iPod classic and fifth generation iPod
Genre: Role-Playing
Launch Date: July 8, 2008
Price: 4.99 USD (iTunes Store download)
Story

From the days of old, Melodica was a land of music, a land of freedom. The people sang, played and danced to the music they so cherished. Until one day, they came — the Mechanoids, who enhanced their bodies with machinery. Those who were tempted by greed and power willingly gave away their souls for bodies of steel, forsaking their humanity to become cold, emotionless automatons. Now, they seek to destroy all that do not embrace their way of life.

But there is hope on the horizon. There are those who are fated to stand against the tyranny of the machines — the Superstars, who can turn sound into lethal weapons, and the Conductor, also known as the Song Summoner, who can summon powerful warriors born of music.

In their most desperate hour, Melodica awaits the arrival of their new Song Summoner…

Game Features

– Transform your iPod songs into “Tune Troopers” to combat the evil Mechanical Militia.

– Tune Trooper types and abilities are determined by the songs used to create them.

– Your Tune Troopers can be powered up even outside of the game – just by listening to the songs you used to create them!

– Control Ziggy, a “Conductor” that creates warriors out of music, and guide him through his journey to save his brother Zero from the Mechanical Militia.

– Experience a turn-based tactics battle system, divided into player and enemy phases where each side takes turns maneuvering their forces.

– Deploy the right troopers at the right time, and use contraptions found on the map effectively to achieve victory in battle!

– iPod Click Wheel allows players to play the game as easily as selecting music.

About Square Enix Co., Ltd. and Square Enix, Inc.

Square Enix Co., Ltd. (Square Enix), with headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, develops, publishes and distributes entertainment content including interactive entertainment software and publications in Asia, North America and Europe. Square Enix brings two of Japan’s best-selling franchises – FINAL FANTASY(R), which has sold over 80 million units worldwide, and
DRAGON QUEST(R), which has sold over 43 million units worldwide — under one roof. Square Enix is one of the most influential providers of digital entertainment content in the world and continues to push the boundaries of
creativity and innovation.

Square Enix, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Square Enix Co., Ltd. with offices in Los Angeles, California. It handles operations in North America, including development, localization, marketing, and publishing of Square Enix titles. More information on Square Enix can be found on the Internet at http://www.square-enix.com.

DRAGON QUEST, FINAL FANTASY, SONG SUMMONER and the SONG SUMMONER logo, SQUARE ENIX and the SQUARE ENIX logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Square Enix Co., Ltd. in the United States and/or other countries. iPod and iTunes are trademarks of Apple Inc, registered in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners

Check out the full blog post on Fusion 2.0 Leopard Server support at the VMware VMTN blog site here.

2) The console session will often allow you to see errors and popups that won’t appear in other sessions

3) As documented in this MSKB article, you will also be able to have the local user see what you are doing in this session, and vice-versa. This is called a shadowed console session, and is very handy.

There are a few ways to get a console session in Windows 2000, XP, and Vista:

1. Open your default.rdp file (typically in My Documents) and add the following line to the bottom: connect to console:i:1
2. In the RDC window, after the address, use the switch /console
3. From start, run, type: mstsc /console
4. Make a shortcut to RDC, edit it, and add the /console switch to it
5. If you are using visionapp Remote Desktop, there is a console session checkbox that you can use per connection

Gravatars have now been fixed, and appear whenever you comment on a post.

If you don’t have a gravatar yet, feel free to signup at http://gravatar.com – many sites now use them, so you’re time won’t be wasted.

But how does blandname use gravatars?

We implement them using a hacked-up version of some third-party code, but the display ends up being roughly the same as everywhere else – we just create a call to gravatar(); where we want to have gravatars displayed. Sounds easy huh?

From the note:

“This schedule change will not restrict us from promptly publishing an individual IOS Security Advisory for a serious vulnerability which is publicly disclosed or for which we are aware of active exploitation.
Cisco is adopting this approach in response to extensive feedback from customers, who seek further predictability for support planning and deployment cycles.

Microsoft has announced that they are planning to acquire VDI solution provider Kidaro today, according to Reuters.

From the Reuters article:

“Microsoft said Kidaro’s technology will be incorporated into its desktop virtualization product, which allows companies to deliver over an Internet network a “virtual” computer desktop different from the software running on the local machine.”

The VDI market is starting to be the place everyone is buying into, with a bunch of companies operating below the radar just waiting for things to happen and hoping for an offer.

Kidaro brings some nice features to the table including vDNA – the “self-cleaning” virtual desktop, and virtual desktops for enterprise data recovery.

It’s warming up in here!

An overview of vDNA from Kidaro:

Kidaro’s desktop virtualization platform works by running an encrypted, corporate-controlled virtual machine (VM) image on top of any PC, providing a secure and standardized environment for enterprise computing. Because the VM runs locally on corporate or third party PCs, the platform enables user mobility and disconnected use, without the need for expensive server farms.

Kidaro vDNA enables a stable, self-cleaning desktop by virtualizing and isolating two different kinds of “virtual DNA”:

• Personal data: includes end user files, passwords, configurations, bookmarks, and registry settings that make a desktop “yours.”
• Corporate desktop image: includes operating system, applications, configurations, and security tools that make up the standardized enterprise desktop.

By encapsulating and managing personal data separately, Kidaro vDNA enables the underlying virtual desktop image to be continually repaired and updated. In contrast to normal PC operation, where errors, corruptions, and unwanted software continually degrade performance, Kidaro vDNA insures that desktops always run clean, while enabling ongoing updates and upgrades from corporate IT. Users retain the ability to personalize their virtual desktop environment and to run personal applications on the underlying host PC.

So from what I can tell, this is a type of “sandbox” or “jail” technology similar to the “bubbles” in the SoftGrid product – a good match for Microsoft for sure, and the end of my quotes and italicized text!

I have personally tried them all out, and they are pretty fun!

Feel free to post your own in the comments, and we’ll highlight the ones that do you good.

From Timmaigh:

HOST:
Primary: AK-74u (Silenced)
Secondary: M1911 .45 (Silenced)
Perk 1: Bandolier (or Flash x3)
Perk 2: UAV Jammer
Perk 3: Steady Aim
Woodland Camo

“Works best on Downpour and Wet Work.”
Also From Timmaigh:

SHOTGUNNER:
Primary: M1014 (Grip)
Secondary: Desert Eagle
Perk 1: (Weapon Attachment)
Perk 2: Sleight of Hand
Perk 3: Steady Aim
Gold Camo

“Works best on Wet Work and Overgrown.”

From xX_qc3_Xx:

KILLER:

PRIMARY: M16 W/ RED DOT.
P90 SILENCED
FRAG X3
OVERKILL
DEEP IMPACT

“if you don’t like this then switch the weapons up. but i like the M16 for med. to long range maps like bog or crash. the p90 is also usefull if you are in levels like vacant or countdown. the p90 is the best cuz if u can hook it up wit uav jamma & deep impact and if you throw a silencer on dat bi#@h! you can go behind enemy lines and own them from behind” (ed: totally pwning from behind)

You can see comments on the right sidebar for now to tell when there are new comments, and as usual, you can always subscribe to comments via email as well!

The marketing speak:

NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) today debuted a new brand identity designed to achieve a broader and deeper awareness of the company and to communicate a consistent promise on a global basis to customers, partners, and employees. Extensive market research and testing helped NetApp create a new identity system that crystallizes the company’s promise to the market and unifies the look of and the experience everyone has with NetApp. The identity system makes a bold statement about NetApp’s strength in the marketplace and is designed to drive greater understanding of NetApp as a company people want to do business with.

So head on over to the IE8 page Microsoft has put up, and grab the first beta of the new next thing.

Some general info from the release notes, including some help on using certificates from within Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, as well as a quick heads-up that the help is merely copied from IE7:

General information

Help content

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 contains help content from Internet Explorer 7. Some topics will be broken or irrelevant. The help content will be updated in a later release of Internet Explorer 8.

New home page in home page set

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 will add a new page to the home page set. This page will be automatically removed from the home page set two weeks after you install Internet Explorer Beta 1. You can remove this additional home page from your home page set at any time. Uninstalling Internet Explorer Beta 1 earlier than its automatic removal will not remove the additional home page. In that case, you can remove the home page manually.

Turning off the in-page WebSlice button

You can turn off the in-page WebSlice button in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 by using the following method:

However, when you turn off the in-page WebSlice button, WebSlice discovery is also turned off in the Feed Discovery button that is located on the frame.

Viewing certificates in Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1

Windows XP

When you click the View certificates icon after you click the Security Status Indicator lock icon in the address bar, you incorrectly receive the following message:

To view the certificate, follow these steps:

Windows Vista

To view the certificate of an encrypted page, click the View certificates icon after you click the Security Status Indicator lock icon in the address bar.

If you right-click the document, you click Properties, and then you click Certificates, the certificate is not displayed.