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.

From the announcement:

[A] new security technology called VMware VMsafe™ that protects applications running in virtual machines in ways previously not possible in physical environments. The VMsafe APIs allow vendors to develop advanced security products that combat the latest generation of malware. VMsafe technology integrates into the VMware hypervisor and provides the transparency to prevent threats and attacks such as viruses, trojans and keyloggers from ever reaching a virtual machine. Twenty security vendors have embraced VMsafe technology and are building products that will further enhance the security of virtual machines, making the virtual environment unmatched in the level of security and protection it provides compared to physical systems.

“VMware already has the most trusted virtualization platform for running applications, and we are now raising the bar on security in ways that physical systems simply cannot match,” said Raghu Raghuram, vice president of datacenter products and solutions. “The industry has come out in full force to support VMware VMsafe technology with plans for a whole new class of security products that offer customers new advantages to running applications in virtual machines.”

So it looks like VMsafe will be a method that security vendors can use in order to ensure that operations in the virtual world will remain just as protected as our meatspace servers

In Dianne Green’s keynote today, you’ll note that almost all of the typical security players have signed up to be part of this platform – I’m guessing it could be quite lucrative, with TCOs everywhere looking for bigger, better tinfoil hats.

Also not that there is a thinstalled version of Firefox available for download from the same page.

Through Dianne Green didn’t speak a whole lot about Thinstall at VMworld today, it’s good to see VMware at least touch on it a bit as the appvirt vendors are keen to find out what sort of developments are to come.

“[]announced the launch of version 5.0 of the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS(TM)), which powers the award-winning Riverbed(R) Steelhead(R) product line. RiOS 5.0 extends the Riverbed lead in delivering to its customers the best speed for the broad range of applications important to businesses of every size and across all industries. With the introduction of RiOS 5.0, Riverbed is the first vendor to provide application-level protocol optimization for Microsoft Exchange 2007. This makes Riverbed the first and the only vendor to accelerate Microsoft Exchange 2000, 2003 and 2007. In addition, Riverbed is building upon its lead in delivering solutions to enhance IT flexibility and capabilities with new scale, simplicity and security features, including the new RiOS Services Platform (RSP) for delivering virtualized edge services without the need to deploy additional branch office servers.

Riverbed has expanded its support for Microsoft Exchange environments and is the first WDS vendor to deliver a protocol optimization specifically for the Exchange 2007 protocol (MAPI 2K7) at the application layer. Riverbed is the only vendor that provides application-level optimization for Exchange 2000, 2003 and 2007.

More Application-Level Acceleration

In RiOS 5.0, Riverbed adds to its existing HTTP and HTTPS acceleration capabilities by further improving the performance of enterprise Web applications, including SAP NetWeaver, Oracle, PeopleSoft/JD Edwards, Microsoft and Siebel CRM, SharePoint, and Outlook Web Access (OWA). In RiOS 5.0, Riverbed can further reduce the chattiness and delay often associated with enterprise Web-based applications. Users of RiOS 5.0 will see additional performance improvements of up to 10X for their Web applications.

RiOS 5.0 also delivers acceleration capabilities for Oracle 11i applications running in HTTP mode. This acceleration builds on the existing RiOS support for Oracle 11i Jinitiator socket mode optimization and targets the Oracle E-Business suite of applications, particularly Oracle forms traffic and reporting, as well as other application operations. Riverbed is the only vendor that provides application-level optimization for Oracle 11i.“ 

The buzz at VMworld Europe, before it has even started, is that Novell is to purchase Canadian data center management software company Platespin. Novell has now posted the news on their site, and many are scrambling to figure out where this will lead them as the software is very popular in the VM market. (UPDATE: Platespin have posted their announcement regarding the Novell acquisition as well)
Novell is starting to grow again: it now owns SuSE Linux, Ximian (original makers of Gnome), and just recently purchased open colaboration vendor SiteScape.

If you’d like more info about the acquisition, feel free to register for the Novell-Platespin webinar.

From the Platespin announcement:

On February 25, 2008, Novell announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire PlateSpin Ltd. The combination of Novell’s platform and automation management with PlateSpin’s leading solutions for workload relocation, protection and provisioning will give customers the agility to cross physical and virtual boundaries so IT can work together. Both organizations are focused on helping customers maximize the strategic value of the heterogeneous data center. Novell and PlateSpin will deliver products for complete workload lifecycle management and optimization for Linux, UNIX, and Windows operating systems in the physical and virtual data center. Below you will find details about the acquisition and what it means to current and future PlateSpin customers and partners.

From the Novell announcement:

The acquisition of PlateSpin will allow Novell to offer customers a full solution stack with a powerful virtualization platform and a best-in-class heterogeneous management solution. Together, Novell and PlateSpin will solve many of the data center challenges that customers face today, including:

• Relocation: PlateSpin provides a completely integrated product suite that automates the assessment and migration phases of data center initiatives, like server consolidation, data center relocation and hardware upgrades, to help customers reduce costs, power consumption and space in the data center.
• Protection: PlateSpin’s disaster recovery solutions offer affordable workload protection that leverages virtualization technology to protect both physical and virtual servers in the data center, for improved security and business continuity.
• Provisioning: Using PlateSpin’s technologies, customers will have a single approach to imaging and configuring physical and virtual workloads regardless of platform. This eliminates the manual install process and dramatically reduces the time to provision new server workloads. It will also enable customers to address changing resource requirements at peak demand times as well as in test lab scenarios.
• Optimization and Management: Novell and PlateSpin optimize the balance between physical and virtual infrastructure by automatically monitoring and making infrastructure adjustments based on server availability and workload demand. By automating the process and increasing the visibility into how workloads use physical and virtual resources over time, customers will be able to increase server utilization and optimize their data centers by better addressing common workload movement challenges.

The acquisition of PlateSpin will enable the heterogeneous data center with support for leading operating systems and virtual platforms. It will also further enhance Novell’s leadership in open source virtualization by providing tools that easily enable customers to move physical workloads to Xen*-based virtual machines running on SUSE® Linux Enterprise as well as other virtual platforms provided by VMware*, Citrix*, Microsoft* and others.

Ron Hovsepian, president and CEO of Novell, said, “The PlateSpin acquisition will be a cornerstone of our two-pronged enterprise Linux and IT management software strategy. With the addition of the PlateSpin product portfolio, Novell will be uniquely positioned to deliver the next generation infrastructure software that is at the core of the data center. Together, we will have the most comprehensive workload management solution that allows customers to monitor and analyze what to virtualize, provide the tools to seamlessly virtualize and unvirtualize workloads, automate the management of workloads, and provide the leading open source platform from which to run virtualized work.”

Stephen Pollack, founder and CEO of PlateSpin, said, “PlateSpin’s ability to manage workloads is unparalleled and is an essential part of making the data center truly respond to the needs of the business. Combined with ZENworks Orchestrator and virtualization from Novell, we are very excited about the synergies that this acquisition will give to customers.”

Luckily I had a feeling that host shared folders was a bad idea…

From VMware:

“On Windows hosts, if you have configured a VMware host-to-guest shared folder, it is possible for a program running in the guest to gain access to the host’s complete file system and create or modify executable files in sensitive locations.”

The fix? For now they recommend disabling shared folders as there are no patches for any of the products affected: VMware Workstation, VMware Player, and VMware ACE.

EMC Corp. has acquired a startup still in stealth called Pi Corp. in
an all-cash transaction for an undisclosed amount.

Pi Corp. founder and CEO Paul Maritz will join EMC as president and
general manager of EMC’s newly created Cloud Infrastructure and
Services Division, reporting directly to EMC CEO Joe Tucci. The new
division will also include the EMC Fortress SaaS infrastructure, the
Mozy online backup service and “other upcoming EMC cloud
infrastructure systems and software offerings under development.”

This is interesting to me as I see it as the “new next big thing”.

Currently the only people really loud in this space are Google and Amazon.

I highly doubt we will see much come out of either party until the very soonest Q2 2008 (Mozy update), but expect a product by year-end.

All of these virtual appliances have been tested with ESX server, and may have issues elsewhere.

For appliances that needed it, I used VMware Converter, the version that ships with Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 (VI3.5).

Please note that both ESX 3.5 and Virtual Center 2.5 are available as trials from VMware currently, and I would highly recommend trying them out as it really is night and day compared to VMware Workstation, Server and Player.

That said, for the most part you’ll be fine working with VMware Server 2.0 – it’s free and has a special version of VMware Infrastructure Client to boot.

The list:

1. Astaro Security Gateway – This is a must in any build for me. I use this to bridge between my LAN/WAN and the virtual networks that I create. There is a 10-device, 1000 connection “home user” license available from My Astaro that should be more than sufficient to get you up and running with a clean, secure virtual network.
2. Ubuntu 7.10 JeOS Mini-image – this image weighs in at only 70MB or so, expands to roughly 200MB, has apt-get installed, and is a perfect candidate for building virtual appliances with. VMware tools is installed, so you don’t need to worry about things like date and time sync.
3. OpenBSD 4.2 – The OpenBSD image is great for getting started in the OpenBSD world: learning the shell, commands, networking, and in my case, firewalling. The verison I use comes from Chrysaor.info, but feel free to use your own.
4. OpenSuSE 10.3 – I can’t live without this virtual appliance – I use it for just about everything, and is the first appliance installed in any environment. Note that it is a bit bloated, containing USB, sound and other components typically not needed in a virtual environment. On the other hand, since it’s tried and tested on my end, it’s a lifer.
5. Trac – I use Trac as a wiki and VM staging log. I consider all VMs, hosts and Virtual Center as software projects, and monitor changes closely. If ever I need to pull up quick info about a virtual machine, host, network, router or firewall, it’s all in Trac.
6. Wordpress – I use my Wordpress virtual machine to stage different versions of blandname, to test updates, upgrades, and plugins. This also allows me to change themes, move Adsense blocks around, and generally to play without fear of losing revenue or breaking something.
7. MySQL / PHPMyAdmin – This is not a requirement for any of the virtual machines / appliances mentioned above, but I prefer to keep it separate in order to manage multiple databases with one interface without the need to login to multiple IP addresses.
8. OpenFiler – Openfiler is an interesting virtual machine in that it provides storage to other virtual machines. This allows you to have shares that multiple virtual appliances can access, be it SMB, NFS, FTP or iSCSI. Note that using iSCSI in a VM may seem redundant, but it’s a great way to get your feet wet with iSCSI without the need for a separate box. I use OpenFiler as a general purpose storage device, and can’t see this changing anytime soon, though FreeNAS may be a good alternative to those interested in the BSD-type appliances.
9. Joomla – I’ve been considering moving most of my websites to Joomla based mainly on the CMS/approval workflow that WordPress has, but implements poorly. You could probably use this in place of the Trac server as well if you are just managing info, but since I’m still testing, these are kept separately for now.
10. NagiOS – NagiOS provides a centralized monitoring solution for all of the virtual appliances, as well as any hardware device you have that uses SNMP. I use NagiOS to monitor print queues, bandwidth, uptime and my ESX / Virtual Center servers as well!
11. Nostalgia – That’s right, this list of 10 goes to 11! Nostalgia is included as the first VM appliance download for VI3, and I must say, I’m hooked on 3D Tetris from California Dreams, just as badly as I was when I originally played it on my Amiga 500.

That rounds up the list. You’ll note that most of the appliances listed have to do with *nix and web development. Also left out is the fact that Virtual Center is running on a hardware box, and not a virtual machine, like others have done. This argument could go on forever, but I like the agility of having VC2.5 as a separate entity.

Any additions?

From the press release:

“San Francisco – February 19, 2008 – Riverbed Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: RVBD), the technology and market leader in wide-area data services (WDS), and Fortinet, a pioneer and leading provider of unified threat management (UTM) solutions, today announced an alliance that enables the two companies to deliver complementary best-of-breed security and application acceleration solutions to enterprise customers for managing their distributed workforces.

Through Fortinet’s Elite-level membership in the Riverbed Technology Alliance (RTA), Fortinet, Riverbed®, and their channel partners can immediately provide security and WDS solutions for remote offices, data centers, and mobile workers that are functionally superior to those of competing alternatives.

“Together, Riverbed and Fortinet address the need that enterprises have to secure their data; accelerate the performance of applications running on wide area networks (WANs); and reduce IT infrastructure complexity and costs,” said Mark Williams, principal architect for enterprise infrastructure at Mercury Insurance. “Implementation of two market-leading technologies such as WDS solutions from Riverbed and Fortinet’s ASIC-accelerated integrated security appliances should meet this need while instilling confidence in enterprise companies of all scales.”

This partnership takes advantage of the complementary capabilities of the companies’ two product lines and the ability to cross-sell to their broad global customer bases. Riverbed and Fortinet combined have nearly 30,000 customers, spanning enterprise vertical markets and service providers, and approximately 2,000 distributors and resellers who can benefit from the comprehensive solutions that this partnership will produce.

“As a provider of comprehensive IT solutions for global enterprise customers, HP Network Services certainly sees the need for unified security and application acceleration solutions to improve network security, performance, and total cost of ownership,” said Dan Socci, vice president of HP Network Services. “We’ve already had a successful partnership with Riverbed and Fortinet in delivering these services to customers in EMEA and look forward to expanding our relationship to other parts of the world.”

Delivering Security and High-Performance
Enterprises across all industries are more geographically distributed and increasingly face the challenge of managing and delivering services to branch offices, telecommuters, and other mobile workers. At the same time, IT is more decentralized than ever, creating performance and security issues. Reconciling these competing demands while at the same time delivering secure, high-performance applications and data over WANs is a challenge that many IT organizations currently face.

Fortinet, the confirmed worldwide UTM market leader according to IDC, provides ASIC-accelerated integrated security appliances, which are used by enterprises and service providers to increase their security while reducing total operating costs. Fortinet solutions were built from the ground up to integrate multiple levels of security protection – including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, VPN, Web filtering, spyware prevention, and anti-spam – designed to help customers protect against network and content level threats. Delivered via its flagship FortiGate™ family of appliances, Fortinet provides a flexible and extensible platform of security applications and services that enable customers to deploy and centrally-manage the same comprehensive level of protection at remote locations as they have for headquarters and data center environments. In addition, Fortinet’s virtualized network security allows enterprises to virtualize, or “divide” multi-threat security appliances into multiple, separately provisioned and managed instances through integrated virtual domain, or VDOM. Now, with this partnership with Riverbed, a distributed network topography no longer means making compromises in network security or performance.

“This alliance marks the coming together of two industry visionaries and leaders – Riverbed and Fortinet – to address enterprise requirements for keeping bad traffic out of the network and accelerating and securing known good traffic and applications,” said Michael Rivers, vice president of corporate development for Fortinet. “Our approach of consolidating critical network security applications and services onto a single high-performance platform has proven successful in the market because it reduces the complexity and cost of securing a network. Our partnership with Riverbed offers a very complementary approach to addressing another key network requirement – acceleration of applications and data over the WAN.”

WDS solutions from Riverbed accelerate applications and data for remote offices, data centers, and mobile workers across WANs, making them run up to 100 times faster. The speed delivered by Riverbed WDS solutions allows organizations to be more nimble, flexible, and competitive by enabling IT consolidation without sacrificing user performance, allowing higher productivity for remote offices, eliminating end user frustration caused by slow applications, dramatically shortening backup and replication times, reducing traffic on WANs, and even enabling mobile workers to be significantly more productive. To learn more, view Riverbed’s demo: www.riverbed.com/pr/jack.

“More than 3500 customers have chosen Riverbed,” said Alan Saldich, vice president of product marketing and alliances at Riverbed. “We deliver the industry’s best-performing WDS solutions for the applications that are important to business. And, we deliver that market-leading speed in a broad set of scalable solutions that integrate simply and easily into existing IT infrastructure, from the data centers at the world’s largest companies, down to single individuals using laptops. When our customers require a comprehensive security solution, we recommend that they select a best-of-breed solution such as Fortinet. By partnering with Fortinet, we are able to provide our existing and new customers a broad and more comprehensive solution versus our competitors.”

Both Riverbed and Fortinet have received industry-wide recognition from numerous analysts and product awards. The Riverbed Steelhead® appliances and the Steelhead Mobile client software were most recently recognized by InfoWorld as a “Technology of the Year” for the best WAN Accelerator for the fourth consecutive year. Fortinet was declared the UTM market leader by IDC for all of 2006 and continues to lead the market as of the third quarter of 2007. Both companies continue to add successful customer implementations to their roster and showcase stellar competitive win rates. And, Gartner has named both Riverbed and Fortinet to the leader quadrant in their respective industry reports – the WAN Optimization Controllers Magic Quadrant, 2007 and the Enterprise Network Firewall Magic Quadrant, 2H07.”

This year is already shaping up to be quite interesting.

From this announcement, as solution is coming to mind – hub and spoke networks using Checkpoint, Juniper or SonicWALLs, HP ProCurve switches, Riverbed Steelheads, and Fortinet devices to secure internal networks at the head office.

What do you think?

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