Month: April 2005

Yet More Vmware Stories

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I have spent 2 days working on fixing my active directory test virtual machines. I upgraded to vmware workstation 5.0 hoping to solve some cloning issues. if that doesn’t (didn’t) fix my issue I will use Microsoft sysprep on the virtual machines to resolve the SID problems.

I am also building myself a stable Suse 9.1 VM. The process of upgrading all the VM’s I have to work with workstation 5.0 will also take some time. The Kingston guys finally saw how I can connect to our GSX server today when I was up there. now they want one.

After some initial issues with the Suse 9.1 VM I am on my way to getting this to work. I keep hitting roadblocks with my configuration. it just shows how much I have to learn when it comes to linux.

No Cell Phones On The Subway

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i decided that I don’t want cell phones to work on the subway. I live off of my phone. I like having it working everywhere, but I came to a dangerous conclusion recently. Other people are not considerate. The dumb-ass who plays with his ring tones, plays games with the sound on, etc. will not have any problems having a loud conversation the entire 20 minutes that I am on the train. That would be 10 times worse than me not getting a call. Being underground with (lets face it sometimes some people with no etiquette) people who can use a phone would be bad. it is the same reason why I don’t want cell phones to work on airplanes. I think the idea is great, but I don’t trust other people to use the “privilege” properly. It is bad enough that I go onto Amtrak or the LIRR and have to sit next to chatty kathy.

My two cents from a technology enthusiast. I can stick to my ipod and reading the news while on the subway!

Faster Internet, Much Faster

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We completed our upgrade to a brand new 4.5 meg internet link tonight in our office. We dropped our redundant T-1 connections in favor of the less reliable (arguably) single link with triple the amount of bandwidth. We (i) did it for like $400 cheaper than we were paying before using the same provider. Lets hope this alleviates some of the bandwidth issues we have seen in the office.

Some minor issues slowed us down, but in the end we were up and running in like 2 hours. Next up is the analysis on our Kingston office to see if they warrant an upgrade to 3 or 4.5 meg links. They require a more redundant connection but they have been expanding and their bandwidth may start becoming a problem. I think we can find the point in time where we believe the bandwidth will trend higher than we can support and get an upgrade done.

Crap Desktop Upgrades

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I am going to my sisters place in a bit to take their 5-6 year old P-III 700 and upgrade them to a 3 year old P-4 1.5 or so. Only for my sister would I waste time on upgrading them from really old crap, to just crap. They don’t want to spend the cash on a new machine and they think this will do what they need. I don’t want to argue with them, but if it was anyone else I would not be doing this. So much crap can go wrong with an upgrade like this. lets just hope for none of them to happen.

On the plus side I get to see morgan!

Still Loving VMware

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It is rare for a week to go by that I don’t at some point think that VMware is not the best thing since sliced bread. We finally finished rolling out our first GSX server. It was barely up for a week when one of our developers needed another server for something that we never budgeted hardware for. Actually they specifically said we don’t need new hardware for this project. Instead of having to go looking for approval for a new database server, I just looked at our used resources on the virtual machine and allocated another VM. they were up and running in a day.

Restores are also fantastic. I have restored several dev VM’s since we brought this system online. I am already seeing where the box we built will be over loaded soon and we will need to get another one. I am also pushing the practical applications of another virtual machine in our production environment. it would save a ton of cash in the long term.

On the development and testing side next week I am going to setup a 3 server domain (totally virtual) to test the upgrade path from windows 2000 active directory to 2003. I have done this before, but it was almost 2 years ago. I want all the quirks fresh in my head. to do this with real hardware would have taken ages, and would have required me to put up a bunch of old desktops to do the job. this way I have one desktop at my desk that I just configure the way I want, run the test and then blow away the virtual machines when I am done.

Hotspots

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Yesterday Jayson, Danny, & I took off to Starbucks to study (tech books), talk about work, etc. We have wanted to try that for a while but have been busy. We finally made it out. James joined us for a bit, but was busy and had to go. First, the starbucks in Union Square was noisy. Yes there are actually 2 Starbucks in Union Square but I assume the other one was as noisy as this one. Jayson says the one by his house is not as bad and he has gone to read and drink coffee for hours without problems. I felt like I was back in High School with two tables of extremly loud high school girls sitting rite by us. The place was packed. 4 of us sat at a table made for 2. Totally not the laid back experience we were looking for. not sure if I will suggest that again.

We did make productive use of our time while we were there. I tried out the T-Mobile Hotspots. I used it in Delta crown rooms before but I wanted to give it a shot at Starbucks. There were 3 free networks in range (or so the laptop said), but I couldn’t connect to any of them. So I paid. it is not cheap, but it works great. We ended up shopping for an LCD TV online. as I said in my post yesterday the specs I want are just too pricey right now.

Clean Up Day

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Today I cleaned my apartment. I got rid of most of the clutter, did the floors, dusted, etc. I hate cleaning almost as much as I dislike doing the laundry. I need to do that also, but I may just have it done again this week.

Part of this cleaning was me backing up a bunch of CD-ROM’s I had lying around. They start to pile up. I backed up everything of value onto my computer and then stored the CD’s. I tossed the rest of the crap. With blank CD’s so cheap I find myself burning crap and then just tossing them in a few weeks when I don’t need them anymore.

Didn’t do very much else today. I tried to sleep in but couldn’t. I have not been sleeping well for weeks. I used to be able to sleep till noon on weekend’s now I can barely make it till 9AM without getting up at least once.

Website Work

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I updated tons of photo pages on my photo album website. I have compressed down a ton of images to save space. I have also replaced allot of the old iPhoto generated pages with a newer style I am using. I am also creating new index pages so I can update the site easier. Fireworks was bad since links would be broken since it didn’t see the dynamic updates that frontpage did. Now I can move around the structure of my site without having to manually change hundreds of links.

TV Update

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So I won’t be buying the winbook TV I was talking about. Turns out it only does 15:9 aspect ratio. DVD quality is 16:9, so I will pass. I knew it was too good to be true. The Dell & Gateway 30″ TV’s are still $1599. At that price I will wait a bit longer, or until Jayson talks me into buying it. I just can’t see paying $1600 for a friggen TV. My last TV (a sharp 27″ CRT) was like $500 in 2000 and I thought that was too much.

This is a purchase that will require much research. I am a tech person that considers myself at least moderately electronic savvy (probably a bit above moderate, but I am being modest), and I find myself being a bit confused by the options on these TV’s.

Road Trip & Softball Games

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Went upstate on a road trip with Dan today. I had a bunch of things to take care of. Dan wanted to leave to head back to NYC by 3:30PM to make our first softball game. Being the realist I am I said we would never leave on time, and we would never make a 5:45PM game. I was right on both accounts. We didn’t leave until around 4PM. We missed all but 2 innings of the game.

We ended up getting lost getting to Roosevelt Island. Yahoo maps gave us the wrong exit name, and the stupid exit was not numbered. once we drove past it we knew we missed it, but it took tons of time to turn around. The rest of the directions were good though. Thanks to David for emailing them to me, and thanks to the Treo 650 and T-Mobile wireless data for bringing up the directions on my phone and actually working! Tech that works is priceless!

We lost by 1 run. It was tied until the last inning. At least it was not a blow out! Went out for a drink after the game and then headed to J & G’s for dinner.

All in all it was a good but busy and travel filled day.