Been Busy

Really, really busy…

But that is a good thing.

Lot of cool stuff happening and hope to have some more time later this week to post some stuff.

Your Highness Movie Trailer

Going to probably see this one just because Natalie Portman is BAD ASS!

…because I am rich, I live in a castle, and I can do magic.

My Week in Geek – March 18, 2011

A weekly post (hopefully!?) of blogs, articles, sites, gadgets, issues, and other stuff I have found that is of interest to me (and I remembered to bookmark).

This kind of made my week

A girl from work that we helped get her home computer up and running got me this as a thank you.

1. VMware vCenter Operations was released this week. Here is what VMware says about it “VMware vCenter Operations uses patented analytics and powerful visualizations to automate performance, capacity and configuration management. It collects and analyzes performance data, correlates abnormalities and identifies the root cause of building performance problems. vCenter Operations provides capacity management to optimize resource usage and policy-based configuration management to assure compliance and eliminate sprawl and configuration drift.” I have licenses for it so I will be installing it to take a look.
    
2. Great article on balancing work and home and other responsibilities. I personally have problems juggling it all – work, family, school, hobbies – sometimes family and hobbies (me time) get overlooked a bit in the shuffle and I should do better. Family should always come first no matter what.
    
3. Are you having a rational discussion with someone? Follow this flow chart to find out.
    
4. The VMware vCenter Mobile Access (vCMA) appliance has been updated to support SSL. I installed this a bit ago just to have a look – eh, nothing special but it worked. I don’t use it.
    
5. Jumped on the VCAP Brown Bag on Wednesday night. I was a few minutes late getting on the Webinar but got to see most of the Lab presentation. Lot of good discussion after the Lab presentation but I don’t have a microphone for my home PC so I missed out on that Some very interesting discussions, especially on iSCSI configuration. Looking forward to the next one.
    
6. The first ever human built spacecraft to orbit Mercury! The Messenger spacecraft entered Mercury’s orbit on March 17.
    
7. VMware Labs released a fling of the vSphere client packaged as a ThinApp. Great idea, poor execution. The client is the pre-update 1 client. Hopefully they will have a new ThinApp of the latest version soon. I think this would be a great way for them to deliver the client in the future – at least with the option of using the ThinApp or installing the full client.
    
8. The City of Suffolk, Virginia Police Department launched their new web site this week. Nice.
    
9. The vSphere Client for the iPad has been released. You can download the client for free from the iTunes store. I don’t have much of a desire to get an iPad. I may look into one of the original iPads (iPad 1???), I see there are a lot of them on the used market right now as people are replacing theirs with the new iPad 2.
    
10. Nice How-to on enabling virtual machine logging using PowerCLI.
11. While we are talking about logging here is another one on enabling verbose logging for data recovery. Awesome and very helpful!!!
     
12. Anyone out there have any experience with vCloud Director??? Would like to know how you are using it and what you think about it.
     
13. Here is a good article on Thin Provisioned disks and VMFS fragmentation. We have had several discussions about this in class and this article provides some great information.
     

Have a great weekend!

Process Explorer v14.1

Windows Sysinternals released Process Explorer v14.1 a couple days ago.

A necessary tool for anyone running Windows clients and servers. Process Explorer gives you a deep view into processes running on a Windows system. It allows you to view a process’s associated dlls, file handles, open files, open directories, etc. A great tool for tracking down potential issues with a running application.

Download Process Explorer v14.1 here.

Space Shuttle Lego Set

Just ordered this Space Shuttle Adventure Lego Set from Lego.com

Can’t wait till it gets here!!!

Interesting Real Estate Advertisement

My Week in Geek – March 11, 2011

A weekly post (hopefully!?) of blogs, articles, sites, gadgets, issues, and other stuff I have found that is of interest to me (and I remembered to bookmark).

Been a pretty busy week so it is a short list today. Lot of stuff going on that is keeping me busy and that is a good thing, but I have been stationary long enough to compile a very extensive list of links this week.

1. Here is a pretty good guide on installing and configuring the VMware vMA 4.1. If you are running the vMA 4.1 in VMware Workstation 7 you will have to make this change to the .vmx file to keep from getting a memory crash error.
    
2. I added a new ESXi host to my environment a couple months back and of course I was not able to get processors to match the model of my older hosts so I had to enable the Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) support. EVC allows for vMotion between hosts with processors that are within the same family but are a different model. Lots of information on EVC can be found here and an excellent EVC article can be found here.
    
3. If you are using your vMA for syslogging from your ESX/ESXi hosts and need to increase the size of /var/log on your vMA appliance here is a great step by step article.
    
4. VMware put out a nice PowerCLI reference poster and I received my full size one in the mail the other day. The poster came with a PowerCLI fan pack that included a bumper sticker and a button. I don’t think they are shipping out hard copies anymore (at least for now) but you can download the VMware PowerCLI poster here.
    
5. Want to turn on (or turn off) virtual machine logging with PowerCLI? Here is how…
    
6. The Apple iPad2 is available for sale today. Heard stories of folks getting in line for it as early as Monday.
    
7. Check out the Issue number 1 of the VirtualizeTips.com e-magazine.
    
8. Of course the other big VMware news of the week was the release of the iPad View Client. It is pretty cool that you can deliver a desktop to an iPad, i guess. I am just not into the iPad hype, but I do see the value of delivering a desktop to any device. Hey VMware how about a View client for the Nook?
    

Have a great weekend!

Windows Upgrade

Now this is pretty cool. This guy, Andy, upgraded through every major version of Windows from 1.0 to Windows 7.

More information can be found at his website here.

Skyline

Did anybody see this movie? It was only in theaters around here for about a day and a half. Skyline is due out on DVD/Blue Ray later this month so I will probably check it out.

My Week in Geek – March 4, 2011

A weekly post (hopefully!?) of blogs, articles, sites, gadgets, issues, and other stuff I have found that is of interest to me (and I remembered to bookmark).

No “My Week in Geek” last week since we were down in Titusville, FL for the final launch of Space Shuttle Discovery and it was an incredible experience. A post about the adventure and a bunch of pictures I took can be found here.

Been spending a lot of time this week trying to get caught up. Here are a few links from my Week in Geek.

1. Since Sandy and I did make the trip to see the final launch of Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-133 I am going to start there – Four Astronomers Meet Shuttle Discovery a great article by the @NoisyAstronomer about her adventure. Ever wonder how they get those great shuttle launch photos? SpaceFlightNow.com’s Discovery Launch Gallery and even more great shots here. Discovery is still up there working at the ISS and you can follow the mission status and watch live videos of the Discovery crew working in space here.
    
2. Of course the big buzz of the week was the launch of the new iPad 2 that will be available for sale on March 11. Here is an Engadget article on the new features and of course what Apple has to say about it. Pretty neat and if someone gave me one I would definitely take it, but to me it still seems like an over sized iPhone that you cannot make calls on. I am holding out for more competition in the tablet market and for a NoteSlate.
    
3. Starting to do some research in telecommuting at work. We have one worker at home now on a temporary basis and we are finding he is able to do most tasks necessary. We did however have an issue with VoIP calls to branch office that also connect using a VPN that terminates on the same interface on the ASA as our remote user VPN. Here is the post that helped fix it – still working on the rules to tighten security but we are getting there.
    
4. What if Star Wars were a western?
    
5. How many floppy disk would it take to equal 1 GB? The post has the numbers wrong but it still makes you think about how far these things have come over the years.
    
6. Congrats out to vNoob! Passed his VCP this week and he is sharing his VMware knowledge on his blog, so stop by and check it out.
    
7. Other than the launch of iPad 2 the other big news of the week has been Charlie Sheen. So there had to be a Charlie Sheen post here – Live the Sheen Dream!
    
8. If you receive a kernel panic when trying to run vMA 4.1 on Workstation. Here is the fix for it.
    
9. Here is an interesting post on a VCDX experience where the author did not pass the defense. Congrats on passing your VCAP-DCA and thanks for sharing your VCDX experience.
    
10. If anyone is looking to get me something, just because here is an idea – 1/100 Saturn V Kit
     
11. I am currently taking the VMware vSphere Manage for Performance course at TCC as part of the Virtualization Career Studies program offered by the college (and to prep for VCAP-DCA). So far it has been a pretty good course and here is a great document from VMware on Troubleshooting Performance Related Problems in vSphere 4.1 Environments.
     
12. My VMware vSphere Design book by Forbes Guthrie, Scott Lowe, and Maish Saidel-Keesing arrived this week. I only have only had time to read the first chapter. Very good so far, like that it is more about the what and why than the how. Looking forward to digging into this one will post a full review when I am done.
     

TGIF!!! Have a great weekend!!!