Online Leather Couch Repair Help

I thought I'd break my (almost 1 year!?) online silence (well, on this Blog anyway) to rave about a great resource I stumbled upon, which hopefully may help others as much as it helped me.

The background goes like this; I bought a Leather couch off TradeMe a while back (sight unseen) and when we got it home we found that it hadn't really been looked after very well. I obviously hadn't been conditioned or cleaned properly - which you need to, with Leather. The seams and edges were pretty well worn, and there was also a good deal of white paint stuck to the back of it (where they had obviously painted the lounge and pushed the couch up against it while the walls were still wet). I am selling the couch, so wanted to do my best to tidy it up, so the person I sold it to didn't have the unfortunate surprise that we did, upon closer inspection.

Searching around a bit I found Paul Ford's "Leather Help" website. I have to say it's such a great site, not only because the information and photos are easy to follow and very helpful, but I think its a great example of using the web to put information 'out there' for free, for all to use and benefit from. Sure, Paul sells products through the website, and indeed I bought a couple of Pelle kits from him, but the how-to information etc. is all there for you to use with no purchase necessary.

I bought the DIY Leather Repair Kit, and pretty much the next day I received it by Courier. Following the instructions from the website I repaired every scuff, scratch and wear from the couch - and there were a lot of them, believe me. Sure it took some time - hours in fact - but only due to the sheer scale of the problem. But the results were nothing short of miraculous. Really amazing how well this stuff works. I'm not sure if the photos will do it any justice, but suffice it to say that even the large splashes of white paint were well covered and are hardly noticeable (only as an area a little shinier than the rest).

So if you're ever in need of some light (or even pretty heavy) repair work on a Leather couch (cat scratches etc), and you don't feel like sending it off to some expensive professional, I highly recommend Paul Ford's Leather Help website. His tips, photos and products are worth their weight in gold! And his after sales email follow ups were a nice touch too. Thanks Paul!

Blackout New Zealand - Stand up against "Guilt Upon Accusation" for New Zealand

I only spotted this on Twitter last night (thanks to @stephenfry, of course), but it seems to be gathering some momentum now with lots of news sites including nme.com picking it up (obvious exception being the NZ Herald at the moment).

http://news.google.co.nz/news?&ncl=1304617871

There's a great Geekzone Blog Entry here which describes the issue: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/6247

I think this law is completely crazy, and even though I'm not interested in pirating music (iTunes Plus with No DRM is good enough for me, and I still buy CDs every few weeks) I think the possibility of losing my access to the Internet because of a simple accusation is not only likely but would also be pretty damaging.  Most of my client work has been done from home over the past few months, and were Orcon to pull the plug on my service, at the whim of a large media conglomerate, not only would I not be able to work it would affect the other consultants I work with too.  And I'm sure I'm not the only one in this position.  With the economy the way it is at the moment, you'd think the government would be doing all it can to support small businesses, especially those of use environmentally savvy enough to work from home.

I don't know whether or not any of this will have any effect, but hopefully if the story gains enough traction on the mainstream news sites, someone in government (other than United Future MP Peter Dunne) will step up to change (if not repeal) this ridiculous law.  Hopefully before February 28th, but definitely before it does any damage and ends up knocking me or many others like me, off the net.

A horrific thought! :-|

VMware, CPU VT Features and Asus Motherboards

I recently built a machine to run as a lab/training box for VMware ESXi at home, and have it running quite nicely with Virtual Center and a few VMs.  I ran into a bit of trouble before Christmas though when I tried to run up a 64-bit Ubuntu Server.  

The VM wouldn't power on due to an error with a mismatch in CPU capabilities and those required by the VM.  

"cpu on host is incompatible with cpu feature requirements of virtual machine. problem detected at cpuID level 0x80000001 register 'edx'."

It turned out to be the 'VT' (Virtualization Technology for x86 (VT-x), previously codenamed "Vanderpool", referred to in the BIOS setup as 'Vanderpool Technology') feature that ESX was complaining was missing.  I was totally confused though as both my motherboard (an Asus P5QL-EM) and CPU (an Intel E8400) support the VT feature and it was indeed enabled in the Motherboard BIOS.  

I found the very useful tool VMware CPU Host Info and ran it up against my Virtual Center server.  Sure enough, it showed that although my ESXi Hardware supported VT it was not actually enabled.  So I doubled checked the BIOS setting again, enabled (after shutting down all running VMs, of course).  

After establishing that I was running the latest version of the BIOS (0412) I decided to try and contact Asus, through their website, to log this as a support fault.  I received the following reply (on 19/12): 

Dear Clint Revell,
Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.

My name is Lyn and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem.
The motherboard supports Vanderpool Technology.
And it seems that you have enabled it in BIOS.
But as I know, Intel Vanderpool Technology has special requirements for the OS and the softwares too. For detail, maybe you can try to contact Intel directly for some help.
http://mysearch.intel.com/corporate/default.aspx?culture=en_US&q=Vanderpool+Technology&category=all&adv=0&value=0
Welcome to refer Troubleshooting & FAQ for ASUS products in ASUS website:
http://support.asus.com/troubleshooting/troubleshooting.aspx?SLanguage=en-us
http://support.asus.com/faq/faq.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

If having any problems, please don't hesitate to let me know. Let's discuss this issue together.
Thank you for using ASUS products and enjoying ASUS services!

Lyn

ASUS Customer Service Center (Shanghai, China)

I'm sure you'll agree that the response was pretty much useless.  But it was a response, and a nice polite one at that.

In the New Year I decided to try again, with the same result, and checked again for a BIOS update.  What'dya know... Asus released the P5QL-EM BIOS version 0418 on 30/12/2008 with the following fixes:

1. Fix "Vanderpool Technology" item is invalid in setup.

So I installed the BIOS update, my 64-bit Ubuntu VM booted up straight away my VMware CPU Host Info tool of course shows 'VT Enabled'.  Hooray!  

So did Asus fix the issue after I contacted them?  Or did they just notice it themselves and remedy it as part of the ongoing improvement process.  I guess I'll never know, but I'm glad it's fixed none-the-less.

VMware ESX3i Lab Machine at Home

After I finished the VMware Infrastructure 3: Install & Configure v3.5 course I decided to put together a cheap(!) PC that I could use to mess around a little more with ESX, particularly before I sit the VCP exam.  So I looked around for hardware that could reasonably run a few Virtual Machines, and ESX, in as small a form-factor as possible.  For a custom PC that mean looking for a Micro-ATX motherboard and Case, a CPU with VT and 64bit features, at least 4GB RAM and a reasonable amount of disk space.

The motherboard I decided on (after much deliberation) was an Asus P5QL-EM.  I really wanted to get a P5Q-EM but noone in New Zealand had them in stock.  As it was the company I got all of the other components from (Playtech) couldn't get me a P5QL motherboard, so I had to order it through Acquire and go and pick it up from Morning Star out by the Airport (quite a way from my house).  The main difference between the P5Q and P5QL is the chipset (G43 as opposed to the G45) which means less total memory capacity (8GB instead of 16GB) and its also missing a few Media-related capabilities.  I didn't think I'd miss those that much, and I wanted it sooner rather than later so went for the cheaper board.  Other cool things about this motherboard:

• Supports the 45nm CPUs (lower power & heat - good for home)
• Onboard VGA, DVI and HDMI (capable of full 1080p output - might be nice for a future media center PC)
• eSATA connector for additional storage

I bought an Intel E8400 Core2 Duo 3GHz, which is a 45nm CPU.  A bit more expensive than the older CPUs but I like the low power idea.  Also the HDD I bought is low power rated and quiet - a Western Digital 1TB EACS.

The case - a Silverstone SG03B is pretty funky looking. The guy at Playtech said I would struggle to build it, as it is quite cramped, but I didn't have any problems.  It was quite a cool little project to put together.  The Micro ATX case sure is cute, and fits everything in nicely.  Silverstone have done a good design job to make sure you can get at everything, removable HDD rails etc.  The Corsair HX-620 power supply has modular power connectors - so that cuts down some of the clutter inside the case.  

I installed 4GB of G.Skill DDR2-800 RAM, so there's still room for another 4GB if I need it.  I still can't believe you can get 4GB of RAM for $100 now!

I'm pretty happy with the final result.  It's a pretty quick machine, but nice and compact and really quiet.

So after building all this I tried to install ESX 3.5 (update 3) from the downloaded CD (ISO image).  As expected it wouldn't install due to a hardware issue.  The first one was due to the fact ESX couldn't read from the (SATA) CD-ROM.  It brought up the (rather unhelpful) error message "No driver found, Unable to find any devices of the type needed for this installation type".  

What it really wanted to say was change the storage configuration in the BIOS to IDE mode, and type the following at the ESX installation boot prompt:

esx all-generic-ide irqpoll pci=nommconf

So having gotten past that the expected issue showed up - ESX doesn't like the onboard NIC.  So I went on a mission to try and find an HCL-listed network card.  I wanted a Gigabit Card, with e1000 driver support.  So it came down to finding an Intel Pro 1000GT or Intel Pro 1000PT.  I couldn't find anyone with an Intel Pro 1000 PT desktop NIC (non-low Profile) in stock, so I had to front up with $200 for a Server NIC.  A nice card, but a little pricey all the same.

So ESX installed fine, and I jumped on the web interface, downloaded and installed the Virtual Infrastructure Client and logged on.  No storage adapters, and no ability to add VMFS storage :-(  So while I could connect to a NAS using NFS or iSCSI I couldn't use my 1TB drive for storage of any Virtual Machines VMDKs or ISO images.  Pretty much useless.

So after a few tears, and feeling very ripped off, I decided to go for the VI in a box setup.  Not desirable at all, but potentially the only way to get ESX running on my new hardware: Install Ubuntu Server 64bit (host), VMware Server 2.0 64bit and ESX Server 3.5 update 3 (guest) running in a Virtual Machine.  I've been trying on and off for the past week to get that to work.  I've read so many Blog posts about getting ESX to work in a VM, most or all with the same hints/tips.  

But while they work fine for VMware Workstation 6.5, they just don't work for VMware Server 2.0 (for me anyway).  ESX installs fine, but sits eating 100% CPU, takes hours to finish booting and when it finally does it's so slow its unusable.  Here are some of the better links I've found:

The Xtravirt Whitepaper: http://knowledge.xtravirt.com/downloads/ESXonWKS65118166.pdf

The VMware Forums: 

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/86877?tstart=0&start=45

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/67254?tstart=0&start=15

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/164935

Running ESXi in VMware Server 2: http://eightfour.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=1

What they basically all say is you need to ensure your VMX file has the following lines added:

monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "TRUE"

monitor_control.vt32 = "TRUE"

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"

So then I started following some of the threads about ESXi, and downloaded the ISO, and tried to run that in a VMware Server VM.  But I had the same problem.  

So today I thought I'd try to install ESXi instead of 3.5 on the PC as a host.  Because although I'd found lots of articles saying SATA isn't supported AND doesn't work for VMFS storage, I also found a couple that indicated it DID work.  

http://vmblog.com/archive/2007/10/03/hacking-your-vmware-esx-server-3i.aspx

http://www.run-virtual.com/?p=196

I followed the instructions in this VMware forum thread:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/158209?tstart=0&start=60

And now I've got a fully functional ESX Server - finally - with almost 1TB of VMFS storage space for VMs!

In summary the steps are:

• Replace the oem.tgz file on the ESXi Installer CD with one that includes the SATA controller drivers (ICH10 in my case - from here).
• Install ESXi
• Boot from a Live Linux CD (I used Gentoo Minimal) and have a USB stick with oem.tgz on it connected
• Mount the ESXi partition (mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/gentoo)
• Mount the USB stick (mkdir /mnt/usb) and then (mount /dev/sdb /mnt/usb)
• Copy the oem.tgz file from the USB stick to the ESXi installation (cp /mnt/usb/oem.tgz /mnt/gentoo)

Thanks to all those in the VMware forums and other blogs that contributed to that info.  It worked like a charm for me!

So now I'm getting on with setting up a vCenter Server (Formerly VMware Virtual Center - VMware have gone all Checkpoint and started renaming products every few months! - the weirdest one: Old: VMFS, New: VMware vStorage VMFS! ... who is going to say that mouthful every time?).  

I also might have a play setting up my NAS with NFS and use that for Vmotion between a couple of ESX servers. Maybe one running in a VMware Workstation 6.5 VM...hmmm, wonder if that'll work ;-)

VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure Day 4

I just finished the fourth and final day of the VMware Infrastructure 3 course. I think overall it was pretty worthwhile. Definitely picked up a few good tips and learnt more about some of the more detailed features/functions of the products - especially the newer stuff. And best of all - I just got a nice new VMware bag :-) Cool. It's quite a good one too (better than the Cisco one from Networkers this year!).

Now to study for the VCP exam! (And maybe build myself an ESX Server lab machine at home to help me revise)

Here are my notes on the topics we've been through today.

Resource Management

• VMotion network can be used as a secondary heartbeat network for HA
• The final thing the VMkernel does after a VMotion is a Reverse ARP, ensuring the switch knows the Virtual Machine's MAC address is accessible via the 2nd ESX Host
• The time between VMotion and scheduling instructions on the 2nd ESX Host's CPU is typically between 50 and 200ms.
• For VMotion to work there must be a virtual switch and port group with an identical name (case sensitive) on the 2nd ESX Host.
• As CPU affinity can cause incompatibility with VMotion only use in a lab/testing environment.

Resource Monitoring

• HEC = Hardware Execution Context. An HEC is typically a CPU core (today), but also a HT CPU.
• vmmemctl = Balloon Driver. Takes RAM from guest machines when physical RAM in host is scarce, causing Guests to Page/Swap more.
• By default the Balloon Driver will not expand beyond 65% of the VM configured memory.
• Use iometer to generate artificial disk load for testing purposes

Data and Availability Protection

• Service Console backups are in reality limited to a small amount of configuration settings, 3rd party software/agents, and logs in /var/log partition.
• ESX Host restore can be scripted using anaconda kick-start files, using a finish script to recreate Virtual Switch settings etc.
• VMware HA does not increase availability, it decreases downtime.
• VMware HA restarts virtual machines when physical machines fail.
• VMware HA network ports:
• Incoming - TCP/UDP 8042-8045
• Outgoing - TCP/UDP 2050-2250
• VMware HA best practices: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1002080

VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure Day 3

And at the end of Day 3 on the VMware Infrastructure 3 course...more notes...

Virtual Machines...

• Open Filer is an Open Source Storage Appliance (NAS), including iSCSI support, runs well in a VM, available as a Virtual Appliance.

VMware Converter

• VMware Converter standard is free. Enterprise costs $.
• VMware Converter standard is used one machine at a time. Enterprise can run unattended converting multiple machines.
• VMware Converter standard can be operated in 'Hot' and 'Remote' modes, Enterprise is required for 'Cold' operation (boot from CD).

Virtual Machine Management

• VirtualCenter can now expand volumes, similar to the command-line tool: vmkfstools

Guided Consolidation

• Limited value - potentially only for very small environments
• Only collects 24 hours of data, from 8 perfmon counters
• Confidence Level is really a progress bar with 100% representing 24 hours of data collected. High Confidence does not necessarily mean the data collected is representative of the environment's typical workload.
• VMware capacity planner is a much better tool, collects all statistics for 30 days, and works on both Windows and Linux

Access Control

• VirtualCenter authentication is Windows only (AD or Local Windows Accounts)
• ESX (Service Console) authentication is local Linux user accounts or PAM (e.g. LDAP back to AD)
• VirtualCenter authenticates to an ESX host as 'vpxuser' (with a random password)
• Permissions = User/Group + Role (+ Privileges). Permissions -> applied to -> Inventory Objects
• Web Access 'Generate Remote Console URL' provides access (directly to an ESX host) for users/administrators to manage a single VM.

Resource Management

• CPU or Memory shares are never used unless there is contention for CPU or Memory resources
• Shares are only relative within resource pool siblings - not between resource pools

VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure Day 2

So today was day two of the VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure course. It was a lot more interesting than Day 1, although still ran at a pretty slow pace. Below are some of my notes made during the course & labs:

Storage

• SAN Troubleshooting Guide available, recommended reading:
• http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_san_design_deploy.pdf
• ESX can boot from an iSCSI SAN only when using a hardware initiator (iSCSI HBA).
• ESX does not currently support TCP/IP offload engine (TOE) NIC cards (although it does support TCP session offload).
• When using a software iSCSI initiator the session is established (TCP/3260) using the Service Console network interface (CHAP & SendTargets IP address discovery). Network Connectivity is required from the service console to the iSCSI SAN (could use a 2nd service console interface, just for this purpose).

VirtualCenter

• ODBC connection from Virtual Center to SQL 2005 DB needs SQL Native Client (not SQL Server ODBC driver)
• Virtual Center SQL Login needs db_owner on vCenter and MSDB databases

Important VMware communications - e.g for firewall security policy

• VirtualCenter to License Server: 27000, 27010
• Rebates and SDK Clients to VirtualCenter: 443, 80
• VirtualCenter to ESX Hosts: 902
• VI Client to VirtualCenter: 443
• VI Client to ESX Host Remote Console: 903

• By default VirtualCenter accumulates performance data on ESX Hosts and VMs for 1 year
• Commands to check the status of, or start the ESX host process (vmware-hostd):
• service mgmt-vmware status, service mgmt-vmware start

Virtual Machines

• As a guideline deploy single CPU VMs unless a multiple CPU VM is absolutely needed (e.g. multithreaded application requirement).
• As a guideline deploy multiple CPU VMs when there is at least a 2:1 ratio between virtual and physical CPU requirements (e.g. dual core VM, have quad core Host. Quad core VM have 8 core Host).
• There is no support in ESX for virtual USB devices (even though there is in VMware Workstation).
• www.digi.com have a USB to TCP/IP (5xUSB, 1xRJ45 - 10/100Mb Ethernet) converter - called AnywhereUSB. Software can be installed in the VM which provides access to the USB device over the VM's network interface.

VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure Training

Today was day one on the 'VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure' training course, which I'm doing mainly because that's the only way VMware will allow you to get the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certification (you can't just take the exam - the course is required). As the course is pretty slow-paced I thought I'd blog some notes as I go along, which I can refer back to if needed, and they may come in handy for someone else out there too...

Certification & Exams

• Read the VCP on VI3 Exam Blueprint
  


• http://mylearn.vmware.com/lcms/mL_faq/1714/VCP3.5Blueprint.PDF
  


• Take the VCP on VI3 Mock Exam
  


• http://mylearn.vmware.com/quiz.cfm?item=639&ui=www
  


• Book the Exam through Pearson Vue (90 mins, 70% required):
  


• http://www.pearsonvue.com/vmware/

Intro

• VMware Authorized Consultants (VACs) can access a tool, VMware Capacity Planner, which helps plan virtualising a data centre.
  


• VCDX Certification intended to represent a similar 'level' of ability in VMware that the CCIE did 10 years ago. Intended to be very difficult to attain. Requires multi choice exam, hands-on labs and completion and presentation of a design to a board of examiners.
  


• The HCL is three documents, updated almost every week (Wednesday). System (Server), IO (NIC), Storage/SAN.

Installation

• swap Partition size = 2 x Service Console RAM (272MB) = 544MB (No 3rd party modules) = 2 x Service console RAM Maximum (800MB) = 1.6GB (Recommended for Production Use, permits the installation of additional 3rd party modules in the service console)


• /var/log = 500MB minimum, VMware recommends 2GB.

Labs

• Accessed the 'Lab' via VMware's 'Virtual Datacenter' - actually HP Proliant DL360G5 servers in one of two physical datacenters in San Francisco. (VMware have 700 physical hosts to run education around the world). Installed ESX 3.5 using HP iLO access, from a Citrix Metaframe XP connection to a VMware Classroom 'PC' (running the RES PowerFuse locked-down Windows shell).


• Commands for troubleshooting service console connectivity (wrong NIC selected as service console):


• esxcfg-nics -l (list NICs and PCI addresses in system)


• esxcfg-vswitch -l (list NICs and virtual switches)


• esxcfg-vswitch -U and esxcfg-vswitch -L (to link the correct NIC)

Networking

• ESX has three uses for networking:

1. Virtual Machine connectivity


2. Service Console connectivity


3. Kernel Connectivity (Vmotion + Storage (iSCSI, NAS))

• Load balancing VM networking connections across multiple physical NICs based on IP Hash requires Etherchannel/802.3AD Aggregation support in the physical network switching infrastructure.

iPhone 3G, Snowboarding and Motor Racing

My non-technical pasttime this winter has been learning to Snowboard, with a couple of trips to different mountains in NZ completed so far (and I'm off again tomorrow). There was no chance of me leaving my gadgets behind though, especially not my iPhone 3G. I've become quite attached to it since I queued for it back on the launch day. (In fact most of my colleagues at FINAO have also become iPhone users since then - it's practically our corporate phone standard).

My biggest concern taking the iPhone Snowboarding was smashing it (I was only learning, after all) so I had to get a decent case. The morning I flew down to Queenstown I headed to Magnum Mac in Albany and picked up my Griffin Nu Form case, which was pretty much the best they had to choose from at the time. And while it did protect my iPhone during some pretty crash-filled days at Coronet Peak in the weeks after I returned it cracked and broke - becoming pretty much unusable (easily slipping off).
It wasn't from me dropping it or anything either. My colleague Mike has one too and his has also broken in exactly the same spot. It's obviously a weak point in the design. I took it back to Magnum Mac but they wouldn't exchange it or give me my money back, so I had to buy another one. From a different manufacturer of course. I definitely won't be recommending the Griffin Nu Form iPhone 3G cases to anyone that asks!

So my new case is a Contour Design 'Fusion' for iPhone 3G. It's a much more 'rubbery' feeling case but it doesn't seem to have the same weak points as the Griffin case does, in that all the accessory switches are moulded over rather than cut around. It's also quite a nice deep gloss black - much like the phone itself - so doesn't look as cheap as the other one. We'll see how well it protects the iPhone Snowboarding tomorrow and Friday at Turoa skifield on Mt Ruapehu.

The other thing I've found interesting iPhone/Snowboarding related is the excellent Snowreports iPhone app, from www.snowreports.co.nz. It's been really useful with quick checkups of the conditions on the slopes days (or even weeks) before we headed to Coronet Peak, Mt Dobson and more recently Turoa. I have to say that I've still been falling back to the Metservice website for more details, but the iPhone app is very cool. I'm looking forward to new features in time for next year's ski season. In fact there may even be time left this year with Boxing Day skiiing already on the cards for Mt Ruapehu, due to the huge amount of snow we've had this year!

As soon as we're done Snowboarding (that's assuming the weather holds out and the wind goes away and we actually get out there) Jon & I are heading to Taupo to watch my cousin Dale racing in the first round of the New Zealand V8s Championship motor racing.

I've recently completed an update to his website, reflecting his new team colours, and I took the opportunity to move from a static HTML site which was hard for me to update to one based on Joomla. Although Joomla is free I sprung $50 for a professional site template which was quite nice, but other than that it's been a low-cost high functionality return. Administering content with Joomla is a breeze, and its been quite fun figuring out just what it can do. I'm not much of a programmer or web developer so it's nice to get quite a dynamic site without too much pain.

I'm always on the search now for new Joomla modules that I can play with, and possibly add some life to my own website.

Anyway I'll be blogging away this weekend (technology and Vodafone NZ 3G coverage willing) at dalewilliamsracing.blogspot.com. I really do need to hack my iPhone so I can use it as a tethered modem. It really sucks that AT&T won't let Apple enable that functionality. I really relied on that with my Nokia E61s (and earlier). Maybe my next Laptop (possibly a Toshiba Portege M700) will have to have 3G data built in. Will have to spring for _another_ $50 1GB monthly data charge then though! :-(

Media Server NAS

I haven't posted anything in a while - it's not that I haven't had anything to post, just been too busy.

So the first thing I've been messing around with is my little NAS - a D-Link DNS-323, with a single 1TB (for now). It's an awesome little box, nice and quiet (except at bootup when the fan swings into action) with great features. Power consumption is nice and low, and the HDD spins down when not in use so I get some pretty nice 'always-on' features without upsetting Al Gore ;-) There's really good community support as well with loads of other users out there. I really like the funplug stuff - where you can run pretty much a full *nix OS on it and all sorts of add-on applications without much effort at all.

I'm using the Fonz Funplug (FFP), which is as easy to install as dropping the script and a .tgz file and rebooting. Then change the root password, enable the sshd daemon and your away. Check out this list of pre-compiled add-on packages!

One of the primary goals of running the NAS was as a Media Server for my XBox360 in my bedroom. Something to stream TV/movies and Video Podcasts without requiring another PC running all the time. I started out with Twonky - the 30 day trial version and it worked like a charm, with only a few hiccups. One issue I had with it - and many others have experienced the same thing - is while streaming Music it just cuts out. The song time keeps counting but there's no sound. You can skip to the next song and it starts and plays fine for a while, then cuts out again.

So I thought I'd have a look at alternatives before parting with my 30 euros :-} The main app that people have been discussing is uShare. I started by upgrading to FFP 0.5 (delete the old one, reboot, put the new files on, reboot) then I downloaded the pre-built archive mentioned here, extracted it and ran the install script. A quick edit of the /ffp/etc/ushare.conf file to point at my media directories and its up and running.

So far it works great for Videos, Music is still a bit random with it listing all files instead of sorting by Album etc. But I'm looking into a fix. I'm sure someone else has come across the same thing and hopefully knows the resolution.

The other thing I'd like to be able to do is Wake-On-LAN from the DNS-323. So I can VPN in, SSH to the NAS and startup a PC if needed. I'm sure there's other cool things that can be done too, the combination of price and features makes this a really nice little box. Highly recommended.

Rockstar!

Well I'm slowly working my way through GTA4. I've completed 67.81% of the game after 49 1/2 hours playing time, and I've only gone one more story mission left to complete. I haven't played much on multiplayer, but that's only down to limited time available (my global rank: 394,495!).

I got the first game update today, which was interesting. Doesn't sound like it'll affect me that much yet. I had a couple of multiplayer rounds last night with my mate Pete, and got an achievement (Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie). Looking into it today, it's: "Kill a Rockstar developer in a ranked multiplayer match." Pretty cool really :-)

Motherboard Issues and a Media-Streaming NAS

A couple of months back I upgraded the CPU in my home PC, from an Intel Dual Core 2.4GHz to a Core2 Quad 2.4 GHz (E6600). I didn't really need the upgrade, I rarely play PC games, but I thought it would make my Video Editing life a little quicker. An d it was cheap - only $300. My thinking was that I could pull the Dual Core CPU out and throw it into my brother's PC - giving us both an upgrade.

1st disappointment: The Dual Core CPU wouldn't work in my brother's motherboard (although it says supports dual core on the box, the fine-print on the website list that CPU as not supported). So I've been thinking about getting a cheap replacement MB for his PC, so I can make use of the CPU (currently sitting on my desk).

2nd disappointment: Ever since I installed the Quad Core CPU in my PC I get full hardware lockups intermittently. Sometimes repeatedly, straight after turning the PC on. Pain in the backside. So although my MB fully supports the CPU, there's got to be some compatibility issue (MB=Asus Striker Extreme).

I have upgraded my BIOS a few times to try and resolve the issue, with no great luck - when I spotted the 3rd problem: My RAID-1 config has been broken - probably as the result of a BIOS upgrade & loading setup defaults :-( I have 2x 500GB HDDs in a mirror, to protect my data - and now I have two separate HDs showing in Windows with different amounts of data on them. Grrr.

So I need to recreate the mirror - but the last time I did that I lost data, so I need a backup before proceeding. I don't have enough spare HDDs to backup the 450GB I have on these drives, so I've been shopping for a 1TB HDD, and a little NAS to put it in. There are some really cool NASs around these days, for very little money. I've been looking at:
* Linksys NAS200
* WD My Book World Edition (Dicky's got one)
* D-Link DNS-323

I was looking seriously at getting the NAS200 - due to it's cheap price, I like the Linksys brand, and the Media Streaming capability intrigued me. I like the idea of streaming movies etc straight to my Xbox 360 without having my PC switched on (using TVersity). But then after more reading website reviews etc. the D-Link box looks superior to the Linksys. Both in terms of performance and features. The D-Link has a 10/100/1000 interface and the Linksys only has a 10/100, but the internal CPU speed of the D-Link is better too. These results show how well the D-Link performs. There's a good Wiki about the DNS-323 here.

The best price I've found for the D-Link is at Ascent ($370) although no-one seems to have any in stock. And I've ordered a WD Caviar 1TB HDD, (for $318) which looks to have some good power saving features (might be helpful if I leave the NAS on 24x7).

So that'll solve my HDD issue. And hopefully provide a nice new media streaming system.

Now back to the motherboard issue. I've decided to buy a new MB for my PC - an Asus P5Q Pro, and move my Striker Extreme into my brother's computer. The main benefit of doing this for me will be the ability to run my Corsair Dominator 8500C5D RAM at 1066Mhz - where I can only run it at 800MHz in my current MB (has annoyed me all this time). Hopefully that'll give me a slight performance gain.

I gave up on the Striker Extreme following this weekend's hair-pulling antics after a BIOS upgrade gone wrong (Problem #4). In further troubleshooting my CPU hang issue I noticed that there was a (yet even) newer BIOS available from Asus - version 1504. I completed the upgrade using the EZflash function in the BIOS (from USB memory stick). It verified the BIOS upgrade OK, said it was restarting in 5seconds, then never came back.

The LCD Poster code was CODEINIT. Not a good sign. I tried all sorts of things to get past it, CMOS clear button, HW clock reset jumper everything. I was fully ready to remove it from the case and return to the supplier for an EEPROM replacement. And then I found a forum post mentioning something else I hadn't tried. Physically removing the CMOS battery from the MB - powering on for 10s - CMOS clear - powering off for 10s - replacing the battery - and powering back on.

It was back, working fine - but I still have the occasional lockup issue :-(

So it's new motherboard time. When the board and the HD arrive I'll backup my data and rebuild my machine. This time I'm going to install Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit SP1 - having finally obtained an SP1 slipstreamed install disk. I've waited almost 18 months to install Vista, following the hardware issues I had straight off I've run XP on it ever since, but with SP1 I figure it's about time to try again. And running 64bit should enable me to see the whole 4GB of RAM. Yay!

Slipstreaming XP SP3 - Issues with Windows Vista

Don't slipstream XP sp3 on Windows Vista! - Bink.nu
Doh! Just found this out the hard way: If you try and create a slipstreamed Windows XP Service Pack 3 image (i386 directory for an ISO) on Vista it all looks like it works great until the machine you want to install boots into Windows - it won't accept a valid product ID. What a waste of time :-(

Back to the start, extracting Sp3 from the .exe (-x), extracting an i386 directory from my bootable ISO, and doing a update.exe /slipstream:c:\temp - this time from another XP machine...

Silly really to think that two Microsoft products would work well together.

SP1 has landed - Finally!

I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I was finally offered Windows Vista SP1. The surprise was really down to the fact that I still hadn't met the prerequisites for drivers that SP1 was previously looking for. I got one of the two drivers I was missing a couple of weeks back - a new version of the Sigmatel Audio driver (from Microsoft).

But as I wrote a while back, Microsoft Support (KB948343) said I needed a new UPEK Fingerprint Reader driver - which wasn't available from my manufacturer (Toshiba). It had been suggested to me that I just install the latest driver from the UPEK website - they have v2.10 build 118 available, whereas I have v1.9.2.74 - the latest available through Toshiba.

But I wasn't really THAT keen. BSODing my primary laptop wasn't really a good option for me - so I was waiting for updated drivers to be available through the OEM (as MS said there were issues with drivers pre-v1.9.2.99).

So when Windows Update offered me SP1 I went looking. Had I Windows-Updated the UPEK driver without knowing? Nope. Nothing had changed. Going back to KB948343 to double check - and that entry has gone. It's no longer a troublesome driver apparently. What? How is that possible? Either SP1 + bad driver = BSOD or it doesn't, surely.

So I tried searching around for a while to see if anyone else had experienced any issues, but couldn't find anything (Theory: If it's not Googleable then it doesnt exist). I then decided to proceed with the Service Pack update - but only following a couple of hours of extra backups to both another PC and an external HDD.

I guess the only stand out thing with this Service Pack, from all the (seems like 1000s of) other ones I've done in the past is that it took AGES. It said allow 1 hour or something, but I'm sure it took 2. A really long time anyway. But when everything came back without a problem I was happy. And from the relatively short time I've been using it, I'm sure its working faster than before. My niggly Outlook 2007 freezing on startup problem has gone away too, which is great.

I'll continue to keep my eye on it for a while before officially declaring it a success, but I'm happy for the time being. Yay!

Checkpoint SPLAT and hardware limitations

I'm just struggling through planning an implementation of Checkpoint VPN-1 on SecurePlatform & HP hardware. Unfortunately the quad-port NICs the customer used to use (PCIx NC340T) are no longer available for purchase. The only quad-ports that are available for purchase are the NC364T (a PCI express card) - but they are only supported in SecurePlatform 2.6 NGX R65 (as opposed to just SecurePlatform NGX R65). What's the difference? The newer one is a fork based on the Linux 2.6 kernel.
I found this useful summary from a Checkpoint forum post:

"The main point of moving to the 2.6 linux kernel is increased hardware compatibility. Check Point recommends that you stay on the standard R65 SecurePlatform unless you have hardware that is not supported by the standard R65 release. If you have hardware that is not supported by R65 standard, but is supported by the 2.6 kernel release, then use it.
See the Hardware Compatability List
Please note that there are a few systems not supported by the 2.6 release...
The initial SecurePlatform 2.6 release includes all standard release HFA 01 and HFA 02 fixes. Moving forward, the HFAs will be released separately - e.g., HFA 03 for R65 may be released in a month, and HFA 01 for SecurePlatform 2.6 may be released 3 months later. With different code trees, its recommended to stay with the "main branch" if you can. Same goes for the R65 management "plug-ins"... they're not available for SecurePlatform 2.6.
You cannot upgrade "in-place" from standard R65 to the 2.6 release, but you can upgrade in-place from prior versions. For standard R65 you can perform and export/import to move the SecurePlatform 2.6 release."

What a can of worms that is eh!

I also spotted this forum post which mentions he has the NC364Ts working with SPLAT 2.6 R65, so that's kind of reassuring. Funny though - the Release Notes for R65 mention nothing about all this - but I did find additional Release Notes for SPLAT 2.6 for R65 (which I found by searching - not listed in the documentation links).

Unfortunately that has caused me another problem:
"VPN-1 Accelerator Cards II, III, and IV are not supported in this release. They will be
supported with new drivers in the future."

Grand Theft Auto IV Easter Eggs

This could be an interesting set of links:
Grand Theft Auto IV Easter Egg Finds | Game | Life from Wired.com

Love the cheat URL www.whattheydonotwantyoutoknow.com :-)

I haven't come across anything that cool yet - how do these people find these things? More time on their hands than I've got, obviously. I'm only 17% through so far - been spending a bit of time playing Multiplayer tonight, which obviously doesnt get me anywhere further ahead (good to work on my aim, though).

My favourite things so far in GTA4:

• The Cybercafe (web interface is cool, SPAM email is funny)
• Ricky Gervais standup comedy on TV in the apartment
• The Police Car computer
• Flying through the window after a headon collision (ended up in a tree once!)
• The Mobile phone (dial 911 for a police car, SMS text message to restart mission)

I've signed up at the 'Social Club' but it hasn't really opened up anything interesting yet - the multiplayer stats tracking isn't online. So far I have:

• Walked 17,296 miles
• Driven 124,050 miles

So I've got my first couple of 'certificates' in the Liberty City Marathon :-)


Its definitely the only exercise I've done this week!

Xbox 360 Elite and TVersity

In preparation for the arrival of Grand Theft Auto 4 tomorrow night (GPStore is open for pickups at midnight) I bought myself another Xbox 360 - this time an Xbox 360 Elite. I dont really need the 120GB HDD, or particularly prefer black over white - I just want the HDMI connection. I'm installing the Elite in my bedroom, and so the HDMI connection means a single cable going across the wall rather than a much bulkier (and shorter) Xbox HDTV cable. I wish I had an Elite in the lounge instead of my original - the HDMI would mean I could get 1080p on the big TV, as opposed to the 1080i I have to put up with through Component connection.

So I got the new console all up and running, using the USB WiFi connection I already had (went wired on the other Xbox a while back). Got connected to my main PC (via TVersity) and was browsing around the music & videos and then tried the 'Internet Videos' link. Low and behold I found YouTube - sweet!, I thought. Stupidly I never realised that TVersity streams and recodes YouTube content too :-) And it works a charm.
So I had a play around with adding more Internet URLs -Video RSS feeds, and got Tekzilla, Mahalo Daily working, and also added the TWiT audio podcast.

Totally stoked. Even though I knew I'd be able to use the new 360 for DVDs and Streamed Videos I never clocked that I'd be able to use it for Podcasts and YouTube too, so thats definitely a big bonus. Now I only need one more thing to make me truly happy - Region 2 (+4) DVD playback!

I've also got to try and find a Black Xbox 360 controller battery pack somehow - it doesn't look like anyone sells the Black ones in NZ!

Wahoo - Stable Internet Again

OK, so I've got one less thing to whinge about now. Thanks to those lovely chaps at Orcon sorting out my repeated connect/disconnect issue my Broadband's humming again as normal with no interruptions.

It was quite funny actually - after I got Duncan's comment on my Blog on Thursday I dropped him an email, then went home from work. Pretty much as soon as I got home (about 7PM-ish ) the Internet died. Wasn't impressed. No Internet at all now! I thought: one of two things might be happening here, either Duncan's not happy with my Blog so Orcon's cut me off :-), or they're trying to resolve the issues that me and presumably other users were facing.

So I waited for an hour or so for it to come back on (but it didn't), then called the helpdesk (I _hate_ calling helpdesks!). I sat on hold for 15 minutes (listening to some rather amping techno music) and got through to a very well-meaning young lady. She said she tried to do a reset on my DSL port, but was unable to as there were people working in the Browns Bay exchange, but when they had finished she would get one of the L2 techs to check again to see if I still had a problem. I thought that was kind of funny, as there probably wouldn't be people in the exchange if there wasn't actually a problem. So she said it I'll probably have to wait until morning before I got reconnected. I turned my router off (first night it's ever been off since I got it I think) and waited till morning.

Come the morning and I switched the router back on, fingers crossed that my link would come back up. It did. Wahoo! I thought. Back online. So I went to work. I logged in from work to the Orcon system, which shows every connect & disconnect, a few times during the day and it looked pretty good. Got home last night & it was all good too. By this afternoon I was quite happy that the problem had gone away, and got a lovely email from Lee@Orcon confirming the fault had been resolved.

Even better though, later on this afternoon I got a call from Orcon explaining that the product/service I had received wasn't up to what they would expect so I'm going to get a full month's credit on my bill. Nice! :-) So thanks to Duncan and the rest of the Orcon crew. Customer happy on that account.

Now all we have to do is sort out this speed issue. Have to get my speed back up to where it should be - can't let my Facebook profile suffer!

Broadband Speed and 'Upgrades' to ADSL2

OK, so I think it's time for another rant. I'm mightily disappointed at the moment with my new 'Local Loop Unbundled' broadband service from Orcon. OK, so it's cheaper than Telecom/Xtra, and the boys are going to get good use out of unlimited national calling, but my Internet access is slower! Having paid for an 'ADSL2+' service (billed as 24Mb/s), and living about 250m up the road from the Telephone Exchange (one of the first to be 'freed') I wasn't that impressed when my link speed only came up at 13Mb/s. But that was just the start.

Not only did my link come up 'slow' but it went down again. And came up again. And went down again... more than a dozen times yesterday (more today)! (My old Xtra connection hardly ever went up/down - definitely nothing noticable like this). I've upgraded my Netgear DG834N DSL Router to version 1.02.08 - the first upgrade available for it in like 18months! Hopefully that will improve things somewhat (there's this in the release notes: "Enabled ITU G.992.5 Annex M which extends the capability of basic ADSL2 by doubling the number of upstream bits").

So I get into some downloading - to test the speed of the International bandwidth - all that I'm really interested in (local access speed is kind of meaningless really). And it's noticably slower than usual. Time for the 'Facebook Broadband Speed Challenge'. Yep definitely slower than my Xtra service.

Lucky I've been compiling some stats over time really. I was interested a while back when I noticed that my Xtra Broadband had increased in local access speed from 7ish Mb to over 10Mb - 'I must be on an ADSL2 access, I thought'.

I ran a few tests and sure enough, even the Facebook Broadband app constantly showed I had a good 10+Mb of Internet access. 'Nice' (I thought).

Then I noticed that my speed would drop down every now and then - back to ADSL speeds. Were Telecom messing with my connection, putting me back on the old gear? Hmmm. But anyway then I 'upgraded' to Orcon. The '10 Day' installation lead actually took 3 weeks. Over which time I never once had an email or a phonecall from them confirming my order (I rang them up and told them what I thought of their rubbish customer care). They said they had sent me a confirmation email (to my new Orcon email address! which of course I had no idea how to access). I logged in, but there was no mail there (rubbish! I thought). So I switched my router settings over anyway to the new username/password. And today I get the 'welcome' email. A bit late, I thought, I've already been using your service for a day!

So today - my second day as a new LLU'd conversion - I run my speed tests. And no matter how fast my access speed is, the Facebook app doesnt lie. I've never had such a low speed result before :-( Disaster. One of my Facebook friends is bound to catch me now! (There can be only one #1)


All I can say is that I hope things better. I hope Orcon's customer service improves. Their self service website is definitely nice (gives me great reporting functionality - like seeing how many times a day my link drops!). I hope their international bandwidth picks up. And I hope the boys enjoy their free calls. Cause I sure don't enjoy life in the slow lane :'-(

Where's my SP1?

OK, so I'm getting kind of anxious now. Windows Vista SP1 has been released. Like a really long time ago! And I still can't get it. Well OK, I can get it (manually), but I've read the reports, the horror stories, the incompatible drivers that will brick my machine (which I use all day every day). So I've patiently waited, installed everything that Windows Update has thrown at me (even Silverlight!) but still no SP1. Do I still have incompatible drivers? I've installed all the new drivers I could find on the Toshiba website (for my Portege M400) but still no SP1.

So check this out: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=948343
And you get this list of reasons why:
Cause 1
You are already running Windows Vista SP1.
- Nope, not me!
Cause 2
Windows Vista SP1 has not been released for the language of the language pack that you have installed.
- Nope, speaka da English
Cause 3
Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool is used to block the delivery of Windows Vista SP1 from Automatic Updates or from Windows Update.
- What? The Service Pack Blocker Tool? Sacrilege! I'm not under the control of some crazy sysadmin who can stop me getting SP1! (quick check of HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate - just in case)
Cause 4
You tried to install Windows Vista SP1, and the installation failed with a known inconsistency in the file or registry structure.
- Nope, haven't even gotten that far.
Cause 5
A hardware device driver or device software was problematic when you updated to Windows Vista SP1.
- But I haven't updated yet, right?
The Windows Update service can detect the small set of device drivers and software that falls into this category. The Windows Update service will not offer Windows Vista SP1 until an update for the hardware device driver or the device software has been installed.
- Now how could I possibly know? How long am I going to have to wait for new drivers?
Cause 6
You have installed a prerelease version of Windows Vista SP1, and you must uninstall the prerelease version, or start with a new installation of Windows Vista.
- Nope. Not me. I'm legit.
Cause 7
You used the third-party program vLite to configure the system, and you may have removed required system components that have to be available for Windows Vista SP1 to be installed.
For more information, visit the following vLite Web site:
http://www.vlite.net (http://www.vlite.net/)
- Nope. Haven't come across that one before.
Cause 8
You see one or more updates for Windows Vista when you run Windows Update. However, you do not see Windows Vista SP1 listed.
- Nope. No updates at all.

So I guess I'm stuck with Cause #5. So what does that mean? A quick scan of the list, and a 'Search' of my system shows two likely candidates:
Method for Cause 5

To help ensure a positive update experience, Windows Update will temporarily not offer Windows Vista SP1 to systems that have the following device drivers. In some cases, these device drivers are problematic on Windows Vista-based computers when you update to Windows Vista SP1. By installing updated device drivers, you will resolve the issue and enable Windows Update to offer Windows Vista SP1.

Audio drivers
SigmaTel
• For x86-based computers: Sthda.sys - version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier
SigmaTel
• For x86-based computers: Stwrt.sys - version 6.10.5511.0 or earlier

Biometric (Fingerprint) Sensors
• UPEK Fingerprint Sensor with the Tcusb.sys driver file – version 1.9.2.99 or earlier

Bugger! The latest version available from Toshiba is:
12-20-2006 Toshiba Fingerprint Utility for Windows Vista/XP (v5.6.0 Build 3284; 12-15-2006; 12.65M)
And I've already installed what seems like a newer version of the audio driver:
01-10-2007 SigmaTel HD Audio Driver for Windows Vista (v6.10.0.5286; 01-05-2007; 8.17M)
But still my .DLL is version 5.10.4866.0 :-(

I think I'm going to be waiting a while yet for my SP1...


For reference:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_sp1_ga.asp

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/436CBFFE7DCD7B54CC25741000738ADE

Update: I'm glad I'm not the only one!