David Mackies Blue Brain

Please Mr Mobs

Google didn’t even put a Jedi out of business

885,000 results for “the droids we're looking for” so in the world of Google letting anyone become a computer expert should I worry that we are going to be driven to the lowest common denominator as far as customers?

I don’t think so because we hang together a solution and Google will help people search error logs for fixes.

Any way saw this picture on a mates facebook page and it made me think of all the people who say Tech Blogs and Google are going to put me out of Business

Got to feel bad for Border Express – Now other peoples security issues spill over to clients

This can’t be fun for Border Express and it would not be fun for our clients either. Makes me think twice about selling third party services to clients because of the trust loop and possible risks.

This isn’t a Seek is bad thing it is a we are responsible thing. Sorry if it just sounds like more anti-service provider talk. I am aware we could be hacked in a similar way so we need to look more deeply at our Patching and Security processes and stay up to date as always.

The register had a link to a job ad that was hacked on the job site

Oz firm seeks talented IT developer • The Register

"The matter is currently being investigated by Australian police. Border Express Pty Ltd and Seek are in no way responsible for posting the job advertisement as displayed in your news article. The job advertisement has been repaired to its original form."

Merging Differencing Disks

In December I blogged about the new lab but mentioned a customer problem that came up which made having the lab all the better. I said I would document the fix so here goes…

So I ran up my lab machine and jumped right in, that was about fixing an orphaned AVHD file (a Snapshot nobody remembers creating) I’ll blog that process another day because I will need to go back through the steps maybe with screen shots :)

The Hyper-V server lost all of its VMs I think due to an issue with AV exclusions but long story short the Server VHD file was used to create a whole new VM not a great idea but that is what happened. When the files were examined on the fully operational server it was determined that the server had been rolled back to the 15th of December worse it was now having mail delivered and users were using files. What to do?

Well this customer uses our Ahsay service and we backup the local files from the Hyper-V VirtualMachines Volume

So quick restore and all good

Well not all good I still needed to get the files back and maybe exmerge out the mail boxes so off to my Hyper-V lab…

Now I had a new merged VHD which I just mounted in Hyper-V as a new machine which was an SBS 2003 R2 Server exmerged out the mail boxes and Robocopied out the files Happy customer VERY Happy

Fun with Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 - David Mackies Blue Brain

So Apple have invented the Tablet after all

Slate PC …. WTF????

So Bill Gates first introduced the Tablet PC in Las Vegas in 2001. Today Steve Ballmer turned the platform in to a Kindle great job well done.

For reading, for surfing the web, and for taking entertainment on the go ….

What about how well it goes with OneNote how about how cool that will be when Office 2010 Professional includes OneNote

So to make it so much more of a missed opportunity you demo Kindle software so the best thing you can think of to do with a Tablet is turn it into a $250 night stand reader. You do have your own reader don't you? DON'T YOU?

I think I might need to start a list of the things my tablet gets used for in the next two weeks just to list the things that don’t include reading fairy tales about people wanting a Book with a Media Player.

Steve you own the business computing space why not leave the dumbed down toy market to those who can’t understand why I want a business tool.

We are so getting this on DVD…

That is the first thing Alexander (my son) said as the credits rolled on Avatar today.

Well First one of the best movies I have seen in a LOOOOONG time

While Alex loved all of the movie (which incidentally so did I) but the other things that provoked thought for me were the bits of technology,

not because they were cool looking (oh but so cool) I wondered how far away we are from these very workable interfaces.

There was one point where a window on a larger screen was grabbed and moved to a completely translucent (Motion Computing Looking) Tablet and the user just walked away with it. I kind of wondered how I might do something a little similar today.

Well I have a Tablet Lenovo X200T although not the one with Multi Touch, so how would I move the Application? Would I use a Published App in RDS / Citrix? That would let me save state and move but it would not be as smooth as what I saw.

How far fetched do people think the 3D interactive touch displays are?? This made me think back to what Phil Fawcett from MS Research said at the TechEd 2009 AU lock note. He mentioned work on Surface with the idea of depth, so with a decent projection system I can see this as very real and soonish.

Anyway Avatar cool Movie and thought provoking for nerds

BTW noticed Episode 4 of V.2009 had similar user interfaces so will Movies and TV drive UI enhancement?

Fun with Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

Now before I got play in my lab too much a customer had a problem which I needed to fix.

So I ran up my lab machine and jumped right in, that was about fixing an orphaned AVHD file (a Snapshot nobody remembers creating) I’ll blog that process another day because I will need to go back through the steps maybe with screen shots :)

Because I built the Hyper-V Server R2 boxes in a hurry I needed to get running quickly and of course the Hyper-V Manager for Windows 7 is the best way to configure Guests what if you just need to get some better info from the Host Server.

The management console in Hyper-V Server R2 is so 1990 and not really what GUI guys want to be seeing when in a hurry.

So what is a guy to do except use….

Core Configurator 2.0 from www.Codeplex.com/coreconfig

I thought the ability to Start and Stop Guests from the server it self was a really great feature. You can even see a thumb nail of the Guest 

Lab Delay

Oh I was SOOOOO Happy when my Lab Servers arrived a week early…

You might recall that I bought two HP ML330 G6 Servers and I chose to make one of them Dual Socket.

I spent many hours last night trying to discover why it would not boot even though I was getting the Green Light of Goodness.

Because the Server arrived in Parts (as I ordered it) I did the:

• Power supply Kit upgrade
• Installed the now hot swap power supply
• Installed the CPU Kit

BTW Step one says update the System ROM

I of course ignored that as “They always say that” and surely the system must support both sockets out of the box. Of course it DOES NOT and in order to flash the BIOS you need to be able to boot. So out with the modifications flash the BIOS and back in.

Now all GOOD

So I need to remember that in a battle of wits I am sometimes quite unarmed.

Hmmmmm maybe you miss spoke.

I was at a User Group tonight and the presenter when entering his password was challenged about it’s lack of complexity. The response was “so they are just Virtual Machines” me thinks you might have meant Demo Machines…

So why do I care? I don’t really.

Of course we want to stay on top of treating VMs like we used to Physicals because they are REAL servers

Chrisco at Cisco

I got an email from Cisco today where they are running a competition to win Christmas Dinner with out of town (even International) family and friends via TelePresence.

This got me thinking about my parents who are on the Central Coast Perhaps they could share XMAS Dinner with us via Live Messenger on my Tablet…

Now to check if they have a Webcam… Maybe an early present coming their way if they don’t have one.

How will you be spending Christmas Day? Maybe with remote family.

A Christmas dinner on us! WIN a Christmas dinner hosted by Cisco in our 3-screen Cisco TelePresence 3000 suite where you can have an amazing get-together with absent loved ones as if they’re in the same room. There are only two dinners to be won, so enter now for a Christmas you’ll never forget – and the food’s on us! There are also some great runner up prizes like 10 Christmas catch ups over a 1-screen Cisco TelePresence 1000 suite and 20 Flip Mino HD video camcorders.

Always Listen to Mark

Trying to sort out of customer service finally for ever since I don’t enjoy hearing this Ticket System sux and while I understand there are small niggling things with every piece of software, I have to say this is the one I keep coming back to. Yes I know Mark Giles told me easily two years ago that this was the one for us :(

of course I NEVER Listen now do I?

I do need to do a trial in our site and have bumped this to the top of our Lab booking list.

The Question I need to answer is do I just run on our SBS 2008 Server or do I run on a separate server? Probably leaning toward the separate server for scalability.

Anyone got advice? Anyone think this is a bad choice? Should I do a Deployment Guide?

What will I use my Lab for first?

Since I decided that a decent lab environment was needed in order for us to effectively create offerings and improve our training efforts I have been pondering what would the first cab off the rank…

Some Ideas have been:

• SBS 2008 in a fail over cluster
• EBS 2008 in a fail over cluster
• Citrix NetScaler VPX Express Edition

Then of course some of the things I want to look at deeper

• Microsoft's VDI Strategy
• How to rebuild remote PCs using the OEM Setup Partition Method (to discover how to sync new WIM Images)
• Network Management with Zabbix or Nagios
• vTiger Ticketing system

Well that might see me through to the New Year (while fitting in Proofs of Concept for my current long-term Modernisation Project) so what would you want to see built into a Screen cast or Step by Step Guide?

Planning my Lab

I have ordered all the kit and am really just awaiting delivery so I have about a week before I start building.

At this point I’m thinking that I will build the two servers to be bootable from USB which will let me play with the three main vendors on an as required basis, but really I think it will mostly be a Hyper-V Lab.

Even with the decision to most use Hyper-V Server R2 do I install to the Local file system or would it be better to boot this from USB too.

I have found a set of instructions for this (Thanks Ben) but will need really fast USB keys as I suspect this will be critical to whole system performance.

So right now the Lab will be 2 x ML330 G6 with 16GB of Ram (more coming when 8GB Dimms don’t cost the earth) and a white box PC we had used for HomeServer (in a job we should have know better in) running FreeNAS.

More to come as we plan…

I so need a smack

It seems every few years I get to a point where I am completely over the whole working hard at some of my relationships that it is sooooooo much better to turn on the cloak and come back again a bit later.

I have recently poked some folk with a stick because I can and that alone is not good.

I have also said some stuff I could have put in more PC ways and more privately.

But my own special brand of Autistry means that doesn’t happen mostly, so to that end I’m going to do other things and work on being more of a grown up. This Blog will get back to it’s roots a little more and the things I do in other online communities will stop for a while but maybe just long enough for me to be able to show my face again.

Look forward to much more stuff that is just the facts Jack.

See ya tomorrow.

Finally the TechED AU Sessions

I have been waiting for the Australian TechED Sessions to go live and hadn’t checked back in a while but tonight I noticed they are up for download.

I pretty keen to re-watch some of the great sessions and the ones I missed.

Notice I’m busy getting some on my local drive so I can watch offline.

Oh by the way if you didn’t go to TechED you can buy access online.

Too connected? Maybe

Normally I’m pretty contactable my phone gets mail, we have company wide mobile to mobile plans where we get 10 Minute calls free and during a business day I am practically glued to my tablet.

So this makes me pretty accessible.

Today my Business Manager (also Wife) sent a number of emails, and called me a few times but since I was in meetings that I had a significant facilitating role in I didn’t return any of the calls or respond to email (often I will send a quick status update and return calls in the lulls between meetings).

So when I returned the calls I got a reception that seemed to me, to be a WTF have you been doing today.

Turns out we had some things on that needed my input but mostly we seem to rely on my availability a bit much these days.

• I wonder what would happen if I decided to not carry a mobile or check any email while on site for a week?
• Would it take a month to break our dependence?
• Do we want to?
• Would it be better for our business or worse?

Maybe an experiment for one day at a time, baby steps.

Canberra SMB Consultant Community??

Recently I was asked to make some introductions to some folk in the Small Business IT Community here in Canberra.

I have not really been engaged with this kind of thing for a while and I guess I last held the baton.

So I wonder what would make me take the mantle up again? Well really nothing given when I say I held the baton it was really I did everything and that is not good.

SO I need to know if people want a group, what they need from it, AND what they will CONTRIBUTE to it.

Then I will help get it going. Who wants to help?

Or maybe we could just have a quick coffee club kind of thing and VERY adhoc at that.

BTW we could Lunch at the Glass House in the Department of Innovation Building in Civic, I HIGHLY recommend the beef burger and Chips Oh man really super.

Any takers to discuss taking this further?

Must be XMAS

So I guess it really is Christmas time…

HP ML330G6 E5504(1/2) 2GB(1/18) 250GB(1/4)
SATA NHP-3.5 B110i DVD TWR 1YR 504055-011
*** BDL W/ NINTENDO WII SPORTS CONSOLE ***

$1,538.90 EA

Sad part is I’ve been looking at an ML 330 for an internal virtualization lab machine, actually 2 so I can do some cluster configs using Hyper-V Server R2. The Business Investment bonus is something that made me think two might be an option.

BUT what would I do with two WII Sports consoles?

How can I keep Facebook keeping my interest?

I blogged a while back about how Some social media Facebook in particular are helping me engage in a way that I hadn’t expected.

But I do have difficulty staying with the plan or regularly checking the site, (sorry I missed the Mikey notice, congrats Mark, Alex and Ethan) imagine my surprise when I saw Fishbowl a Facebook client built in Silverlight that lets me see things in a nicer way even attribute an interest level to people in my network.

Suppose Wayne goes on a wild self promotion kick and I’d rather tune him down, easy just lower the interest level

Oh by the way you can get the source on codeplex

Low Barometric Pressure

So why do doors on meeting rooms open inwards?

Barometric Pressure as people meeting for reasons of wanting to be in the loop, basically moving their heads from side to side scanning the room like the clown game in a side show and adding the same value.

Progressively stealing oxygen from the room and the longer it happens without someone saying why are we here what is the outcome? Who owns the next step? The less oxygen is left at the end.

Now think about what would happen if the door opened outward? The low pressure would suck the door against the jam sealing it shut and people outside would have no way to open it.

Conversely if the door opens inward the pressure may be so great that the door pops open on it’s own saving the lives of all inside or at least rescuers just need to turn the handle to let air in again, as the door slams open under the strain.

A fast thinking attendee could also pop the pins out of the hinges, this person of course would be killed be the door imploding toward them. They may see this as a merciful way to go, I think we just need to hold less meetings.

Is it possible

I have nothing to say???

I spent most of today talking and might well be talked out. I am interested in how to influence corporate cultural change but not sure how to frame the beginning of that process.

I do know it shouldn’t start with my doors open inwards analogy but sometimes it is the only way to convey the obvious

Have a think about why doors might open inwardly and I’ll let you know tomorrow

Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

Look I’m downloading the beta of Office 2010

Not sure there is much to be said except hmmmm best I backup my OneNote so I can start playing with this.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta Product Key

You may use the following MAK key to activate your evaluation copy of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta.

 

Really most keen to be testing Outlook and OneNote stand by for updates

What's Included

Word OneNote InfoPath

PowerPoint Access SharePoint Workspace

Outlook Publisher Communicator Excel

Agencies SHOULD

I have been notionally sharing in the agencies should = do what you want because that seems to be how some folk read the guidance.

But of course this is garbage, so today is the day where “agencies should” actually means our risk assessment says... at least when looking at my projects

I'm thinking a few times it will really be "Computer says NO" or actually Agencies MUST.

Just thinking out loud

*** Update ***

To drive some context

“[–,IC-P,r] non-agency owned devices
6.8.9. Agencies should not allow devices not directly owned and controlled by the agency to be used with
their systems.”

Generally speaking there are many people who see the use of home computers for remote access as the only real method of large scale remote access, allowing for remote workforce in times of emergency or pandemic. I would be concerned that this would quickly lead to “Bring your own computer” policies becoming more of a norm.

I would need serious convincing that BYO Computer is sensible but remote access on the other hand I can see being a necessity in the short term.

So what would a risk assessment look like?

Micro Blogging

So let randomness commence.

HP Multiseat Solution based on Windows MultiPoint Server 2010

Looks like multiuser PC is making a resurgence and aimed at Schools.

I am the chair of our school board and for me this looks like a great idea for our classrooms, can hardly wait for release of this in Australia HP if you build it we will come.

Kind of makes me wonder if it will be education only because a number of our micro clients COULD look at using this kind of solution too. Not too much info out right now and lots of broken links but will report as I find more because this really looks useful.

Daddy are you just like Bob the Builder or Handy Manny….

But with Computers?

My daughter asked me this tonight which I thought was kind of funny.

It reminded me that I have not used this blog in ages so will try to do better.

What would you like to talk about?

Don’t focus on the advertising

Microsoft are making available a bunch of Windows 7 Themes from a number of Corporate Identities and folks are talking about the sale of advertising in Windows… Hmmmmm maybe this could subsidise the M$ Australia Tax nahhhhh too mean and not the point.

I have a Workstation Requirements Workshop with a client tomorrow and this will be an interesting talking point because this client already does some corporate messaging via the screen saver.

So we can explore some custom branding and continue the messaging system too. Themes are a user setting allowing for deeper customisation based on interactive user.

Rolling these settings out with group policy will make for a great solution for our customisation needs I hope. I’m thinking about dynamic branding as well as dynamic application delivery moving forward, yes you can expect some App-V stuff in the future.

Customize a theme

You can change individual parts of a theme (the pictures, colors, and sounds), and then save the revised theme for your own use or to share with other people.

Watch this video to learn how to customize a theme (2:48)

Customize a theme

So how will I solve the problem of Backup?

Yesterday I linked to a Backup article and book to give some background into Virtual Machine Backup and said I’d explore further today.

I’m not really ready to detail the whole design, and I have a Offering Brochure to prepare so here is the basic idea of the possible parts. I’m almost certain to change some of it and it will only be offered by region where we have an office or agent.

So have a think about some requirements you might have for backup and let me know if you would be interested in collaborating on a solution.

Basic Premise Traditional Servers get a VSS aware backup agent, which supports SQL, MYSQL, Exchange to name a few, Also Continuous Data Protection (CDP). Local Storage holds a copy of the backup while another copy if replicated to our Offsite Backup Server.

Virtualised Servers get the same agents but the agent can do incremental backups in perpetuity so the actual backups are small and fast. Since we have standardised on Hyper-V the virtual machine directories are able to be protected with VSS aware backup agents allowing us to produce BOTH the internal agent based backups but also whole virtual machine backups providing double protection. So with our Single Local Drive configuration we achieve 6 copies of all data which I think is pretty good from an assurance perspective.

Data is also replicated offsite to our replication servers yes that is 3 Copies of Data in a replication chain. We also recommend the local External Hard drives are changed in accordance with our two drives at rest policy meaning a possible 4 Drive Set.

Now if I am missing a big step other than Bandwidth give me a shout. BTW we solve the seeding and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) issues by offering the solution only in our local area only.

Backing up virtual servers

A small part of my job is not to be so much well read but certainly widely read. Some times in RSS feeds I get there are some interesting titles come up and the one from techtarget.com was interesting as the guys in SMBiT Professionals Sydney are holding a Virtualization day today, and I’m fairly sure they might cover backup.

Anyway the article by Eric Beehler made me think about how we do backup virtualised workloads for our SMB clients so I’ll explore that more deeply.

Avoid the big mistakes when backing up virtual servers

Eric Beehler, Contributor

Migrating your servers to virtual machines comes with many obvious benefits; hardware consolidation, performance management, and easier disaster recovery being a few.

Some of the drawbacks, however, come from your old infrastructure. The backup systems in particular can come under disruptive fire because most have been designed to support a certain number of physical servers. Now that your server count can grow exponentially, and the assumptions of resource use go out the window, you need to address your backup solution before virtualization causes backups to get out of control.

Notice Eric has written a book for Realtime Publishers so he might know a thing or two on the subject.

One thing I totally agree with is …

“Take the opportunity to build backup planning into new virtualization projects so you can intelligently review your current approach with those that are available.”

Tomorrow I’ll go through my new “Cloud Based” offsite Backup offering and why it is significantly better than loading USB over Ethernet sorts of Drivers so we can get SBS 2008 Backup to play nice.

So yeah go read Eric’s Article, maybe even his book and then come see what we are offering

Avoid the big mistakes when backing up virtual servers

What Desktop OS to Deploy?

A question came up about what Windows 7 version I plan to deploy moving forward…

So what would influence the decision to go 32 or 64 Bit?

• Windows 2008 R2 RDS or Citrix?
• NetBooks?
• Mobility Solution
• Hand Held Devices

If I were considering NetBooks, I’d need a 32 Bit build for a little while as not all atom based machines are 64 Bit today;

If I wanted a quick booting small foot print tablet for say warehouse or forms / survey tasks maybe a real thin client CE or Windows Embedded;

Remote access maybe Citrix XenDesktop

In short a 32 Bit Desktop would seem like a no brainer but I mislead you a little my answer is both 32 and 64 Bit.

• Clients with 32 Bit only CPUs would be 32 bit Windows 7
• I’m too lazy to package an app twice so my preference for applications would be to have 64 Bit windows 7 so the same package will deploy to the thick client desktop AND the Windows 2008 R2 based server supporting Remote Desktop Services or Citrix XenDesktop
• So where possible the 32 Bit Clients would get apps from the Servers using some remote desktop technology