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Quick links to useful IBM server tools
by lunarg on April 21st 2011, at 12:02
 
How to get rid of the MBR rootkit
by lunarg on April 19th 2011, at 15:55
The latest trend in virii is the use of MBR rootkits to settle themselves in the unused (hidden) sectors of your harddrive, safe from any formatting or reinstallation of Windows. They cannot be removed by an antivirus as the rootkit directly interacts with the kernel upon boot, long before any antivirus system drivers are being loaded. The rootkit does not patch actual files or drivers, but rather does this dynamically upon booting Windows. A complete format of your system would not get rid of the MBR as it is hosted in the first sectors of your hard drive and therefore survive a format of a single partition.

More information can be found here: http://www2.gmer.net/mbr/.

There  ...
 
Create a permanent link to a share in OS X
by lunarg on April 19th 2011, at 15:40
By default (and if turned on in Finder), Mac OS X only shows network shares on the desktop when they are connected. If you want to have a link to the share, even when it's not connected, you can create an alias to that share to have it always shown on the desktop. This way, you will always have it available, and moreover, double-clicking the alias will automatically connect the share, and, if required, prompt for a password.

To quickly create a share, connect it like you normally would. While staying in the root of that share, drag its icon in the title bar of the Finder window to your desktop while holding the Option (alt) and Command keys. This will create a permanent alias on your   ...
 
AR drone...
by lunarg on April 18th 2011, at 09:21

Fly your own helicopter, controlling it using the live video feed!

http://ardrone.parrot.com/

 
Cannot delete data store of freshly installed ESXi
by lunarg on April 4th 2011, at 15:51
With the installation of VMware ESXi 4, data stores will automatically be created using the default settings. This includes a block size of 1 MB. If you don't want that, you could delete the empty datastore and create a new one.

Sometimes, deleting the empty datastore fails with the message:

Quote
Call "HostDatastoreSystem.RemoveDatastore" for object "ha-datastoresystem" on ESXi "xx.xx.xx.xx" failed.

VMware's KB 1017104 provides the solution for another problem, but this works just as well with this issue, with a little variation.

Notice
Performing the steps in this solution will totally utterly destroy your data store. Do not use it if there's still any req  ...
 
Avast Mac Edition RC (v3.11)
by lunarg on March 11th 2011, at 12:01

Currently, the official Avast for Mac Edition available for download is still at version 2.74, released somewhere in 2007.
This version still has many annoyances and bugs that have not yet been resolved (one of these issues is the ability to run automatically in the background, without the main window popping up at start up each time).

Luckily, the Avast Forum has a post, providing a new release candidate is available for download for some time now. The build is also a bit outdated but has at least many fixes that aren't present in the official release.

The direct download link is: http://public.avast.com/~cimbal/avast.3.11.zip.

 
Oracle claims name on a whole lot of things...
by lunarg on March 11th 2011, at 10:38

With the take-over of Sun by Oracle, they have been seriously rebranding just about everything there is to rebrand: Java, Virtualbox, OpenOffice, MySQL, ...

I noticed this in the About box of OpenOffice 3.3:

openoffice by Oracle

This is pretty much the result of what happens when a major company is on a buying spree to acquire technology from various other companies, and leaving a lot of the community developers seamlingly standing in the cold (although there's a small footnote mentioning their contributions).

 
Delete a protected OU in Windows 2008 AD
by lunarg on March 9th 2011, at 09:36
Since Windows 2008, it is possible to protect OUs from being deleted accidentally. This feature is enabled by default when creating new OUs in AD Users and Computers.



If a container is marked as protected from accidental deletion, you get an error message when trying to delete it.



To unlock the OU, you have to enable Advanced Features from the View menu. This will provide you with extra stuff to set. One of these is the ability to turn off the accidental deletion protection.



Right-click the OU you wish to delete and select Properties. Navigate to the Object tab (which would not be present if Advanced Features wasn't enabled). Uncheck the checkbox saying Protect object fro  ...
 
Everything you need to set up and use VDI for free
by lunarg on March 8th 2011, at 10:28

Everything you need to set up and use VDI for free...

That's what Citrix is providing nowadays with XenDesktop Express. It provides full VDI for up to 10 users, and can work with XenServer, Hyper-V and VMware.

The full link to everything is this one:
http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2011/02/04/Virtually%20Everything%20You%20Need%20to%20Set%20Up%20and%20Use%20VDI%20for%20Free

 
Change the logical names of MS-SQL databases
by lunarg on March 8th 2011, at 10:24
It's possible to rename the logical names of MS-SQL databases through the SQL-prompt (osql.exe).

Log in to your database using osql:

> osql -S SERVERINSTANCE -d MyDB -U sa

First, query the current logical names; you will need them in order to rename them.

1> SELECT * FROM sysfiles2> GOfileid groupid size maxsize growth status perf name filename1 1 106224 -1 10 1048578 0 OldName_Data D:\SQL2000\Data\MyDB_Data.mdf2 0 128 -1 10 1048642 0 OldName_Log D:\SQL2000\Data\MyDB_Log.ldf

The name column specifies the logical names. Use the following SQL statement to rename them.

1> ALTER DATABASE [MyDB] MODIFY FILE (NAME = 'OldName_Data', NEWNAME = 'NewName_Data'  ...
 
Escaping entities in MS-SQL
by lunarg on March 8th 2011, at 10:09

Something to remember: escaping entities (e.g. when you have table or field names that are the same as reserved words) is possible using square brackets

Some examples:

CREATE TABLE [User] ...
SELECT * FROM [User]

I had to use this while renaming logical names, which had a dot in their name.

 
Install VMware video driver in Windows 2008R2
by lunarg on March 7th 2011, at 15:22

In VMware ESXi 4.1, by default, the video drivers are not correctly installed. This is because of the fact that the old driver (which is installed by default) is a WDM type of driver. This type of driver has been kicked out of Windows 7 and Windows 2008R2 in favour of the newer WDDM driver architecture. As a result, the video is reverted to the Standard VGA adapter, which has terrible performance.

However, installing the VMware Tools does provide a correct driver, even though it is not installed by default. To install it, see the second chapter of the article: Windows 2008 R2 console freezes in vSphere console.

 
Install YouTube app on Android 2.1
by lunarg on March 7th 2011, at 14:48
Users of a Samsung Galaxy Apolly GT-I580x may have noticed that, by default, there's no YouTube player present. This basically cripples the phone not being able to play YouTube videos.

A standalone version of the application was released by Google, but can only be installed on Android 2.2 (Froyo), really disappointing for 2.1-users.
Fortunately, someone has ported the YouTube player to 2.1 by removing some 2.2-specific function calls and replacing others that are required by the app.

To install it, download the attached Android package onto your phone and install it. You may have to install Apps Installer from the Android Market for this to work.

The application works very well b  ...
 
Install Adobe Flash on Android 2.1
by lunarg on March 7th 2011, at 14:41

While not officially supported, it is possible to have Adobe Flash on your Android 2.1 (Eclair) device.

You can do so by downloading and installing the package included in this post. Note that you will have to have third party applications allowance enabled so that you can install it. Possibly, on some devices, you have to install Apps Installer to install the package.

Flash player works, but because of missing components in 2.1, there are some performance issues.

 
Import PDF in OpenOffice
by lunarg on March 7th 2011, at 11:36

One of the neat things about OpenOffice is the many extensions available. Oracle has a PDF import extension for OpenOffice Draw, which can import just about any unsecured PDF document.

Download link: http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/pdfimport?intcmp=1549

This allows you to open PDF documents directly from the menu. There are still a few quirks now and then, but they don't spoil the usefulness of the extension.

 
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1
by lunarg on February 23rd 2011, at 13:25

Windows 7 and Windows 2008R2 Service Pack 1 has been released.

It is available through Windows Update, but for those that require the full installer, can find it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c3202ce6-4056-4059-8a1b-3a9b77cdfdda&displaylang=en.

 
Reset HP Color Laserjet 2550Ln to factory defaults
by lunarg on February 16th 2011, at 16:53
To reset the printer (does not reset the Jetdirect network card), turn off the printer. Upon turning it back on, immediate press and hold the green go button for at least 10 seconds but no more than 20. During that time, the attention light will go on. When that happens, release the button and the printer will cold reset.

Resetting the network card is done a little differently. With the printer in the ready state, press and hold the rotate carousel button and the cancel job button at the same time for a few seconds, then release it. This will reset the card to factory defaults (BOOTP/DHCP, no management password). If a network cable was inserted, you'll notice the LED at the NIC port   ...
 
Missing toolbar in Acrobat Reader X when viewing in browser
by lunarg on February 16th 2011, at 16:52

Since Acrobat Reader X, by default, no toolbar is shown while in Read Mode display. Instead, a heads-up black toolbar with minimalistic functions is used. This is the default behaviour but can be turned off.

To do that, open Reader, choose Edit, then Preferences. In the tab Internet, uncheck Display in Read Mode by default, then press OK.

 
7-Zip mirror
by lunarg on February 14th 2011, at 13:28

Because the official website of 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) is currently offline, I'm mirroring the latest version here.

EDIT: the official site has been fixed and is online again.

 
The A-Z index of Windows CMD commands
by lunarg on February 14th 2011, at 13:27
 
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