We will be electing the next CINLUG board of directors, holding our grand prize drawing, planning future CINLUG presentations, and discussion free software.
Location: Glendale Branch, IMCPL
Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Pat will be giving a presentation on GNU/Linux web/netbooks. Possible demonstrations include the OLPC XO-1, Asus Eee PC, and litl.
Location: Glendale Branch, IMCPL
Date: Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Microsoft has re-released the previously revoked Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. This time around, it's GPL licensed with source-code.
The tool has previously been released and subsequently revoked again after Microsoft was made aware that the tool, developed by a third party, included GPL licensed code in the compiled binary.
Personally I'm happy that the tool is available again, and that Microsoft "did the right thing ®" and released it with the proper license.
Sarah asked for my wishlist. This is up to date!A shirt:
Team Zissou
Wishlists:
Oh my god, Zappos: shoe wishlist
Amazon: Shop internetally, buy locally
Geek: Thinkgeek.com (goofy t-shirts that I would be glad to explain)
bhphoto: lenses
Kegerator kit (beer is good for you, gin is not)
A Wacom tablet
Any Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense comic or trade paperback after the first one
Preacher trade paperback #5
Doctor Who DVD box sets
Drawing pencils
Dixon Ticonderoga pencils
Deep Fryer (with cool touch outside)
Fred will be giving a presentation on Unix/Linux System Administration. A comparison between Fedora and other distributions will show different methods for completing sysadmin tasks.
Location: Glendale Branch, IMCPL
Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Maish Saidel-Keesing has revisited his previous post "Hot Add and "Need have have"" where he (like I did) pokes some fun at a rather strange error message in ESXi 4.0. Now that Update 1 is out, Maish tries again, this time with better results.
Read the whole post: "Need have have" - revisited.
I'm glad to say we don't need have have any more!
I'm pleased to mention that I just mailed paperwork over to Yahoo! Inc. headquarters in Sunnyvale, California accepting their offer and signing away the rights to any inventions I might make while toiling in their internet forges. Clang! will sound my internet hammer, and pixelated sparks will flicker in the air over my head. The Thanksgiving holiday has extended my two weeks at SugarCRM, but I have a vested interest in making the transition smooth: some of my options have vested! Plus, I've made some good friends at Sugar, and I'd hate to leave a tangle of a half-finished project.
I start at Yahoo! on December seventh, and I will be working in the Systems Engineering and Development group as a Software Development Engineer. Basically, I'll be jumping feet first into a team of full-stack web developers and systems admins, who build and maintain web applications from the system calls to the css positioning -- at least if you use the intense interviews as a reference.So, there you have it, an opaque job description and my start date, which are the two things that people seem to want. Well, maybe not an opaque description, but that’s what I have for you.
Oh, maybe you don’t know what Yahoo does. Maybe this video will help:
<object height="344" width="425">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/K-lu28CISh0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"/>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/>
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/K-lu28CISh0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425"></embed></object>
If you like that song (which I do), you might enjoy the full version. Warning: the video is crazy. Crazy awesome. Like a fox.
<object height="344" width="425">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/SkkIwO_X4i4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"/>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/>
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/SkkIwO_X4i4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425"></embed></object>
Yesteday I had to reinstall my home computer due to a botched BIOS flash (don't ask, long story...), and decided that it was time I installed Windows 7 on that computer as well.
Remembering the Microsoft's Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, I went looking for the download only to be met by a 404 (page not found) error when I tried to download it. The whole information/documentation section was still available on the Microsoft Store site, but the downloadable file was missing. No information was given, so I assumed it was a glitch on Microsofts behalf and located an alternative download site (CNet) that still had it available.
The tool did it's job, and I got Windows 7 Enterprise installed from a USB pendrive without any problems at all, just as expected.
Today, however, all information regarding the tool has been removed. All you get now is a "Sorry, the page you are looking for cannot be found." 404 error when you try to access it's previous location and no explanation is given.
Turns out, Microsoft has indeed pulled the tool from the site. According to Rafael Rivera Jr. this is because he discovered that the Microsoft tool was using code from "CodePlex-hosted (yikes) GPLv2-licensed ImageMaster"
Clearly a breach of the GPL as the Microsoft tool wasn't GPL'ed itself.
Read all the details in Rafael's post "Microsoft lifts GPL code, uses in Microsoft Store tool". I guess that means we are back to using Novicorp WinToFlash again. For more details on WinToFlash, check out my post called "Installing Windows from a USB Stick".
How did this ever slip through Microsofts QA?
On November 13th Microsoft confirmed that their own internal code review of the tool had uncovered that Rafael Riviera Jr. was indeed right. The tool does contain GPL code. The tool was develped for Microsoft by a third party, but still, this could, and should, have been avoided if Microsoft had conducted a proper code review before releasing the tool into the wild.
So, Microsoft now what? Well, it seems like they indend to do the only thing they can do, release the whole tool as GPL licensed:
<blockqoute cite="http://port25.technet.com/archive/2009/11/13/update-on-the-windows-7-download-tool-or-microsoft-to-open-source-the-windows-7-download-tool.aspx">As a result, we will be making the source code as well as binaries for this tool available next week under the terms of the General Public License v2 as described here, and are also taking measures to apply what we have learned from this experience for future code reviews we perform.
Read the whole statement from Microsoft: Update on the Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool
I must say that even if this shouldn't have happened, Microsoft did the right thing here. Admitting what happened and took the natural consequences. Well played.
In celebration of the release of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), the Indiana Ubuntu LoCo team is holding a Karmic Release Party (dinner) on Saturday, November 7, 2009 at Dave & Busters (8350 Castleton Corner Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46250) on the northeast side of Indianapolis (west of Castleton Square Mall in the former CompUSA building). The party is scheduled to start at 6:00 PM. Anyone is welcome to attend but please RSVP in the Attendee table on the wiki so we can let the restaurant know how many people are coming.

Makes you think….
Over time the boot partition on a Windows Server 2003 installation might just turn out to be too small. There can be various reasons for this, but the fact remains that over time you will accumulate data on the boot drive that you didn't take account for when you set it up initially.
Luckily I run almost all of my servers in a VMware based virtualized environment, where it's easy to expand the the virtual disks. The problem is that Windows Server 2003 doesn't let you easily expand the boot volume, at least not without downtime. I've previously talked about using tools like GParted to expand the boot volume but there are easier ways to do it and prevent downtime at the same time!
All you need is love. No,wait, that's something else entirely! All you need is ExtPart. ExtPart is a lovely little 36KB tool that Dell has provided to expand partitions on Dell based servers and storage systems. It is a little known fact that ExtPart can do the job in any 32 bit Windows Server 2000 or 2003 based install (no 64 bit support, sadly), and in Server 2008 there are other methods of doing this.
Enough talk, lets get down to the business at hand.
Thats it. The following screenshots outline the process very well, without having to guide you through each step. Have a look!
It can't get much simpler that this, honestly.
Tom Conrad will be exploring Open Source Document Management systems and their underlying web technologies. DMS systems use a combination of database and web server to control access to and serve a collection of documents. Many of these systems move far beyond the simple storing of documents in a directory to bring greater project control to the chaos of contributed forms and documents. - Some provide complete collaboration sites. Doing this in a fashion that is both easy to use and administer pushes the web interface/tools to a new level. Some technologies used that will be discussed are Google Web Toolkit, Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI) and the php script language.
Tom is a Senior Engineer at Total Electronics LLC, a contract manufacturer of printed circuit assemblies. With Tom's help, Total has implemented GNU/Linux-based servers and systems that increase productivity and enhance quality at a minimum cost.
Location: Glendale Branch, IMCPL
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Directions to the Glendale IMCPL Branch
CINLUG meetings are typically held on the first Wednesday of each month at 6:30pm. They are FREE and OPEN to the public. Annual membership dues are $30 and payment of dues is encouraged to help with funding events and expenses. Just show up and find out more to see if you want to become a member.
A little while a go I mentioned a great little tool called Novicorp WinToFlash.
Seems like Microsoft figured out that was a great little idea, and in conjunction with todays official Windows 7 release, they've also made the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool available.
Since you can buy Windows 7 and then download the ISO directly from the new online Microsoft Store (Can anyone say Apple?!) it makes sense that they have created their own little tool that enables you to install Windows 7 from an USB stick. The tool makes it easy to copy the ISO to a USB stick, and then use that to boot your computer and install from it. Nothing more, nothing less.
I love utilities like these, you know the ones that do one task and do it well?
Now this is something I don't often do as this is mostly a tech blog, but this is huge. Last night Temple of the Dog reunited when Chris Cornell joined Pearl Jam on stage.
Temple of the Dog was Chris Cornell, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Matt Cameron, Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder all of which were present at Los Angeles’ Gibson Amphitheatre performing “Hunger Strike” from the self titled album released in 1991.
<object height="340" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/yLo5miR0dJY&hl=en&fs=1&"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="340" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yLo5miR0dJY&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560"></embed></object>
Now, can Pearl Jam please come play in Bergen, Norway? And, yes, I wouldn't mind it much if Chris Cornell came along for the ride too...
GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.
Location: Glendale Branch, IMCPL
Date: Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Directions to the Glendale IMCPL Branch
CINLUG meetings are typically held on the first Wednesday of each month at 6:30pm. They are FREE and OPEN to the public. Annual membership dues are $30 and payment of dues is encouraged to help with funding events and expenses. Just show up and find out more to see if you want to become a member.

Nice little error message shown when trying to hot add a new HDD to a VM running on ESXi 4.0.
How much need have have do you need?
Clearly I'm not the first to notice this rather peculiar wording in ESXi 4. Maish Saidel-Keesing posted the same screenshot back in May 2009 in his post called Hot Add and "Need have have".
Read that post instead of mine, it also highlights what ESXi 4 is missing as well as poorly worded error messages.
Funny thing is that I can even remember reading Maish post back when it was published, but I don't remember seeing that weird error message. Oh well. :)
Thanks to Jase McCarty for pointing this out to me.
vmwarewolf.com has posted ESX PSODs
If you happen to search Google for one of the following phrases you might expect Google to return a list of official VMware Knowledgebase articles on the topic.
- crash debug screen
- machine crash screen
- ESX Server PSOD
- Purple screen crash report
- Decode purple screen error
I know this is a direct copy of some of that article, but it's an attempt to help out getting ESX Server PSOD ranked in Google. I'm sure I'll be forgiven for the verbatim copy/paste job.
Cody Bunch over at professionalvmware.com has started a series of posts called "The Best Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed". So far Cody has featured GParted and TeraCopy, both truly great tools to have in your virtual or non-virtual tool-belt.
I have my own series of posts outlined, still in draft mode though, that I plan to publish within the next week or so and thankfully they highlight different tools than the ones already covered by Cody in his series.
Seems like I need to speed up the publishing of my posts now! I'm sure there are other great (free) tools out there that are missing the recognition they deserve.
Can you think of any? Any freebie tools that make your day as a (virtual) sysadmin easier?
Leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
I've had the pleasure of attending Ohio LinuxFest for the past four years and am looking forward to attending again on September 26. This year's theme is "40 Years of Unix." Each OLF I've attended has been a great experience and this year's OLF is sure to be excellent as well.
I recently did a rather big reorganization of my domain controllers, in relation to an domain wide upgrade to 2008 server, and as a I result of this I had to re-configure the DNS settings for all my member servers. Being somewhat lazy and not particularly fond of repetitive tasks, I figured there had be a way to automatically change the required settings.
I ended up using a couple of great tools and some vbscript "magic" and was able to change the DNS settings on all my member servers within a couple of minutes.It would have been much more time consuming having to do this server by server manually, and this process also guarantees that the settings are the same on all my servers.
Enough with the rationale already, let's get into the solution itself. It's pretty easy, but does require a couple of easily available tools, a bat file and a VBscript.
psexec @servernames.txt -c -p administrator -u [password] SetDNS.bat
Set colItems = GetObject _
("LDAP://ou=Servers, ou=something, dc=something, dc=local")
For Each objItem in colItems
Wscript.Echo objItem.CN
Next
netsh interface ip delete dns "Local Area Connection" all
netsh interface ip add dns "Local Area Connection" [IP DNS SERVER]
netsh interface ip add dns "Local Area Connection" [IP DNS SERVER] index=2
ipconfig /all
Caveat alerts:

I dont know what the fuck this is but it is AWESOME.
A year ago I woke up from trying to sleep sideways in my mostly broken armchair after making one last push to pack up my things for the movers to take to California. It was an inauspicious start to my the day, which ended up being pretty darn awesome. I left Minnesota with a heart so heavy that it dragged on the ground, but something about the endless blue of the sky and the intensity of the sun has kept me sold. A couple of weeks ago Sarah and I walked along the beach — me waist deep in the icy Pacific and her skipping through the frothy edge of the waves — and it felt like what should have been happening all my life.
Sarah is here now, living with me, and my huge one bedroom has become a little claustrophobic: we have two offices, a dining table, and a living room jammed into the living room. When I work from home, Sarah makes me the most amazing turkey avocado sandwiches with smoked cheddar and red onions. Eating one is like being punched in the face with happiness. Not that Sarah punches me in the face — that would leave visible marks.
Call the police, she hits me!
(this is just a joke)

This is definitly a really cool photo.

It’s pouring.

:)

IN fact, just LOOK how far away New Zealand is from me.

This was an awesome day. Too bad I’m not in New Zealand anymore…

Repainting the garage. I feel the resp. mask brings a sense of sexiness, with sultry undertones.

hahahaha.