If you haven't done so you should check out two very cool (and free) products from VMWare, one being VMWare server and the other being VMWare converter (P2V.) For those who don't know VMWare is a great way to make use of under-utilized hardware. It is also great for testing and development. You can run many different virtual machines on the same hardware, so you could have a CentOS Desktop, Windows XP Client, and a Windows 2003 Domain Controller all running on the same machine (that is if you have the proper licensing.) This is really a great way to test and learn especially with all the available virtual appliances out there ready to download.
Here are some links:
Vmware server (configure and run virtual environments)
http://www.vmware.com/products/server/
VMTN (virtual appliance marketplace, tons of prebuilt machines ready for you to break)
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/
VMWare Converter (convert a real working machine into a virtual machine, windows only)
http://www.vmware.com/download/converter/
I used VMWare converter to convert a running Windows 2003 SMS server to a virtual machine and it took only 35 minutes! All I had to do to get the virtual machine running properly was reactivate Windows and then run chkdsk.
Currently I'm running a Windows 2003 DC, an Exchange 2003 server, two XP clients, and an SMS 2003 server all on a Dell Optiplex GX620 with a hyperthreading 3.2 Ghz P4 and 3GB RAM for developmental and testing purposes.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
No Free/Busy Data Available When You Try to Schedule a Meeting
All of the sudden we had someone in our organization who's free/busy data would be grayed (or slashed) out when attempting to schedule a meeting with them. In an Exchange 2003 environment this user had roughly a 2GB mailbox so my thoughts were that the mailbox had gone beyond the point of no return. My first step was to archive the mailbox down to a reasonable size. Still no luck. What did the trick was running outlook from the run prompt by typing outlook.exe /cleanfreebusy
Monday, January 22, 2007
Hello Bloggers
I've decided to make this blog because I wanted a place where I could post all my techie stuff and not have all my non-techie friends who subscribe to other journaling sites be all like huh?!? What is Mike talking about?
I need a place that's easy to publish my techie thoughts and findings so here I am. I'm currently the resident windows sys admin/it manager guy for a fast growing technology company in Buffalo, NY.
I think I'm going to start by complaining about the IBM x3500 server. Now I know having a server in desktop's clothing is kind of a thing of the past but we have a special need for one. We have a high-end Sony Digibeta machine in which we use to transcode vide we recieve from vendors . This x3500 is going to be the one that does all the "video crunching."
Here are the specs:
Dual 3.2GHZz Intel Xeon 5060s
2GB Ram
SATA/SAS: 80GB for OS, 1TB for Video
DVD-ROM
10/100/1000 Ethernet
Upon opening the box I found that the front "door" of the case was one of the most retarded designs ever. At first glance I was pissed that they didn't ship the DVD drive, but then I opened up the case, only to find that the DVD drive is actually behind the hinge-less front door that can only be removed by taking off the side door (note the handle on the left.) The power button is also hidden behind this magical door of engineering brilliance. You know to come to this point, this door probably had to be presented in many a meeting in front of the likes of engineers, sales/marketing folks, etc... Probably gone through thorough QA testing and eventually, to my dismay, me. It kind of reminds me how you see some trailer for some god awful movie that looks like it could win the award for worst movie of all time (if only there was such an award), I don't know something along the lines of the movie "White Chicks" and you think to yourself, man how the hell did that even get made?!?!
The door was only the first bit of my frustrations, as I then tried to install the Operating System, it seems if you try and install the OS (Windows 2k3) manually it won't like it. You pretty much have to use the Serverguide CD. Even if you load the drivers by pressing F6, it still doesn't seem to like it. So after installing Windows Server 2003 with SP1, it was determined by the video specialist that we would need Windows Media Player on the server. So I made a ghost image of the server and tried to install XP on the IBM x3500. Even though I found some drivers out there on IBMs site for XP according to the IBM support tech on the phone it is not supported on that machine, not only that but there are no known compatible video cards for the X3500 so you pretty much have to stick with the 16MB onboard ATI. Basically, don't buy this machine to do any video work on. Sometimes you learn things the hard way. Like for instance, how to install Windows Media Player on Server 2003. I googled for a solution, and after using my 2003 image to bring the server back to life with a supported OS, none of the hacks worked out for me. I restored it once again and out of curiousity tried pushing an mpg to it just to see what happens and sure enough, I double clicked that little mpg and was prompted to install Windows Media Player 10. Now you can't go and download a client to install yourself but apparently it's already there, hiding in the bushes known as service pack 1.
I need a place that's easy to publish my techie thoughts and findings so here I am. I'm currently the resident windows sys admin/it manager guy for a fast growing technology company in Buffalo, NY.
I think I'm going to start by complaining about the IBM x3500 server. Now I know having a server in desktop's clothing is kind of a thing of the past but we have a special need for one. We have a high-end Sony Digibeta machine in which we use to transcode vide we recieve from vendors . This x3500 is going to be the one that does all the "video crunching."
Here are the specs:
Dual 3.2GHZz Intel Xeon 5060s
2GB Ram
SATA/SAS: 80GB for OS, 1TB for Video
DVD-ROM
10/100/1000 Ethernet
Upon opening the box I found that the front "door" of the case was one of the most retarded designs ever. At first glance I was pissed that they didn't ship the DVD drive, but then I opened up the case, only to find that the DVD drive is actually behind the hinge-less front door that can only be removed by taking off the side door (note the handle on the left.) The power button is also hidden behind this magical door of engineering brilliance. You know to come to this point, this door probably had to be presented in many a meeting in front of the likes of engineers, sales/marketing folks, etc... Probably gone through thorough QA testing and eventually, to my dismay, me. It kind of reminds me how you see some trailer for some god awful movie that looks like it could win the award for worst movie of all time (if only there was such an award), I don't know something along the lines of the movie "White Chicks" and you think to yourself, man how the hell did that even get made?!?!
The door was only the first bit of my frustrations, as I then tried to install the Operating System, it seems if you try and install the OS (Windows 2k3) manually it won't like it. You pretty much have to use the Serverguide CD. Even if you load the drivers by pressing F6, it still doesn't seem to like it. So after installing Windows Server 2003 with SP1, it was determined by the video specialist that we would need Windows Media Player on the server. So I made a ghost image of the server and tried to install XP on the IBM x3500. Even though I found some drivers out there on IBMs site for XP according to the IBM support tech on the phone it is not supported on that machine, not only that but there are no known compatible video cards for the X3500 so you pretty much have to stick with the 16MB onboard ATI. Basically, don't buy this machine to do any video work on. Sometimes you learn things the hard way. Like for instance, how to install Windows Media Player on Server 2003. I googled for a solution, and after using my 2003 image to bring the server back to life with a supported OS, none of the hacks worked out for me. I restored it once again and out of curiousity tried pushing an mpg to it just to see what happens and sure enough, I double clicked that little mpg and was prompted to install Windows Media Player 10. Now you can't go and download a client to install yourself but apparently it's already there, hiding in the bushes known as service pack 1.
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