TechAgility

Reap the rewards of the open-source community courtesy of Douglas Toombs from Windows IT Pro Magazine

Find your free tools:
"LocatePC"
"OCS Inventory NG" 
"PRTG" 
"SIW" 
"SyncBack" 
"TrueCrypt" 
"WinDirStat" 
"Wink"
"BareTail" 
"Ethereal" 
"FileZilla" 
"NeWT" 
"Ngrep" 
"OpenSSH" 
"WinDump" 
"WinPcap" 
"Winfingerprint"
"CamStudio" 
"CDBurnerXP" 
"Comodo Firewall Pro" 
"DriveImage XML" 
"GParted LiveCD" 
"JkDefrag" 
"PageDefrag" 
"TestDisk"

25 Absolutely Cool, Totally Free Utilities

written by dcaddick

So here in Australia we might be one of the first countries to have the iPhone unlocked and provided by two Carriers? (Optus and Vodafone) BUT - only if you are prepared to wait until the end of the year? Please…..  anyone I know who is seriously interested in the phone has already arranged one from elsewhere.

BTW, a colleague recently found out how delicate the glass screen is, OUCH!!

So I would have provided more of a quote for this story but it appears that MISaustralia.com has come up with a mechanism where when you highlight a section of text it then drops every second character …. 

Optus confirms iPhone plans

MISaustralia.com - Optus confirms iPhone plans

written by dcaddick

So along with Alessandro I’m curious as to why the name ThinApp has been chosen as it does have more than a passing resemblance to Citrix’s new XenApp?

I wonder if this is any indication of the coming marketing campaigns in the push for customers attention in the Desktop Virtualization market?

VMware ThinApp is the final name for Thinstall technology

In January 2008 VMware, a hardware virtualization company, acquired an application virtualization startup called Thinstall.
The plan is to use the Thinstall technology to stream virtualized applications on the virtual desktops that VMware spawns through its connection broker: the Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM).

So fare VMware has been pretty fast in rebranding the Thinstall Application Virtualization Suite: the beta program for the new version is open since end of February and the testers can already download the beta 2.
The final version of the product, temporarily called Project North Star, is expected for the H2 2008.

The only information missing so far was the final name that VMware wants to use.
Now Micheal Keen, Director and Senior Solutions Architect in the Enterprise Architecture group at Alliance Technologies, reveals that the final name is ThinApp.

Duncan Epping further validates the news reporting that a former Thinstall employee confirmed.

The choice is interesting considering that Citrix just renamed its Presentation Server product in XenApp.

virtualization.info: VMware ThinApp is the final name for Thinstall technology

written by dcaddick

I am sure this is not really what VMware had in mind when they were touting VMware OnDemand? I’m guessing they had more of an idea that it would combine some of the benefits of ACE with ESX?

I have just got back from some training in Houston and while listening to a question from a colleague from the UK where he asked if "VDI was going to be able to use the full suite of Hypervisor functionality like vMotion…"  and that got me thinking…

Some of the Conventional Wisdom around the place holds that VDI by itself will likely not be able to cover all of any one customers needs and most will more than likely need to look at quite possibly a number of different approaches to cover ALL employees and ALL Applications.

So with this in mind I’d be interested in your thoughts on the following idea?

Just a few thoughts around VDI??

Let’s say that we stock a couple of decent servers with loads of resources and allows us to run quite a few VDI instances? OK? So one of the possible issues with the classic VDI so far is that if a user places a bit too much pressure on the resources then it has the potential to impact on all other users, being as it is a shared resource? (This is still one of the classic gotcha’s in Terminal Server and Citrix PS - the session is sticky and it stays with the same server unless a logout/login occurs)

So one idea I’m kicking around is the possibility that if a user started something like a 120Mb Excel spreadsheet that might consume quite a bit of CPU then would it be possible to use the vMotion to transfer him to a BladePC, if they started 3 or 4 of them (or they needed more resources?) then transfer them to a BladeWS…..?

Seamlessly!! with the user completely unaware that this has happened!!

Now the fundamentals of vMotion (or XenMotion for that matter?) requires shared boot storage - BUT I don’t think it needs to be NFS or iSCSI, etc. - the Citrix Provisioning Server or OS Streaming method like Neoware IM would probably work just as well in this scenario? As this then leaves the Virtual HardDisk/Storage in a common area accessible by the Vitrual Desktops regardless of whether they are running on VDI’s, the BladePC’s or the BladeWS’s.

The other point is the similarity of CPU would possibly cause an issue, and this probably extends beyond just Intel/AMD? This appears to be a fundamental of vMotion/XenMotion? So this might not fly today, but it is possible that with improvements in the Hypervisors this issue might be overcome at some stage soon?

Anyway, what do you think of the *idea/concept*? As a user requires more CPU and resources they might be able to be transferred from shared resources (VDI on ESX) to individual resources (BladePC) and then high powered resources (BladeWS) - once the high intensity workload has finished then the user would be transferred seamlessly back through the stack to a VDI instance on the ESX server.

Please bear in mind that this is only a concept at the moment and there are clearly problems and issues to be overcome - but the main reason for this post is to ask if you think it has legs? What do you think?

Clearly the ESX/Hypervisor would need to be able to run on hardware outside of it’s current Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) but with Xen this might not be such an issue?

Is wonder if this is where XenDesktop is headed?

written by dcaddick

Just a word of warning…!!!

The lovely missus this afternoon called out that there was "some Virus Alert thingy on the computer screen" and did I want to sort it out? Being as bright as she is she knew that one thing you don’t do is to run any download that you didn’t initiate yourself?

Natalie had simply been trying to find a recipe on the Internet that she had just seen on a cooking show. It looks like as part of viewing that website the *proported* scanning process kicked in claiming that I was infected by 3 "high risk" viruses and offered to disinfect my Computer if I clicked on OK - not surprisingly it is not possible to actually cancel this installation - the only way to halt the install/scan at this point would appear to be to use Task Manager to kill IExplorer?

I must say that this looked pretty convincing, and it would not surprise me in the slightest that this would be getting a lot of success out in the wild with most average users

Now just for those of you that think this is all a bit too much and this stuff doesn’t happen much at all, have a look at some of the details from Google’s Online Security Blog as noted by ITnews

"It has been 18 months since we started to identify web pages that infect vulnerable hosts via drive-by downloads, i.e. pages that attempt to exploit visitors by installing and running malware automatically," the Google blog stated yesterday.

"During that time we have investigated billions of URLs and found more than three million unique URLs on over 180,000 sites automatically installing malware."

Google’s team also reported that around two per cent of malicious websites are delivering malware via advertising.

So even at 2% of sites that means that if you only browse to 7 sites a day then there is a good chance you have been infected that week? Scary thought?

AntispyDeluxe - Symantec.com

written by dcaddick

Well tell us something we don’t know?

Seriously, I have recently started using a new HP 2710p laptop and I’m shocked to find that my normal RAM load is something around 1 - 1.1Gb just doing routine tasks…  how crazy is that? When I get time I do want to rebuild it with the XP image because this is a joke - and the supposedly fancy UI is not that good really.

What I did find interesting in this missive from Gartner is the comments at the bottom that are suggestions to Microsoft?

Their advice to Microsoft took several forms, but one road they urged the software giant to take was virtualization. "We envision a very modular and virtualized world," said the researchers, who spelled out a future where virtualization — specifically a hypervisor — is standard on client as well as server versions of Windows.

"An OS, in this case Windows, will ride atop the hypervisor, but it will be much thinner, smaller and modular than it is today. Even the Win32 API set should be a module that can be deployed to maintain support for traditional Windows applications on some devices, but other[s] may not have that module installed."

The reason I find this so intriguing is that this almost follows what Ron Oglesby was suggesting way back in 2006?
Where is all this virtualization going?

Windows is ‘collapsing,’ Gartner analysts warn

The researchers damn Windows in current form, urge radical changes

By Gregg Keizer

April 10, 2008 (Computerworld) Calling the situation "untenable" and describing Windows as "collapsing," a pair of Gartner analysts yesterday said Microsoft Corp. must make radical changes to its operating system or risk becoming a has-been.

In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft has not responded to the market, is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and decisions, and faces serious competition on a whole host of fronts that will make Windows moot unless the software developer acts.

"For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable," said Silver and MacDonald in their prepared presentation, titled "Windows Is Collapsing: How What Comes Next Will Improve."

Among Microsoft’s problems, the pair said, is Windows’ rapidly-expanding code base, which makes it virtually impossible to quickly craft a new version with meaningful changes. That was proved by Vista, they said, when Microsoft — frustrated by lack of progress during the five-year development effort on the new operating — hit the "reset" button and dropped back to the more stable code of Windows Server 2003 as the foundation of Vista.

"This is a large part of the reason [why] Windows Vista delivered primarily incremental improvements," they said. In turn, that became one of the reasons why businesses pushed back Vista deployment plans. "Most users do not understand the benefits of Windows Vista or do not see Vista as being better enough than Windows XP to make incurring the cost and pain of migration worthwhile."

Other analysts, including those at Gartner rival Forrester Research Inc., have highlighted the slow move toward Vista. Last month, Forrester said that by the end of 2007 only 6.3% of 50,000 enterprise computer users it surveyed were working with Vista. What gains Vista made during its first year, added Forrester, appeared to be at the expense of Windows 2000; Windows XP’s share hardly budged.

The monolithic nature of Windows — although Microsoft talks about Vista’s modularity, Silver and MacDonald said it doesn’t go nearly far enough — not only makes it tough to deliver a worthwhile upgrade, but threatens Microsoft in the mid- and long-term.

Users want a smaller Windows that can run on low-priced — and low-powered — hardware. And increasingly, users work with "OS-agnostic applications," the two analysts said in their presentation. It takes too long for Microsoft to build the next version, the company is being beaten by others in the innovation arena, and in the future — perhaps as soon as the next three years — it’s going to have trouble competing with Web applications and small, specialized devices.

"Apple introduced its iPhone running OS X, but Microsoft requires a different product on handhelds because Windows Vista is too large, which makes application development, support and the user experience all more difficult," according to Silver and MacDonald.

"Windows as we know it must be replaced," they said in their presentation.

Their advice to Microsoft took several forms, but one road they urged the software giant to take was virtualization. "We envision a very modular and virtualized world," said the researchers, who spelled out a future where virtualization — specifically a hypervisor — is standard on client as well as server versions of Windows.

"An OS, in this case Windows, will ride atop the hypervisor, but it will be much thinner, smaller and modular than it is today. Even the Win32 API set should be a module that can be deployed to maintain support for traditional Windows applications on some devices, but other[s] may not have that module installed."

Windows is ‘collapsing,’ Gartner analysts warn

written by dcaddick

So news is in courtesy of Alessandro that it looks like it’s quite possible that folks will no longer be able to run ESX as a guest OS inside VMware Workstation. We all know it’s not a good idea - but sometimes it’s the easiest way of being able to demonstrate or troubleshoot issues when you don’t have handy access to an ESX Server.

VMware Workstation 6.5 doesn’t allow ESX as guest anymore

Friday, April 11, 2008   |   0 Comments   |  

No matter how much VMware is extending its HCL, a large number of users is still looking for ways to install the company flagship hypervisor ESX (formerly ESX Server) inside Workstation virtual machines.

Being one of the most wanted feature ever, hacks to achieve the goal proliferated, and our post about how to run ESX Server 3 inside a Workstation 6 virtual machine is one of the most article ever read.

Said do the community disappointment in discovering that the new Workstation 6.5 beta 1 prevents the hack mentioned above doesn’t come by surprise.

One of the VMware employees that addressed the complains anyway is mentioning (but not promising) the possibility to run again ESX inside a VM since the Workstation 6.5 feature list is not finalized yet.

virtualization.info: VMware Workstation 6.5 doesn’t allow ESX as guest anymore

written by dcaddick

Hi All,
I’m just looking in to creating a list of the most common objections regarding Thin Clients?

What I have so far is - A PC or Fat Client Advantages are:

• Always provides a better user experience
• Fewer server requirements.
• Better multimedia performance.
• More flexibility.
• Better peripheral support.
• Suitable for poor network connections.
• Easier to repurpose.
• Doesn’t need specialist or server knowledge to support.
• Any technical support issues only affect single users, not multiples.

Does anyone know of any others?
Cheers,
Dave

written by dcaddick

DISCLAIMER: If you decide to flash ANY device with something other than the Vendors correct firmware then you are on your own!!!

Moving on from a previous post the other day regarding "Supercharge Your Wireless Router With Open Firmware - Wired How-To Wiki" I was chatting to my brother and it turns out that he has recently been having troubles with his Billion device and as a consequence of it being out of warranty he decided to buy an ASUS WL-500G

And now I can see why, not only is it a Wireless Access Point with ADSL but it also has 2 x USB 2.0 ports as well so that this can effectively act as a mini NAS unit as well by hosting additional storage <see table below>

But the real neat part is that with his help I was also able to discover that there is a complete OpenSource effort at OpenWrt

About OpenWrt

OpenWrt is an extensible Linux distribution that runs on Linksys WRT54G/GS routers, as well as some related hardware. Unlike many other distributions for these routers, OpenWrt is built from the ground up to be a full-featured, easily modifiable operating system for your router. In practice, this means that you can have all the features you need with none of the bloat, powered by a Linux kernel that’s more recent than most other distributions.

This is where I obtained the information in the table above (link - TableofHardware) - at the very least if you are considering purchasing some form of Wireless Access Point then you should really glance through this table and satisfy yourself that have made the right choice on Hardware?

So back to OpenWrt, is it for you? well it is based on Linux so it is somewhat command line driven etc. and it’s more than likely that as much as this might provide a benefit to some, they will be put off by the install method and the possibility of bricking their device?

So if that is the case then simply move on to: X-Wrt, "OpenWrt for end users"

About Us:

X-Wrt was started because there was a need for end user extensions to OpenWrt, such as an enhanced web management console (webif). For a long time now it has been established that OpenWrt is the best firmware in its class. It far exceeds other firmwares in performance, stability, extensibility, robustness, and design. We at X-Wrt decided it was long past time for end users to get access to this superior firmware.

We are a separate project from OpenWrt due to the difference in focus and development ideals. We are considerably more pragmatic than OpenWrt and have the goal of providing solutions today, while OpenWrt has a more idealistic development philosophy and intends to perfect the firmware core, no matter how many rewrites and how much time it takes. This difference in development attitude creates a complimentary atmosphere that benefits everyone.

So how easy is this to install? Follow the screen shots from here at Installation

written by dcaddick

Recently I have been looking in to some issues relating to mixed Novell and AD Authentication at customers sites and there does not seem to be too much information that is readily available so I thought it might be useful if I post some of the details and links here as a helper to others?

One of the most interesting points is that it would appear that Novell really hasn’t done much to the Novell Client in quite a while, and even with the advent of Vista it has not so much revisited the classic 4.91 SP4 version but simply created a new one from scratch that has no backwards compatibility or any relationship to the 4.91 version….

Also something to be aware of is that quite some while back it would appear that Novell did try for a Catalogue of sorts that may or may not have been somewhat similar to AD’s implementation but it was dropped from NDS ver. 8.x and above - so if you are trying to get Contextless Login working the only other real alternative is to use a method of creating an Alias for all Users in one specific OU and then referencing all Logins to search that one specific OU at login.

Now if you are like me, this appears to be almost laziness on the part of the developers? Surely they could do better than this? And even if you do get Contextless Login working what it actually amounts to is that the user can use either the short User ID <davidca> or the UPN <david.caddick@novell.com> and when you either use:

• Tab Key
• Mouse to move to the Password box
• Click on OK

you will then find that the Contextless Lookup is evoked and your user name is changed to match the Case of exactly what it is the NDS

Anyway, here is the documents that might prove useful if you are investigating similar issues?

One of the most useful documents would appear to be this one: 

Configure AutoAdminLogon for Novell Clients for Windows NT/2000/XP

AutoAdminLogon can be implemented in any of the 5 combinations listed below. For each version of the client, we will describe which combinations can be implemented and how to implement those combinations.

Auto login to NDS and NT
Auto login to NDS and manual login to NT
Auto login to NT and manual Login to NDS
Auto login to NT and disable login to NDS
Manual login to NDS and NT

There is also this document that is more specific to Terminal Server/Citrix Presentation Server XenApp Server environments:

LDAP Contextless Login in Terminal Services Environments

In all versions of the Novell Client for Windows 2000/XP/2003 prior to and including Novell Client 4.91 SP3, the LDAP Contextless Login support will only perform a contextless lookup if a user interactively changes the contents of the "Username:" field or the "Tree:" field of the Novell Client login dialog.

As such, the LDAP Contextless Login support was not able to benefit scenarios involving Windows Terminal Services environments where TSClientAutoAdminLogon was being used in conjunction with credentials pre-supplied in the terminal connection, and/or with TSClientAutoAdminLogon in Citrix Metaframe environments that were launching published applications.

The widely used workaround for this limitation was to move or alias eDirectory users into a single container, such that in absence of contextless login support the terminal service environment could successfully default to a single context for all eDirectory user logins.

If you do have issues relating to getting Contextless Login working correctly the most authorative document I could find would appear to be this:

Setting Up LDAP Contextless Login and LDAP Treeless Login

Several large Novell customers have used LDAP Contextless Login to facilitate the merging of several trees in to one global tree. Before LDAP Contextless Login, users were often annoyed by being required to change their context information in the login screen when changes took place in the tree structure. This resulted in IT costs to manage and support the change. LDAP Contextless Login makes it easier for users to work in the new global tree because it makes it unnecessary for the users to manage or know about changes to their organization’s name or its placement in the hierarchy. Because users no longer need to enter their context to authenticate, the context can be changed on the back end as many times as necessary without the users needing to know and without the costs associated with managing and supporting these changes.

The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an Internet communications protocol that lets client applications access directory information. It is based on the X.500 Directory Access Protocol (DAP) but is less complex than a traditional client and can be used with any other directory service that follows the X.500 standard. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Services for Novell eDirectory is a server application that lets LDAP clients access information stored in eDirectory.

If your network has LDAP Services for Novell eDirectory set up on your eDirectory tree and you are running Novell eDirectory 8.5 or later, users who are logging in to the network from Windows can log in to the network without having to enter their context in the Novell Login screen. To log in, users need to know only their username, password, and the name of the tree that is running LDAP Services. Optionally, you can also have users log in to the network without having to specify the eDirectory tree name.

User objects can be located in the tree by username or e-mail address. You can also enable wildcard searches. If wildcard searches bring up multiple usernames, the user is prompted to select his username.

written by dcaddick