Archive for March, 2009
Hipster – Wasting My Time Since 2009
Posted by Ken Thompson in Journal on March 30, 2009
This afternoon I’ve made a pact with myself never to buy Crumpler again. Why? Well I’ll tell you why…they are for Mac loving, fixie riding, soy-mocha-latte drinking, tight black jean wearing, hipster fuckwits! I mean what kind of a company makes a laptop sleeve that only fits Macs!? Way to make a laptop sleeve that fits 20% of the laptops out there in the market you morons!
Installing XP on a Dell Inspiron 1525
Posted by Ken Thompson in Brain Busters, Work on March 30, 2009
I just got a new work laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1525. Pretty snazzy little unit, with a red cover making it as fast as a Ferrari…well maybe not that fast.
Specs:
- Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T6400 (2GHz/ 800 FSB/ 2MB Cache)
- 4GB DDR2 SDRAM Memory
- 320GB Hard Drive
- 15.4″ Widescreen WXGA (1280×800) TFT Display
- Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 Graphics Card
- 8X DVD Burner
- Dell™ Wireless 1395 802.11g 54Mbps Wireless Mini Card
- AverTV DVB-T Tuner Card
The laptop came with Vista Home Premium 32bit and while I like Vista, I am going to put on XP Pro as this is the OS we utilise at work. So it will be better for any error replication I might need to do and guarantees that everything will be compatible with work systems (as we have some custom made programs / database packages). Not to mention being able to log onto the domain, which Home versions of Windows cannot do.
So after hunting around for a correct version of Windows XP Pro with a valid key it was time to install, but I ran into a hiccup. Windows XP setup could not find any hardware drives. The problem here is that it comes factory defaulted to have AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) enabled. You can rectify this be either slip streaming the SATA drivers for the Dell’s HDD into the installation, or add them during setup with a floppy (which it doesn’t have, and XP doesn’t support adding them from USB). But that’s too much mucking around for my liking and AHCI is going to give me no benefits. So I simply disabled this in the BIOS and set the drive to perform as a normal ATA device. Before you can do this I had to disable “Flash Cache Module”, which basically turns part of your HDD into a “flash disk” so it can be used with Windows Vista’s ReadyDrive to supposedly increase read speeds and reduce battery drain. But because I’m not using Vista this won’t be an issue what so ever.
To begin, click your user name…urghh…what user name?
Posted by Ken Thompson in Work on March 26, 2009
This made me laugh! While locking some computers down for public access using Windows Steady State, I disabled the admin accounts using steady state before I had enabled the actual user accounts. You can still access the admin accounts by pressing ctrl+alt+del twice, but this is still very amusing!
Trouble installing Office 2007 on Windows XP Pro SP3
Posted by Ken Thompson in Brain Busters on March 25, 2009
This is the first of many posts in my “Brain Busters” category, which will be documenting all the horrendously stupid problems that I encounter with computers that aren’t simple fixes. The kind that take a bit of detective work, and hopefully by documenting them I can save someone else out there the headaches in trying to get to the bottom of the same problems.
I have just reinstalled my eeePC with XP Pro (That will definitely get it’s own Brain Buster article later…what a PITA!) and during it I thought it would be a good idea to streamline Windows XP Pro SP3 into my installation, seeing as though the installation disc I have is only SP1. All was going swimmingly, I installed all the updated drivers which improved my battery life quite a bit as well as some study programs to use over the weekend in preparation for my 70-290 Exam. That was until I tried to install Microsoft Office 2007, which in one word, FAILED!
When installing, the installation would continually just stop and start rolling back installation, with no other explanation than:
The Windows Installer service cannot update one or more protected Windows files
Worn out from work and vegging on the couch watching TV while doing all of this; I just didn’t have the brain power to try and work out what the issue is, so I just started doing stuff without any thought what so ever. I figured it must be my virus scan software preventing a file from being modified, so first disabled it; no success. Then I uninstalled it; no success. Then I tried installing in safe mode; no success.
Finally I decided there wasn’t any easy fixes to this problem and I would actually have to start the brain going and work it out. I opened up Event Viewer to see if I could find something in there, which i did:
Source: MsiInstaller
Type: Error
Description: Product: Microsoft Software Update for Web Folders (English) 12 — Error 1933. The Windows Installer services cannot update one or more protected Windows files. SFP Error: 21. List of protected files:\r\nc:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\40\bin\fp4autl.dll
So finally we are on to something, I open up windows explorer to go and have a look for the file…which doesn’t exist. So obviously it can’t modify a file that doesn’t exist, but just spits back at you that its “protected”. So I set about finding where I can find this file and stumbled across this Microsoft Support Article. It indicates that you can find fp4autl.dll in a cabinet file on the XP installation cd; \i386\Fp40ext.cab. So i extracted the specific file from that cabinet to the directory it needed to go in. When I ran installation again, it was a complete success and installed perfectly!
I suspect from the file name and location that it is a Frontpage file that generally gets installed with Windows XP. But because I had streamlined the SP3 into my installation, it must not install it for some reason. When Office 2007 installs, as it has Frontpage, it tries to update this “system” file. But because it doesn’t exist, it can’t, and therefore installation halts. A simple fix in the end though.
You Know You've Made It In Life When…
Posted by Ken Thompson in Journal, Work on March 25, 2009
As a coffee drinker, you know when you’ve made it in life when you can walk into your cafe on a busy morning, perch yourself on a stool and start reading the news paper. Despite the usual que of 5-10 people, a quick nod from the barista (Steve – Legend!) when I look up from the paper indicates he’s already onto it. A couple of articles later and Steve calls my name; I slink past the que who are obviously admiring my telepathic connection with Steve and thus why my coffee is ready before theirs when I technically never ordered one. I grab my large cup of heaven and stroll off to work, armed to the teeth in caffeine like a nerd commando off to do battle with the PC hordes…it’s the little things in life!
The PCs That Kevin Built
Posted by Ken Thompson in Journal, Projects, The PCs That Kevin Built on March 24, 2009
So times are tough (nay, they are shit!) in the economy and my mate Kevin Rudd is riding his stallion to the rescue of the average Australian citizen. While I don’t agree the policy of dishing out money to everyone necessarily…I’m sure as hell not going to send my cheque back. Instead I’m going to be a good citizen and “stimulate the economy” and spend it on myself; well actually, my computers.
I have had some plans for both my desktop and my server for quite some time, but they have always just been dreams. At best they are significant upgrades to the systems, but in reality they are a complete embellishment in technological gluttony. So this is a great time to final satisfy my urges for complete and utter technological excess. Below lie my plans for each of my rigs:
Desktop (Gaming Rig)
- NEW – Silverstone TJ-07BW (Black w/ Window)
- NEW – Silverstone Front Intake Fan
- NEW – Scythe Fan Controllers
- NEW – Internal Lighting – 2x 30cm UV Tubes
- Swap in e7300 CPU from Server rig
- Convert HDDS to RAID 0
I have always wanted this Silverstone case; it’s “sex on stilts”! I even bought my current case because it had a lot of features that were similar to the SS. But alas, it was just never going to measure up and some features of my current case are just starting to get annoying, namely the door. I also want to dabble in water cooling (hopefully later in the year) and this case will give the perfect framework to make a tasty WC setup. I would move all my hard drives (will be 4) into the front intake fan, which takes up 3x 5-1/2″ slots and holds 4 drives and an intake fan. This would free up the bottom compartment to fit in a 360 radiator and I could even put in a 240 as well and have dual loops which would be very cool. At the moment though I will run the drives down in the bottom compartment allowing the add on front intake fan to provide more cool air to the CPU and GPU in it’s current air cooling guise.
Before I move any of my gear into it though, I will be fully disassembling it and painting all the silver components and framework inside black. Probably matte black, but satin black also might be an option as it has a little bit of shine but not a full on gloss. From there it will just be a matter of putting everything in, pimping the cabling and maybe swapping out some fans (if my current fans are better) as well as getting my “rice boy” on and putting in some lighting with a switch to turn the light system on and off. Plus install some front panel analog fan controllers, which will eventually get hooked up to the WC system, but for now will operate the case/hdd/cpu/gpu fans.
Server (Media Server, XXIV Server, File Server, DNS/DHCP/Traffic Controller/RDP/FTP Server)
- NEW – 3x Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB HDDS in Raid 5
- Swap in Q6600 CPU from Gaming rig
- Install VMware ESXi
- Re-Install Windows Server 2003 w/ Exchange 2003 or Windows Small Business Server 2003
In the beginning, this server was to learn Windows Server 2003 on as well as acting as the main XXIV server on our VPN (to run Quickbooks, pricing spreadsheets etc.). But now it sees a lot of use as a media server using TVersity for streaming to my PS3 as well as being primary DHCP & DNS server, Print Server, Remote Desktop and Bandwidth Control.
I want to start using it as a file server for all my backups and storage. It currently only has 1x 160 GB HDD which just isn’t going to cut it for a proper file server set up. So I will be slotting in 3×640 GB Drives (although might get some slower speed, larger capacity ones, maybe 1TBs) and run them in Raid 5. This will give me a large amount of space, high speed (striped) and has redundancy, so if one drive fails I won’t lose all data. Minor problem is that the little Antec Minuet Mini HTPC case I have the server running in, doesn’t have room for 3 HDDs. In fact I think it is only designed to hold one…it does have a 3.5″ floppy bay though so I should be able to get one in there very easily, even if I have to drill some mounting holes a bit further back from the front panel. I will be mountain the final drive on the inside of the left side panel, which I will have to mod myself. Should be pretty easy, drill 4 holes and put some silicon washers in to reduce any vibrations. Once that is all done, it should be a sweet little unit! I will also get a simple 3-way switch dummy PCI card to control the top exhaust fan which currently has no external speed control (you have to take the side panel off to access the switch). I run it on low, but it is always nice to easily be able to crank the fan up on a hot day to keep everything running cool.
I will also be (attempting?) installing VMWare ESXi to run the server as a virtual server. This will mean I can run a bunch of different virtual machines on the one unit which are all confined to their own little sandbox, so I can muck around with Linux etc while still having the Windows server purring away along side it. Thus the move for my quad core processor from the gaming rig into this (although it probably doesn’t need it!). The e7300 has a slightly higher clock speed than the Q6600 and should be the same or slightly better performance for gaming, so it makes sense to swap these CPUs.
More to come on what exactly I’m purchasing and the master plans as well as progress reports as I break stuff along the way.
Completed 70-290 Microsoft Certification
Posted by Ken Thompson in I.T. Certification, Journal, Work on March 23, 2009
Well we’re already 3 months into the year and I’m already falling behind on my personal goal of finishing my MCSE by the end of the financial year. I have been keeping up my study regularly this year and have finished initial studies of the majority of exams, but yet to do final study on these and actually sit them.
So last Friday, I decided to pull my finger out and I booked in my first Windows Server 2003 exam, 70-290: Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Environment.
I went home for the weekend with my brother and sister, for a belated birthday present for Dad; riding round wineries in Rutherglen. It was a great weekend and obviously had a some good patches of not doing much (especially in the car), making room for some decent periods of study. Having finished studying for this certification in December before I started my new job and with 3 months on-the-job experience since starting in January at my new job, I was very confident that this exam wouldn’t pose too much trouble for me. Over the weekend I did 100s of example questions, averaging around low 80% for these. I was happy with this, especially considering every question I got wrong, I would see what the correct answer was and why this was…so even when I was getting questions incorrect, I was learning about these and wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.
I had a mini sleep-in this morning and wasn’t particularly worried about cramming in study this morning, instead blasting music, starting my Twitter account and cruising through a bunch of sample questions…procrastination was rife! I rocked in to the exam, very confident I knew the material inside and out. That was until I was actually doing the exam and started crapping my dacks! I was expecting to see questions similar to what I had been studying (since I have probably done about 400-500 example questions on this exam), but nothing at all was similar; it was all new and quite scary! I uncomfortably answered my way through, using the knowledge and experience I had built up. But I was not confident I had done well at all, on the contrary, I was very sure that I wasn’t going to pass (you require 700/1000 to pass)…I found it extremely hard. I finished the last question then held my breath as the very slow computer system calculated my score…only to find out I got 904/1000!
So I left feeling very happy with myself, although physically I felt like I had failed (thanks adrenaline!). Fortunately all the hard work paid off though. 2 Down, 5 to go!
New Website
Posted by Ken Thompson in Design, Journal, Projects on March 20, 2009
Well, Pixsoul has been out of action for some time and a lot has happened in the past year, so it’s about time to get it back up and running again…and keep it that way! I have just migrated my servers to a new Sydney based hosting company, so they are super quick (especially for Aussies!) and very reliable; I am very impressed with the level of service thus far.
I’m now working in IT as a Support Engineer, currently aiming to be a fully certified MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) by mid year and obtain some other qualifications in the 2nd half such as CCNA (Certified Cisco Network Associate) etc. So the site is going to turn a bit more into a profressional blog on what I am doing with myself at work and also in my own time, geeking it up and what projects I am working on. I will still have some elements of Graphic / Web Design to the site and still be offering those services freelance for small projects; as well as IT consulting.
So stay tuned, as this site will be transforming before your very eyes in the upcoming weeks…in time to document the spending of my Kevin 07 bonus on my home computer projects I have planned!
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