tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195877652011-12-23T22:01:49.963-08:00Welcome to my technology, thoughts, rants &amp; raves page :p - I use this site to keep track of all the things that are useful for me in technology, think of it as my reference page for really cool and obscure things tech.Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.comBlogger691100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-58485889390066140812010-08-28T17:46:00.002-07:002010-08-28T18:06:42.257-07:00Here is a sample working configuration I setup for one of our sites, you want to use Apache Reverse proxying or some type of reverse proxying anytime you are using multiple types of technology since it prevents you from having to use sub domains. Using this technique is better also because you can use cookies to pass to other applications for things such as single signon, plus you give the users a better experience as everything appears to come from one website. Performance is also another benefit you get since the reverse proxying does provide some level of caching for you.<div><br /></div><div>Another big benefit is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) since you will have more pages indexed under this configuration than if you used subdomains.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only downside of course, is increased complexity, but if you are running multiple web applications for your company, you are increasing complexity away, so you might as well do it properly.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here is a sample config, with some descriptions. We have an e-Commerce server (Tradepoint) but will also be using Dotnetnuke and wordpress as well, with the configuration below we end up dealing with SSL Reverse proxying (You do need to put the SSL Cert on the apache box and then use SSLProxyEngine On) to forward the SSL proxy requests to the servers in the back. As well the servers in the back already have SSL turned on.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also setup a static hosts file on the Proxy server so that you can point back to the back e-commerce. So in this examples the dns entry for every other machine will be 00040.ooolalashop.com that might point to 192.168.100.2 (apache) but on the proxy server, I point ooo40.ooolalashp.com to 192.168.100.3 (ecommerce).</div><div><br /></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><br /><virtualhost></virtualhost></span></div><div><div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">&lt;VirtualHost *:80&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ServerAdmin support@cometcomputing.com</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ServerName ooo40.ooolalashop.com</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> DocumentRoot /var/www/ooo</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/ooolalashop-error.log</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> CustomLog /var/log/apache2/ooolalashop-access.log combined</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> RewriteEngine On</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyTimeout 3600</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyRequests off</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPreserveHost off</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;Proxy *&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> AddDefaultCharset off</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Order deny,allow</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Allow from all</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> #Allow from .example.com</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;/Proxy&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPass /dnn http://ooo40dnn.ooolalashop.com/dnn</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPassReverse /dnn http://ooo40dnn.ooolalashop.com/dnn</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPass /blogs http://ooo40wp.ooolalashop.com:83/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPassReverse /blogs http://ooo40wp.ooolalashop.com:83/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPass /forums http://ooo40wp.ooolalashop.com:83/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPassReverse /forums http://ooo40wp.ooolalashop.com:83/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPass /affiliates http://ooo40wp.ooolalashop.com:83/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPassReverse /affiliates http://ooo40wp.ooolalashop.com:83/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPass / http://ooo40.ooolalashop.com/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPassReverse / http://ooo40.ooolalashop.com/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> RequestHeader unset Accept-Encoding</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> RewriteRule /blogs$ /blogs/ [R]</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyHTMLURLMap http://ooo40wp.ooolalashop.com:83 /blogs</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;Location /blogs&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> SetOutputFilter proxy-html</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPassReverse /</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyHTMLURLMap / /blogs/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> RequestHeader unset Accept-Encoding</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;/Location&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;Location /blogs/&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> SetOutputFilter proxy-html</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPassReverse /</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyHTMLURLMap / /blogs/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> RequestHeader unset Accept-Encoding</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;/Location&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyHTMLURLMap http://ooo40dnn.ooolalashop.com/dnn /dnn</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;Location /dnn/&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> SetOutputFilter proxy-html</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPassReverse /dnn</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyHTMLURLMap /dnn /dnn/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> RequestHeader unset Accept-Encoding</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;/Location&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;Location /dnn&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> SetOutputFilter proxy-html</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPassReverse /dnn</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyHTMLURLMap /dnn /dnn/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> RequestHeader unset Accept-Encoding</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;/Location&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">&lt;/VirtualHost&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">&lt;VirtualHost *:443&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> SSLEngine on</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/server.crt</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/server.key</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> SSLProxyEngine on</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPass / https://ooo40.ooolalashop.com/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> ProxyPassReverse / https://ooo40.ooolalashop.com/</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> &lt;Proxy *&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> AddDefaultCharset off</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Order deny,allow</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Allow from all</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> #Allow from .example.com</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">&lt;/Proxy&gt;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">&lt;/VirtualHost&gt;</span></div><div style="font-size: small; "><br /></div></div><div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><br /></span></div></div><div style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><br /></span></div></div></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><br /></span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /><br /></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-5848588939006614081?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-73908381203967906802010-01-17T19:41:00.000-08:002010-02-06T07:19:55.591-08:00I've been meaning to write this post for about 6 months going through my old Blog Topics I see this is one I haven't written about.<div><br /></div><div>So the great thing I can say about Windows 7, is that it's not Windows Vista or Windows <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">XP</span>. I have been using the OS for close to a year now since the Beta and have been very happy with it.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is definitely more stable than Vista or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">XP</span>, and performance wise it is definitely 100x better. Mind you, I have been running 64bit for the last 5 years and as a developer, it was extremely frustrating because I went from Windows <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">XP</span> 32 bit to Windows <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">XP</span> 64Bit to Windows Vista 64Bit - BACK to Windows <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">XP</span> 32 bit.</div><div><br /></div><div>The main reason? Drivers and compatibility of applications. It was during this time I bought my first Mac (2008) and since then, I have only been running <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">XP</span> in a virtual machine environment. Needless to say, I started working on more open source projects at this time, and it really wasn't till early 2009 that I started looking at Windows 7. (We even ditched our Microsoft Gold Partner status because Vista was so bad and things weren't looking that great).</div><div><br /></div><div>A few factors with Vista that were extremely frustrating, the user interface and that f**<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">cken</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">UAC</span> pop up drive you crazy. Also there was there was the issue where you Vista and the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">pre</span>-fetch would peg your CPU - at the time I had the fastest computer and it still ran slow.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>However, Windows 7 has really saved Microsoft I believe, because now everything I want my computer to do I can do. I am almost tempted (but I probably won't) to turn my Mac Pro into a Windows 7 machine. Also the processors and equipment are also much faster now so I am sure it helps, I haven't tried running Windows 7 on anything that slow but I would be curious to see if it does run well on older equipment.</div><div><br /></div><div>Windows 7 was so good in fact I got my first Dell R5400 Rack mount workstation with PC over <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">IP</span> (which I use everyday and using to write this post - PC over <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">IP</span> rocks! Check out <a href="http://www.teradici.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Teradici</span></a> and <a href="http://www.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp?switch=11"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">EVGA</span></a> that sells their product). My workstation is a Dual Quad <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Xeon</span> 5405 2.0 GHz with 16 Gigs of Ram and it is very delightful to program and develop on this. Can't wait to test out my Teraflop <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">GPU</span> from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Nvidia</span>, the <a href="http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_tesla_c1060_us.html">Tesla C1060</a>. We will be using this to do computational intensive operations. (Tip <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">btw</span>, you can't remote desktop to windows and use the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Telsa</span> the drivers don't load <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">WTF</span>!! - Used Ultra <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Vnc</span> to get around this, you can't <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">RDP</span>)</div><div><br /></div><div>So in closing, thank you Microsoft, for bringing Windows 7 to us, it's a success. I have sold more <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">PC's</span> running Windows 7 in the last 4 months than we have the last 3 years!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-7390838120396790680?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-41172154906988820032010-01-17T19:14:00.000-08:002010-01-17T19:27:49.804-08:00Wow, on my 20th try I finally go it, but not without wasting about 2 days worth of time. This install ranks up there in terms of difficulty and frustration and the only reason it's worth it probably because it's better than VSS. If I couldn't get it today I would have went to CVS or Subversion (maybe I still will).<div><br /></div><div>So what to look out for? Well here are my specs:</div><div><br /></div><div>SQL Server 2008</div><div>Windows Server 2003 with SP2, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, IIS</div><div><br /></div><div>I also use vSphere 4.0, so my visual studio team foundation server with WSS is inside a virtual machine. So here is the first step</div><div><br /></div><div>1) Install SQL Server 2008 Enterprise with Reporting Services and SP1</div><div>2) Take a Snapshot of the VM so you can roll back to this point </div><div>3) Configure your SQL Server Reporting Services with the Database server. In the documentation it tells you not to, but if I don't do it the install fails.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Right off the bat, make sure you prepare and get the slipstream install for SP1. If you don't you'll get tons of errors (you do even if you do this).</div><div><br /></div><div>So the first step in creating the slip stream install is to download the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9E40A5B6-DA41-43A2-A06D-3CEE196BFE3D&amp;displaylang=en">service pack</a> and then download the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=FF12844F-398C-4FE9-8B0D-9E84181D9923&amp;displaylang=en">documentation</a>. After you download this documentation, go to the section "How to: Integrate the Installation of Team Foundation Server and Service Pack 1" and follow those steps.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you get the stupid errors "the source file doesn't exist" for the </div><div><br /></div><div>\{source}\AT\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\Services\bin\Plugins</div><div>\{source}\AT\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\VersionControl</div><div>\{source}\AT\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\Warehouse</div><div><br /></div><div>Just copy them to the directory where you are slipstreaming the install and then click ignore on the files. I think the problem is because the file names are TOO long, which causes the slip stream process to not be able to recognize the file locations.</div><div><br /></div><div>After the slip stream files have been copied over, make sure you don't install off of a network drive, as you WILL run into the problem where the file names are too long. Instead, copy the install files to the local computer or make an ISO so the path name is not too long. In my case, I just made a directory c:\v and copied the slip stream files over.</div><div><br /></div><div>After this, I ran and the install was complete. I ran all of the other parts and there were no problems. Sharepoint gets installed automatically which was nice, but was a pain in the Ass for an install. Microsoft should definitely document this better it like getting my teeth pulled.</div><div><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-4117215490698882003?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-16068291117643286162010-01-12T21:10:00.000-08:002010-01-13T05:15:51.546-08:00So it's been a while since I have blogged, I will definitely be doing it more this year, but I've been using twitter quite a bit so i've kind of neglected my tech blog. SORRY!<br /><br />So some new additions to my arsenal of must haves. Very rarely do I come across software that is like "crackware" which means once you use it, you gotta have it.<br /><br />The two software pieces I am talking about are Dropbox and Xobni. Coincidentally, both the founders are MIT guys, and conicidentally they are good friends and coincidentally both of their products kick ass. I mean REALLY kick ass. And of course coincidentally or not both of these guys are super smart so they have great backing from some of the best VC firms in Silicon Valley.<br /><br />So first let's talk about Dropbox <a href="http://www.dropbox.com/">www.dropbox.com</a><br /><br />This application allows you to synchronize all your files on different platforms. Mac, Linux, iPhone, Windows etc. What I couldn't believe was how quickly I got attach 2 ed to this service, never in my life have I ever used a product that made our company more efficient than every before. This product is like a "mapped network drive" for you and anyone else! Completely changed the way we do business, and yes we recommend this to everyone!<div><br /></div><div>Also, you get 2 Gigs free to try and if you upgrade for $200 / year, you get 100 Gigs of transfer + another $39.00 for the "rat pack" gives you version control, which means if you overwrote a file, you can get the previous one back! Great for backups too, we use this is a whole range of scenarios, from document management, developer file sharing etc.<br /><div><br /></div><div>The problem is I can't buy enough space! But I am sure this is coming!<br /><br />Xobni - Inbox Spelled backwards <a href="http://www.xobni.com/">www.xobni.com</a><br /><br />I ditched Outlook for 2 years (YAY!) since I switched to Google Apps. I considered using Outlook after Google Apps Outlook Sync came into the picture, and I really started using it again with Xobni since I can actually find my shit now in Outlook. The best search for your email, period. Great Analytics too which we use to view our customer service information as well I get to see all the relationships on my social networks and how they are related to email!</div><div><br /></div><div>Free to install but you will want to upgrade to the full functionality. Worth the $30.00 and there is a enterprise version which works great!<br /><br />So my first post of this year, download this stuff and use it!</div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1606829111764328616?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-62648235898409404092009-03-21T20:08:00.000-07:002009-03-25T18:11:52.851-07:00The flu that I had over the last week is by far the most painful and longest flu I have ever had. I am happy that I am even able to write about it today, being hopeful that the worst is over. I am not sure where I caught it exactly, initially I thought it was from other family members or maybe even at the office. (I ruled out China, since I was there over a month ago, SARS anyone? :p)<div><br /></div><div>So about a week and a half ago, I start getting this light cough. You know how light coughs are, they come and go, same thing with a cold. Since I am pretty healthy, don't drink, smoke and work out regularly, I figure just to play it safe, let's go see the new family doctor that my other family members recommended. BIG Mistake, all I can say was this guy is in Richmond, and he is the WORST doctor I have ever been too. It's one thing for a doctor to be good at his diagnosis. It's another thing for them to get you out of the door quickly by not offering you any helpful solutions. This doctor in particular, said this to me once before since I had other family members who were sick at one point.</div><div><br /></div><div>"It's not bacterial, I can't prescribe you anything because it's viral". Thanks genius, for the diagnosis, but I am starting to be in pain so give me something for the pain. So I ask for something and get nothing. So I figure, ok, this is the type of doctor that doesn't like to prescribe anything unless you are dying. He clearly doesn't understand that the whole point of me going to see him what to either give me something to distract my body from the nuisance of being sick viral or non-viral so I can function in my daily life. If he had even told me, take some Advil it would make you feel better, that would have been better. Instead, just go about your day, "BLAH BLAH BLAH" what a shit doctor I am thinking in my head. Since I know myself pretty well, I figured I should get a doctor's note for work just in case.</div><div><br /></div><div>So with his pen and little doctor pad, he writes a note, but instead of giving it to me (which I thought was strange), he gives it to the receptionist (who by the way is just a pig headed as the doctor). I figured, "hmm, they must need to stamp it or something to make sure it's verified". That seemed quite professional until the receptionist said "That will be $15.00 please</div><div>". I started laughing and said "that's a good one HAHAHHAHAH, I'll have to remember that one". Then I paused, "you aren't serious are you?". She says "yes we charge for doctor's notes". So then I said "Since when do people start charging for doctor's notes???". The pig headed receptionist replies " oh we've always charged for them, we only charge $15.00 other places charge $30.00" like I was asking for a price match on a computer or dvd. Of course, I said "see you later" and she replies " oh but he already wrote the note". Which of course confirmed that this place was clearly just out to make and squeeze every penny out of every person (idiot) that comes through that door. (I probably can't name this place on the internet but I would gladly tell anyone, here I'll divulge some hints. It's in Richmond, the doctor's last name starts with a G, he's Caucasian and they are between 3 road and 4 road and Granville and Westminster). The worst part of all this, My brother and his wife go there and I go the speech "OH they aren't taking any new patients". Thank God I GOT SUCKERED, like they are so special and there aren't anymore family doctors on the planet.</div><div><br /></div><div>So to my prediction, the next week I got sick, starting on Monday night of the week of the 15th of March. So the cough started getting REALLY bad when I was working late at the office, and by the time Tuesday came around, I felt like shit in the morning and went to work. I figured exercise usually helps, so I do my workouts and start my day. By lunch time, it felt like an invisible force beat the living shit out of me and I had to go home by 1:00 PM. Needless to say I knew this had turned into the flu. Because I had already gone to the genius doctor last week (hahah G for Genius, no that is not his last name nor is he one) who told me there was NOTHING I could do, I stupidly listened to him and decide to try to rough it out. Since all the stomach flu fevers I have had before in the past lasted 24 hours, I figured this would be the same. BIG Mistake, this was not the stomach flu, this was some sick demented fever coughing flu.</div><div><br /></div><div>So by the time Friday rolled around, my family doctor prescribed me "Tamiflu" from Roche, which was great. Except for the fact it tricks your body into thinkind the flu is gone when it is not! Great if you need to get through 12 hours, but very painful since you know the flue is coming back!</div><div><br /></div><div>So the medicine I took throughout this ordeal? Here they are</div><div><br /></div><div>Tamiflu - Flu Masking</div><div>General Clarithromycin - Bacterial infection in lungs</div><div>Salbutamol Sulphate - Congestion<br /></div><div>Pseudoephedrine-Triprolidine - For congenstion</div><div>+ All this stuff my mom gave me that didn't work (sorry mom!)</div><div><br /></div><div>Bottom line if you are sick go see the doctor and don't wait till your flu gets better. And get a doctor that will help you with the situation not make it worse!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-6264823589840940409?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-36860460596184942592009-02-22T23:15:00.000-08:002009-02-22T23:19:42.216-08:00Probably one of the only games I really place next to Grand Theft Auto, Street Fighter was definitely the game I played the most in high school and university. That being said, I had no idea that this week, Street Fighter IV was out and all my friends from high school and university went out in mass to buy this game. Unbelievably it was sold out every where in the lower mainland. Fortunately I had to make my way down to the US on the weekend, and I guess Street Fighter isn't as big in Bellingham so I lucked out and picked up a few copies.<div><br /></div><div>My review of the game is an A. The graphics and gameplay are vastly improved, the version I purchased was the PS3 version. The great thing about the Street Fighter series is that they are different in terms of graphics and console, but the moves and gameplay are very similar if not the same as the original with the addition of new moves. That being said, if you were good at Street Fighter before, you will be good at this version, however there is the multiplayer online, which I will definitely try out at some point. Shoryuken!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-3686046059618494259?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-1877658937010899232009-02-22T23:13:00.000-08:002009-02-22T23:15:21.846-08:00I am going through the painful exercise of figuring out why my Mac is not authenticating to my AD Domain. Apparently the Mac OS 10.5.6 update kills something with Kerberos. Click <a href="http://www.macwindows.com/Kerberos-workarounds-for-Macs-losing-AD-binding.html">here</a> to view a possible solution.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-187765893701089923?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-3389343099775614052009-02-16T20:32:00.000-08:002009-02-16T21:35:27.136-08:00Although it is not as expensive as the <a href="http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/the_most_expensive_toilet_in_the_world_purchased_by_nasa.php">$19 million dollar toilet Nasa bought</a>, (the most expensive toilet in the world), the <a href="http://tinyurl.com/750Toilet">Lotus Smart Toilet ATS-1000</a> could be one of the most expensive toilet seats you have ever seen, certainly I thought it was outrageous when I first saw it at the local Chinese Shopping Mall, Aberdeen Centre in Richmond, B.C., Canada.<div><br /></div><div>However, after using a similar device on my recent trip back from China, I must say, once you use this device, you will wonder how you ever lived without one or got by all these years just using toilet paper. My first exposure to this device was hearing about it from my family when they were in the Executive Lounge in the Shanghai Airport. They made is sound like such a great device that it was worth just visiting the lounge multiple times just to use it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not being a big fan of public restrooms, I just so happened to need to go when I was at the Shanghai Airport and in the Executive lounge and noticed that I was using one of these devices. I must say I was pleasantly surprised, considering there was a heated seat feature, massage feature, wash feature and a dryer feature.</div><div><br /></div><div>Needless to say, I just returned home and went to Aberdeen to buy one. The store and brand name is Lotus, service at the store was great and they gave me the $60.00 off special for Chinese New Year. It took about a 1/2 hour to install and you need an AC output. For those of you who have ever been to Asia and have seen plugs behind the toilet, now I know why. I had to create a bit of a hack with extension cords but once I was up and running, the seat is amazing and nothing short of spectacular. Just your annual toilet paper bills will go down with this device, I highly recommend you stop by Lotus at Aberdeen and try it. Although $750.00 may seem like a steep price, after you use it and consider how many people in your family will use it (not to mention some people will think you are crazy) it is definitely worth buying.</div><div><br /></div><div>I remember when people used to think I was crazy for paying $600 to $800 for a piece of Tumi Luggage for my computer. I am pretty sure these seats will go down in price over the next few years and probably then they will become mainstream but in Japan and Korea these seats are the norm!</div><div><br /></div><div>Usually my blog is about computer software and devices but I believe any type of new and innovative technology is worth talking about. Oh yes, this is much better than a bidet!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-338934309977561405?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-81465535733373419462009-02-03T00:02:00.000-08:002009-02-03T01:16:15.291-08:00<div>First Google Apps, then Google Chrome. Finally Google Gears! With Google Gears, I can now see the whole big picture about how this will go head to head with Microsoft on the productivity side, specifically Microsoft Office.</div><div><br /></div><div>In one to two years, I am pretty confident that Microsoft will have to start giving away Office. Google Gears has overcome one of the major hurdles of web applications, which is allowing web applications to be run offline. So I will tell you how I came across Gears. The first time I heard about it was today when I was searching for a way for Gmail to be run offline.</div><div><br /></div><div>Actually, what I was searching for was hoping that Google was going to make an appliance or some software that would allow the Google Apps Gmail service to replicate to an onsite server for paid customers, since Gmail still requires you to connect to the Google Apps Service which means it is very slow to send email to your colleagues if you are in the same office. (Maybe this will be a new product for Google? Have a server sit at the office that knows if you are sending email to the same domain to route it locally instead of having to send it to Google's servers) We have this problem because we send very large attachments frequently.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, instead of finding this, I came across Google's blog that offline support for their Gmail service and Calendar was coming.  </div><div><br /></div><div>http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/07/gmail-and-google-calendar-to-add.html<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>As our organization uses email very heavily, I decided to try this offline service and was pleasantly surprised. You can now take your entire Gmail Account offline literally. Gears allows you to take your entire web browser offline by providing a set of API's that allow the browser application to work as though you are online. No other email provider has done this. For our company it is amazing because it also allows us to have the Gmail Search Offline which up until this point required us to be online.</div><div><br /></div><div>Once you see how this works, you will be able to appreciate what you can do with this. When Google makes this available for their docs and spreadsheets, you will no longer need excel or word, because those applications can run offline on your computer! On top of that, when you save it, it automatically synchronizes with your Google Docs! Heck I think they will just make Google Docs offline instead. I can't wait till this happens because this will really change the landscape of how applications works.</div><div><br /></div><div>Gears is probably the biggest contribution to the web community in a long time. Google show be praised for this because it is an open source framework and I for one will be looking heavily at how Gears can be integrated into our web based applications.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mark my words, Gears is the future of web development!</div><div><br /></div><div>You can view more about Gears at http://code.google.com/apis/gears/</div><div><br /></div><div>Apparently the feature for Google Docs offline already exists, now I just have to figure out how to use it! It seems that it is only available right now for the regular Gmail service and not Google Apps Premier Edition. More on this, probably just a setting!</div><div><br /></div><div>http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/offline-access-to-google-docs.html<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-8146553573337341946?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-891539338582017812009-02-03T00:01:00.000-08:002009-02-03T00:23:29.597-08:00Since the advent of Google Apps which includes the Spreadsheets, word processing and Email access to these applications have only been available through Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox. It's ironic since only four years back, the browser wars were officially over when Microsoft killed Netscape with Internet explorer. Netscape's code through Mozilla became Firefox. It seems that history truly does repeat it self because now not only does Microsoft compete with IE, they compete with Safari, Firefox and now Google Chrome. The competition now is definitely more fierce than ever since Google is the biggest competitor to Microsoft in every way. From search to productivity and now the browser.<div><br /></div><div>Google Chrome is in every way better faster and more lean than Internet Explorer. Just install it and you will see how much faster it loads pages than IE. I believe in the 6 months that Chrome has been out, everyone that has used it has pretty much done away with IE except for sites that actually require IE. <br /><div><br /></div><div>Chrome is by far the fastest browser on the market. I can't wait till it come out on Mac. On the windows platform, I actually use Chrome about 90% of the time and IE only 10% of the time and it works the best with Gmail and Google Apps, which is what we use now. I am happy to say we have officially tossed our Exchange Server. I have a post about that later as well, no longer is Email a headache for our organization. (Try having 1 terabyte of email on Exchange and backing that up.)</div><div><br /></div><div>I highly recommend Google Chrome as the browser of choice on Windows and with the advent of Gears which is very exciting, you can expect Chrome to be at the centerpiece of your web application experience.</div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-89153933858201781?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-61254509997094164662009-01-16T23:04:00.000-08:002009-01-16T23:19:27.895-08:00With my unlocked new iPhone 3G, I have to tell you, it's been great using SIPHON around the office. The iPhone work like a cordless VOIP phone for me now in wifi mode at the office. There are still some bugs with the auto registration, so you have to call the extension first before people can call you back which is really annoying. That being said, I also tried out SIAX (using IAX protocol instead of SIP). <div><br /></div><div>So last week, I had actually tested SIAX, but the quality and the software was flaky. However I was able to make VOIP calls through my PBX but there is definitely a lot of work on this piece of software before people actually pay for it. I would have bought it for sure since you can make VOIP calls over 3G but it was just too flaky. </div><div><br /></div><div>So I figured this week, I would tackle one of the tasks that I had never bothered getting around to last week, which is doing the dread SIP to SIP calls behind NATed firewalls. It was a good test anyway since I really want to be able to put SIP based handsets at remote locations without necessarily setting up a Cisco VPN Tunnel all the time because of the added overhead and cost of equipment. So after reviewing a few sites, I was able to finally get SIP to work over NAT without install SER (Sip Express Router) which is a SIP proxy server. So the good news is that over any WiFi network, I am able to connect to my Asterisk / Trixbox and make phone calls of the iPhone.  Sadly though I think Rogers somehow blocks RTP over the 3G network. I was able to establish a connection to my PBX and Call back and forth but no can do with the Audio. This thread probably explains it all. http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/forums/showthread.php?p=27953</div><div><br /></div><div>These were the 2 Sites I used.</div><div><br /></div><div>For Configuring Trixbox -  http://freepbx.org/support/documentation/howtos/howto-setup-a-remote-sip-extension</div><div><br /></div><div>For Configuring Your Cisco Routers - I had no idea that the IOS was so flaky when configuring access lists, you can't do port ranges and have to do fancy work arounds: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=11571809</div><div><br /></div><div>I still need to test this with something like a Polycom Set, the iPhone seems to not like the SIP -> NAT -> NAT -> iPhone incoming and after about 60 seconds, the registration disappears (using SIPHON). So I need to confirm if this is a NAT problem or iPhone problem. I am guessing it's probably NAT, but the SIPHON software is still buggy so more on that later.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-6125450999709416466?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-78242058895940099912009-01-12T09:56:00.001-08:002009-01-12T10:23:07.965-08:00So I am happy to say that the one of the best things that happened in 2008 for me (probably one of the only good things) was I got bit by the Apple bug and craze. I will be celebrating my one year <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">anniversary probably with the new <a href="http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features-17inch.html">Mac book pro 17"</a> .</span><div><br /></div><div>To start off 2008, I had made a commitment to try to get off my Windows XP Machine. The year started out pretty good, I had install Ubuntu on one of my notebook and actually did for about 2 months work off the Linux and the Window Platform. In March however, after using the Mac, sadly I haven't really used Ubuntu much since the Mac really was the alternative. Ubuntu is still great, however Mac is just much better (for now). So in the span of 10 months, myself and my family have started to accumulate a lot of Apple Equipment. (Last count, 1 Mac Pro, 2 x 30 Cinemas, 1 17" Macbook Pro, 3 Macbook Airs, 5 iPhones (1 2G , 4 3G) ). Some of our friends from China that just recently came to visit, I managed to get them onto a 24" iMac for his son and the new 15" Macbook Pro for himself. I will probably end up getting some kind of an Apple certification or reseller status since now I am interested in their xServe platform, and seriously considering selling and installing Mac computers for the next wave of computer upgrades at our office. Yes they are that good!</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, we live in a multi-OS world, so no Mac discussion would be complete without the talk of virtualization. The two main virtualization options are <a href="http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/">Parallels</a> and <a href="http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/">VMWare Fusion</a>. I still probably need to use Windows XP about 50% of the time, but the nice thing is that I would use Windows XP for the following</div><div><br /></div><div>1) Software Development - SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 (I still develop on the Microsoft Platform but server only) - Some of the ERP and Financial Quantitative applications I develop all use .NET.</div><div>2) Internet Explorer 7 because some sites only work in IE.</div><div>3) My Day Trading Applications, TD and Ninja Trader</div><div>4) Microsoft Word and Excel</div><div>5) <a href="http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/">VirtualWin</a> and <a href="http://www.splitview.com/">Splitview</a></div><div><br /></div><div>On the Mac:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) Email Client - Thunderbird - Great tool, better than Outlook. My only complaint is there is so much configuration out of the box.  I will probably look at some scripting tools later because this is difficult to deploy in the enterprise. On another note, I am happy to say we jettisoned Exchange for Google Apps ($50 for 25 gigs a year how can you beat that?), so now we use the following clients in Mac</div><div>2) Web Brower - Safari, Firefox</div><div>3) Chat - MSN on Mac, iChat</div><div>4) Productivity - Seriously considering iWork, I hate Office 2008 on the Mac.</div><div>5) Software Development - PHP, Ruby on Rails, MySQL - happy to say I can do some development work on my Mac!</div><div>6) Spaces</div><div><br /></div><div>So as you can see my tasks are split between Windows and Mac, so you still need to use some type of virtualization. I have not tried bootcamp because it uses FAT or FAT32, so I didn't bother since I never need to run XP natively on my Mac. Although some of my friends have told me to (From Microsoft they said run Vista on my Mac Pro - yeah right) I still haven't gotten around to it. So virtualization it is. On that front, I started with Parallels about a year ago because they were more established in the Mac virtualization than VMWare, even though I have been using VMWare in the windows and server environment for the last 10 years.  VMWare was only at the 1.0 but some of my colleagues told me it was faster. However, for 1.0, VMWare had some stability issues and I found that the integration with the Mac was not as good as Parallels.</div><div><br /></div><div>So for the last 10 months I have been using Parallels. Over the weekend though, I tried both of the newer version, specifically Parallels because it was up to version 4.0. I thought by sure for this version, they will have the issue for multi display working. Sadly I was disappointed. You would think after 4 versions, they would figure out that there are many users that use virtualization who use multiple displays. Clearly not, you can still only use 1 screen in Full Screen Mode. VMWare however supports up to 10 so I decided to give VMWare a shot again. There were some problems with the multi processor setup, apparently if you are running a 32bit OS, I recommend only using 1 CPU, since it may crash. I had this problem on servers before as well, only Guest OS's that are 64Bit seem to run ok with multi CPU. The multiple display option works well although there was some tweaking. Great news is now my windows xp on my Macbook Pro can use multiple displays.</div><div><br /></div><div>So now I am using VMWare, maybe if Parallels puts this in I will go back, but I think they dropped the ball on this one. Also from a spec standpoint, it looks like VMWare is much better than Parallels, everything seems to run faster (at least for me.) After 4 versions you think they would have added this in by now, guess not. So my recommendation for my second year of using the Mac for Virtualization is VMWare.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-7824205889594009991?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-35144547622119602692009-01-05T22:02:00.000-08:002009-01-11T14:51:19.199-08:00So after 1 or 2 days of using the iPhone I am impressed with the unlocked software. I had a couple of issues when the phone ran out of battery and I had to reset the phone. Upon reset, the phone was locked again and this happened two times.<div><br /></div><div>What I did was the following:</div><div><br /></div><div>Turn off 3G</div><div>Reset the Network Settings</div><div>Open Mobile Terminal and type the following:</div><div>yellowsn0w -c</div><div>yellowsn0w -r</div><div>yellowsn0w -q</div><div><br /></div><div>Then when I see the No Service,  I turn airplane mode on and off and sometimes the signal comes back but sometimes it doesn't. A little bit flaky, but for the last day or so it has been ok.</div><div><br /></div><div>I just updated to .96 of YellowSn0w hopefully this fixes the problems, from what I have seen most of the annoyances have been fixed so I recommend this update.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another app to watch is the iCall, apparently this is one of the VOIP applications that are official but still haven't been released because of Apple's approval of the application to the App Store. Hopefully they get it because from the press releases, it sounds like they spent upwards of 500K to develop the product.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the meantime, I have been using SIPHON. I also recommend downloading a program from Cydia called backgrounder, this allows you to run SIPHON in the background so you can switch between apps and still receive calls. There are some bugs with SIPHON and backgrounder but what do you expect, they are free.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyhow, I have been using the iPhone as a cordless VOIP phone for the last few days and I am really enjoying it! </div><div><br /></div><div>I have also successfully used SIAX over the wan, so I have made VOIP calls through 3G. However after doing some math, it really only makes sense to do so once the data plans go past the 2GB point. Unless my math is wrong, you get about 250 minutes of talk time on 1GB at G711 (64K) and around 500 minutes of talk time on 2GB. Also the quality still needs a lot of work and the connection is somewhat flakey. If you could somehow get G729 working then you would get quite a bit of performance but that requires you to purchase G729 codec on the asterisk box. I haven't tested this yet and also the SIAX and SIPHON phones yet. Also GSM is another option to look at.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, I still haven't figured out the Cisco VPN portion. Really the only reason would be to do remote administration through RDP and SSH. It was pretty entertaining, I rebooted a server through ssh in mobileterminal and was able to watch the asterisk box from the iPhone, definitely useful when travelling.</div><div><br /></div><div>The iPhone is the administrator's portable work anywhere computer. If you really want to wow people you can administer simple tasks through the iPhone. This phone does everything I wanted the blackberry 3 years ago so too bad for the blackberry, because iPhone is the new standard for smartphones. (Not to mention the storm doesn't even have wi-fi, big mistake on RIM's part.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Update: as of version .96, you don't have to run the YellowSn0w commands anymore.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-3514454762211960269?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-84146245917018806452009-01-04T08:59:00.001-08:002009-01-04T09:27:15.606-08:00I had been monitoring this website <a href="http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/67797811/dont-eat-yellowsn0w">http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/67797811/dont-eat-yellowsn0w</a> regarding the 3G unlock for the iPhone since they had mentioned that they would be releasing a software unlock for the 3G iPhone on January 1,st 2009. True to their word, they did release. Being the geek that I am, I rushed to install .91 of the yellowsn0w and it didn't work so I reverted back to the stock firmware 2.2. Last night though, after half and hour and some useful websites on Google News (yellowsn0w keyword) <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/156287/the_iphone_3g_unlock_chart_will_your_carrier_work.html">http://www.pcworld.com/article/156287/the_iphone_3g_unlock_chart_will_your_carrier_work.html</a><div> the pcworld site had some great links and after I did this, my iPhone was unlocked!<div><br /></div><div>On the technical side, you will need Quickpwn 2.2.1 from here <br /><br /><a href="http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/61060174/the-man-from-delmonte-he-say-yes">http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/61060174/the-man-from-delmonte-he-say-yes</a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>You do need to be a bit tech saavy to do this, it was pretty easy and you will need a Mac (I have not tried this on a PC).</div><div><br /></div><div>After you have done this, when the iPhone boots up, you can use Cydia to download sources and install yellowSn0w. You will also need to get the mobileterminal appplication since you will need to run some command lines.</div><div><br /></div><div>Reset the network settings, the iPhone will reboot and then turn off the 3G on your iPhone under network settings.</div><div><br /></div><div>After I installed these, I ran the following Yellowsn0w commands</div><div><br /></div><div>yellowsn0w -c (keep doing until there is success)</div><div>yellowsn0w -q (keep doing until there is success) - for me, my iPhone rebooted and I thought it was dead, but after it came back up, I turned airplane mode on and off and then my phone was unlocked!</div><div><br /></div><div>Now the fun begins! Why did I want to unlock my 3G iPhone? Well there are a couple of reasons.</div><div><br /></div><div>1) I'm a hacker - there are severe limitations to the locked 3G iPhone. Forget about the fact that you can't use another cellular provider, actually the software that you can get through the app store is not bad but it was severely limited. Many of the programs that I need I couldn't even find on the app store without paying or even when you pay, they aren't as good as the ones that were on the first version of the jailbroken phones. I can honestly say, some of the software that you get through Cydia is way better than what you can find on the app store, but I also like the commercial applications that are on the Appstore. Of course isn't it always better to have more than to have less? So now I can use the Appstore and I can use the Cydia applications.</div><div><br /></div><div>2) I travel alot - I need a phone where I can use multiple sims. The whole locked iPhone is really more of a deterrant and annoyance. Most people including myself probably have no problem getting a contract with an unlocked phone, I think it is the carriers that are concerned more than anything. I am currently using Rogers in Canada, and I would continue to use them anyway. Even with my unlocked 2G iPhone I was using them so it's pretty stupid but I am sure there is some protectionist reason for all this. I am sure from a sales pitch side, if they sold the phones unlocked, more people would buy plans and you would kill the grey market and make more money since there would be more iPhones sold. Anyhow, enough ranting, now I can travel and use my iPhone anywhere in the world, I tried my t-mobile card and it works. All you need to do it make sure you disable 3G, pop in the sim, turn on airplane mode and then turn it off and you are good!</div><div><br /></div><div>3) The iPhone is a Mac - more importantly this amazing creation from Steve Jobs, is the best thing to happen to the tech community since Windows 95 (I guess?). Most people think the iPhone is just a phone but if you did deeper, it is a Unix Computer. Last night I used the mobileterminal to login to our corporate asterisk box without a notebook for the first time. Now I just have to fiddle with the VPN (Cisco VPN).</div><div><br /></div><div>4) VOIP - when I first looked under the hood of the iPhone, I though VOIP. But of course this is probably what most people thought. I truly believe we are entering a time where the cellular carriers will eventually move to providing more data services. I completed my first VOIP SIP and IAX call on my iPhone yesterday, connecting to our corporate astserisk box (at 1 am) which shows you how excited I am. This means that where ever I am in the office, I will be able to receive calls from my extension and it will ring on my iPhone through the wifi network. The applications I used were siphon and siax. Fring is another program I saw through the app store but it doesn't support local sip connections. After I made my first call, I was pretty excited because I am postive my cell phone bill will go down. As a matter of fact I am going to change my cell phone plan today. I am at the office and home most of the time where I am connected to our corporate and asterisk PBX. More importantly, I now have a true cordless phone that is connected to my corporate PBX that I can use with my contacts. I have all this working perfectly in the corporate setting, so next of course is the final frontier, to get this working on the 3G network. </div><div><br /></div><div>Some annoyance with the SIPHON program and SIAX, they are not official apps, they are through Cydia so support is going to be limited. Also the programs seem to need to be running to connect to the asterisk box. This is one of the bad things about the iPhone, seems like every time you leave the program it shuts down. There should be some background or process thread these run it because every time you press home from the SIPHON program or SIAX, you lose the connection to asterisk. So in the meantime if you want to connect to your pbx, these programs need to be running. A small price to pay but we are in the early stages, I am sure this will get fixed.</div><div><br /><br />What's next? - My next set of experiments to get working are getting my SIP and IAX to work through the 3G network and also my Cisco VPN through the 3G Network. Keep reading here for more interesting updates</div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-8414624591701880645?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-6740406268517101512009-01-04T08:56:00.000-08:002009-01-04T08:59:00.214-08:00<div>For those of you looking to configure your iPhone for use with the Cisco VPN IPSEC setting, the Iphone doesn't really provide good configuration settings, so as the admin you will need to know what the Phone's actual settings are. The links below provide some information on configuration of Cisco VPN 3000 series and a cisco router to enable you to pass udp traffic on port 4500. Testing to make sure this works!</div><div><br /></div><a href="http://www.linickx.com/archives/352/cisco-vpn-3k-config-for-iphone">http://www.linickx.com/archives/352/cisco-vpn-3k-config-for-iphone</a><br /><br /><div><a href="http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/vpn_client/cisco_vpn_client/iPhone/2.0/connectivity/guide/iphone.html">http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/vpn_client/cisco_vpn_client/iPhone/2.0/connectivity/guide/iphone.html</a><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-674040626851710151?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-82656775529298369892008-04-12T15:54:00.001-07:002008-04-14T01:40:20.639-07:00At some point if you are a WCF developer, you will realize the pain of developing and Debugging web services and it's not a question of if you will encounter the dreaded "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The Underlying Connection Closed unexpectedly</span>" error, it's just a question of when. If you are doing a lot of object serialization (like trying to bring back an ArrayList) you will encounter this error very quickly. This post will help to solve "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">The Underlying Connection Closed unexpectedly</span>" by enabling you to debug your WCF Projects properly.<div><br /></div><div><div>There are really 2 ways to debug WCF Projects. </div><div><br /></div><div>The first and not so obvious but simple way, which will only get you so far, is to set break points in your WCF project and then run the project in the visual studio debugger. Then from your project that your are calling the service reference from, be sure to add the debugger url as your service reference and then run the program. (Usually your debugging web service if you open up visual studio will be http://localhost:{some port}/YourService.svc )</div><div><br /></div><div>Depending on which service you are hitting, you can step through the break points. For simple debugging and simple errors, this method work very quickly.</div><div><br /></div><div>You will find out very quickly though that this way will not catch all your errors. </div><div><br /></div><div> The documentation on Debugging WCF is very sparse and not intuitive, and for the documentation that is available, it is somewhat long winded, so I will just get to the point:</div><div><br /></div><div>Therefore, you must master the use of configuring your web.config files, use the tool.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 13px; "></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin\SvcConfigEditor.exe"</span><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>To create your configuration files. You will use this tool to modify your web.config file to enable the Message tracing and service tracing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Once this is done, after you run your program if it craps out, you then use the</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin\SvcTraceViewer.exe"</span></div><div><br /></div><div>to view your trace files. It is from within this trace log file you will be able to find out what went wrong in your WCF File.</div><div><br /></div><div>That's all there is to WCF Debugging!</div><div><br /></div><div>A Good Link on <a href="http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WCF/DebugWCFApps.aspx">CodeProject</a></div><div><br /></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-8265677552929836989?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-11799168089827483842008-04-12T15:48:00.000-07:002008-04-14T02:08:32.775-07:00So after the excitement has died down and now the Mac is officially integrated into my life, here are some experiences I would like to share with everyone regarding my transition. I am happy to say that whatever applications I can use on a Mac I actually do. <div><br /></div><div>The main applications I use in Mac are Microsoft Word, Excel, Entourage (Replacement for Outlook - much better!), MSN, Parallels, Remote Desktop, Address Book, iCal, Safari and Finder.</div><div><br /></div><div>I spend about 70% of my time still in Windows because I develop with Visual Studio. However, I am working on another internet startup project that is done with Ruby on Rails, so it was great to be able to develop on the Mac platform natively.</div><div><br /></div><div>So if I am spending 70% of my time in Windows, I should just use Windows and not Mac OS right? WRONG. I find I am much more productive with My Windows Apps using a Mac then just Windows By itself because I get to use a combination of the two.</div><div><br /></div><div>By Combining the use of Spaces on Mac OS, Virtuawin in Windows, Parallels with Coherence and Full Screen, I have made my developer and work environment 100x better than it could have been with Windows alone.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also being a long time Windows user, it was really nice to have a change of pace. This move to Mac was definitely one of the most exciting changes in the Tech industry I have gone through, truly and exciting transformation.</div><div><br /></div><div>So without further a do, here are some of my critiques on Mac OS Leopard in general + their programs.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Hardware</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Definitely when you buy a Mac, you are getting the best Industrial Designed Hardware bar-none. The Mac Pro has the best industrial designed case known to man. just check out these pictures on my <a href="http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30937&amp;l=f7af5&amp;id=663227108">Facebook</a>.</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">With the integration of parallels and Windows, I find it hard that I will ever buy a PC Again. Also after using my 2x30" LCD Cinema Displays, I had to look at a 17" LCD today and I was wondering how on earth I ever go anything done using those screens.</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Multimedia</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The multimedia experience on a Mac is the best. They are so far ahead of the competition it's not even funny. Also the integration with the iPhone, Apple TV, Macbook Pro, really make the platform Unbeatable. It is the seamless integration that the Mac provides that makes it truly unique. Frontrow is great because it turns any of your Mac's instantly into a Media Center. Also I love that when I watch a movie on my iPhone and sync up with my Computer, when I watch the same movie on my Apple TV or my Mac Pro, it leaves off where I was last watching!</span></span></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span></span><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Parallels vs VMWare Fusion (Virtualization)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>There has been much debate over this subject, after using both, I have concluded that each one does something specifically better than the other. For myself, I use both but for different purposes. Parallels is the clear winner if you are running your Windows XP frequently since the level of integration with Coherence and the maturity of Parallels is much better than VMWare Fusion. For example, VMWare Fusion's Fusion feature, which is equivalent to Parallels coherence is very buggy and doesn't support Multi-Monitors. Even though VMware runs multiple CPU's, the level of integration with the Mac OS is not as tight as Parallels. Even the features such as shared folder, Parallels is the clear winner.</div><div><br /></div><div>However if I am testing operating systems such as Windows Server 2008 x64 you really have to use VMWare because Parallels doesn't support x64. That being said, each one serves it's purpose but for the general public that doesn't use server virtualization, I would recommend Parallels (at least until Fusion becomes a more mature product even though it is faster)</div><div><br /></div><div>The only thing that really sucks about Parallels, is doesn't have 64-bit support yet, and only single CPU.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Hardware Devices and Printing</span></div><div><br /></div><div>I was pretty lazy with this and haven't gotten around to figuring everything out, so I still print everything through my Virtual Machines In Windows.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Time Machine</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div>Even if you never actually rely on the backups (I do) it is so easy to setup and cool just to look at that you need to set it up. The 3-D display of going back in time is worth it just to look at. Plus the ease of backup makes it a no-brainer. Just wish they made is so you can pick drives outside of your own local drives to back up - VERY COOL! I got the time capsule so it works very well.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Mac OS is Stable And Never Crashes (That's BS)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div>So I can give you the skinny on this, I have crashed my Mac Many times, however I think this is just because I am pushing it. I admit it is stable but then again so is Windows. I do like that there  are no viruses on a Mac but then again I have to virtualize most of my apps. (But I do this anyway). Also, I can't really put the same load on a Mac that I put on a Windows Machine. But the odd time I do large file copies or I have do something funny with Parallels, I get the graceful "Gray screen of restart Please" vs the Windows Blue Screen of Death.</div><div><br /></div><div>Macs do crash, all computers do. I would say Ubuntu crashes the least but I have never had a computer "Not crash on Me".</div><div><br /></div><div>Also with Parallels, you need to be careful when using Spaces and Coherence, because Parallels will CRASH ALOT if you use Spaces with Coherence. My work around for this because I have multi-monitors, is to use Virtuawin inside my Windows VM and run Parallels at Full Screen.</div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1179916808982748384?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-77641490727323584272008-03-28T10:42:00.000-07:002008-03-28T10:53:31.803-07:00So after officially using the Mac for one week, every time I go back to my PC I get this wierd feeling in my stomach, almost like I am going back to an older system. Of course, the biggest piece is just because I am so used to the OS X interface that it's difficult to go back to just using Windows.<br /><br />I love Windows, I just happen to love it on Mac much more than on a PC!<br /><br />That being said, aside from the Macbook Air story that I have with my mom jumping on the bandwagon, apparently other folks in the family have been bit by it as well!<br /><br />So the night before I am off to San Francisco at around 1AM I am having this discussion with my brother. Like most "Pre Mac" users, he was telling me how much he loved his PC. I specifically said to him "I bet you I will have you getting a Mac within the next month!".<br /><br />Of course his response was "Macs are too expensive, I like my PC better. I DON'T NEED A Mac!". So of course he had seen my Mom's Mac book Air, but the kicker part was when I showed him Parallels and the Mac Mini + Spaces. After the next hour, he says to me "Hmm, I am due for a new Laptop and My wife's birthday is coming up (end of May yeah right), I'll take 2 Macbook Airs, can you order them?". So I ask when? He replies "Right now? ehheh".<br /><br />So next thing you know, we are scouring the price engines to get the best price for the Mac book Airs. We end up at <a href="http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=8286496">PC Connection</a> for $1,750 USD each, no taxes and free shipping!<br /><br />Here are the specs on the Macbook Air:<br /><br />MacBook Air 13" 1.6Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 2GB RAM 80GB iSight<br />Apple Computer<br />Thinnovation.<br /><br />So clearly I was wrong, it didn't take a month to convert a PC User to a Mac, it only takes 1 hour!<br /><br />I will most likely get one for myself and my wife, since the Macbook Air draws such a crowd and attention, I will probably become an Apple Salesman...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-7764149072732358427?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-4660218476694446822008-03-24T18:31:00.000-07:002008-03-24T18:34:43.584-07:00Once of the best reasons for me to go over to Mac this week was the built in spaces feature. However, after being spoiled on the Mac all week, I did have to use my PC. One of the things I missed the most going back to the PC though was the Spaces application on Mac OS. Although I have use the Virtual Desktop features with Linux, I never used it quite as heaviliy as I did with the Mac OS. So I setout to find a replacement in Windows.<br /><br />I sincerly hope that Microsoft in the next version of Windows bundles something like Spaces or Virtual Desktops into the OS, it is the standard to have something like this nowadays.<br /><br />The program I recommend is an open source project called <a href="http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/">VirtuaWin.</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-466021847669444682?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-46754212515274251532008-03-24T01:42:00.001-07:002008-03-24T01:53:38.868-07:00So in tradition with continuing the Mac Madness this week, I convince my parents on Easter Sunday to head over to Best Buy with me to look at the new <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Macbook</span> Pros. You need to realize, my parents haven't been in an electronics store let alone a best buy probably for the last 5 years (I go at least once a week :p) so the first thing they were amazed with was how many flat screen televisions were on display and how inexpensive they were.<div><br /></div><div>Of course, we weren't at Best Buy to look the the televisions (although they were interested in the 50" Plasmas) we were there to look at the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Macbook</span> Air. Despite the negative publicity and buzz around the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Macbook</span> Air being too light, too niche or too slow for a Mac, all of these points are <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">irrelevant</span> because the Macbook was designed for a very special niche - either a secondary notebook, for people who like to travel light, or the executive who likes the lightest notebook - the latter being my mother.</div><div><br /></div><div>So of course after she saw how light the notebook was and having to leave town in a few days, she said to me "I want that" after we walked out of the store. Of course with my luck, Best Buy didn't have it in stock - fortunately Future Shop next door did and I bolted over there to pick one up.</div><div><br /></div><div>After using it for the last few hours, I must say I wouldn't mind having this as a secondary notebook but since I am a hardcore power user, this notebook definitely would only serve the purpose of email, word processing, chat and communications - which is what most executives do any way.</div><div><br /></div><div>The battery life is great, over 5 hours, the keyboard works very well, and I love the Multi Touch track pad. I also recommend the bluetooth wireless mighty mouse for the notebook since long periods of usage with the trackpad can get tiring . A couple of things I do need to buy for it include the time capsule, so we have 802.11n and also the usb Ethernet adapter since it doesn't have a built in ethernet port.</div><div><br /></div><div>All in all, I would have to say the Macbook Air kicks ass (the magnetic power cord was genius and so is the backlit keyboard.) and I would recommend it to anyone who cares about style, weight and usability. I would only recommend this as a secondary notebook though for power users.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-4675421251527425153?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-18199271990549547172008-03-23T11:09:00.000-07:002008-03-23T11:57:46.487-07:00So after 24 hours non-stop on a Mac, I can honestly say I will not be heading back to the PC. Not because I don't like the PC, but because I can run everything that I can run on the PC inside a Mac. The newer Macs have really set the bar and stage, particularly the operating system itself and what it is capable of. My predicition is that Apple will be the big company the next 10 years, it is truly Apple's time to shine. If you haven't seen the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, I would strongly encourage you to watch it since it talks about the history between Microsoft and Apple, and how Apple was basically killed by MS but managed to survive, and now is thriving!<br /><br />An interesting article to read is in Wired magazine <a href="http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_apple?currentPage=all">"How Apple Got Everything Right by Doing Everything Wrong."</a> . It truly explains how Apple as transformed it self since 1997 when Steve Jobs returned.<br /><br />Apple will be the force to reckeoned with since they have a strong Alliance with Google, and everything they are doing righ now is perfect. One of the biggest points I haven't talked about is the foundation of the Mac, which is OS X.<br /><br />OS X runs Windows Applications with Virtualizaton better than Windows can with Windows. That's CRAZY! The useability and productivity I have now with my PC apps because I am running a Mac are much better and higher all because of the great OS design.<br /><br />I was going to wait a month to buy my workstation, however after playing with the Mac Mini yesterday, there was no point in waiting since I need to make the move NOW!! The products Apple have made for 2008 are so amazing, I have spent the entire week learning about their product stack, and I am looking at their certification and becoming an Apple partner since I really believe in their products! I truly believe Apple is ready for the Corporate and Enterprise market which is the space I work in so this is where I will be pushing a lot of their products. Also the timing is perfect since Apple just released new that they will allow OS X Server to be virtualized, which is a huge part and decision for me to even consider running Apple servers because we virtualize EVERYTHING. Some more info on the <a href="http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2008/01/virtual-leopa-1.html">VTMN</a> blog.<br /><br />You can think of my purchases as "Demos" to really learn about the product and an investment which I think will pay off since the platform and hardware is solid. Also my prediction is that these machines should last me at least 2 years (which is very long for me considering I get a new computer at least every 6 months), maybe 3 but I highly doubt that just because I am sure the processor and disk speeds will be much higher even a year to 2 years from now.<br /><br />So here is my shopping list this week for everything I bought from Apple. I would have shorted Apple stock before last week but now I would buy it since I am sure they went up a few points after my purchases this week. I have always wanted to shop at <a href="http://www.newegg.com/">http://www.newegg.com/</a> I finally got the excuse to after getting the Mac Pro since I needed 16GB of memory. All prices are in USD.<br /><br /><strong><u>Apple Store Online (Custom Configured) Price Subtotal </u></strong><br />1 Macbook Pro 17" with 1920x1200 Hi Res Screen Matte Finish - 250 GB Hard Drive $2,899.00 $2,899.00<br />1 iPhone 8GB (through Friend from Apple) $299.00 $299.00<br />2 "Apple 30"" 2560x1600 Widescreen Cinema<br />Display (Refurbished Apple Store)" $1,499.00 $2,998.00<br />1 "Mac Pro Dual-Quad Core (8 Cpus) with<br />Hardware Raid Controller, 320GB Drive, Nvidia<br />512MB Video Card" $3,899.00 $3,899.00<br /><br /><br /><strong><u>Apple Store (Burlingame) </u></strong><br />1 Wireless Keyboard $79.99 $79.99<br /><br /><strong><u>Apple Store (Stanford)<br /></u></strong>1 Apple TV 160GB $349.00 $349.00<br /><br /><u><strong>New Egg</strong></u><br />4 iRam - 2Gig FB-Dimms DDR2 - 800 for Mac Pro $209.00 $836.00<br />2 Transcend - JetRam DDR2 667 2GB for Mac Pro $33.50 $67.00<br />Sub Total $11,426.99<br />California 7.25% State sales Tax $828.46<br /><strong><u>$12,255.45</u></strong> <strong><u>My First Week with Apple</u></strong><br /><br /><strong><u>Things I am still missing<br /></u></strong>2 1 Terabyte Sata Hard Drive $250.00 $500.00<br />1 320GB Sata Hard Drive $79.99 $79.99<br />1 Apple Xserve $4,000.00 $4,000.00<br />1 Apple Time Capsule 1 TB with 802.11n $499.00 $499.00 (This is really cool it automatically backs up your computer?)<br /><u><strong>$5,078.99 </strong><br /></u><br /><br />Damn their shit expensive, but damn their shit is the best, you really get what you pay for!<br /><br />I am sure I will be writing about Macs for the next little while (maybe the rest of my life...) - I now understand the Mac craze, I am even looking at all the cool music apps now just for fun!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1819927199054954717?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-19641155057407092512008-03-22T23:39:00.001-07:002008-03-23T00:16:48.979-07:00After using the Mac Mini all day, I must truly say that once you go Mac, it is very difficult to go back - TO ANYTHING ELSE! One product that really shines is VMWare Fusion. The concept of virtualization was never new to me, however, the "Unity" button is definitely new to me. I don't even think this feature exists on the Windows or Linux versions of VMware.<div><br /></div><div>Essentially, it allows you to run the application that is inside the virtual machine to appear like it is actually part of the Mac machine. This is crazy for me because that means I can use tools like Visual Studio without being limited to it running inside a remote desktop window. THIS IS AMAZING!</div><div><br /></div><div>The madness will surely continue for the next few days, if not weeks, I am definitely getting a workstation at this point!</div><div><br /></div><div>Here are some pictures to wet your appetite on what <a href="http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/screens.html">VMware Fusion</a> can do.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1964115505740709251?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-86449955988552983022008-03-22T12:25:00.000-07:002008-03-22T13:14:20.476-07:00After many years of convincing myself that I would never buy or use a Mac computer because PC computers were better, I have come to appreciate and realize what the craze is all about when it comes to the Mac platform.<div><br /></div><div>I don't think I have been this crazy about a computer EVER. I think the only parallels in excitement and anticipation in waiting for my new 17" Macbook Pro to arrive would be the following: Since I first started developing in VB and ASP, Windows 2000 and 95, and when I got my 10 screen LCD Setup.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, I don't think anything comes close because never have I spent an entire week thinking and researching everything about the platform and a computer, I currently have a serious case of MAC "Crack" Addiction as I call it. In the past week, I must have gone to an Apple Store at least 3 times, visited the Apple Store about 100 times (probably at least once and hour), talked about it at least once every 2 hours and checked on the status of my Macbook Pro every 3 to 4 hours :p.</div><div><br /></div><div>For me, I would say it all started with the speaking to some of my colleagues at a contract I was working. Normally, I purchase a new PC or notebook at least every 6 months to a year, simply because the development work I am doing + virtualization always requires me to have a fast running machine. I have held of buying anything the last year (2007 was the only year I have gone through not buying a single server or PC) because frankly, there wasn't much change in the PC platform. We were using virtualization heavily and there was no new OS or major software changes on the market, and I had already bought my Vista PC back in December of 2006 along with my Dell Notebook.</div><div><br /></div><div>So one of my colleagues had a Lenovo notebook on his desk, and I had always been the biggest fans of Lenovo / IBM thinkpads. In my opinion, Lenovo is #1 for PC based Notebooks, Dell is #2, HP and Compaq are #3. Stay clear away from Sony Vaio they are garbage from my experience but they look nice. Toshiba I have just never been a fan of although they are the best for Japanese notebooks.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have always like the Thinkpads because they were the workhorse of notebooks, had the best design, had the mini keyboard light and had the best service and warranty (always 3 year). They were also the most expensive notebooks, which is why we went with Dell because Dells were the most similar to Thinkpads but were much cheaper. However one of the things I hate most about the Dell notebooks now are that they don't come with a built in microphone. Because I use my computer as an IP phone, this was a real pain in the ass and for the last 2 years, I have hated this the most about Dell Notebooks. Aside from that they were fine.</div><div><br /></div><div>So continuing the story, I was admiring the Lenovo and telling them how much I loved Thinkpads, then my colleague goes "That's a piece of shit" you should get a Mac. So then I stared over at his 23" Screen along with his 17" Macbook Pro that was on his desk. He was talking about how much better the Mac was than the PC, especially now that it had the Intel processor. Just to give you some background, I had purchased a Mac Mini with the Core Duo platform about a year ago, and frankly I wasn't that impressed. The only reason I purchased one was because of the safari browser I was testing, and to let my kids play on a computer so they wouldn't touch mine. From Summer of last year, the Mac mini was basically put into storage and I thought I would never use it again.</div><div><br /></div><div>After looking at the Macbook Pro on my colleague's desk something I told him about the features that I loved about the thinkpad. Particularly the little keyboard light you could turn on so that you can view the keyboard when it's dark. My colleague goes "that's lame, the Macbook Pro keyboard lights up when it's dark." It was at this point I felt something come over me almost like a turning point. I also saw the small wireless keyboard and all the features he was showing me. He also mentioned that PC World even mentioned that that Mac's run Windows faster than any PC based computers. It was at this point I actually considered maybe getting a Macbook for a notebook. However it didn't stop there, another colleague who was the IT Director was also a huge Mac fan and after speaking with him, I was sold. I had already known about the virtualization with Parallels and VMware, and being a very heavy user of VMware and virtualization, I was pretty comfortable running my development machine inside a VM.</div><div><br /></div><div>What pushed me further though, was the March 6 presentation Steve Jobs gave about the iPhone SDK. My reaction to the iPhone before also was substandard because I had never liked the fact that the Apple platform was fun to develop on. With the opening of the SDK for the iPhone, now I was hooked into the iPhone because the iPhone is essentially a Unix handheld computer. What pushed me even further, was watching the video for Ruby on Rails. Apparently, lots of people use Mac as the platform to develop Ruby on Rails applications. Because I develop mostly internet application and have been looking at Ruby on Rails, this also made the Mac more attractive for me. Then I started thinking about how damn sexy the Apple equipment looked compared to the PC equipment as well as the user interface. I figured I spent about 10 hours a day in front of a computer, I may as well stare at the hottest looking piece of hardware on the planet.</div><div><br /></div><div>From the technology perspective, I had already been using Ubuntu on one of my notebooks for the last 4 months, which actually probably helped in making me want to use a Mac even more because Mac OS X is based on a Unix Kernel. The problem with Ubuntu is that it was still relatively immature and there were still somethings I didn't like about it. The Mac however, seems to be everything the Ubuntu is but is more established and better supported commercially, which makes it great because it almost seems like I was searching for something and the Mac is it! There is virtualization, great commercial support, a huge user base and a solid OS.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another part that also stood out for me was this article and excerpt from wikipedia:</div><div><br /></div><div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">For over three years now, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X"><span style="color: #0626b8">Mac OS X</span></a> has gotten faster with every release — and not just "faster in the experience of most end users", but faster on the same hardware. This trend is unheard of among contemporary desktop operating systems</p></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS</a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This was crazy for me to comprehend because every time Windows came out with a new OS, you would need to buy hardware.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was from this point on I started going nuts about the Mac. I started scouring the net for deals and I must give Kudos to Apple, they sure know how to control the market.</div><div><br /></div><div>So in summary in my first week, I bought the iPhone, Macbook Pro 17 with the 1920x1200 resolution screen, a 30" Cinema Display and the wireless keyboard. I also took my Mac Mini out of storage and dropped 2GB of memory into it. I am currently writing this Blog from my Mac Mini because I haven't received my Macbook Pro yet.</div><div><br /></div><div>If all goes well (Which I am sure it will), I will be purchasing 2 more 30" Displays so that I have 3 x 30" display, the new Mac Pro workstation - Dual Quad Core? CRAZY ( I am due for a Desktop workstation upgrade) and we will also be evaluating the XServe 1 U Server.</div><div><br /></div><div>The major applications and tasks I will be doing will involve the following</div><div><br /></div><div>1) Running VMWare Fusion - testing compatibility with moving virtual machines</div><div>2) Running Office 2008</div><div>3) Cisco VPN Client</div><div>4) Ruby on Rails Web Development</div><div>5) Connecting to Active Directory</div><div>6) iPhone SDK Development</div><div><br /></div><div>My hats off to Apple, I think they are truly starting to transition to the Corporate space rather than just being consumer oriented. I am so excited to get my new Mac next week that I started using my Mac Mini today for all the tasks that I want to do on my PC. I will keep the updates on the progress of my move to the Mac. This is truly an exciting time in computing for Apple because their solutions are very well integrated as well for all PC users looking a change from their standard and usual PC usage.</div><div><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-8644995598855298302?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-23930518070476156612008-03-22T11:46:00.000-07:002008-03-22T11:57:49.174-07:00Many of you may have heard the term GRID computing, for those of you who don't know what GRID Computing is, here is the quick and dirty definition from wikipedia:<br /><br /><p><b>Grid computing</b> is a phrase in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_computing" title="Distributed computing">distributed computing</a> which can have several meanings:</p> <ul><li>Multiple independent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cluster" title="Computer cluster">computing clusters</a> which act like a "grid" because they are composed of resource <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node_%28networking%29" title="Node (networking)">nodes</a> not located within a single administrative domain. (formal)</li><li>Offering online computation or storage as a metered commercial service, known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_computing" title="Utility computing">utility computing</a>, <i>computing on demand</i>, or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing" title="Cloud computing">cloud computing</a>.</li><li>The creation of a "virtual supercomputer" by using spare computing resources within an organization.</li><li>The creation of a "virtual supercomputer" by using a network of geographically dispersed computers. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_computing" title="Volunteer computing">Volunteer computing</a>, which generally focuses on scientific, mathematical, and academic problems, is the most common application of this technology.</li></ul>So in a nutshell, Grid Computing allows you to take a task, and chop it up into smaller tasks, send them over the network to be processed on multiple computers.<br /><br />When would you use this? Currently I am applying and investigating the use of Grid Computing in the Financial Services vertical and Video Encoding and Transcoding.<br /><br />In the Financial service vertical for example, building complex financial models for Hedge Funds or analyzing large sets of data require lots of computing time, so Grid Computing is perfect for this.<br /><br />Another project currently requires encoding and transcoding video formats on the fly as well as offline, which requires heavy processor time.<br /><br />These are just 2 examples of which I am using and investigating the use of Grid Computing. Any task that requires heavy CPU computation should be a candidate for Grid Computing. There are a few Grid Computing packages I have been looking at, here are just a few. Grid Computing requires you to have some development experience depending on the package and more often or not you have to code your applications to be asynchronous so that it can be distributed on a Grid in real time.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.digipede.com">Digipede - For Microsoft .NET Applications or the Microsoft Platform</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.alchemi.net/">Alchemi - For Microsoft .NET Applications - Open Source</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/technology/xgrid.html">Apple XGrid - Comes with MAC OS X Server</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.gridgain.com/">Grid Gain - Java based Grid Computing - Open Source and most widely used</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing">Wikipedia Resource</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-2393051807047615661?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-70297454840891535682008-03-08T13:38:00.000-08:002008-03-08T13:44:51.472-08:00IAX Trunking is definately the way to go, it took me 2 minutes to setup vs. SIP Trunking over NAT which doesn't work very well. A word to the wise, if your DID provider has IAX and you have NAT, use that!<br /><br />A good provider I use is <a href="http://www.voicenetwork.ca/">http://www.voicenetwork.ca</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-7029745484089153568?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-70431096928481390162008-03-06T00:22:00.000-08:002008-03-06T00:26:20.810-08:00If you have ever worked with a Cisco 7970 Phone, you will notice they are very flaky sometimes and are in a real need for a hard reset. Normally the factory reset of holding # and pressing 123456789*0# works but if that doesn't you'll either have to setup a TFTP server and load some default firmware or press 3 4 6 1 6 7 2 8 5 0 * #<br /><br />A good page discussing this issue for people playing around with different firmware - Thank goodness for this page, otherwise I would have an $800.00 doorstop.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.voipuser.org/forum_topic_10868.html">http://www.voipuser.org/forum_topic_10868.html</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-7043109692848139016?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-26281943257393985602008-02-17T19:48:00.000-08:002008-02-17T19:51:38.690-08:00Yes there are still people that run 16-bit apps. I have heard that Vista x64 doesn't support 16-bit windows apps, which means that you will have to find some type of emulator to run the older versions of software.<br /><br />You can use DOSBox which is fine for games, but if you need something to run older 16-bit apps that have printing, you'll need a emulator called DOSEMU. I still have some clients that run ACCPAC on the older 16-bit systems, so this was an interesting task since we could push Ubuntu as a desktop client if we were able to completely emulate the 16-bit DOS environment along with printing.<br /><br />http://www.dosbox.org<br /><br />http://www.dosemu.org/<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-2628194325739398560?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-39889880949351704532008-02-17T18:06:00.001-08:002008-02-17T18:09:12.978-08:00Using CIFS (Common Internet File System) is the method to mount windows shares on a Linux box (Ubuntu in my case). CIFS is the replacement for SMBMOUNT, the following is an example of how to use this command. You must execute it as root.<br /><br /><br />sudo mount -t cifs //{IPADDRESS}/{Windows Share} /mnt/yourdirectory -o username=administrator,password=password<br /><br />A good post that discusses this in detail:<br /><br />http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=288534<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-3988988094935170453?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-51771498228610417512008-02-17T01:40:00.000-08:002008-02-17T01:42:24.721-08:00If you are using Firefox 2, I highly recommend getting the beta 3 product. There are a lot of issues with version 2. Currently running Firefox 3 beta 3 on my Ubuntu notebook has been a lifesaver, clearly there are major memory leak issues with it.<br /><br />Here is the quick and dirty on how to install Beta 3 along side with your Firefox 2 in Ubuntu.<br /><br />http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/02/14/install-firefox-3-beta-3-in-ubuntu-with-one-command/<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-5177149822861041751?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-12195219518033572872008-02-11T23:08:00.000-08:002008-02-12T09:29:12.356-08:00For most applications that aren't time senstive or running RTP like applications, you may or may not notice the time difference on your servers. In this blog I will discuss specifically the issues I have had with running Guest Virtual Machines inside VMWare with Windows and Linux.<br /><br />The blog specifically talks about Linux Guest Operating Systems inside VMware and the importance of time synchronization. I am running some test asterisk and trixbox machines inside vmware, and since the RTP and VOIP protocols are time sensitive, it is extremely important that the clocks and times are synchronized properly. If not, you will get garbled voice conversations or improper timestamps for your call log. The problem in VMWare is pretty bad with time delay, so you need to configure some Grub start up parameters as well as configure vmware tools to properly not use the time sync feature with the host operating system.<br /><br />Some good articles describing in detail how to rectify the problem in VMWare.<br /><a href="http://support.novell.com/docs/Tids/Solutions/10100597.html">http://support.novell.com/docs/Tids/Solutions/10100597.html</a><br /><a href="http://www.excalibur-partners.com/archives/2">http://www.excalibur-partners.com/archives/2</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1219521951803357287?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-72170662378614334042008-02-11T18:21:00.000-08:002008-02-28T21:12:56.329-08:00<strong>Trixbox CE<br /></strong><br />Trixbox CE is definately one of the best (if not the best) packaged open source asterisk solution out available. We currently migrated our 1.2 asterisk solution over to the 1.4.18 build (latest on Trixbox) and it has been great so far. Definately one of the best things about Trixbox CE is being able to use HudLite (which is a client plug in) but also having a much better web user interface on the server. Features such as the FOP, Endpoint Manager, CDR Reporting and the ARI to login and view the interface really make a big difference if you are used to just working with asterisk with no user interface.<br /><br />Kudos also go to the community and Trixbox for making the Package Update Manager for allowing great updates via the web interface. FreePBX is also the other inteface packaged with the system. Over all, a very welcome addition to our infrastructure vs. the older asterisk build which we had in 2 years ago.<br /><br />I am also very happy with the fact that you have access to the Mysql Database and customization of the PHP scripts so you can make quite a few optimized changes on the server to make Trixbox display data how you want.<br /><br />However, be warned, to really get the most out of Trixbox CE, you still need to have quite a good expertise with Telephony, Linux but most of all, you need to understand the asterisk architecture still because there are still somethings you need to do that the user interface can't handle. (Probably only 10% but the 10% are critical features.) Paging, Call Groups, Trunking are all done much better in this newer release!<br /><br /><p><strong>Trixbox Pro </strong><br /><br />Normally after an install, I assume you would go to the IP Address of the machine, instead I get the Apache screen asking me to contact the administration. Rather than typing the IP Address of your machine, after install, you need to go to <a href="http://cp.trixbox.com/">http://cp.trixbox.com/</a> . You can only hope that cp.trixbox never goes down or you are hooped because this is how you have access to the machine. Why it was designed like this I could understand for managability, but it places way too much reliance on Trixbox to run your phone system. If this is the case, i recommend you purchase support for the system because you are depending on them, but I dont' recommend running the free Trixbox Pro version and relying on Trixbox.</p><br />The big difference with Trixbox CE and Trixbox Pro is that Pro is more of a managed service where as CE is more of a standalone.<br /><br />You can find out more about Trixbox at <a href="http://www.trixbox.com/">http://www.trixbox.com/</a><br /><br /><p>My preference is definately the CE version since there is so much functionality and flexibility, plus you don't depend on the connection to Fonality to view the user interface.</p><strong>Popular OS choices<br /></strong><br />Trixbox and some of our other vendors all seem to prefer Cent OS for asterisk, I am not sure why but that seems to be the general consensus, although from the looks on the Digium site they seem to prefer Fedora Core.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-7217066237861433404?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-7825355129428057772008-02-11T17:58:00.000-08:002008-02-11T18:03:10.975-08:00WCF, WCF, WCF it seems that since the initial release of .NET Framework 3.0, Everyone has been talking about WCF. For those of you who don't know, WCF is Microsoft's Amalgamation of the following technologies and services into one set of libraries for the .NET Framework 3.0. Specifically these are the area of web services (improved), Message Queuing, COM+, DCOM and .NET Remoting.<br /><br />Personally from experience I would have though WF (Workflow) would have been the big piece everyone is talking about, but it seems the combination of WF and WCF is what everyone is talking since SOA (Service Oriented architectures) is the big buzz word these days. So I ask myself, what's the real benefit or using WCF and why does every company under the sun that I talk to want this technology? Well the answer in my opinion is that it really opens up you design architecture of the traditional component based modeling for development and allows you to expose your libraries as services, rather than as stand alone DLLs.<br /><br />At first like most new technologies, I asked, why should I change to this methodology or technology? It was pretty much the same question I asked when I was a junior developer, why do we need to write wrappers? After converting some of my existing business layer project to WCF, I started to see the benefits where WCF can play a MAJOR role in your architecture because no longer do you need to copy DLL's to have clients access your data, you can expose your internal data as a service which long term allows you to plug in additional technologies and work with multiple platforms.<br /><br />I took a simple example of the following ASP.NET web page. Normally, for me to pull a Dataset from a database, I would have my business layer connect to my data access layer then to the database. Normally, the ASP.NET Web page, would require you to add a direct reference to the business logic component. With the WCF project, I took all the methods of the business object and exposed them as WCF services. At first, this seemed silly to me, because my Web Site was grabbing information from another web server, when it could just access the database directly. Then I thought, well, now my WPF, Win32 and even open source programs that can reference SOAP API's will be able to grab data from the same business components. Best of All, I could use all of IIS's features such as security, load balancing and SSL to provide a very efficient and secure way of managing my data. Best of all, if I wanted to expose my business components or services to the rest of the world, it's ready!<br /><br />But then I asked, "what about performance?". Well WCF has improved, and WCF to WCF calls are all using SOAP Binary. After finding this out, I was sold! All the business components I develop now that needs to be exposed to Presentation interfaces, I now exposes as Web Services on WCF. This is not even using the advanced features such as Queuing or Remoting. But it's great to know that if I want to use this with my components, I can!<br /><br />Maybe I'll even do this with my database abstraction layer (probably not but the idea sounded interesting).<br /><br />With workflow, I can now create a business process workflow using WF, host it inside a WCF service and then throw that out to the clients. A great way to have loosely coupled services, and true SOA!<br /><br />Some people think that this maybe overkill, exposing all of your business components as WCF services, but I think this is the future with web services. You also never know when you will need that integration or flexibility, so with WCF you definitely have this flexibility.<br /><br />You can read up more on WCF at <a href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663324.aspx">MSDN</a>.<br /><br />I recommend the <a href="http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590597028">Apress Book Professional WCF - Practical Microsoft SOA Implementation.<br /></a><br />I also recommend you take one of your existing projects and add WCF to it so you can really see how the technology applies to your business, once you do, you won't go back!<br /><br />If you want to truly abstract your Presentation layer, I think WCF is great because you can take all of your exposing business logic, throw it into a WCF project, recompile, host the service in IIS and then have your clients add the reference to the web service.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-782535512942805777?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-2398952634647247792008-02-10T18:51:00.000-08:002008-02-10T18:52:05.660-08:00<p>LINQ is a great feature for those of us who are developers and a God-Send in some ways because it allows to to have SQL like syntax to manipulate your data objects in C#. This is definately one of the great reasons to use .NET Framework 3.5. Traditionally if you wanted to manipulate data (which is what we developers do most of the time), you would have to transform between Datasets, XML documents and configuration files. With LINQ, you can now use SQL like syntax on objects that use the IEnumerable Interface, Datasets or XML!<br /><br />You can read up more about he LINQ project at <a href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa904594.aspx">MSDN</a>.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-239895263464724779?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-76855914436510973722008-02-10T14:55:00.000-08:002008-02-10T15:00:13.841-08:00The following 3 topics are useful advanced C# Features and have matured in .NET Framework 3.5.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Delegates<br /></strong><br />Traditionally in other development environment such as VB, C or C++ in order to access the Win32 API you would use callback functions or call backs. The problem with this style and method is that you access a raw memory address. In the .Net Framework, Call back functions are known as delegates and provide a much better type safety and object oriented way of accessing the functions.<br /><br />So the proper definition of a Delegate in .net a type safe object that points to another method or a list of methods and can be invoked or called at a later time. .Net Delegates can point to either static or instance methods.<br /><br />When you want to creat a delegate in C# you use the keyword delegate.<br /><br />You can read up more on C# Delegates at <a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173171(VS.80).aspx">MSDN</a>.<br /><br /><strong>The Lambda Operator =><br /><br /></strong>Lambda expressions allow you to author anonymouse methods in a more consise way that ultimately simplifies the uses of .NET Delegate types.<br /><br />You can read up more on C# Lambdas at <a href="http://www.developer.com/net/csharp/article.php/3598381">Developer.com</a><br /><br /><strong>Indexer Methods<br /></strong><br />Indexer methods allow you to design custom classes and structures that can be indexed like arrays which is the most useful when dealing with generic or non generic collection types.<br /><br />You can read up more on C# Indexers at <a href="http://www.csharphelp.com/archives/archive140.html">CSharp Help.</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-7685591443651097372?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-62236967017977615852008-02-09T22:59:00.000-08:002008-02-09T23:02:41.588-08:00SQL Server 2005 has some new data types, specifically designed to replace the older data types for storing large values. These would be varchar(max), nvarchar(max) and varbinary(max). These data types are meant to replace the older text, ntext and image column data types.<br /><br />This article descibes enabling large values to in a table with a column that has data that is larger than 8K. A good example of this is a large XML File.<br /><a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173530.aspx">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173530.aspx</a><br /><br />This article explains the different large data types.<br /><a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178158.aspx">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178158.aspx</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-6223696701797761585?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-26937225517006417432008-02-09T20:19:00.000-08:002008-02-09T20:49:04.214-08:00There are several interesting and new feature with the language for C# 2008 which I will discuss. One of the things that's always been exciting with the .NET Framework and the C# language is that Microsoft continues to evolve the libraries while at the same time improve the core language of C#. C# by the way, is the language I develop in primarily along with PHP and SQL.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Extension Methods<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span></span></span>This has to be one of the best features of any language or framework. Extension methods allow you to add methods to an existing class or DLL. What this means is that if you don't have access to the original source code (or type) you can override and add methods to the type class. I thought this was a very interesting feature since this means even with components you purchased, you could add or override the methods as you see fit. VERY COOL!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Implicit Variables<br /></span><br />I thought at first this was a strange feature since it was technically going back to the old days of VB where you don't have to define variables explicitly (with their data type) but there are some benefits and are to be used on a case by case basis, such as in the case with LINQ which I will be discussing.<br /><br />"The LINQ technology set makes use of query expressions that can yield dynamically created result sets based on the format of the query itself. In<br />these cases, implicit typing is extremely helpful, as we do not need to explicitly define the type that a query may return, which in some cases would be literally impossible to do. <span style="font-weight: bold;">" </span>From Apress Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Partial Methods<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span>This is probably the strangest of all the newest features, in .NET 2.0, we have partial classes, which are great because it allows you to split 1 big class into multiple class files. A partial method must return void only, so I don't really see the benefit of it unless you are making one long sequential method, but in that case it's bad design anyway. This feature probably won't be used much.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Object Initializer Syntax</span><br /><br />A useful feature since now when I instantiate my objects I can hydrate all the data in them in a few lines, vs. before where I would have to define every single property. Kind of like initializing arrays so a very good feature with less coding.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Anonymous Types</span><br /><br />Another interesting feature, when I saw this my first thought is VB object type VARIANT. Aren't variants bad for performance? Again the mention with the use of Anonymous types is with LINQ which I will discuss in another Blog.<br /><br />Some excerpts from this blog were taken from the Apress book <a href="http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590598849">Pro C# 2008 with and the .NET 3.5 Platform</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-2693722551700641743?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-4618414892475832532008-02-09T13:47:00.000-08:002008-02-09T13:53:59.704-08:00Upon reading an article about <a href="http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9867657-39.html">Ubuntu picking KVM over Xen</a>, I decided to dig a little deeper to see what the different types of Virtulizations there were.<br /><br /><br /><br />KVM is more of a VM running on top of the Guest OS where as Xen is more attached to the bare metal of the hardware. What this means is that KVM goes through the operating system for all of its requests (similar to VMWare Server) and Xen can access the hardware directly (similar to VMWare ESX Server) using a technology called paravirtualization.<br /><br /><br /><br />The bare metal option can provide definate performance gains since you have access to hardware directly and it seems that Xen is quickly catching up to VMWare ESX server on the Bare metal front for virtualization. Xen is currently under very heavy development.<br /><br /><br /><br />An few links and articles about Xen and VMWare<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.linuxinsight.com/the_difference_between_xen_and_vmware.html">http://www.linuxinsight.com/the_difference_between_xen_and_vmware.html</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2006/10/31/3369.aspx">http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2006/10/31/3369.aspx</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-461841489247583253?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-78976786887715422432008-02-08T21:59:00.000-08:002008-02-08T22:06:44.224-08:00As XML has become increasing popular as a method of transfering and describing data, more often or not we sometimes have to convert tabular data streams into XML Files. Since SQL Server 2000 with the FOR XML EXPLICIT clause, we have been able to return queries into an XML Format. SQL Server 2005 however provides some better mechnisms for returning XML Data, as as stated in an MSDN article, the newer way is much better than the old way. When you see it the old method compared to the new method you will see why I call it "XML FROM HELL".<br /><br /><strong>The New PATH Mode</strong><br /><br />SELECT CustomerID as "@CustomerID", CompanyName, Address as "address/street", City as "address/city", Region as "address/region", PostalCode as "address/zip", Country as "address/country", ContactName as "contact/name", ContactTitle as "contact/title", Phone as "contact/phone", Fax as "contact/fax"FROM CustomersFOR XML PATH('Customer'), ROOT('doc')<br /><br />This will return<br /><br /><doc> <br /><customer customerid="ALFKI"> <br /><companyname>Alfreds Futterkiste</companyname> <br /><address> <br /> <street>Obere Str. 57</street> <br /> <city>Berlin</city> <br /> <zip>12209</zip><br /> <country>Germany</country> <br /></address> <br />...</doc><br /><br /><strong>vs. THE OLD WAY</strong><br /><br /><br />SELECT top 1<br /> 1 as TAG,<br /> NULL as Parent,<br /> 1 as "doc!1!dummy!hide",<br /> NULL as "Customer!2!CustomerID",<br /> NULL as "Customer!2!CompanyName!element",<br /> NULL as "address!3!street!element",<br /> NULL as "address!3!city!element",<br /> NULL as "address!3!region!element",<br /> NULL as "address!3!zip!element",<br /> NULL as "address!3!country!element",<br /> NULL as "contact!4!name!element",<br /> NULL as "contact!4!title!element",<br /> NULL as "contact!4!phone!element",<br /> NULL as "contact!4!fax!element"<br />FROM Customers<br />UNION ALL<br />SELECT 2, 1,<br /> 1,<br /> CustomerID, CompanyName,<br /> NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL,<br /> NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL<br />FROM Customers<br />UNION ALL<br />SELECT 3, 2,<br /> 1,<br /> CustomerID, NULL,<br /> Address, City, Region, PostalCode, Country,<br /> NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL<br />FROM Customers<br />UNION ALL<br />SELECT 4, 2,<br /> 1,<br /> CustomerID, NULL,<br /> NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL,<br /> ContactName, ContactTitle, Phone, Fax<br />FROM Customers<br />ORDER BY "doc!1!dummy!hide","Customer!2!CustomerID"<br />FOR XML EXPLICIT, TYPE<br /><br />The query from Hell!<br /><br />The MSDN Article describing this feature is at<br /><br /><a href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345137.aspx">http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345137.aspx</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-7897678688771542243?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-1724311125383927132008-02-04T22:39:00.000-08:002008-02-04T22:44:14.116-08:00I have always wondered since the advent of text messaging when they would have something similar to the auto-Suggest Program for typing in on cel phones. Well there is a program called LetMeType at<br /><a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/LetMeType__a_Free_Autocomplete__Autosuggest_Program_Utility_for_Windows">http://hubpages.com/hub/LetMeType__a_Free_Autocomplete__Autosuggest_Program_Utility_for_Windows</a><br /><br />It is definately a neat program and does allow you to type a bit faster as you train it. So the more you type the more typeing you do the more suggestions it will provides.<br /><br />The best thing about this program is that it works for all of your Windows programs, meaing web browsers, Outlook, Office etc.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-172431112538392713?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-19065907141050374032008-02-04T16:43:00.000-08:002008-02-04T16:49:12.530-08:00By now you have probably seen some links on Microsoft's new rich media platform Silver light. Microsoft is planning on have the entire Beijing Olympics 2008 on Silver light. The Great thing about Silver light is you will get the rich media platform and ability to use all the existing .NET tools to do it.<br /><br />Adobe AIR is another product, I downloaded it and tried the EBay Desktop application which is amazing. It is truly exciting to see the direction of the rich media and the direction the web is going towards. This is nice because this means that the "Software as a Service" may soon become a bigger reality with these platforms and run times since the browser will be your gateway to get these rich applications you can run on your desktop, but still use open web protocols to transfer data. This technology can definately be labelled as Web 2.0 since it is very different than the web applications from 10 years ago.<br /><br />A good blog discussing the different platforms.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.scottklarr.com/topic/39/adobe-air-vs-flash-vs-flex-vs-microsoft-silverlight/">http://www.scottklarr.com/topic/39/adobe-air-vs-flash-vs-flex-vs-microsoft-silverlight/</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1906590714105037403?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-30729089886102160592008-02-04T14:39:00.000-08:002008-02-04T14:56:10.977-08:00Unless you have been living under a rock, the big news since Friday is Microsoft's bid to buy Yahoo fo 45 Billion Dollars. Google of course, is the one playing the "Microsoft" Anti-Trust card saying Microsoft will use it's monopoly power to to take over the internet (Yeah right, good luck).<br /><br /><br />In my opinion, this is some of the most exciting news to happen to the technology industry in a long time, I haven't heard such an exciting aquisition since the dot-bomb when all the tech stocks went down.<br /><br /><br />I actually think the merger will be good for everyone even in the search industry since it forces competition. At the end of the day, the consumers will get a better product.<br /><br /><br />In my opinion, you can't really blame Microsoft for going after Google though. If you read my blog from 2003, my biggest surprise was seeing Google at Microsoft' PDC (they had a booth there) and they were actually recruiting. I even had the opportunity to interview but I missed that boat because I was working on something else :p<br /><br /><br /><br />So from 2003, Google was hiring at Microsoft's biggest Developer conference, hiring and luring away their best developers. In fact, all of the people that were working at Google at the PDC in 2003 that I was talking to were all ex-Microsoft employees. On top of this, Google built the Google Apps, Word Processor and Spreadsheet and gave it away for free. All of this was just a slap in the face to Microsoft so you can't expect Microsoft to not be pissed off and not do something about it. Google definately struck first at now Microsoft is striking back with this aquistion of Yahoo.<br /><br /><br />At the PDC in 2005 I did meet members of the MSN Search team and the tone 2 years later at the PDC was so different that PRE-IPO Google of 2003. At that point, they had mentioned that Google would be their biggest competition, I now see why.<br /><br /><br />Google for the first time feels somewhat "threatened" because if Microsoft combines with Yahoo, they can potentially have a larger user base for Portals accessing the internet. Of course on these portals, there will be a "search" feature and will use the Windows Live search.<br /><br /><br />I don't think however, driving buying the user base is really going to make a difference though, as long as Google Search Engine stays better than Microsoft's Windows Live, then Google will be just fine.<br /><br /><br /><br />But then again, we've all seen Microsoft come from behind to become number 1. Just look at Lotus Notes, Internet Explorer, SQL Server and XBOX 360.<br /><br />Even if Microsoft loses, they never really lose since they have product diversification. If Google loses search, there is no Google (but they are investing in some leading edge technology) and maybe Microsoft will buy them.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-3072908988610216059?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-61221862526786228482008-02-01T16:32:00.000-08:002008-02-01T16:37:01.316-08:00If you are a system administrator, you may have had a windows 2003 server crash on you. Well if you have a server that is set to reboot and login automatically, you will run into problems becaus the Shutdown Event Tracker prompts you for a reason for why the server shutdown. If it does this, then even if you have the AutoAdminLogin set, your server won't login.<br /><br />A good article discussing how to disable the Shutdown Event Tracker<br /><a href="http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Disable-Shutdown-Event-Tracker-Windows-2003.html">http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Disable-Shutdown-Event-Tracker-Windows-2003.html</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-6122186252678622848?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-11270765797158434302008-02-01T00:52:00.000-08:002008-02-01T00:59:46.137-08:00Advertising on Social Networks is the next big form of Online Advertising. I was a skeptic at first but after running ads through a different variety of mediums, I turned to social networks such as Facebook for advertising. Google believe it or not, has MySpace as one of their biggest partner advertisers so when you choose to advertise in Google's Partner network, your ads will also show up in MySpace. <br />There's a reason Microsoft paid $240 million &amp; bought Aquantative last year. Online Advertising and online advertising through Social Networks is the future. I did a simple test of putting up my 1995 White Toyot Supra Turbo for sale in the classifieds sections of Facebook and had more friends asking me why I wanted to sell it vs actually buying it. But that's ok, because I still got their attention!<br /><br />There are different types of advertising on the Social Networking Platform ranging from Blogging, new feeds and classifieds. This is specific to Facebook and to MySpace. (Friendster is kind of dead now or dying). I recommend advertising on Google, Facebook and MySpace but your campaigns need to be targeted very specifically otherwise you will go broke.<br /><br />As a note, I also have friends and colleagues that work at Facebook and MySpace. I have even spoken and interviewed with Facebook at one point to work with their technology back office but unfortunately the timing wasn't correct for both sides but it was a great experience meeting the team. I would have to say the technology and direction Facebook has will make it the "Social" Operating System of the web and you have to love F8 (the SDK interface).<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1127076579715843430?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-60424571636041309652008-02-01T00:29:00.000-08:002008-02-01T00:34:13.962-08:00<p>If you have ever been to an airport in the US, you will most likely see these big blue ads from Barracuda networks. After their extremely effective ad campagin (I heard they spent $20 million) I decided to look at the company. I WAS VERY PLEASANTLY SURPRISED and I am still to this day. After evaluating their SPAM filter product, I ended buying 2 more of their other products and since then Comet Computing has become a Barracuda Networks Partner.</p><p><br />We have deployed numerous barracuda network products and highly recommend them to all of our clients. The 3 best selling products in order are their spam filter, web filter and load balancer products. Some of their other products such as the IM Filter and Mess age Archiver are newer and have been selling very well since their introduction. Barracuda networks is known in the industry for the following: Great Service, Great Product, Low Cost, East of Deployment and Maintenance and their advertising at all the airports. </p><p><br />Barracuda has done the best job in the industry when it comes to "turning" software specific tasks for general purpose computers into appliances. I'm surprised no one's tried to buy them, like Cisco. I guess it's because the bought Iron Port, or maybe because Barracuda products are so inexpensive that if they because Cisco products (I love Cisco Products btw) they would cost more and you would have to buy Smart net :p</p><p>I highly recommend Barracuda Products.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-6042457163604130965?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-72518236521406001132008-02-01T00:24:00.000-08:002008-02-01T00:27:53.005-08:00With Windows Vista, you can now use Readyboost, which allows you to use a solid state device such as a USB Drive and turn it into instant RAM.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readyboost">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readyboost</a><br /><br />At first I thought this is really cool when we saw it at the Microsoft PDC in 2005, but since then, I haven't used it :p<br /><br />The Readyboost technology which allows you to plug in an SSD such as a USB drive which would allow you to have more accessible RAM if your computer could now upgrade to more memory. The problem with this feature so far though, has not been the technology but the relevancy of needing this feature. Most computers that today that you purchase will have at least 1GB of Memory, and computers that are not Core 2 DUO computers generally won't run Vista since the last year there has been a real resistance to upgrading. The real benefit of the SSD drives was to allow existing computers to upgrade to Vista but the problem is you need better hardware, and the OS has had lots of complaints from consumers, so the adoption rate has been very slow. Even though sales have been good for Microsoft, these are all with New PC purchases. However, many customers that have bought these Vista PC's have also asked for a free "downgrade" to Windows XP. The problem becomes, If you need better hardware, you will buy it with more memory thus negating the need for the SSD so this is why not to many people have been using the Readyboost technology (even though it is part of Vista.) There will probably be a need for this technology down the road but right now most people aren't taking advantage of it. Also, you need to be running at least a 64bit OS to make a real difference since 32bit windows only supports up to 4GB anyway.<br /><br />It's a great technology, but does a 4 wheel car really need 6 wheels?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-7251823652140600113?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-68622120277162465892008-02-01T00:21:00.000-08:002008-02-01T00:23:11.756-08:00I would have to say that VMware does have the best virtualization products on the market. However, virtualization has become a commodity, and with the best price for consumers and the worst for the company itself : FREE.<br /><br />I remember back in the day when VMWare would charge $3,000 for it's GSX Server product, only to have Microsoft buy Connectix and sell it as Virtual Server. First for $200.00, then they decided to give it away for free. Not too long afterwards to compete, VMWare gave away it's GSX Server product called VMWare Server.<br /><br />That being said, I think right now VMWare is only advantage is on it's higher end products like the virtual infrastructure and the ESX Server (which is a heavily modified version of Linux) and it's management products. My take on Microsoft entering the Virtualization in the first place is the VMware was becoming too much like and "Operating System" with ESX so Microsoft wanted to Squash this before they got too big.<br /><br />Good thing EMC cashed in and IPO'd. I think part of the reason the stock may be taking a hit is because Virtualization is not a very niche market anymore and there are so many competitors looking at building it into their products that VMWare really needs to do something huge to compete with Microsoft.<br /><br />VMWare could be "Netscaped" if Microsoft's VM Products become better. At one point we did switch to Virtual Server but there were some stability issues with some of the more advanced features, such as Layer 3 virtual networking and lack of 64bit support.<br /><br />I have been working with Virtualization since early 2000, and we user it religiously. Over 90% of our backend infrastructure runs virtualized with a combination of IP SANS.<br /><br />My Opinion is that the impact of this news will only be better for the end user market since there is better advancement of the technology, but virtualization is becoming a commodity and in the next few years, everyone will expect it to be part of a base operating system or have a FREE price tag attached to it.<br /><br />Harry Yeh<br /><a href="http://www.cometcomputing.com/">http://www.cometcomputing.com</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-6862212027716246589?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-21063907098570851442008-01-31T14:32:00.000-08:002008-01-31T14:35:34.558-08:00It seems that the GoDaddy SSL certificates and Firefox don't play very well together and gives that annoying "The certificate you have requested does not come from a trusted source" errror.<br /><br />Guess Firefox will have to fix this in their next release (which is hopefully soon) because the current version of Firefox has memory issues and crashes ALOT. (Especially on my Ubuntu 7.10 Linux box).<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-2106390709857085144?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-67882400392700065102008-01-31T14:30:00.000-08:002008-01-31T14:32:51.970-08:00With host headers, you are able to create many websites on a single windows 2003 server machine. However as most people have realized, what happens if you run multiple sites that need SSL? The fix is that each site must have it's own specific ip address, since SSL needs to bind with a specific IP and site because the host headers are encrypted.<br /><br />This will also mean you will need another static IP if you are performing port forwarding back into your web server.<br /><br />I am guessing this is the same problem you will have on Apacahe but I haven't tried it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-6788240039270006510?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-89112592697614769852008-01-31T12:21:00.000-08:002008-01-31T15:30:16.357-08:00This post talks about SQL Server 2005 Reporting services configuration across multiple servers.<br /><br /><br />Specifically in my configurations, I use x64 Machines so this adds snags to the setup because IIS can only run in 32bit or 64bit mode.<br /><br /><br />If you are running in 32bit mode, you will have to re-register your IIS server in the 32 bit .NET framework directory and run the command aspnet_regiis -i to install the 32bit on IIS.<br /><br /><br />Don't run any 32bit sites along side your 64bit reporting services, keep them seperate or you'll have a nice big headache with setup.<br /><br />Of course the way I like to configure servers, I always prefer to have logical seperations for all my server applications, that way if anything fails, it is isolated and easier to trouble shoot and fix. However, this seperation comes with a cost since there is an increased level of complexity.<br /><br />I never install my reporting services server on the same machine as my SQL Server box, always on a seperate machine. With this, you will need to configure a form of delagation to pass authentication requests from the reporting services machine to the SQL Server machine. The following are the most common and time consuming errors to troubleshoot and fix that I have experience with Reporting Services setup.<br /><br />With the Reporting server setup on a seperate server, you will probably confront the "rsAccessDenied" error since this is what happens unless your permissions are configured correctly.<br /><br />Some good links for the resolution of this issue<br /><a href="http://www.odetocode.com/Articles/216.aspx">http://www.odetocode.com/Articles/216.aspx</a><br /><br />If you get the "The ReportServerVirtualDirectory element is missing" error check your RSWebApplication.config file.<br /><a href="http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1532003&amp;SiteID=17">http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1532003&amp;SiteID=17</a><br /><br />If you get the error message: The attempt to connect to the report server failed. Check your connection information and that the report server is a compatible version.<br /><br /><a href="http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=198252&amp;SiteID=1">http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=198252&amp;SiteID=1</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-8911259269761476985?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-25891203882653287442008-01-29T02:05:00.000-08:002008-01-29T12:55:51.857-08:00Many IT Helpdesk now have live chat. However one of the biggest hurdles has always been allowing on the Fly and easy Remote PC Control Support. Well it just so happens I found a simple and inexpensive open source solution call singleclick, which uses Ultra VNC. This Remote PC Solution allows you to have a client use encryption SSL and create a reverse connection back to your support team so that you can have your desktop support staff connect to a client PC.<br /><br />A good article on how to set this up:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.simply-postcode-lookup.com/SingleClickUltraVNC/SingleClickVNC.htm">http://www.simply-postcode-lookup.com/SingleClickUltraVNC/SingleClickVNC.htm</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.pchelpware.com/sc/index.html">http://www.pchelpware.com/sc/index.html</a><br /><br /><br />UserID foo<br />Password foobar<br /><br />Then upload the files that you created with Single Click VNC and you have customized your own Remote PC Control Support Solutions.<br /><br /><br />A Hardware Version of something like this exists which I will be evaluating for larger installs.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.bomgar.com/">http://www.bomgar.com/</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-2589120388265328744?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-11541625179159385822008-01-28T18:02:00.001-08:002008-01-28T18:04:32.958-08:00If you happen to have an issue where you have a new computer that is running vista and you are missing the Aero theme even though it states your computer has an index of 3 or high and can run aero, one of your system services might be stopped.<br /><br />Check to see if the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service is running. I had disable this service since I was trying to optimize my workstation for fastest access. Enabling this service fixed the problem.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1154162517915938582?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-34778011946560652252008-01-26T00:25:00.001-08:002008-01-26T01:48:23.915-08:00<p>Starting in the spring of 2007, daylight saving time (DST) start and end dates for the United States will transition to comply with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. DST dates in the United States will start three weeks earlier, at 2:00 A.M. on the second Sunday in March. DST will end one week later, at 2:00 A.M. on the first Sunday in November. This has caused a lot of issues on unpatched machines and routers.<br /><br />Here is an article about the issue:<br /><a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931836"><strong>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931836</strong></a><br /><br />The latest patch for Microsoft servers:<br /><a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933360/"><strong>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933360/</strong></a><br /><br />Configuration of time servers is extremely important, everything from your applications to your network devices all depend on proper time synchronization. This blog breifly discusses the configuration of NTP for Windows 2003 servers and cisco routers. I usually sync the routers and the DC to a public NTP Server. For some reason, the cisco routers have a hard time syncing with Windows 2003 NTP Servers.<br /><br /><strong>Time servers</strong></p><ul><li>clock.isc.org<br />204.152.184.72<br /></li><li>Saskatchewan, Canada: University of Regina<br />142.3.100.15<br />timelord.uregina.ca<br />Service Area: Canada<br /></li><li>Ontario, Canada: National Research Council of Canada<br />132.246.168.148, 132.246.168.164<br />time.chu.nrc.ca;<br />time.nrc.ca<br />Service Area: Canada </li></ul><p><strong>Windows Time Server Configuration<br /><br /></strong>Check the registry key <strong>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\NtpServer</strong></p><p><a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816042">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816042</a></p><p><strong>Configuration of Cisco router<br /></strong><br />ntp server 204.152.184.72 prefer<br />ntp server 142.3.100.15<br />ntp server 132.246.168.148</p><p>Make sure the firewall rules are off when you are configuring your router.</p><p><strong>Network Time Server URL:<br /></strong><a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/262680">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/262680</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-3477801194656065225?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-89586072066269906872008-01-25T22:55:00.001-08:002008-01-25T23:54:17.790-08:00<a href="http://dotnet.org.za/jpfouche/archive/2007/01/17/asp-net-web-config-inheritance-deploying-nested-web-applications-under-the-root-of-a-website.aspx">http://dotnet.org.za/jpfouche/archive/2007/01/17/asp-net-web-config-inheritance-deploying-nested-web-applications-under-the-root-of-a-website.aspx</a><br /><br />It appears that ASP.NET provides you with the tools to control upwards inheritance, but not downwards. If you look at MSDN, there are ways to "block" certain setting s from a parent web.config. so as to prevent changes in the child. However, as far as I can see, there are no ways to block the inheritance, period from the child.<br /><br />However for code sub directories, it doesnt' help and appears to be a bug in ASP.NET 2.0<br /><br /><a href="http://communityserver.org/forums/p/480109/549905.aspx">http://communityserver.org/forums/p/480109/549905.aspx</a><br /><br />Even though in MSDN it says it should work :(<br /><br /><a href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228104(VS.80).aspx">http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228104(VS.80).aspx</a><br /><br />For App_Code directories, you have to create the subdirectories. (A limitation).<br /><br />This page describes the ins and outs of the web.config File Hierachy and Inheritance.<br /><br /><a href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178685(VS.80).aspx">http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178685(VS.80).aspx</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-8958607206626990687?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-4042581103858767532008-01-25T15:47:00.000-08:002008-01-25T16:11:15.287-08:00<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_oDSAvT-mVh0/R5p6WnJ6_zI/AAAAAAAAABc/R7PLwwjPsBk/s1600-h/SAC1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159570851992633138" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_oDSAvT-mVh0/R5p6WnJ6_zI/AAAAAAAAABc/R7PLwwjPsBk/s400/SAC1.jpg" border="0" /></a>SQL Server 2005 SAC (Surface Area Configuration) helps you configure your services and settings. It allows you to easily configure security settings for all of your database instances. <div><div></div><br /><div>From here you can also configure and setup all of your services. The big one to pay attention to is the Remote connections, buy default every edition except for enteprise does not listen for remote connections over TCP/IP.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div><strong></strong> </div><div><strong></strong> </div><div><strong></strong> </div><div><strong></strong> </div><div><strong></strong> </div><div><strong></strong> </div><div><strong>SQL Server Browser Service</strong></div><div></div><br /><div>This service is important especially if you are connecting from a remote computer, otherwise you may get the dreaded "SQL Server does not allow remote connections" error.</div><div></div><br /><div>A good reference was on this page:</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.sqlnewsgroups.net/group/microsoft.public.sqlserver.server/topic23838.aspx">http://www.sqlnewsgroups.net/group/microsoft.public.sqlserver.server/topic23838.aspx</a></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-404258110385876753?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-7458758094354025002008-01-25T13:33:00.000-08:002008-01-25T13:42:44.930-08:00I have picked up a new hobby (LEGO). It is amazing to see how much LEGO has evolved since I was a child.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.brickset.com/"><strong>http://www.brickset.com/</strong></a><strong> </strong>is a useful site that puts together all of the information on major LEGO sets that have been built over the years.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEGO"><strong>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEGO</strong></a> talks about the interesting history of LEGO.<br /><br />Did you know that LEGO is a multi-billion dollar company? Have a peek at their financials and their annual reports!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=annualreport"><strong>http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=annualreport</strong></a><br /><br />For entertainment these are the current LEGO sets I have built so far:<br /><br />Ferrari F430 <a href="http://www.brickset.com/detail.aspx?Set=8143-1">http://www.brickset.com/detail.aspx?Set=8143-1</a><br />Ferrari FXX <a href="http://www.brickset.com/detail.aspx?Set=8156-1">http://www.brickset.com/detail.aspx?Set=8156-1</a><br />Cargo Copter <a href="http://www.brickset.com/detail.aspx?Set=4995-1">http://www.brickset.com/detail.aspx?Set=4995-1</a><br /><br />I am beginning the building of this castle<br /><br /><a href="http://www.brickset.com/detail.aspx?Set=7094-1">http://www.brickset.com/detail.aspx?Set=7094-1</a><br /><br /><br />Very entertaining!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-745875809435402500?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-12307535126322051992008-01-25T13:01:00.000-08:002008-01-25T13:05:04.444-08:00This is the best $400.00 I have ever spent on headphones. The noise cancellation when there is nothing plugged in is nothing short of amazing. I have been using these headphones for 2 weeks and they are absolutely amazing. The comfort is great and plus every time I wear them I am reminded of why they cost $400.00 :p<br /><br />I bought this at the Bose store in downtown vancouver, works pretty good since you get an instant $50.00 back which meant that you could get an extra lithium ion battery. I highly recommend the purchase of the QC3 with the lithium ion version and not the older generation one that uses standard batteries.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.bose.com/controller?event=VIEW_PRODUCT_PAGE_EVENT&amp;product=qc3_headphones_index&amp;ck=0">http://www.bose.com/controller?event=VIEW_PRODUCT_PAGE_EVENT&amp;product=qc3_headphones_index&amp;ck=0</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1230753512632205199?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-5792226249570538942008-01-25T12:35:00.000-08:002008-02-04T12:15:43.658-08:00Every few years, there is always a major need for change within internal IT Departments, particularly for the messaging and collaboration systems. In this Blog post, I'll discuss my recent experience with Google Apps, and how we are integrating it into our company strategy to deliver a choice for our customers: ASP hosted Mail vs Internally hosted.<br /><br /><br />I have been working with Exchange since Version 5.5 and have seen the progression from 5.5 to 2000 and finally to 2003. I would say that the biggest change is not in Exchange itself but how email is used. Before, email was simply a medium used for communicating. However in the last 3 years, email has been used for compliance, lawsuits and just about everything else: From sending pictures to emailing documents; not to mention all the SPAM.<br /><br /><br />Because of this drastic change, storage requirements for email have become enormous. Everyone wants to keep everything forever, so not only is it harder for IT departments to keep up, the storage and backups required to maintain this become extremely expensive for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">SMBs</span>.<br /><br /><br />If you are like me, you get a ton of email and hate to sort it. I have been using Google Apps for about a month now and personally, it is a nice and welcome piece to my portfolio of recommended technology solutions. Their philisopy is "search it, don't sort it" which I have done for the last month and have been very happy, but you still have the option to sort with Labels.<br /><br /><br />Everything about Google Apps is win-win if you don't care to keep your email in house (as in physically at your office.) However I have had a few major annoyances.<br /><br />1) Outlook 2003 &amp; 2007 - I guess the first time you download folders from Gmail if you already transfferred all of your email over IMAP, you may get the dreaded "Too many IMAP Connections" or as I experience more recently "lockdown in sector 4 (failure)".<br /><br />So far this is the only real issue I have had with Gmail, otherwise I am very happy. Though I still have to play with the Synching of Calendars and Contacts.<br /><br />The benefits so far outweight the downsides, since the premier edition has the postini service for archiving (for exchange we had to use symantec enterprise vault with exchange) + 25 gigs of email space. I have made a list of all the best features:<br /><br />Premier Edition<br /><br />1) 25 Gigs per Mailbox for Email Only!<br />2) 99.9% Guarantee Uptime<br />3) Redundancy and Mail Replication<br />4) Postini Message Recovery and Archival service for up to 90 days (Message Management)<br />5) IMAP Migration tool to migrate existing mailboxes.<br />6) Google Calendar – Sync with Outlook!<br />7) Google Docs – strictly for Documents, spreadsheets and Presentations<br />8) IMPAP4 – so you can use your favorite email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Outlook Express)<br />9) New Additional Features (Documents, Calendar, Search)<br />10) Reduced overall IT Cost<br />11) Better SPAM Protection<br /><br />I am thus quite happy with the product and I really do believe this product will give exchange a run for it's money, and I actually have enjoyed not using outlook so much anymore. However, there is still a long way to go for this product. Support for one is very poor but what do you expect for $50.00 a year. One of the reasons I picked Google Apps at the end of the day is to provide the customer with different options, but I will probably continue to work with and Exchange Deployment and look at both options.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-579222624957053894?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-65516666989179411862008-01-25T11:43:00.000-08:002008-01-25T15:28:02.518-08:00<strong>Moving the Master and Resource Database</strong><br /><br />Some minor things to note, are that the database must be in single user mode, you may find that sometimes the database keeps reconnecting and doesn't allow connections. In this case, use the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">TCP</span>/<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">IP</span> configuration under the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">SQL</span> Server Client library and limit the connect to a specific port and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">IP</span> Address (such as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">localhost</span>).<br /><br /><strong>Moving the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">tempdb, msdb and model</span> database</strong><br /><br />The following example moves the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">tempdb</span> data and log files to a new location as part of a planned relocation. (This is from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">MSDN</span> <a href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345408.aspx">http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345408.aspx</a>)<br /><br /><em>USE master;<br />GO<br />ALTER DATABASE <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">tempdb</span><br />MODIFY FILE (NAME = <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">tempdev</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">FILENAME</span> = 'E:\<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">SQLData</span>\<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">tempdb</span>.<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">mdf</span>');<br />GO<br />ALTER DATABASE <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">tempdb</span><br />MODIFY FILE (NAME = <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">templog</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">FILENAME</span> = 'F:\<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">SQLLog</span>\<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">templog</span>.<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">ldf</span>');<br />GO</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>USE master;<br />GO<br />ALTER DATABASE model<br />MODIFY FILE (NAME = modeldev, FILENAME = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\Model.mdf');<br />GO<br />ALTER DATABASE model<br />MODIFY FILE (NAME = modellog, FILENAME = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\Modellog.ldf');<br />GO<br /><br />USE master;<br />GO<br />ALTER DATABASE msdb<br />MODIFY FILE (NAME = MSDBData, FILENAME = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\msdbdata.mdf');<br />GO<br />ALTER DATABASE msdb<br />MODIFY FILE (NAME = MSDBLog, FILENAME = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\msdblog.ldf');<br />GO</em><br /><br /><p>Stop and restart the instance of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">SQL</span> Server.<br />Verify the file change.<br /><br /><em>SELECT name, physical_name AS <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">CurrentLocation</span>, state_<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">desc</span><br />FROM <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">sys</span>.master_files<br />WHERE database_id = DB_ID(<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">N'tempdb</span>');</em> </p><p><strong>distmdl.mdf<br /></strong><br />I have read that this database is used for replication<br /><br /><strong>Moving User Databases</strong><br /><br />The following article shows how you can move user databases.<br /><br /><a href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345483.aspx">http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345483.aspx</a><br /><br />If you don't like using scripts, you can always detach and then reattach the database :p </p><br /><strong>Some other useful posts on this subject</strong><br /><br /><a href="http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188236.aspx">http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188236.aspx</a><br /><br /><a href="http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=126761&amp;SiteID=1">http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=126761&amp;SiteID=1</a><br /><br /><strong>SQL Server Agent won't start</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />If you are having trouble with the SQL Server Agent not starting, most likely it is because the log path needs to be moved as well (if you deleted the directory where everything was moved from).<br /><br />Change the following registry key to reflect where the SQL Server agent log file should go and then restart the SQL Server Agent service.<br /><br />HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\SQLServerAgent<br /><br />ErrorLogFile = C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\LOG\SQLAGENT.OUT<br /><br /><strong>Miscellaneous Items in the Registry</strong><br /><br />If you have removed the default install directory, view all of the keys for the instance install and update all of the proper paths so that the defaults work properly. Otherwise for example with the back directory, you will get an error everytime you try to do a backup or restore.<br /><br /><strong>This page has a good article. </strong><br /><br /><a href="http://www.novicksoftware.com/coding-in-sql/Vol3/cis-v3-N2-sql-server-agent-errorlog.htm">http://www.novicksoftware.com/coding-in-sql/Vol3/cis-v3-N2-sql-server-agent-errorlog.htm</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-6551666698917941186?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-81524682033195455522008-01-25T11:11:00.000-08:002008-01-25T13:31:26.870-08:00<strong><a href="http://www.cometcomputing.com/">http://www.cometcomputing.com/</a></strong><br /><strong></strong><br />My company web portal. I like if of course because it is mine :p<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong><a href="http://www.thekarmafoundation.com/">http://www.thekarmafoundation.com/</a></strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Where remarkable people come together to expand their spheres of influence in elite social environments. I am the CTO for Karma, and bring together great people from all walks of the globe to celebrate in revelry, at events such as Kandyland at the Playboy Mansion just to name one!<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong><a href="http://www.sidestep.com/">http://www.sidestep.com/</a></strong><br /><strong></strong><br />The best meta-search engine for travel, crawls all the major travel sites. Excellent use of AJAX.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtorrent.com/"><strong>http://www.youtorrent.com</strong></a><br /><br />The best meta-search engine (the first and only get it before it's gone) for all things torrent!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/"><strong>http://www.wikipedia.org</strong></a><br /><br />One of my personal favorite sites, the online encyclopedia!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.google.com/"><strong>http://www.google.com</strong></a><br /><br />My favorite search engine of course :p<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogspot.com/"><strong>http://www.blogspot.com</strong></a><br /><br />The blogger's site!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/"><strong>http://www.facebook.com</strong></a><br /><br />The best social networking site and amazing technology on the back end. I especially like the developer API piece F8 and also the photo sharing gallery. Very popular in Canada.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/"><strong>http://www.myspace.com</strong></a><br /><br />A great social networking site to keep in contact with all my friends in the US and A.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.alexa.com/"><strong>http://www.alexa.com</strong></a><br /><br />Another great site that allows you to see who's who on the internet and who has the most internet traffic.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.dotnetnuke.com/"><strong>http://www.dotnetnuke.com</strong></a><br /><br />Open source Portal on the ASP.NET 2.0 Platform.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.joomla.org/"><strong>http://www.joomla.org</strong></a><br /><br />Open source Portal on the LAMP platform. Great CMS.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.drupal.org/"><strong>http://www.drupal.org</strong></a><br /><br />Open source Portal on the LAMP Plaform. Great for building community websites.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/"><strong>http://www.youtube.com</strong></a><br /><br />Web 2.0 Video Sharing site.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/"><strong>http://www.linkedin.com</strong></a><br /><br />Professional Social Networking site for professionals. I frequently get many professional connections through this site, great for meeting other working professionals.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-8152468203319545552?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-15387789717031435122008-01-24T02:00:00.000-08:002008-01-25T10:49:37.899-08:00I always had the cardinal rule of not working on servers at 2:00 AM especially when I am tired and have worked 12 hour days. (Which is pretty much every day.)<br /><br />Well as it seems, on one of my SQL Servers, I made the mistake of setting up Dynamic Disks on an ISCSI with Windows 2003 about 6 months ago.<br /><br />Apparently, "Dynamic Disks" don't like the Windows ISCSI. On one of my SQL servers this was a huge annoyance because everytime the server rebooted, ISCSI would not mount the disks automatically so I would have to do this manually.<br /><br />So this AM, I wanted to clean up the setting and because the screen always showed multiple disks drives that were offline and dynamic, I decide to click "Covert to Basic" disk and the next thing I know, my SQL server goes offline.<br /><br />FORTUNATELY for me, I had setup database mirroring so there was no downtime, however, a task like this is definately not for the faint of heart. I also have a pretty stringent backup strategy so no data was lost.<br /><br />So I think to myself "is my data really lost???". Microsoft does say that converting from a dynamic disk to a basic disk causes you to lose all of your data. Fortunately for me, I did some searches on the web and found out that you are able to recover an accidental conversation from a dynamic to a basic disk. Provided as long as you didn't delete anything after you made the mistake!<br /><br />This was the article I referred to : <a href="http://www.aarvy.com/tech/convert%20dynamic%20disk%20to%20basic%20disk.htm">http://www.aarvy.com/tech/convert%20dynamic%20disk%20to%20basic%20disk.htm</a><br /><br />Fortunately I had a copy of Acronis Disk Director Server, so I installed that on my server and VOILA, my disks were back. http://www.acronis.com<br /><br />I did of course have to reinstall SQL Server since my master databases and log databases wouldn't mount for some reason but that was a minor issue compared to losing all the data and having to restore from backups.<br /><br />I simply reattached all of the databases afterwards and resumed to do backups and mirror everything again.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1538778971703143512?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-82709128619405243082008-01-23T23:15:00.000-08:002008-01-24T23:59:27.695-08:00After watching the news on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">CTV</span> and CNN, I couldn't help but feel compelled to write a tribute to Heath Ledger. It is truly sad that someone who was 28 years old with the career that he had and the unfortunate death on January 22, 2008. One can't help but think about the fragility of life, someone so young, gone forever. As one of the new anchors on CNN mentioned last night, we all feel that he was "robbed of life" which is why this incident hit so close to home. President Bush even postponed his speech on the issue of the abuse with prescription drugs which was believed to be the cause of dath on the preliminary autopsy report.<br /><br />The death of Heath Ledger brings a strong contrast to that of James Dean, who also died very young. I enjoyed Heath's movie roles, particularly in the Patriot and Lords of Dog Town. It will <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">definitely</span> be amazing to see him as the Joker in the upcoming Batman Begins.<br /><br />One can't help but thing that this tragedy will draw more attention to the movie when it is released and draw parallels to his life and his on screen character The Joker.<br /><br />My condolences to all the Heath Ledger fans and to his family.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-8270912861940524308?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-12398813103930266182008-01-22T23:32:00.000-08:002008-01-24T23:44:29.284-08:00<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">SQL</span> Server 2005 Database Mirroring is a set of technologies that allows you to currently mirror a database on a different instance or server. Database mirroring is different than replication, although it depends on what you are trying to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">achieve</span>. Mirroring is really only for redundancy, but if you have multiple sites, you can replicate across multiple sites and then have the server at each site mirrored by another database server.<br /><br />In the case for Comet Computing, we run a number of production <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">SQL</span> Servers, so the setup and investigation for Database Mirroring was a requirement since we need to minimize downtime.<br /><br />Database replication is relatively straight forward to setup with a few "Snafus'".<br /><br />The big one that seems to get everyone and is what I call the famous 1418 error.<br /><br /> "The server network address TCP://<servername>.<domain>.com:<portnumber> can not be reached or does not exist. Check the network address name and that the ports for the local and remote endpoints are operational. (Microsoft <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">SQL</span> Server, Error: 1418)".<br /><br />My simple fix for this after fiddling around for 2 hours for the mirroring was actually reading the documentation more <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">thoroughly (the SQL Server Books Online Help).</span><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected"></span><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected">The biggest issue is security. All the servers involved with the database mirroring should use the same domain account for the SQL Server Service. Otherwise you have to use certificate and this complicates this. After I fixed this issue, mirroring setup was relatively painless.</span><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected"></span><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected">The best articles ro refer to are the ones in books online.</span><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected"></span><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><strong>database mirroring [SQL Server], configuring</strong></span><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><strong>database mirroring [SQL Server], security</strong></span><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected"></span><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-1239881310393026618?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-61081396317672662732008-01-11T14:41:00.000-08:002008-01-25T14:43:24.661-08:00A great video showing Bill Gate's last day at Microsoft. Microsoft always makes some entertaining videos at all of their events.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEWMC4usElM">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEWMC4usElM</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-6108139631767266273?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-59955581962762006002007-12-25T23:27:00.000-08:002008-02-18T15:46:59.589-08:00Well it's Christmas day and I had heard lots about the Ubuntu desktop operating system from Oscon 2007 in Portland which I attended back in July. With some downtime (very little) during the holidays, I figured it would be an interesting exercise to see if the move to a complete use of a Linux based desktop was possible. The goal of this exercise of course, was to see if I could replicate the majority of my daily desktop application utlitles to a linux desktop. With an older Dell Latitude D610 notebook, 1GB of RAM, 80 Gig Hard Drive and Ubuntu 7.10 x86, I set out on the quest to see if it was possible to have a Linux based desktop that I COULD use on a regular basis.<br />Well it's Christmas day and I had heard lots about the Ubuntu desktop operating system from Oscon 2007 in Portland which I attended back in July. With some downtime (very little) during the holidays, I figured it would be an interesting exercise to see if the move to a complete use of a Linux based desktop was possible. The goal of this exercise of course, was to see if I could replicate the majority of my daily desktop application utlitles to a linux desktop. With an older Dell Latitude D610 notebook, 1GB of RAM, 80 Gig Hard Drive and Ubuntu 7.10 x86, I set out on the quest to see if it was possible to have a Linux based desktop that I COULD use on a regular basis.<br /><br />The following is a list of applications and setting I had set out to try and replicate on to my Ubuntu Laptop vs their Windows Equivalents.<br /><br /><table cellspacing="0" cols="4" rules="none" border="0" frame="void"><colgroup><col width="26"><col width="150"><col width="150"><col width="150"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td align="left" width="26" height="23"><br /></td><td align="middle" width="150" style="font-family:arial;"><b><u><span style="font-size:78%;">Programs to Replicate to Ubuntu</span></u></b></td><td align="middle" width="150" style="font-family:arial;"><b><u><span style="font-size:78%;">Windows XP, Vista 32bit</span></u></b></td><td align="middle" width="150" style="font-family:arial;"><b><u><span style="font-size:78%;">Ubuntu 7.10 32bit</span></u></b></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="1"><span style="font-size:78%;">1</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">VPN Client (We use Cisco)</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Cisco VPN Client</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Cisco VPN Client 4.8.00.0490</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="2"><span style="font-size:78%;">2</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Bit Torrent </span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">uTorrent</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">KTorrent</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="3"><span style="font-size:78%;">3</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">CD/DVD Burning Software</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Nero</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">K3B</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="4"><span style="font-size:78%;">4</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">CMS and CMF</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">DotNetNuke 4.7, Sharepoint 2007</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Joomla, Drupal</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="5"><span style="font-size:78%;">5</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Database Server</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">SQL Server 2005</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">MySQL 5</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="6"><span style="font-size:78%;">6</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Development Environment</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Visual Studio 2005, 2008</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Zend Studio (PHP)</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="7"><span style="font-size:78%;">7</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">DOS 16-Bit programs</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Run Programs in 16-bit Mode</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">(Still Investigating, Wine)</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="8"><span style="font-size:78%;">8</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Email Client</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Outlook 2003, 2007</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Mozilla Thunderbird</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="9"><span style="font-size:78%;">9</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Graphics and Photo Editing</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Adobe Photoshop</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">GIMP</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="10"><span style="font-size:78%;">10</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">IM Client</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Trillian, Msn</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Pidgin</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="11"><span style="font-size:78%;">11</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Itunes</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Itunes</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">(NONE – BLAME APPLE)</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="12"><span style="font-size:78%;">12</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Mail Server</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Exchange 2003, 2007, Google Apps Premier Edition</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Sendmail, Google Apps Premier Edition</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="13"><span style="font-size:78%;">13</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Multiple Desktops across Multiple Screens</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Right Click Properties</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">xandr command</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="14"><span style="font-size:78%;">14</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Network Sniffer</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Ethereal (32bit Only)</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">(Investigating but I have used TCPDump)</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="15"><span style="font-size:78%;">15</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Programming Languages and Platforms</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">C#, VB, VB.NET, WCF, .NET 2.0, 3.0 3.5</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">PHP 5.0</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="16"><span style="font-size:78%;">16</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Reading PDF's</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Adobe Acrobat Reader</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">KPDF or Default PDF Reader</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="17"><span style="font-size:78%;">17</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Software IP Phone</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Xten Eyebeam, Cisco IP Communicator (Skinny)</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Ekiga Softphone</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="18"><span style="font-size:78%;">18</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Skype</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Skype Client for Windows</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Skype Client for Linux</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="19"><span style="font-size:78%;">19</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Spreadheet </span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Excel 2003, 2007</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Openoffice Spreadsheet</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="20"><span style="font-size:78%;">20</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">SSH Client (For Remote Access)</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Secure CRT 5.1</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Default Terminal Console</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="21"><span style="font-size:78%;">21</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Terminal Server Client</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Windows Remote Desktop Client</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Terminal Server Client (tsclient)</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="22"><span style="font-size:78%;">22</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Version Control</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">VSS, Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2005, 2008</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">(Investigating CVS and Baazar)</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="23"><span style="font-size:78%;">23</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Video Player</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Windows Media</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Built in Movie Player</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="24"><span style="font-size:78%;">24</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Virtualization</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">VMWare Server, Microsoft Virtual Server</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">(Investigating VMWare, Xen and KVS)</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="25"><span style="font-size:78%;">25</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Web Browser</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Firefox 2, Firefox 3 Beta 3</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="26"><span style="font-size:78%;">26</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Web Development</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">ASP.NET 2.0</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">PHP 5.0</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="27"><span style="font-size:78%;">27</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Web Server</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">IIS 6.0, 7.0</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Apache</span></td></tr><tr><td align="right" height="21" sdnum="4105;" sdval="28"><span style="font-size:78%;">28</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Word Processor </span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Word 2003, 2007</span></td><td align="left" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Openoffice Docs</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br />I know the task ahead of me would be long and arduous since learning all the ins and outs of Ubuntu would be like learning how to use windows 95 when it first came out. I couldn't help but feel excited since I am a big advocate of Open Source and Linux.<br />I will keep updating my progress as things go along!<br /><br />February 17th 2008<br /><br />Well I am pleased to report that I have sucessfully replicated all of my Windows Tasks (even vnc and remote desktop) over to Ubuntu. The last tricky part was the Cisco VPN Piece which I was able to figure. That being said, I feel this is a major milestone because I can truly see the beginning of an alternative to Windows.<br /><br />The exciting part of having Ubuntu work well as a replacement to Windows is that it opens up a lot of opportunities to replace some of our Windows 2000 machines. Now I just have to see if we can run some DOS Based Applications, aside from that, I do all my PHP development now on my Ubuntu machine.<br /><br />Next up, adding Ubuntu Machines to Active Directory and investigating the LDAP services and alternatives.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-5995558196276200600?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-1133771378412945102005-12-05T00:23:00.000-08:002005-12-05T00:29:38.413-08:00Grab that microphone! the Microsoft speech tools that are built into the windows operating system are quite phenomenal. As a matter of fact, all the logs that I have posted and will continue to post will use Microsoft's speech tools. the recommendation however is that do not completely rely only on the microphone, but that you use a combination of both keyboard and microphone.<br /><br />If you are setting up Microsoft's speech tools for the first time there will be some training involved. you essentially trained the computer to recognize certain patterns and the more you speak to your computer's the better it gets an understanding what you're saying.<br /><br />To try this out in Microsoft word assuming you're using office 2003 click on the tools menu and click speech. I also recommend setting up the shortcut key. You can go into the properties of the speech tools and set the F11 and toggle between the dictation feature.<br /><br />Once you start using this feature you will continue to use it quite frequently as I have found Enjoy! (Makes creating Blogging posts more fun as well but you definitely have to proofread your work !)<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-113377137841294510?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-1133770320705336292005-12-05T00:05:00.000-08:002005-12-05T00:22:44.786-08:00With the advent of open source, many users often debate is it better to install from and RPM were to build a program from source code? I think the answer is it depends on the situation. most times and often than not you'll need to use a combination of both.<br /><br /><strong>RPMS</strong><br /><br />RPMS stands for "Red Hat Package Manager" which is equivalent in some ways to the install shield technology used on the windows platform.<br /><br />Benefits<br /><br /><ul><li>that ease of an installation of a pre build software installation package very similar to an EXE file in windows </li></ul><p>Caveats </p><ul><li>sometimes RPMS aren't always available</li><li>you run the risk of installing a potentially nonfunctioning RPM if the source is not trusted </li></ul><strong>Source code</strong><br /><br /><p>Benefits</p><ul><li>you can always get the latest version of the software from compiled source </li></ul><p>Caveats<br /></p><ul><li>this is significantly more difficult and error prone for installation and configuration especially if the software package wasn't developed perfectly. It is also more time consuming depending on the nature of the installation sometimes compiling can take much longer than using an RPM.</li></ul><p><strong>Personal recommendations</strong> </p><p>Traditionally, my approach to installing programs on linux has always been to use RPMS. However as I find that I get one more comfortable working with the operating systems on occasion I have been known to compile from source. When installations with RPMs do not work properly that's when I seek out the path of using source code to compile and install the software programs that I need.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-113377032070533629?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-1133768776577432912005-12-04T23:44:00.000-08:002005-12-04T23:46:44.266-08:00FTP Commands<br /><br />prompt (prevents from asking messages )<br />mget * to get all the files in a directory<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-113376877657743291?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-78808319833803787482003-11-05T14:09:00.000-08:002008-01-25T14:10:40.327-08:00Well I finally revamped my personal website! The PDC Definately had a positive experience on me, it has me BLOGGING all the interesting things I have been up to! The two things of interest today is my custom building of a linux distribution and my movie review of the "Matrix Revolutions."<br /><br /><strong>Custom Linux Distribution<br /></strong>I know what you are thinking: "Doesn't Harry have more important things to do??". Yes and no. Yes I do have more important things to do but no because I want to install Linux on a compact flash card! Why on earth would I want to do that?? Well for one thing, compact flash cards don't have any moving parts. The number one failing part on a computer is what you say? It is the hard drive!!! By using compact flash, we are essentially eliminating the element of failure quite substantially in my opinion. Of course, the cost of 1 GIG of compact flash is more than 2 40 gig drives. Currently I am doing this for research of building a Linux based firewall solution. Redhat by default installs lots of bloated software, so by building my own distribution, I will be able to strip off lots of unnecessary bloat ware. For more information, check out this resource: <a class="datalink" href="http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/">www.linuxfromscratch.org</a>. They show you how to build Linux from scratch. Some honorable mentions of Linux distributions I also checked out were Redhat 9.0 <a class="datalink" href="http://www.redhat.com/">www.redhat.com</a>, Damn Small Linux <a class="datalink" href="http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/">http://www.damnsmalllinux.org</a> and cd based Linux <a class="datalink" href="http://www.knoppix.net/">http://www.knoppix.net</a>. I will report my progress on this bad boy later.<br /><br /><strong>The Matrix Revolutions: Rating C-<br /></strong>No doubt I am a Matrix fan, I loved the first movie, kind of liked the second one, and barely liked the third one. For one thing, the part where NEO sticks out his hand and kills a whole bunch of sentinels is complete BS***. Give me a break, one or not, that was major cheese. The movie started off OK, I like the French dude Merovingian, that guy is a PIMP! The special FX in this one were not that great, no BULLET TIME, this movie really was just there to tie it all together. This movie proves again that sequels are really difficult to make especially if the first one was so good. The ending was interesting though, I will only say that there could potentially be a fourth one in which case I will most likely be suckered into going at lunch time on a Wednesday with my development team and watching it. I will also probably buy the DVD (Sucker) since I already have the first two so whether or not REVOLUTIONS sucked is irrelevant at this point.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-7880831983380378748?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19587765.post-28278620616847654322003-10-24T10:40:00.000-07:002008-01-25T10:41:09.501-08:00I know what you are thinking! Another certification! Well you can never be "too certified." Strangely enough, I never had any calls to do any Cisco work in the last 6 years I have been working in IT. In the same month I decided to do my CCNA, I got calls to do work with Cisco related products! Now our company is even a Cisco Certified Reseller and Channel Partner! Don't let the exam fool you though, it was quite hard compared to the Microsoft exams! Some questions don't get graded and you can't go back to check your answers! I had failed this exam on Tuesday, and I would be damned if I failed it before I took off to LA for the PDC!!! The exam was a good learning experience though, now I am branching into other parts of the Cisco product family, specifically the PIX and VPN products! I will be doing my CCNP and CCSP next year hopefully!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19587765-2827862061684765432?l=harryyeh.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Harry Yehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01095625364203165872noreply@blogger.com0