tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39873333924874960662024-03-12T23:05:50.713-04:00Adventures in AdulthoodTechnology in life, work and whatever else you can cram a PCB inMatthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-15203207912355600502011-12-06T15:04:00.000-05:002011-12-06T15:16:31.136-05:00Expanding my horizonsLately my time at work has been devoted to less-than-computerie pursuits. While my new responsibilities are important the the company I'm beginning to feel detached from the type of work that I am passionate about. I'm thinking about learning a new skill that will assist me in my IT duties at work and hopefully bring me back to a place where I'm really interested in what I'm doing. I haven't decided what I want to learn but here are some ideas I'm floating around:<br /><br /> - Programming. I haven't done much since high school and its always in the back of my mind. My problem is always finding a project that gives me focus.<br /><br />- Certifications. I could start studying for a CompTIA certification or MCSE. I have never taken one of these tests and I think it would be good to start collecting certs, but studying isn't really the same thing as learning a new skill.<br /><br />By the end of the week I will make a decision. Whatever I choose to do will probably end up as a regular post on here.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-86255831434832361682011-12-02T08:49:00.001-05:002011-12-02T08:53:45.905-05:00Read-Only FridayRead-Only Friday is a wonderful tradition. It is the day of the week where one avoids making any changes to his or her production environment at all costs. The goal is to prevent having a terrible weekend when a change is made that has unintended (and potentially dire) consequences.<br /><br />If there are problems, of course they need to be resolved but Read-Only Friday is not a day to roll out updates or bring machines or services down for maintenance. This is all especially true for small businesses like the one I work for that don't budget for redundancy.<br /><br />It is also a good day to enjoy cheese steaks and non-diet colas.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-89931791967022136872011-11-29T15:55:00.000-05:002011-11-29T15:58:07.339-05:00iSCSI > NFS for VMWare - Just don't buy a DroboA while back I posted about fighting with VMWare ESXi to get an NFS share mounted as a datastore. Eventually we pulled the trigger on an iSCSI device to start our own little SAN. The SAN was a good idea, but the Drobo B800i that we bought was not. Even with the recommended hard drives the performance is very poor. We are using it to run our Exchange server but that's about all it can handle - even on a dedicated gigabit network with jumbo frames enabled. Apparently "VMWare Certified" does not mean all that much.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-42301002105182770232011-11-29T15:45:00.000-05:002011-11-29T15:48:55.319-05:00JitBit againWe've been using JitBit for about 6 months now and I'm pretty happy with it. It isn't very feature-rich but it keeps track of tickets just fine. There are probably equally good free solutions out there but now that we've paid up we might as well stick with it.<br /><br />Quite a while ago I configured our old phone server as a monitoring box running Nagios and Cacti. The combination has been invaluable to me. There is nothing more satisfying than getting a call from a user about a problem and being able to say that you've already found and fixed it. The configuration requires a lot of manual work but it was definitely worth it.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-52418946462907221922011-01-19T14:14:00.001-05:002011-01-19T14:16:33.817-05:00JitBitI'm trying out another ticketing system for work. We need something that will manage internal support tickets as well external access for customer service. I've done quite a bit of research and decided to try out JitBit Help Desk. Its free to try and only about $380 for the full version (if you host it locally, which I am).<br /><br />If it doesn't work out, ZenDesk looks really good. Unfortunately its a subscription service and I'd rather not add anything else to our monthly bills.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-60137520804174480762011-01-14T16:21:00.000-05:002011-01-14T16:22:56.222-05:00I Heart NeweggI ordered 4 Hanns-G monitors from Newegg yesterday around 3pm. They arrived this morning at about 9:30.<br /><br />I love you Newegg. Don't ever leave me.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-51785203915181688802011-01-06T14:25:00.001-05:002011-01-06T14:28:37.679-05:00Deploying Ultra VNC with Group PolicyI found a program on Sourceforge today that customizes an UltraVNC Server install and repacks it into an MSI file for Group Policy installation. The whole setup went very smoothly. Just don't forget to add a Windows Firewall exception to the GPO.<br /><br /><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/vnced/">The download also includes the installer for UltraVNC itself.</a>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-3955340386751098882011-01-05T16:45:00.000-05:002011-01-05T16:47:41.066-05:00Print MigratorI just migrated about 30 printers from our NAS box (running Storage Server 2008) to our Server 2008 AD controller. I used Microsoft's Print Migrator software and the whole operation took about 15 minutes. <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?FamilyID=9B9F2925-CBC9-44DA-B2C9-FFDBC46B0B17&displaylang=en">Linky</a>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-21837036388563543462011-01-05T15:35:00.000-05:002011-01-05T15:41:23.216-05:00NFS shares for ESXi ServersThere are a lot of good tutorials out there to guide you through setting up a NFS share host VMs for VMWare's free ESXi server platform. Unfortunately, a lot of them leave out some details that can make setting your server up a bit challenging.<br /><div><br /></div><div><ul><li>Make sure that the NFS permissions for your share are set to allow anonymous access</li><li>Make sure that the UID and SID for the "root" account are set to '0' in SFU</li><li>Add the "Anonymous User" account is a member of the same OU as the "root" account.</li><li>Set the permissions on your NFS share to "read+write" and check the "allow root access" box</li></ul></div>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-21392699890004872712010-06-01T23:30:00.001-04:002010-06-01T23:32:04.690-04:00Android and JavaI started learning Java today with the intention of developing an application or two for Android. Its been a long time since I've done any coding at all and I've probably forgotten just about everything I knew. I've found some decent tutorials on Youtube but I don't know how far they'll take me.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-62632529293007848622010-01-06T23:28:00.000-05:002010-01-06T23:32:27.540-05:00Netflix New Release ChangeNot an hour after ordering the disk from Netflix to install the PS3 client, I read that I, along with every other Netflix user, will have to wait 28-days from the DVD release of any Warner Bros movie to queue it up. <br /><br />I guess a month isn't that long to wait, and there are plenty other movies and TV shows on Netflix to watch, but I just don't like the idea of having the quality of a service reduced and still paying the same amount for it.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-60814607731147598612010-01-04T17:37:00.000-05:002010-01-04T17:44:01.374-05:00Toshiba Mini nb205 RundownLikes<br /><br /> - They keyboard is fantastic. Great size, great feel.<br /> - Battery life. 9 hours is hard to beat.<br /> - Toshiba HDD Protection. Anything to make it last is a good thing.<br /> - Expandable RAM. 2GB isn't out of the question.<br /><br />Dislikes<br /><br /> - At $399, bluetooth would be nice.<br /> - I wish that it had the ability to scroll using only the touchpad.<br /> - Large glowing power button right smack in the middle is bothersome at night.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-80663749457381588062010-01-01T19:43:00.000-05:002010-01-01T19:45:42.965-05:002010 New Year's ResolutionMy goal for this year is a rather modest one. I want to get my body weight up to 170lbs, but a much leaner 170 than my current 163. I started working out about a month ago, and as I have no plans of slowing down, I can see myself easily keeping this resolution.<br /><br />Perhaps I'll bump it up to 180 if things go as well as I hope they will.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3987333392487496066.post-84345224948980569782009-12-31T17:32:00.000-05:002009-12-31T17:34:13.863-05:00A New Year, A New BlogThe brand new Toshiba netbook that I'm writing this on, coupled with the approaching new year, inspired me to start a personal blog. First up, a review of the Toshiba mini nb200!Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15593021224772177487noreply@blogger.com0