Adobe CS2 & Windows 7

If you have Adobe CS2 and plan to install to a Windows 7 machine, please note the following:

The installation program will NOT recognize the Program Files (x86) folder and will not allow installation in the Program Files. Through browsing for the folder you may get the program to install. However, when you try to run one of the included apps you will be presented with an error message stating that the
personalization info cannot be found or is invalid.

To correct this, uninstall CS2 and reinstall using Progra~2 for the installation folder.

Thanks to Google for providing the solution.

– habanero_joe

GFI MAX Service Provider Tool

I have no data to back this statement up but here goes: every IT has heard of LogMeIn.

I offer an alternative: GFI MAX. http://www.gfimax.com/remote-management

On the advice of himuraken I have been using MAX to support two Windows servers, one Windows desktop and (now in beta) a Debian server. I still have a ton to learn but the initial though it that this service is pretty solid. The main IT user interface is the dashboard which is very intuitive. Similar to LogMeIn Central, the monitored devices are split up in to client groupings. A big advantage of LMI is that all the cost is in the connected server/PC fee. There is no additional cost for the dashboard functionality.

Agent install is straight forward with multiple delivery options. You do have to configure the remote control separately from the monitoring agent.

Much more to come as I dig in to this service. Certainly interested in hearing from anyone that uses this.

– habanero_joe

12/30/12 Update

I am still using this service and I am really enjoying the notification system. Alerting is very easy to configure and can be applied to groups of systems that have similar needs.
The Linux agent is now in general release. Looking forward to getting more clients set up (and paying!) for this tool in 2013.

– habanero_joe

Product Review: EnGenius Access Point

Last week I ordered an EnGenius EAP300 access point from NewEgg (a vendor who deserves a review of it’s own) and it was waiting for me when I got home today. I have been having trouble with a NetGear WG103 and contact with support has been unsatisfactory.

The product design is very functional. It pretty much resembles a large smoke detector. I was looking for a small ceiling mountable device that supported PoE and this fits the bill. This device is advertised as a business-class, high power access point. Several standard security options are supported.

Configuration was fairly easy for anyone familiar with provisioning wireless devices. However, I do not like devices that come configured with a static IP. It is a minor hassle to reconfigure a laptop or other device to configure the access point. Once I got past that it was a simple matter of connecting to the device’s web GUI.

Initial tests included watching shows on NetFlix and Hulu Plus from an Apple TV. The streaming was flawless. The next test was streaming a .mkv movie to a PC. Again this worked flawlessly.

Next step will be to mount this device in its final spot and test out the PoE adapter. Stayed tuned for further info.

– habanero_joe

20121007-164232.jpg

Desktop, Laptop, Tablet, Smartphone

In my household there are three MS Windows 7 desktop PCs, one MS Windows XP laptop, one Debian Squeeze laptop, one MS Windows 8 pen tablet, one MS Windows 8 slate, one Android smartphone, two iPhones and two iPads. Work provides another MS Windows XP (soon to be MS Windows 7) laptop. Strictly for media access, I have an AppleTV and a TiVo Premiere. Finally cancelled the DirecTv service this week. I am also in the process of rebuilding a FreeNAS box for media storage. Nowhere near the ridiculousness of some households, but enough to be annoying at times. One of the iPhones and most likely the pen table are on the way out.

All of this begs the question – what is this crap used for?

The real answer is that there are a lot of unused cycles on this equipment. Two of the desktop PCs, the AppleTV and the TiVo are strictly for media playback (Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, iTunes) and this averages less than four hours per day. I have been looking in to open source media players but have yet to use one.

I like using my Debian laptop but the battery doesn’t last very long. The iPad has the battery life but not the functionality of the laptop or the slate. I read and send the majority of my personal email on the Android phone. I maintain four non-work email addresses and do not use a mail client other than mobile. The slate device is very functional, but if you go the MS route, there is licensing to consider. I mostly use open source products to meet my personal needs.

What is your primary device? Discuss.

– habanero_joe

IT Today

It is my intention that this post will ruffle some feathers in the IT consulting community.

Over the past (nearly) 20 years of working at IT in one capacity or another, I have been a customer purchasing services and on the other side of the fence as a vendor selling services B2C and B2B.

A perception that has been solidified is this: many vendors still feel that high markups on hardware sales is acceptable. This thinking has to change. Hardware is a commodity. End of story. Take the time to get a reseller account with a distributor (Ingram Micro, Tech Data, etc.) and get wholesale pricing. If the customer pays you less for hardware and software, there will be more money available for labor, support contracts, etc. While you are working on the reseller account, think about how to reduce overhead in your business. How many employees do not generate revenue? Can their tasks be outsourced for less money? Do you REALLY need to high square-footage office? Certainly not once you trim the office staff. Reduce expense and increase the money in your pocket.

Now get out there and build relationships!

– habanero_joe

Windows 8 First Look

Most of the news from Microsoft these days surrounds Windows 8 desktop OS which is anticipated to be released to the general public as early as October this year.
In support of the new OS, Microsoft has updated many of its development tools including Visual Studio. This new version of VS allows development of the metro-style apps that make Windows 8 so exciting. One caveat – you need to load Visual Studio on Windows 8 to develop the metro-style apps. The installer identifies the host OS and configures appropriately.
With Windows 8, Microsoft has really embraced the touch-based functionality. This OS was clearly designed for the tablet space and to compete with the iPad.
I loaded the Consumer Preview when it released at the end of February. I used an old Mobile Computing pen tablet, Virtual Box vm and a brand new Samsung Series 7 slate. Clearly the Samsung was the winner, but I was impressed that the pen tablet worked as well as it did. All components were detected and configured. The Virtual Box vm performed very well as would be expected.
At the end of May, Microsoft released the Windows 8 Release Preview. There has clearly been a lot of work under the covers in this latest version. I did an in-place migration and it went very smoothly. The only option was to perform a reload and ‘keep nothing’. As with other Microsoft OS upgrades, the installer moved the previous version to Windows.old folder. I was easily able to retrieve downloads, etc. that had been saved. Initial thoughts are that the latest version is more stable and feels like a finished product. The App Store works well and there are quite a few games, news readers, etc. available. The included Mail app works well connected to Gmail or an Exchange server. Note: annoying feature – the preview of the Mail app does not allow the mail account password to be changed. You must remove the account and re-add. I am sure this will be fixed in the final release.
As mentioned, Microsoft has updated Visual Studio in parallel with Windows 8. This has now been announced as Visual Studio 2012 and will be available in several favors as in the past. This includes Blend for Visual Studio which is an app design tool focused on creating the UI. Visual designers should find this more friendly than working directly in VS.

Windows 8 vs. iOS
To be fair, it is tough to compare all tablet/slate devices to an iPad. I will certainly try…
First off, this release from Microsoft seems to be the first real touch-based desktop OS. While there is a ‘real’ traditional desktop behind the start screen the real magic is in the metro-style start screen. This has been referred to as NUI or natural user interface. It takes about 5 seconds to get used to the swipe-able start screen. The icons are either static or live tiles. The live tiles show app data, for lack of a better word in the tile before the app is opened. For example, new emails will cycle through on the tile. Kinda cool. Windows 8 is also designed to be more ‘connected’. You can choose the option to associate your Microsoft Live account to the OS login. Users of SkyDrive or OneNote, to name a few apps, will find this helpful.
I believe where Windows 8 departs from the typical tablet OS is that it is still a fully functioning desktop OS. By selecting the appropriate tablet, corporate IT departments could offer this as a desktop/laptop replacement. While the original Samsung Series 7 Slate does not have 3/4G, other and future models will. There are USB slots available, front and rear cameras, SD card reader, HDMI output and other useful functions that are not available on the iPad (today). iOS 6 which is scheduled to be released this fall appears to offer a lot of new functionality, but the hardware is still what it is. The Samsung Series 7 is also a bit more expensive. A 64GB Samsung is about $950 and a 64GB iPad 3 is $849.

Bottom line thoughts: for the mobile user that carries a laptop and an iOS device today, a Windows 8 tablet could be a suitable replacement.

UPDATE:

Monday (6/18/2012) Microsoft announced that the company will be releasing an in-house developed tablet designed for Windows 8. With this move, MS is officially targeting the iPad market.

– habanero_joe

UPDATE: 12/30/2012

I have been using the Samsung Slate 7 with the general release on Windows 8 since it was released in October. I have MS Office 2013 installed as well. The application performance is very good. I am working to get my hands on tablet hardware designed specifically for Windows 8. I still would not rush out and load it on standard desktop (non-touch screen) hardware. It has been very interesting to be part of a team that is working to develop a mobile touch app.

– habanero_joe

XEN vs. VMware ESXi

I use server Virtualization to make money. With the new licensing model that VMware has announced with vSphere 5 it appears that a typical setup will now cost more. Times are tough! What is a sysadmin to do?
vSphere 4 will clearly remain viable for at least the near future. I have not taken the time to fully understand what v5 will offer that is better. Our current environment is two ESXi 4.1 hosts managed by vCenter. Each host has 32GB RAM and the guest RAM is probably over subscribed, but not by much.
In the next week I plan to load the VMware tool that will provide indications as to what the new licensing will look like for the current environment. Should be interesting…
All that as it is, I think it is time to seriously look at XEN Virtualization. Loaded it up on descent hardware today (right before the power went out!) So more later on the testing.
Question: anyone using DTC-XEN for ‘managing’ XEN guests?

-habanero_joe

09.26.2011 Update: loaded VMware ESXi 5.0.0 over the weekend. Installation is as straight forwarded as expected. Quickly installed two MS Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 64-bit servers and a MS Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit desktop. Will be digging into new license model limitations this week. So far, for a single host, I can’t find a reason to load 5.0.

I did get XEN loaded on Debian Squeeze, then wrecked the install. I will be rebuilding shortly for a comparison.

VMware Workstation 8 has been release a few weeks ago. One nice feature is a much easier migration path from Workstation to vCenter and vSphere. VMware is claiming over 50 new features with this release.

-habanero_joe