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November 30, 2007

Hmmm. Interesting

This looks pretty interesting: ParallelFX for .NET.

I'm too busy at the moment to try and play with it. (That, and there's a part of me that just LOVES asynchronous programming.)

But it's no secret that apps/solutions are going to have to take advantage of multi-core machines in order to see noticeable perf boosts in the future.

Frankly, one of the things that I _love_ about SQL Server is that it has been SMP capable for YEARS. Better yet, that capability is largely hidden from developers. Ideally this ParallelFX CTP is a step in making the same type of SMP benefits available (almost transparently) to .NET developers.

Posted on November 30, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 20, 2007

Vista SP1 - Bad News

If this article is any indicator of performance across all utilization scenarios, then SP1 for Vista isn't anything to really hold your breath for - as it claims people will only see a 1%-2% perf boost in most cases.

That said, Vista Perf on my box isn't something I'm really worried about. And gaming sites have been showing of late that Vista perf in most games isn't lagging TOOOO far behind XP. In fact in most cases Vista only carries a perf hit of a few frames/second.

So maybe that article's a total red-herring anywho. I think what most people are concerned about with SP1 is how many compatibility problems it addresses. Me, for instance? I'd love to be able to connect to my network attached scanner.

Posted on November 20, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 16, 2007

Dell Jumps the Shark

Hey Dell, here's an idea: empower your employees to actually give a crap about customers, start shipping your products ON TIME, and stop wasting money on recruiting celebrities:

Dell Enlists Celebrities to Beg for Customers

A few months ago I purchased a 20" 2007WFP monitor, a keyboard for an older laptop, and another keyboard for one of my other boxes. The laptop keyboard was from their refurb site, and so was the other keyboard (though it was brand new). The monitor shipped fine and on time. My keyboards just seemed to 'hang' in limbo. Then I got a cryptic email from (let's say) Laura at Dell. The email said that there had been a problem with my order, and I needed to call Dell's customer service.

100% sounded like a scam. Didn't even have dell logos or 'letter-head' in the email - just a 2 sentence email. But my stuff hadn't shipped, so even though this looked like a phishing email I decided to call. The people on the other end of the phone wanted to know my Social Security Number - without that they couldn't help me.

No way was I going to just dial a number I got in an email, and then fork over my SSN. (It's the perfect recipe for a phishing scam - just spam everyone with an email that there's a 'problem' with their order from Dell, and get anyone with a current Dell order to bite... )

What GALLS me is that this was REALLY, 100%, Dell. Not a phishing scam - just Dell's amazing customer service trying to 'help' me.

They had let the $300 monitor go through fine, but were forcing me through some sort of fraud protection on the $43 and $13 keyboards - to ensure that I was really me, and had really ordered the stuff in question. Gee guys, glad you've got my back on the $60 stuff...  

When I demanded to speak with a manager after being asked for my SSN (and refusing to give it) I was told that I could speak with a manager after giving them my SSN, and was actually hung up upon by 2 of their reps. I finally managed to squeeze another number I could call out of one of the reps - which was the actual Dell service #... and after 40 minutes of computerized menus and about 3 phone transfers I finally was able to get the story on how fraud prevention had intercepted the order....

But by this time the refurbed laptop keyboard was out of stock. Dell still wanted my $ at this point - did I want to apply that $$ to another purchase?

I told them to stuff their keyboards where the sun doesn't shine, and canceled the order.

But hey, Burt Reynolds, Ice-T, and other celebs think that Dell's a pretty cool gig. Maybe I should reconsider....

Posted on November 16, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 09, 2007

Dear IE 6 Users

Dear IE6 Users,

What the hell is wrong with you? Upgrade to IE 7 or FF already.

Sheesh.

Uh Gee Mike, what prompted the outburst?
55% of visitors to this site, for example, are using IE. 42% of those IE visitors are actually still using IE 6. My guess is that a lot of those users are many of my 'Google' visitors - i.e. random hits due to searches on Google.

In other words: I hate having to maintain CSS/HTML in IE6. If the % of my visitors using IE 6 dropped below 5% I'd just ignore them...

Posted on November 09, 2007 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

November 07, 2007

Question

What's slightly more annoying than one of those microscopic slivers that you get in your hand, and can feel when you brush against things, but can't see?

One of those same slivers in your gelly-filled wrist-pad for your keyboard.

That's right - one's been bugging me crazy for the last day or so.

I finally managed to find the little bugger, and extracted it with some tweezers.

Who said working from home was easy?

Posted on November 07, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Apparently I'm not the only 'Terrorist'

USAToday recently published a great article on the Fed's terror watch list. It's swelled to over 755,000 names. I've pointed out before that I'm on the list - and because of that I have to present ID every time I want to get a boarding pass. Meaning that I can't print-boarding passes online. 

I have no criminal background. I haven't even had a speeding ticket in 4+ years. But the Federal Gov't thinks I'm a terrorist. Or, at least a possible terrorist. Maybe they just have me confused with a real 'baddie'. My first name is Michael (The #1 male name in America for years standing), and my last name is Campbell (which, apparently is in the top 50 most common last names in America). The phone book for the area where I live has about 40,000 people in it. I'm one of a handful of Michael Campbells listed in the phone book. And if they could be so wrong with someone like me, what does that mean about the true 'baddie' lurking out there somewhere trying to avoid this system/flagging altogether?

But the Fed would have us believe that by checking my driver's license every time I fly, we're all safer.

With 755,000+ names, this is the list that cried wolf. And it's a total violation of American principles. That, and I'm sure it's the result of an astronomically high number of wasted tax dollars. And I'm sure that the management of this watch-list data-mining project has been pulled straight out of the Dilbert playbook.

The article I linked above points this out very well when they point out that a 6 year old is also on this list. So, these idiots mining 'terrorist' data don't even know how to cross-check possible 'baddies' against their birth date?

I want a refund for all the time wasted on this 'safety' project. And I want my rights back without having to jump through a bunch of idiotic, bureaucratic hoops imposed by a bunch of federal employees in Washington D.C. who don't know a thing about me - other than that I'm on their terror watch list.

Posted on November 07, 2007 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

November 06, 2007

VMware Web Management and IIS7 on Windows Server 2008

As I pointed out in a previous post, I wasn't able to find any love on teh intarwebs about how to get the VMware Web Management Interface to work on Windows Longhorn Server/IIS7.

Then I remembered: One of the cool things about IIS7 on Windows Server 2008 is that it provides you with the ability to 'emulate' IIS6's metabase and scripting interfaces.

So, I just made sure to install those components using the

Having installed VMware Server already on Win2k8, I knew that it crashed and burned (unsurprisingly) while trying to create the web site that would be used to allow HTTP management (over ports 8222 and 8333) of VMs and such.

So I added the IIS 6 Management compatability components:

iis6compat

And then proceeded with the install normally.

And, that did it. By giving VMware Server a suitable set of scripting interfaces to manage IIS and create a new site, everything worked flawlessly. (Of course, I had to go into the firewall and open up traffic on 8222, and 8333 for HTTP and HTTPs (as well as for port 902 for authorization/normal VMware traffic).)

Running VMware Server on Windows Server 2008 RC0 - x64
Sadly, I couldn't get VMware server to run on the x64 version of RC0.

During the x32 installation, I got a prompt telling me that some unsigned drivers were detected - should I let them through? I let them on.

With the installation on x64 Windows Server 2008, there was no such warning/prompt. And I simply couldn't log into VMware's Web Interface or via the normal console - as I kept being told that the server "actively refused" the connection. Checking out all of the VMware services on my box, I could see that the Auth Service wasn't running. Starting it just resulted in errors. Happily in the Security Log I could see audit failures at roughly the same time:

Code integrity determined that the image hash of a file is not valid. The file could be corrupt due to unauthorized modification or the invalid hash could indicate a potential disk device error.

That's a spiffy error, and it also listed the file in question: vmx86.sys - the same file/component that the VMware Authentication service depended upon.

I tried supressing those warnings/issues by using bcdedit /SET nointegritychecks ON, but there was no love (even after a reboot).

So.. that's when I decided to bail and just switch to Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (to take advantage of my 8GB of RAM). Maybe by the time Longhorn RTMs there will be a good work-around, or someone else will figure out how to pull it off, but I wasted about 2 hours on it and decided that enough was enough...

Posted on November 06, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 05, 2007

Google-hosed?

We all know what a googlewhack is, and that they're increasingly hard to find.

But what happens when you turn to Google for an answer to a problem that you're working on (say... trying to get VMware's Web Management Interface to work in IIS7), and the third entry in the list of results is a link to your own site/blog?

Only, you know you don't have the answers - otherwise you wouldn't be looking on Google. Sadly, at that point, I think you're hosed. And you know it. Hence, googlehosed. Maybe the 'rule' for being googlehosed should be that you know you're google-hosed when you see one of your own entries/posts on the first page of results - especially if it's BEFORE you start scrolling?

Sadly, however, this happens to me more often than I would like. I just never expected it for something as simple as getting the VMware web admin portal working in IIS7...  

Posted on November 05, 2007 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

For the Record..

For the record, just let me state that I _really_ like Windows Sever 2008. It's shaping up to be the best server OS that I've seen. I'm glad that MS is taking the time to 'fully bake it' before unleashing it on the world. (Unlike the other, crappy, OS that they recently released that wasn't fully baked - but which shall remain nameless. *wink*)

I also love that it installs in about 10 minutes on newer hardware, and 100% just works with ALL of my hardware (in x64) right out of the gate - including my RAID Controllers.

I also love how well the new TCP/IP stack just screams (when talking with other machines on the same stack). In this case, a screenshot is worth the rest of my words (note the speed/throughput):

win2k8_stack

Posted on November 05, 2007 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 02, 2007

Here's Hoping...

Here's hoping that one industry analyst is spot on: Say goodbye to Blockbuster.

He gives them 2 years, and paints a pretty convincing story. So, Blockbuster, for all of the 'good' times we've had together, here's hoping that it happens sooner, rather than later.

Posted on November 02, 2007 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)