After connecting the scanner in Removable Devices I get the message below: 

• Please upgrade your virtual machine to enable high-speed USB 2.0 support for the device “Canon CanoScan”. An attempt will be made to connect this device to the best available host controller. This may result in an undefined behavior for this device

• Shutdown the virtual machine; click VM in the menu and choose “Upgrade or Change version”; follow the wizard and choose VMWare Workstation 6/6.5
• Open the vmx file in Notepad and change virtualHW.version = “6.0″ and add ehci.present = “TRUE” to the configuration.

Getting done is how the virtualization at least helps me here. Scanner is now working.

The screenshot was made in Internet Explorer and I checked all my html and css code and everything looks fine. I opened Firefox and opened same URL and the page was displayed as it should be 400px for the content container ;). I am new in the web devolvement and trying to get the basics but this is one example when working with different browsers. Internet Explorer ignores “min-height” and always assign it 8em if the container doesn’t contain data. To fix this problem you will need to define addition CSS declaration for the container.

• div#content {
     min-height: 400px;
  }
• * html div#content {
  height: 400px;
  }

or use another solution

• div#content {
     min-height: 400px;
     height:auto !important!;
     height:400px;
  }

Wow this fixed my first problem.

ImgBurn is a free tool that enables you to burn CD/DVD images with ease. All the latest drives are supported (including booktype / bitsetting on many of the major ones). Advanced functionality can be found in the ImgBurn context menus.

 
ImgBurn supports a wide range of image file formats - including BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI.
ImgBurn supports all the Windows OS’s - Windows 95, 98, Me, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista and 2008 (including all the 64-bit versions). If you use Wine, it should also run on Linux and other x86-based Unixes.

If you never heard of this tool than now you should download and install it ;). I am using this tool to burn cd-roms from my Windows Server 2008 Hyver-V whitebox and it works smoothly. Beside all burning features one other which comes handy is to grab a folder and create a ISO file; than mount the ISO file with Hyper-V or ESX virtual machines. I used this feature many times when working in the test and production environments. 

Click here to download the ImgBurn tool.

vRD 2008 is a tool for the management of remote Windows computers via RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol). vRD is ideal for administrators who need to maintain simultaneous connections to multiple servers. Connection-specific settings and login credentials can be organized in folders and subfolders for quick access.

visionapp Remote Desktop 2008 is currently one of the most popular products in the market of RDP tools. visionapp Remote Desktop 2008 Express (vRD 2008 Express) offers a multiple number of enhancements and new features compared to the freeware version vRD 1.5, such as the extended support of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista (incl. 64-Bit), an overview on all logged in users and connection history.

Limitations of vRD 2008 Express:

• up to 15 objects
• 5 credentials storable
• no Database-Modus available
• duration is valid until 3-31-2009

With some enhancements and limitations the tool is still out there for public. I used the freeware versions before and still like the Office interface. Good opportunity to check the tool yourself before buying it. Looking into the future plans of mRemote and vRD I think I will buy the license somewhere next year ;).

Please register and download the tool from here if you want to test it.

Don’t worry the limitations is working after you start creating the 16th connection:

Screenshot of the Services console during my troubleshooting actions.

Microsoft Exchange Information Store, Microsoft Exchange Service Host and Microsoft Exchange System Attendant services are not started. The Startup Type of has been set to Automatic.

The System EventViewer will show the following error events:

• EventID 7024: The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service terminated with service-specific error 0 (0×0).
• EventID 7009: A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Microsoft Exchange Service Host service to connect.
• EventID 7000: The Microsoft Exchange Service Host service failed to start due to the following error: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
• EventID 7022: The Microsoft Exchange Transport service hung on starting.

Exchange Management Console message:

• ERROR: Could not connect to the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service on server Networknet.nl. One of the following problems may be occurring: 1- The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service is not running. 2- There is no network connectivity to server Networknet.nl. 3- You do not have sufficient permissions to perform this command. The following permissions are required to perform this command: Exchange View-Only Administrator and local administrators group for the target server. 4- Credentials have been cached for an unpriviledged user. Try removing the entry for this server from Stored User Names and Passwords.

To fix this problem change the Startup Type of Microsoft Exchange Information Store, Microsoft Exchange Service Host and Microsoft Exchange System Attendant to “Automatic (Delayed Start)”

Reboot the virtual machine again and everything should be started as smooth as you would have two separate virtual machines.

Related links:

• WS2008: Startup Processes and Delayed Automatic Start

Foxit Reader is a free PDF document viewer, with incredible small size (only 2.55 M download size), breezing-fast launch speed and rich feature set. Foxit Reader supports Windows Me/2000/XP/2003/Vista (and Windows Server 2008). Its core function is compatible with PDF Standard 1.7.

In the past, you’ve had to download a huge PDF reader from another software company, go through a lengthy installation process and wait for an annoying splash window to disappear just to open a PDF document.

Check out yourself and finally a PDF reader that supports multi-tab browsing when reader diffrent PDF files in one Windows.

Links:

• Foxit Reader 2.3 for Windows

The easy to use, customizable application helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers.

Features:

• Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition. 
• True Folder Sync: Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions. 
• Exclusion Filtering Based on Name: File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching. 
• Filtering Based on File Attributes: The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden). 
• Unattended Folder Pair Execution: Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off. 
• Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints: Ability for folder pairs associated with the same or different instances of SyncToy to share end-points. 
• Command line enhancements: Added the ability to manage folder pairs via the command line interface. 
• Re-Architect Sync Engine: The SyncToy engine has been rearchitected to provide scalability and the ability to add significant enhancements in future releases. 
• Sync engine is also more robust insomuch that many single, file level errors are skipped without affecting the entire sync operation. 
• Sync Encrypted Files: Sync of Encrypted files works when local folder and files are encrypted, which addresses the common scenario involving sync between local, encrypted laptop PC folder and remote, unencrypted desktop PC folder. 
• 64-Bit Support: SyncToy now has a native 64-bit build (x64 only) for 64-bit versions of Windows. 
• Folder pair rename 
• Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents created under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded. Usability improvements for the sub-folder exclusion dialog. 
• Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from MyDocuments to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup. 
• Setup Improvements: Integrated setup with single self-extracting archive file and no extra downloads if you already have .NET Framework 2.0 installed. Enabled silent install for the SyncToy Installer file (see readme.txt file for more information). Removed combine and subscribe actions. 
• Removed combine and subscribe actions. 

We all know robocopy.exe and what it does but this SyncToy2 is amazing. I installed the SyncToy2 on my Dell PowerEdge SC420 server to echo my personal folder; also I can schedule the task.

 

Links:   

• SyncToy2 Download 

- Google Maps
- Gmail

Neem even de tijd en bel 1200 en zeg dat je email push en Internet Browsen werkt maar andere applicaties zoals Google Maps niet. Na 30 minuten aan de telefoon met de KPN klantenservice en een restart van mijn BlackBerry Curve 8310 werkten deze tools ;-).

De vraag was doorgezet naar een tweede lijns medewerker en die heeft iets op mijn sim kaart veranderd; het is niet duidelijk wat maar wel een juiste oplossing. Hoera ik heb nu 100MB fail use per maand op mijn BlackBerry en niet alleen email en browsen maar nu ook Gmail.

Links

• BlackBerry Enterprise Solution van KPN

The virtual machine is running Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft enhanced the feature for extending basic disk volumes on the fly. In my previous post I needed to add the virtual disk to another server; assign a drive letter and than run the extend option in diskpart. Within VI client extend the "Hard Disk" in the properties of the virtual machine to desired and planned size and goto Computer Management / Storage / Disk Management, right-click and Refresh.

The additional defined disk space will be shown as "Unallocated". Right-click on the C:\ volume and choose "Extend Volume". Follow the wizard and within seconds the basic volume has been extended. Thanks to VMWare ESX and Microsoft Server 2008 our lives as System Engineers is becoming easier.

As lesson learned size your virtual environment appropriate and especially the Hard Disk configuration.

Related links:

• Technet - Extend a Basic Volume

VMWare ESX allows you to extend the virtual disk size on a running virtual machine. How to extend the virtual disk size? Right click the virtual machine in the VI cleint; choose settings and go to “Hard Disk 1″ and type new disk size. Click OK.

Example of my new  Disk Configuration in “Disk Management”. To extend the virtual disk we need to go to diskpart and extent the volume.

I opened command prompt and opened diskpart; selected the volume and run extend.

The volume you selected may not be extended.
Please select another volume and try again.

My virtual hard disk was full and I was not able to extend my basic disk with the additional 2GB I added to this configuration.

Thanks to Kalpesh Prajapati post I was able to find a solution to my problem.

Follow these steps to extend your virtual machine basic hard disk:

• Shutdown the virtual machine
• Extend the virtual disk size
• Add the harddisk to another virtual machine and start it up (second virtual machine)
• Open command prompt and start diskpart.exe
• list volumes and select the volume with the disk problem
• extend the disk

Make sure the volume has a drive letter assigned otherwise same warning will be returned. Virtual machine was started again without any problems and two additional gigs of disk space.

Links:

• Arne Fokkema posted another way how to perfom these actions on a basic disk. It should be easier if you download the additional ExtPart.exe tool from Dell. Extend the OS disk the easy way (ExtPart.exe)

[root@LAB-ESX-01 root]# esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch0 –> This will create new virtual switch

[root@LAB-ESX-01 root]# esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic0 vSwitch0 –> This will link my first physical network interface to vSwitch0

Result of the two commands:

As you can see vmnic0 with 1000Mbps has been associated with vSwitch0. Now I would like to have a “Service Console” port group sitting on this virtual switch.

[root@LAB-ESX-01 root]# esxcfg-vswitch -A Service\ Console vSwitch0 –> This will create new port group named Service Console. Creating new port group on a virtual switch is nothing more than assigning or defining a interface on a switch. Now I would like to assign a L3 IP address on this interface/portgroup.

[root@LAB-ESX-01 root]# esxcfg-vswif -a vswif2 -p “Service Console” -i 192.168.1.2 -n 255.255.255.0 -b 192.168.1.255 –> This will create new L3 interface which is linked to the Service Console port group with an static IP address. ESX server will generate new L2 mac address and assign this to the vswif2 interface.

[2008-09-12 13:22:21 'Vnic' warning] Generated New MAC address, 00:50:56:40:49:f4 for vswif2

Target result:

Just using two built-in esx configuration command line tools I was able to create and assign new service console ip address on a special physical management network interface.

Summary:

• esxcfg-vswitch -a switch_name
• esxcfg-vswitch -L physical_nic switch_name
• esxcfg-vswitch -A Service\ Console switch_name
• esxcfg-vswif -a vswif2 -p “Service Console” -i 192.168.1.2 -n 255.255.255.0 -b 192.168.1.255

Related links:

• B2V Guide to VMware ESX Server 3

See my work log and screenshots how to enable this feature:

• Login with root from the console
• Change directory with “cd /etc/ssh”
• Open sshd_config with “vi sshd_config”

• Locate Authentication section and change “PermitRootLogin no” to “PermitRootLogin yes”; for going into edit mode type i; press ESC to exit

• Type “:wq!” to save and exit the file
• Restart the SSH deamon with “service sshd restart”

• Start putty.exe or any of you favorite SSH remote management tools to connect to your ESX 3.5 server.

This procedure also applies to version 3.x. With this procedure I achieved to manage my ESX server remotely so I don’t need to use my remote management access card. SSH daemon also support secure file copy protocol which can be used to connect with WinSCP and download or upload any file/virtual machine to your VMFS file system.

Please be aware of any security implications! I enabled this kind of access because the management interface is sitting in a different VLAN than the vSwitch networks within virtual machine which are trunked amongst different networks.

Now my access was blocked.
 

To reset the admin password logon on the appliance console and run the following command lines:

• mysql cacti
• update user_auth set password(md5)=’admin’ where username=’admin’;

This will reset the admin password and allow you to login into the webinterface.

Related links:

• http://www.cacti.net/downloads/docs/html/faq.html

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING in /home/www/ivan/site/lib/smarty/Smarty_Compiler.class.php(270) : regexp code on line 5
Fatal error: preg_replace() [function.preg-replace]: Failed evaluating code: ‘{php’ . str_repeat(" ", substr_count(’{* You can also instantiate custom behaviour on a module by module basis by looking at the $entry->module and $entry->modulerecord fields in $entry ie: {if $entry->module == ”News”}{News action=”detail” article_id=$entry->modulerecord detailpage=”News”} *}’, " ")) .’}’ in /home/www/ivan/site/lib/smarty/Smarty_Compiler.class.php on line 270

The search function didn’t work and system stopped with the error above. I reinstalled complete new version of CMSMadeSimple and ended with more errors. All related with comments in the template or in the search "Result Template" areas.

To fix the search function follow my instruction below:

• Login on the CMSMadeSimple Admin page
• Go to Extensions / Search and click "Result Template"
• Remove the comment starting with {* to *} and submit

• Try the search your website again.
• Wow it solved my problem

The issue has to do with single quotes in combination with the mysql and Apache version. Hopefully some of you can add some comments for additional information.

My work log:

• Logon on the old Windows Server 2003 hosting the OWA front-end role
• Start MMC and add the Certificate Snap-In; choose the Computer Account.
• Go to Personal/Certificates and locate the SSL certificate assigned to IIS for SSL encryption. Right click ; All Tasks and choose export. Choose the appropriate options like the certificate path; assign password and save the PFX file to "My Documents"
• Copy the PFX file to your Windows Server 2008 Client Access Server
• Logon on the Windows Server 2008 and add the Certificate Snap-In to a new MMC console for the Computer Account
• Go to Personal/Certificates; right click; All Tasks and choose Import.

• Locate the PFX file; enter the password and make sure you check "Mark this key as exportable" to enable future migrations of the SSL certificate.
• Place the certificate in the Personal Store

• Open the certificate and go to Details tab. Locate the Thumprint field and select Value with mouse; press CRTL-C to copy the data.

• Paste the value in Notepad and replace the "SPACE’ with CRTL-H. In the Find what field press space on the keyboard and click Replace All

• Copy the Thumbprint
• Start the Exchange Management Shell and run the Enable-ExchangeCertificate cmdlet
• Type IIS as Services and paste the copied data from Notepad to Thumbprint

• Start Exchange Management Console and go to Server Configuration /  Client Access / Select the server and open owa from Outlook Web Access tab
• Type External URL of the SSL certificate and DNS. E.g. https://webmail.domain.tlk

• Click OK and you are finished to test the configuration.
• Start IE and test your OWA role. Review your NAT and Firewall rules also.

Related links:

• Enable-ExchangeCertificate
• Exporting Existing SSL OWA Certificates from Exchange 2003 FES to Exchange 2007 SP1 CAS on Windows 2008…

What is ServerManagerCMD.exe?

Server Manager in Windows Server 2008 provides a single source for managing a server’s identity and system information, displaying server status, identifying problems with server role configuration, and managing all roles installed on the server.

ServerManagerCMD is powerful tool and within one command line you can install the Hyper-V role. Make sure you installed the Windows 2008 RTM version and updated your system with KB950050.

With ServerManagerCMD.exe you will be able to install all those roles:

Active Directory Certificate Services
Active Directory Domain Services
Active Directory Federation Services
Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
Active Directory Rights Management Services
Application Server
Availability and Scalability
DHCP Server
DNS Server
Fax Server
File Services
Hyper-V
Network Policy and Access Services
Print Services
Streaming Media Services
Terminal Services
Troubleshooting
UDDI Services
Web Server
Windows Deployment Services

Finally we get a single command line tool for this administrative task. I hate having different text files and run the cmd batch scripts.

Related links:

• Technet - Server Manager

What is VMware ESXi 3.5?
VMware ESXi 3.5 is the industry’s first, thin hypervisor integrated into server hardware. With its next-generation architecture embedded in hardware, VMware ESXi enables a plug-and-play data center with greater security, reliability and manageability. Requiring no installation and minimal configuration, VMware ESXi accelerates server deployment—IT organizations can take servers from boot-up to running production applications in virtual
machines in minutes.

List of features is amazing and now we all get them for free. Check the full list here, but these are which I like:

• Bare-metal architecture
• Small Footprint with only 32MB
• Virtualization for storage and support for iSCSI
• VLAN tagging support
• Wake-on LAN
• 64bit support

Basically all features I missed with VMWare Server and now getting them for free with ESX3i version.

Why is VMware making ESXi free? VMware is making its standalone ESXi hypervisor available at no cost in order to help companies of all sizes experience the benefits of virtualization. Customers have shown tremendous interest in ESXi due to its innovative architecture, simple setup, and high performance. Allowing IT administrators to obtain VMware ESXi for free enables everyone to gain access to VMware’s datacenter technology and prove its value in their own companies.

I have nothing more to add than just go download the VMware ESXi data sheet for more information and get a free copy of VMware ESXi and try it for yourself. I am running couple of production host servers with VMWare Server  and will upgrade them very soon.

• Download the latest version from here–> cmsmadesimple-1.4-full.tar.gz
• Extract the file with 7z and upload the content to your webserver by using ftp,sftp, ssh.
• I am using WinSCP to the files to my linux box. I dragged the files from left pane (my c drive) to right pane where the current CMSMadeSimple files were located. At some point I was asked to overwrite files and I clicked yes.

• Go to your admin page.

• I have couple of warnings I need to solve like removing the install directory and the “Site Down for Maintainance” message but most important is that you perfom the CMSMS schema upgrade. Click Start Upgrade Process.
• Verify your config.php is writable.

• I checked my config file from ssh console and the permissions were not configured as required.

root@ubuntu-jeos-7:/var/www/cmsmadesimple-1.2.5/hubo-roneijgelsheim/site# ls config.php -all
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 5829 2008-08-06 10:16 config.php

• To fix this problem I executed: chmod 777 config.php; chown www-data config.php and chgrp www-data config.php
• I went back and click “Try Again” in the Upgrade System wizard.

• The schema version was upgraded to 31 and now I could finish the upgrade by clicking on the last step.

• Setup Finished all required steps in the upgrade process and my website was up and running and up to date.
• I fixed my other two warnings and my site is now secure, updated and most important the process went very smooth.

a) Explore2fs which is a simple tool and I don’t need to install any low level system drivers. Explore2fs only operates in Read-Only mode.
b) Ext2IFS which is a pure kernel mode file system driver Ext2fs.sys, which actually extends the Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista (x86/x64) operating system to include the Ext2 file system.

I want to have full read-write mode on my linux volumes and I installed option b.

• Go to http://www.fs-driver.org/download.html and download Ext2IFS_1_11.exe
• Run the setup file and walk though the installation wizards.
• In the Drive Letters Wizard choose your linux partition and assign a drive letter. I used drive L:

Drive L:\ is now mounted in READ/Write mode from my Windows Vista SP1 x64 operating system.

See my howto I performed to get this done on my own Windows VISTA notebook.

• Run CMD.exe to get into the command prompt and run “netsh wlan show profiles”

• I am interested in exporting the “NetworknetForFree” WLAN SSID into a text file which I can import on another notebook.
• I am still in the command prompt and than I execute “netsh wlan export profile name=”NetworknetForFree” folder=C:\” to export NetworknetForFree to C:\ drive.

• NetworknetForFree wireless network profile has now been exported to a file named “C:\Wireless Network Connection-NetworknetForFree.xml” and I can copy this file to a usb drive. If you want to export all your wireless profiles just run “netsh wlan export profile folder=C:\“
• The netsh tool generates a XML based file with all the settings for the wireless profile.

• Start a CMD.exe command prompt on the new notebook and import the XML file located on the usb drive. You can copy the XML file first from the usb dirve to C:\ and than import the file. Type and execute “netsh wlan add profile filename=”c:\Wireless Network Connection-NetworknetForFree.xml” user=all“

The wireless SSID “NetworknetForFree” network has been migrated without knowing the exact settings like SSID, authentication type and the password. I was also trying to perform these steps with a Windows XP SP2 client but too bad that this feature is only for Windows Vista and not XP.