Sc@-tt3r-ed Thoughts

I’m in the process of trying to get rid of any thick clients that I currently work on to convert solely to Virtual Machines, and clear out my desk space.
Well, I thought the best way to do this was to move my Precision 690 to the lab, install ESXi on it, and have a my VM on there.

As I tried to add the VM that resides on this ESXi server (which is not part of vCenter), I could not add it as an individual desktop.  I then remembered that I needed to have the View agent installed for this to work. After installing the View Agent, I was hopeful, but alas, the VM still didn’t show up. On Step 3 of adding the machine, it would supposedly give a list of available VMs to add and a find option, but nothing could be found. ..Continue reading..

I’m in the process of implementing VMWare vSphere 4.0 at work, with an add-on for VMWare View.

I had been working with ESXi for a while, so the switch to ESX 4 wasn’t too hard. On the View side, the learning curve was quite easy as well. There’s little that needs to be done in VDI Manager, and the rest is managed just like it would be managed on a physical machine deployed.

For those techies reading this that haven’t dealt with sysprep yet, it’s a Microsoft utility, which you can install, and it ends up residing in C:\Windows\System32\deploy.cab , unzipping this cab will reveal a set of files required to sysprep a machine. ..Continue reading..

Well, since I’ve just spent the past 6 hours trying to figure out how the heck to get USB Redirection to work on HP T5545 , I thought I would write up some instructions on how to set it up, and all the gotchas to avoid.

For the record, I only set this device up because I got stuck with 50 of them for one of my schools, and for anyone who doesn’t want headaches, I would recommend they go with XPe (no, not WinCE), I’m pretty sure, the additional premium you will pay for the device itself will be saved in time trying to configure/troubleshoot, and update it. This recommendation is based on my usage with VMWare View (formerly VDI), and where USB Redirection is absolutely needed. For any other purposes (ie: terminal services, ICA, RDP, etc..) , I cannot vouch for it, but I would suspect it would work just fine if you’re on a lower budget. ..Continue reading..

If you’re like me, and you have done away with your cable subscription, and transformed your whole media center to Boxee, or Plex, then this review is for you. In fact, even if you don’t use Boxee or Plex, but have a computer connected to your TV that you’d like to control. This is also for you.

Since I got rid of my cable, I setup an iMac to take care of all my media. It was a nice setup, except I didn’t have full access to the computer, unless I had my laptop, and connected to it via LogMeIn or TeamViewer, or, for much less control, using the native Boxee remote for the iPhone, or even the Rowmote free application.

These were all fine and dandy, but I really wanted full access to the machine without having my laptop or another computer around. Before finding out about Rowmote Pro, or even before it ever existed, and I went and bought the Adesso Wirelsss Slimtyouch Mini-Mac, which I paid $80 for, and turned out to be a total waste of money, in short, very short range, and battery life lasts 2 days at best.

Enter Rowmote world. If you have an iPhone, you’re going to be blown away by what this app does! It’s only $4.99 – well, $4.99 + $199 or $299 at best if you don’t have an iPhone yet You may be familiar with the regular interface of Rowmote which looks something like this:

However, you may not know this interface:  

Yup .. you’re getting a sweet interface to control your mouse and keyboard straight from the Rowmote application. In its original interface, Rowmote now supports over 17 applications, and obviously, anything you can do on the PC outside of the native Rowmote controls. 

Check out the video below for a live demonstration of Rowmote Pro. It’s definitely worth the $4.99.

Rowmote Pro Demonstration

So, here I am sitting at my office trying to get VMWare View to work on an HP T5540 thin client. Had no idea where to get the client for. the 11Mb file that you get from VMWare is entirely too big to be intalled on that client. This is a Win CE operating system, which is so horrible to deal with anyway.

Google searches failed me left and right, everywhere I looked. People said that the T5540 can only be used in a remote desktop environment, which, of course, will lose out on the capability of VDI, dynamic provisioning, multiple desktop availability, Multimedia, and USB. Essentially, all the advantages of VDI would’ve gone down the drain. so that was not an option for me.

Some mentioned JRE version for Win CE, on which the VDI client will run. I had 2 problems with this one:

1. I couldn’t easily find a free JRE client for WinCE
2. For the life of me, I could not figure out how to get VDI Manager to use JRE.

So, I went ahead with my research, until I stumbled upon something called the VDI Broker Add-On for Microsoft Windows CE.  That can be found here: http://bit.ly/16M38p

If you look closely at the description of this download, however, you will find that it says this:

"This is an Altiris package that contains the VDM Broker Agent for the supported thin client models running a supported operating system.”

Hmm.. I thought I’d try it anyway. Downloading the file wasn’t a problem. Running the file, however, was. It just plain wouldn’t run from the T5540.

So poking around some more, I finally got the solution. Unzip the EXE that is supposedly designed for Altiris, and you will find a little file (145Kb)  called VDMClient.cab, which will do the trick. Now, copy this to your T5540, and run it, and you shall have your VDI client available.

This took me about an hour of research to figure out, since there is absolutely no documentation I could find about it anywhere!. 

Hopefully this will help someone that may be having the same problem.

A couple of days ago, I found a neat trick to do with notepad. At this point, I’m not sure if there’s any purpose for it, other than to brag to your friends about it, or if you have some text to hide.

This trick simply uses Notepad that is built into windows.
Usually, in order to create a text file from the command prompt, or the run command, you type:

notepad myfile.txt

You would now have a normal text file. But if you want to hide some text within that text file, you can actually create a (hidden) file, within the visible file. How? you ask .. well, comin’ right up.

Simple open up a command prompt, by going to start / run… and type cmd.
Then type the following:

notepad visiblefile.txt:hiddenfile.txt

This will open up the file that is hidden within visiblefile.txt. hiddenfile.txt will not show up if you browse to the directory, or look at it in explorer, it’s embedded within the visible file.

So now if you want to edit visiblefile.txt, you simple double click on it within explorer, and if you want to edit the hidden file you created, you just type the same command line above to open it.

Note, that if you delete the visiblefile.txt file, your hiddenfile.txt will also be deleted with it.

As I was looking at my list of utilities that I usually use with friends and clients, and I realized that I have quite a list that could be helpful to anyone that is looking for solutions in any of the following areas:
Remote Control
File Sharing/Syncing/Backup
VPN Connectivity.
File / Picture Sharing (Quick)

Following, you will find a few sites and software that assist to accomplisht he above, and the best part is that they are all free: ..Continue reading..

I’m so excited! Finally, Better Gmail 2 support HTML Signatures. there’s a couple steps to it, but once it’s setup, it’s beautiful, and gets seamlessly inserted in new messages. I can now send email from web-based gmail, as well as outlook/Mac Mail, and have my outgoing mail look the same! Yippeee!!

Also, as a side note, if you download this version of Better Gmail 2 (0.5.1) , check out the redesigned skin, it’s on a black background, and it looks amazing!

So, I was reading some information about the release of detailed pricing from AT&T today, and I found out some information that irritated me.

First off, if you’re not too familiar with the pricing plan that AT&T has, here’s the skinny: If you’re a current AT&T customer, and eligible for an upgrade, you can get the 8GB iPhone 3G for $199, and the 16Gb for $299. However, if you are NOT eligible for an upgrade, and you are an existing AT&T customer, you would have to:
1- Pay $399 for the 8Gb, and $499 for the 16Gb
2- Reset your 2 year contract with AT&T.

As a side note, there also seems to be some rumors that there will be a no-contract option for the iPhone purchase, which will be $599 for the 8Gb and $699 for the 16Gb. This apparently, may not be available for a few months though.

Now, the reason as to why I’m aggravated. I used to be a happy Verizon customer, and had the XV6700 with which I was extremely happy for the most part. Due to Apple striking the deal with AT&T, and due to the fact that I really liked the iPhone, I decided to bite the bullet, and move to AT&T. This was before there were any rumors of the iPhone 3G roaming around. When I moved, I decided to get the Blackjack as a backup phone, while waiting to get my iPhone. During that time, I heard that a new version of the iPhone will be coming out, so I decided to lay low until the new one was out.

Well, for me, as a new AT&T customer, I had moved carriers just to get a handset that I really wanted, and now, I get stuck with, not only having to pay the full price of the handset of the first generation phone, but also an additional $10 / month for my data plan.

Even with the $299 price-point for the iPhone 3G, and the $10 increase in the data plan, I would still be short some $150 or so by the end of my 2 year contract. Now, I guess I have to do the math for what the iPhone would end up costing me by paying the full premium for it, as well as the added plan cost. Not to mention the additional, (optional… ridiculous! ) text plan, which will nicely tack on another $20 / month !

Hmm.. now I have to wonder whether the iPhone is a good investment? or would I be better off terminating early with AT&T and getting the Samsung Instinct from Sprint, at least, with that, I would get the new customer device discount….. plus, the Instinct is looking like a very sweet phone from the looks of it..

There are times when I’m working with friends/clients where I need to access their computers to assist them with a particular problem. In order to make the process simpler, I created some step by step instructions on installing the LogMeIn agent on their computer, with some friendly screenshots. The following screenshots apply to Windows XP. Windows Vista instructions will come later

Please follow these steps:

1-Go to Start/Run

2- Type http://logmein.com/logmein.msi

3- Click on “Run”. Optionally, you can click on “Save” and save it to the desktop, in case you need to re-run it later

4- Click Run…

5- Click Next

6- Select “I Agree”

8- Select “Typical” (Default)

9- Leave the computer description as the default.

10- In this area, type in the email address and password that I give you. and make sure you choose “LogMeIn Free”

11- Click “Next”

The installer will start … let the it finish. during that time, your screen may blink quickly a couple of times. this is normal. don’t panic!

12- Click on “Finish”

Once the installer is done, if you look on the bottom right hand of your screen, you will find this the gray icon with 4 blue dots in it (highlighted in red). this is an indication that LogMeIn has been installed

If you right click on that icon, the below menu will pop up. the second option is: “Disable LogMeIn” . This means LogMeIn is enabled. if LogMeIn is disabled, this option will say “Enable LogMeIn

In some cases:

a- if you don’t have a password on your computer (in which case, usually LogMeIn will ask to assign one upon installation, and you wouldn’t have to follow the steps below)
b- If you don’t want to share your password with me

You will need to create an account for me In order to do so, follow these steps:

1- On your desktop, right click on “My Computer” and choose Manage.

2- The below screen will open up: Expand Local Users and Groups, Right click on “Users”, and select “New User…”

3- Fill in the fields exactly as you see them below. The password will be one that you wouldn’t mind sharing with me.

4- In the same menu, right click on the “Groups” item, and select “Add to Group … “

5- In the screen that pops up, type in: LogMeInRemoteUser (just like below). Then click on “Check Names”. the name should resolve, and will become underlined. then click on Ok.

You should see a screen like the one below. then click Ok.

Now you should be ready for me to connect to your computer and help you with any issues that you may have.