It seems that the bad guys are at it again, and this time they are using the holiday shopping season to try and trick people into infecting their pc’s.  Panda Labs released a post on their Panda Labs site (LINK:http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/archive/Black_2800_hat_2900_-Friday.aspx) concerning the fact that if you go online and run a search that many of the links showing on search engines  have been compromised and the results actually lead to fake sites that are just there to infect your pc. 

From the Panda Labs post here is an example they show with results that will do nothing but infect your pc.

Google Search:

     If you happen to access one of these fake sites you will get infected with an old favorite, the fake antivirus notices that wont go away until you give the bad guys your credit card information (One of the many others names you may have heard of this is AntiVirus2009 LINK:http://techgeekandmore.com/2009/10/19/rogueware-with-new-ranson-technology/), since they will claim your infected until you but their product. At the moment you do, in a miracle your pc is clean, but a good chance that so would your bank account or credit card since you would have handed the bad guys your information.

In case if you do click on a bad link, you will see the screen just like it shows in the example below (or a slight variation). What you will need to do is follow the information from the recent post “What to do if you get a virus or malware” (LINK: http://techgeekandmore.com/2009/11/23/how-to-what-to-do-if-you-get-a-virus-or-malware-via-a-pop-up-message/) to attempt to clean your pc.

Fake Antivirus Page:

     As always take precautions and use common sense when going to links including those that come up on search engine sites (Like Google, Bing, Yahoo).  If your trying to get to the site of a major site, but the link showing says pleaseclickme.cm/SoIcanmesswithyou (This is just an example), then you may really want to think about it before clicking on the link.

**Images for this post are from the Panda Labs Post.  Presented for the benefit of TGM readers.

openSUSE ships with rather limited codec support, primarily because of restrictions imposed by U.S. software patents and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Out of the box only free, open, non-patent encumbered formats such as Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora and Flac are supported.

1-Click Codec Installation

Click on the button below to install multmedia codecs – including support for DVD playback – via 1-click install.

This will give you support for virtually all multimedia formats in Amarok (audio player) and Kaffeine (video player) including *.mp3, *.flv, *.mov, *.wmv, *.wma, etc. However *.aac, *.wma and *.wmv files with DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) won’t work.

Note, you’ll get a warning dialog like this. Don’t panic! Simply select the top option, to allow changing the vendor for some packages from ‘openSUSE’ to ‘Packman’, then click on ‘OK — Try Again’.

Manual Codec Installation

Alternatively you can install the packages manually instead if you prefer. Install the following packages (‘Packman Repository’ required):

• libxine1-codecs
• ffmpeg
• w32codec-all
• k3b-codecs
• lame

visit here!

Well heat pump fans, here it is. An up close and personal look at a 410A heat pump system in action. Normal operation vs fault condition numbers in the cool cycle. There’s no audio with the vid, but for those of you who know their way around a system, the captions should be sufficient to explain what’s going on, and you should  be able to interpret the changes in vital signs. The timing per scene could have been better, so it may take a couple of  viewings to absorb the info. The heat cycle scenes are mainly to offer a “pressures vs OD temp” perspective.

And if you by chance have never seen a digital gauge/manifold RSA (refrigeration system analyzer), the top numbers are system pressures and lower numbers are either saturated temps or superheat or subcooling. All numbers are to one decimal place. You can also visit Tony B’s Digital-Zeus blog at http://digitalzeus.wordpress.com/ and see some Testo RSA tutorials for a more in-depth perspective.

The Problem:-

There is a black border all the way around my LCD 32” screen.My Screen Resolution is already set to the maximum of 1920×1080.I am using ATI graphic driver.

Resolution:-

1] You have to adjust display within Media Center:-

Start Windows Media Center.

Go to Tasks and Click Settings.

Move to General and then to Windows Media Center Set Up > Configure Your TV or Monitor> Display Configuration.

From here you have to adjust.

2]Using Zoom Option:-

When there is Live TV/video running right click on the Screen and select Zoom option.Under the Zoom there are four options -so select the one which will best fit.

3]Download and install latest ATI driver.The latest Catalyst Control has Underscan/Overscan option under the TV properties.From there it can be adjusted too.

Problem
Customer calls first thing on a  Monday morning saying that something is consuming all 12Mbps of their Internet bandwidth.

Background
Customer is an ASP and hosts several services including financial and billing, email, and document management applications.  Clients connect via remote desktop encrypted in a site-to-site VPN tunnel.  The tunnel endpoint is a pair of Cisco ASA5510’s in fail-over mode.  The internet facing router is a Cisco 2801.  All application servers are virtual machines running in VMware vSphere on a cluster of Dell blades.

Troubleshooting
A quick check of the ASA revealed that outbound internet traffic was a constant 8Mbps with bursts as high a 14Mbps.  Everyone agreed that the overnight increase in bandwidth use was likely caused by a trojan or virus.  But with over 90 virtual servers as potential hosts, isolating the problem server could prove time consuming.

The customer had already spent some time trying to isolate the source by looking through logs on the ASA and analyzing bandwidth consumption on particular virtual machines.  Since they hadn’t found anything obvious we decided to take a different approach and look at packets exiting the firewall.

Using Wireshark, we captured traffic on the internet facing interface of the ASA.  (Note – I’ve removed the source and destination IP columns)

The first thing that looks a little abnormal is the amount SMTP traffic.  The customer hosts a few Exchange servers, but there seems to be an inordinate amount SMTP activity relative to the number of mail servers and clients.  Not to mention the strange payload in some of the SMTP packets.

Wireshark can provide a statistical breakdown of the contents of a packet capture.  Click on Statistics>Protocol Hierarchy.  After processing the capture file you’ll be presented with a chart outlining the protocol statistics.

SMTP packets made up a little over 21% of this capture and accounted for ~ 9Mbps of bandwidth used during the capture window.

From here we can use another Wireshark feature to view the data in the same way the application layer would see it.  Locate an SMTP packet in the capture, then click on Analyze>Follow TCP Stream.

Now we have a better view of this particular email transaction and noted the following:
Received from is not one of the customer’s domains.
To: is in the .mx domain.
The email client is Outlook Express 6
Email Subject: hi friend
Content-Disposition: attachment;.filename=”t658657.zip”

The same thing was found in a couple of other streams that were analyzed.  The attachment turned out to be a 40Meg zip file.  That helped explain what was consuming all of the internet bandwidth.

Using this information, we applied a rule to the ASA that denied all outbound SMTP traffic not originating from one of the mail servers.  (a good idea on any network!!)  This immediately restored the internet bandwidth consumption to normal.

Logging was enabled on the rule to provide a quick visual indication in the ASDM as to the number of matches on that rule.  Within a few minutes, it had logged over 400 hits.

An examination of the logs on the ASA pointed us to the offending terminal server which was subsequently scanned with Trend Micro House Call and the trojan removed.

Conclusions
Wireshark  is a phenomenal tool and it’s worth investing time in the lab to understand it’s many features.  In this particular instance, it helped identify the problem quickly thanks it’s embedded packet analysis capability.

Besides the numerous books and on-line tutorials, a good place to start getting familiar with Wireshark is to take a look at the Wireshark Users Guide, capture some packets and experiment.

Unknow Device! istilah itu yang pasti muncul pada Windows jikalau hardware komputer tidak memiliki padanan driversoftware yang cocok. Pengalaman ini bermula ketika rekan ane minta tolong mencarikan solusi driver WirelessLAN laptop acer aspire 1810/1410 series yang g di-detect oleh Windows. Produk Acer ini kok lucu y.. masa driver bawaannya g ada yang cocok buat perangkat WirelessLAN yang jelas-jelas udah ditanam di produknya? weleh.. tp ini ada sisi baeknya buat ane  belajar mengatasi masalahnya.. its OKey

Bagaimana mencari driver untuk Unknown Devices:

Setiap perangkat di komputer mempunyai Vendor ID dan Device ID. Anda hanya tinggal mengetahui ID ini untuk mencari driver yang tepat. Sekarang mari kita lihat bagaimana Anda dapat mencari Vendor ID dan Device ID.

1. Buka device manager; atau ketikkan devmgmt.msc pada dialogbox run.
2. klik properties pada devices yang tidak terdeteksi (unknow devices)
3. pada jendela properties, lihat tab details, kemudian pilih ‘Devices Instance Id’ pada combobox.
4. Saat kita pilih Device Instance ID, kita melihat sesuatu seperti dibawah ini

PCI\VEN_10B7&DEV_9202&SUBSYS_81081043&REV_40\4&264A3649&0&40A4

sehingga cara membacanya adalah:

Vendor ID : 10B7
Device ID : 9202

1. setelah mendapatkan info Vendor Id dan Devices ID, selanjutnya masuk ke situs http://pcidatabase.com. Di dalam situs tersebut kita dapat mencari database informasi perangkat berdasarkan Vendor dan Device ID.
2. Jika telah didapat informasi detail tentang Vendor dan Device yang sebelumnya tidak diketahui (unknown device), sekarang dapat mencari driver yang sesuai melalui situs pembuat hardware tersebut, atau lewat google.com, atau driverlib.com.

Hmmm, bingung mau mulai dari mana,..
Saya rasa semua pernah mengalami file ilang karena di’emut virus trus gag bisa dibuka. Hohoho…
(Trus sing disalah’ke Laboran dan Teknisi’ne) padahal le nyemplungke Flashdisk sak gelem’e wudel’e dewe…

Nah, Q pernah juga punya pengalaman seperti begono tadi, cuman karena Q udah terlanjur berstatus teknisi jadi secara teknis kudu ngerti keluhan dan apa yang di sampaikan pengidap masalah.

Nah ini kiat2 dari teknisi kelas japrut kaya aQ

1. Selalu Update Antivirus, nah fungsi Anti Virus ini akan menghilangkan semua masalah karena virus
   Contoh’na document’na malah ilang karena didelete anti virus, nah untuk menampilkan lagi file yang asli lakukan cara ini
   • Buka Windows Explorer- Menu Tools – Folder Options – View kemudian aktifkan Show Hidden Folder
   • Kalo gag bisa tampil, lakukan perintah ini. Buka Start – Run – ketik CMD – jika sudah muncul C:/ ketikkan attrib -h -r -s *.* /s /d
2. Selalu gunakan format file yang aman, contoh’na kalo di word gunakan .RTF, kalo di Excell gunakan .CSV dan sebagainya, tapi setelah semua disave, rubah’lah extensi dari nama file itu menjadi berbeda dari sebelumnya (misal dari Bowo_Priyanto.doc kemudian menjadi Bowo_Priyanto.docbwp) dijamin virus gag doyan. kalo mau buka di word ya bpw’na tinggal di hapus lagi boss..
3. Nah masalah lain kalo si doc udah kebal ma itu semua piye jal? wah wah wah, udah parah banget kali ya. Gini sob, Terpaksa Uninstall aja Microsoft Office’na trus si file dipaksa untuk di open with Wordpad, tetapi jangan disave biar format dan ukurannya tidak berubah. Nah kalo udah trus backup aja tuh file trus diaman’kan dengan Office dari komputer yang masih sehat.

Hahaha, Teimakasih Komputer P.Maman, P.Wahid dan P.Nana yang udah jadi media latihan ngatasi virus…
Masa kalo ketempat service yang kaya geto dihargai 60ribu, padahal kalo sama aQ gratis hohoho…

-Bowo Priyanto-

Gestern habe ich mit ExMerge gekämpft, um einzelne Postfächer aus einem Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 in PST-Dateien zu exportieren. Also habe ich die Konfiguration aufgesetzt, die exmerge.ini Datei ausgefüllt, eine mailboxes.txt Datei angelegt, etc. Also, alle Vorarbeiten getroffen, die durchzuführen waren.

Dann ging es an die Ausführung:

exmerge -b -d

-b startet ExMerge im Batch-Mode (ohne GUI) und -d zeigt während der Ausführung ein Fenster mit einem Fortschrittsbalken an.

Soweit die Theorie. In der Praxis funktionierte das nicht. Ich bekam im Logfile folgende Fehlermeldung:

Error! Server server.domain.local is not listed as an Exchange 2000
server in the Active Directory on server SERVER.
(CADRoutines::GetExchangeServerNameInfo)

Das Web gab hierzu nicht wirklich was her. Ich habe gesucht und gesucht. Und folgende Vorschläge überprüft:

• Receive As (Empfangen als) und Send As (Senden als) Erlaubnis für den ausführenden User auf dem Exchange Server (Administratoren haben bei diesen Punkten sowohl die Erlaubnis als auch die Verweigerung)
• ob Exchange-Dienste ausgeführt werden
• verschiedene Einstellungen in der exmerge.ini ausprobiert
• eine Gruppe und einen User angelegt (es sollte laut Foren eine Gruppe Exchange Services geben, die ich aber nicht finden konnte. Dieser Gruppe sollte der User zugeordnet werden. Angeblich weil ExMerge nicht mit dem Administrator Konto ausführbar sei – sobald aber die Einstellungen bzgl. Receive As und Send As geändert waren und der Informationsspeicher neu gestartet wurde, ist das aber kein Problem!)

Lösung

Zu diesem Fehler gab das Web leider nicht mehr her. Heute habe ich das Problem gelöst: Der Servername! Ich hatte den FQDN (Full Qualified Domain Name, Voll qualifizierter Domain-Name) angegeben. ExMerge nutzt zur Überprüfung aber LDAP, um das Active Directory abzufragen und erwartet hier den reinen Servernamen. In meinem Fall also nicht server.domain.local, sondern schlicht und einfach nur server. Im Active Directory findet er weder unter der IP etwas, noch unter localhost.

Danach lief alles wie gewünscht und problemlos.

Haben Sie Ähnliches erlebt mit ExMerge? Ich freue mich auf Ihre Kommentare.

Taking a look at other computer right now looks like a juvenile dick stain on the loose with nothing better to do on a Friday night except show-off his incredible programming skill (yeah right) by hitting up vulnerable machines with adult oriented pop-ups and malware. What an idiot, somebody should dropkick his ass.

Issue: Keyboard not working properly and missed a key randomly while typing.  Missed keys were constant and not a one time issue or a missed key. Battery listed as not able to charge since it was bad.

Reason: Battery was malfunctioning and overheating. Excess heat was causing the keyboard to intermittently fail.

Correction: Replaced battery with new unit.

Best Regards,
William Taylor
Repair-IT
Jacksonville Computer Repair and Consulting
Orange Park Computer Repair and Consulting

Following on from a fresh installation of SharePoint, creating a single web application and an empty site collection, I began to notice errors appearing several times a day in the Application event log:

Event ID:      7888
Task Category: Office Server General
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      TWC155.btw.gov.uk
Description:
A runtime exception was detected. Details follow.
Message: Could not find stored procedure ‘proc_ar_BumpCacheInvalidationCounter’.

 There’s some discussion about this here, and here as well.  The general consensus the error is ”Mostly Harmless”.  I even found this script that recreates the stored procedures to stop that error message popping up, but I decided against this approach as it breaches the Golden Rule of SharePoint, Never Modify the Databases!

According to Microsoft support this is a known issue with SharePoint and is related to the fact that the BDC is not active in Standard edition – the error can be safely ignored.  So just create a view of the event log and filter out those errors.

I recently received a repair job on a Gateway M1624 that kept rebooting.

Issue: Inconsistent rebooting with no BSOD (blue screen of death). The machine also suffered from a hot spot on the front left portion of the underside of the laptop.

Reason: Gateway provided very poor heat dissipation for the CPU and Chipset as well as sub standard compound between the cooling system and the chips.

Correction: Since the heat dissipation is poor, you can simply remove the existing compound (actually a leaf of silver) and replace with some fresh thermal compound. To do this, simply remove the single screen holding the access plate on the bottom. Remove the 4 screws on the copper piece above the CPU as well as 2 screws holding down the fan assembly. Lift of the fan assembly. You can remove the silver leaf from the copper contacts for the CPU and Chipset. Remove any left over silver leaf from the top of the CPU and apply thermal compound on the Chipset and CPU. Replace fan assembly and screw in the 6 holding screws, replace the panel and screw in the final screw.

Best Regards,
William Taylor
Repair-IT
Jacksonville Computer Repair and Consulting
Orange Park Computer Repair and Consulting

Although internet connection for home is designed to be simple yet reliable, sometimes problems occur and knowledge about simple troubleshooting may come in handy before you call tech support. If you can fix the problem without calling tech support, you will save yourself a lot of time and not to mention the long wait trying to get a technician on the line.

Read more…

Perché impazzire?

…è scritto tutto qui:

http://blog.mypapit.net/2008/05/how-to-use-usb-serial-port-converter-in-ubuntu.html

(testato su 9.04 Jaunty + Targus USB 232 converter)

YEAH!

This post will be to document the problems I ran into so far, and the fixes that worked for me.

Maya Batch Render is Slow, use Terminal Rendering Instead

Having Maya open while rendering is a waste of memory, it makes your batch renders slower. Maya opens up a separate program just to render the scene anyway, so its better to render with terminal.

How to do it:

1. Make sure all your render settings are good to go in Maya, then close Maya
2. Open Maya Terminal in Applications/Autodesk/maya2010/Maya Terminal
3. Open “Apple QMaster” in Applications
4. Find where it says “Command” with a little dropdown beside it, and select Maya
5. Press the + button
6. copy and paste this into the first text field: /Applications/Autodesk/maya2010/Maya.app/Contents/bin/Render
7. Click “Choose…” for Project and Scene File. Your project is the folder that contains your Maya Project, and Scene file is the .mb file
8. Set the starting and ending frames how you want under Frames
9. Uncheck Motion Blur (unless you want it, but its really slow)
10. (required to use both processors in your computer) Add the following in the Command text area beside the other commands with dashes, makes sure there is a space on either side of it: -n 0
11. copy the text QMaster generated for you in “Command”
12. Paste that text into Maya Terminal, and hit enter. It should be rendering away.

So it sounds terribly complicated, but its really worth avoiding the headaches of batch render and isn’t all that bad after you’ve gone through it a couple times. Plus, it renders faster.

When working with a large scene, use layers a lot

In this project I had 3 areas each with multiple rooms. I put each room on a separate display layer so I could hide the one I wasn’t working on. I also made sure to put each room’s lights on a separate layer so I could disable the lights, speeding up render times.

When you do preview renders, set the quality to “Preview Quality”

You don’t need perfect quality to see what a scene will look like when its rendered out. Set the resolution to 1/2 of what your final output will be and use preview quality in render settings. Rendering full quality for previews is a time sink.

Use depth map shadows whenever possible

Raytrace shadows look amazing but take forever in an animation. I was hitting 10+ minutes per frame with them, whereas in my final sequence I used depth map shadows which took 1-2 minutes a frame.

Try out both Maya Software and Mental Ray rendering engines

You can switch the render in your render settings. By default it’s set to Maya Software. I found Maya Software to render my textures crisper than Mental Ray, but Mental Ray often rendered faster. The only time Maya Software rendered faster was with many (15) depth map shadows. For render settings, I used production quality, but changed the multipixel filter to 1.4 to make the renders sharper.

Set Reflections To 1 or 2

In large scenes, if reflections are set to 10 for example, the reflection will bounce back and forth 10 times, which is slow. 1 or 2 will usually look good enough.

Lower the Texture Filter setting

In each texture with an image, set the Filter property to around 0.125. Default is 1.00, which makes textures fuzzy. Unfortunately mental ray seems to ignore this, but it works for Maya Software.

–

That’s all I can think of at the moment, hope it helps anyone who comes across the same problems.

Power Pack 3 is released.If you are running any pre-released version of  power pack then you have to uninstall  before you install the final version of power ppack;i.e. power pack 3

Here are step by step instructions on how to do it:-

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowshomeserver/default.aspx

After you create a new SSP, you might find you get an “Access Denied” page when you click on User Profiles and Properties in the User Profiles and My Sites section of the SSP admin page, although you can access other parts of the SSP OK.

Adding your account into the Farm Administrators group doesn’t help.  Neither does giving your account full control over the SSP site itself.   But you might want to do both of those anyway if you’re an admin.

To fix this particular problem you need to go to Personalization services permissions and go the Manage Permissions: Shared Service Rights screen, give yourself Manage User Profiles permission (plus anything else you might find useful, like Manage Analytics etc.).   That will let you into the screens for managing profile import.

Not sure where I got this from, but its great troubleshooting info for SCSI conflicts.

To identify if SCSI reservation conflicts are preventing a LUN from being accessed:
Verify that the LUN is detected by the ESX host at boot time.

For ESX 3.x, run the command:

# cd /vmfs/devices/disks
# ls vmh*

The output appears similar to:

vmhba0:0:0:0
vmhba0:0:43:0
vmhba0:0:52:0

For ESX 4.X, run the command:

# esxcfg-scsidevs -c

The output appears similar to:

Device UID Device Type Console Device Size Plugin Display Name
eui.00000e1100b81bfc Direct-Access /dev/sda 70007MB NMP Local FUJITSU Disk (eui.00000e1100b81bfc)
mpx.vmhba0:C0:T0:L0 CD-ROM /dev/sr0 0MB NMP Local HL-DT-ST CD-ROM (mpx.vmhba0:C0:T0:L0)
mpx.vmhba3:C0:T0:L0 Direct-Access /dev/cciss/c0d0 34727MB NMP Local VMware Disk (mpx.vmhba3:C0:T0:L0)

If the LUN is not listed, rescan the storage. For more information, see Performing a rescan of the storage (1003988).

Check dmesg. Look for lines that may provide some information if the LUN is having an issue:

Vendor: EMC Model: SYMMETRIX Rev: 5771
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
scsi0 (0,0,52) : RESERVATION CONFLICT
scsi0 (0,0,52) : RESERVATION CONFLICT
scsi0 (0,0,52) : RESERVATION CONFLICT
scsi0 (0,0,52) : RESERVATION CONFLICT
scsi0 (0,0,52) : RESERVATION CONFLICT
scsi0 (0,0,52) : RESERVATION CONFLICT
sdh : READ CAPACITY failed.
status = c, message = 00, host = 0, driver = 00
scsi0 (0,0,52) : RESERVATION CONFLICT
scsi0 (0,0,52) : RESERVATION CONFLICT
scsi0 (0,0,52) : RESERVATION CONFLICT
VMWARE: Device that would have been attached as scsi disk sdh at scsi0,
channel 0, id 0, lun 52
Has not been attached because this path could not complete a READ
command eventhough a TUR worked.
result = 0×18 key = 0×0, asc = 0×0, ascq = 0×0
VMWARE: Device that would have been attached as scsi disk sdh at scsi0,
channel 0, id 0, lun 52
Has not been attached because it is a duplicate path or on a passive
path
scan_scsis starting finish
scan_scsis done with finish

In this example, LUN 52 is inaccessible in the ESX host cluster. Since it is listed in the output of step one, it was accessible at some point (a host reserved the LUN and never released it, possibly due to a SAN switch reboot in the middle of the reservation operation).
To resolve this:
For ESX 3.0, examine all hosts for any pending reservations with the command:

# tail -1 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba[0-9]/[0-9]:*

The output appears similar to:

==> /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba0/0:0 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba0/0:43 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba0/0:44 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba0/0:45 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba0/0:46 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba1/0:50 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba1/0:51 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba1/0:52 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba1/0:53 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba1/0:54 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba2/0:0 <==
Active: 0 Queued: 0 Reserved: N Pending Reserves: 0

The ESX host that has Pending Reserves with a value that is larger than 0 is holding the lock.

For ESX 3.5 and 4.0, examine all hosts (also applies to hosts for any pending reservations) with the command:

# esxcfg-info | egrep -B5 “s Reserved|Pending”

The output appears similar to:

Note: Not all of the output is shown.

|—-Console Device…………………./dev/sdd
|—-DevfsPath…………………….. /vmfs/devices/disks
/vml.02000000006001c230d8abfe000ff76c51486715db504552432035
|—-SCSI Level……………………..6
|—-Queue Depth…………………….128
|—-Is Pseudo………………………false
|—-Is Reserved…………………….false
|—-Pending Reservations…………….0
–
|—-Console Device…………………./dev/sda
|—-DevfsPath……………………../vmfs/devices/disks
/vml.02000000006001c230d8abfe000ff76c198ddbc13e504552432035
|—-SCSI Level……………………..6
|—-Queue Depth…………………….128
|—-Is Pseudo………………………false
|—-Is Reserved…………………….false
|—-Pending Reservations……………. 1

The ESX host that has Pending Reserves with a value that is larger than 0 is holding the lock.

Perform a LUN reset to clear the lock.

For ESX 3.x, run the command:

# vmkfstools –lock lunreset /vmfs/devices/disks/vmhba1\:0\:52\:0

For ESX 4.x, run the command:

# vmkfstools –lock lunreset /vmfs/devices/disks/vml.02000000006001c230d8abfe000ff76c198ddbc13e504552432035

Verify that the LUN no longer has any Pending Reserves.

For ESX 3.x, run the command:

# tail -1 /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba1/0\:52

The output appears similar to:

Active: 0 Queued: 0 Reserved: N Pending Reserves: 0

For ESX 3.5, run the command:

# esxcfg-info -s | egrep -B5 “s Reserved|Pending”

For ESX 4.x, run the command:

# esxcfg-info -s | egrep -B16 “s Reserved|Pending”

Note: If the Pending Reserves is not 0 or Is Reserved is not false, the LUN reset did not succeed.

Do a refresh of the storage window on each ESX host.

If the datastore is not mounted, perform a rescan.

If needed, during troubleshooting, this quick reference may be of assistance.  Below is a list of return codes that can be expected from client tasks within the default rollout jobs that are created with Patch for Mac.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/patch-management-mac-return-codes

On Windows Media Center, when switching channels on broadcast television, or loading certain broadcast recordings, video output will become corrupted.  This corruption may last from a few seconds and automatically correct; or may persist until the channel is changed or an alternate recorded file is played.

Microsoft currently has an issue which is resulting in a valid picture frame at the entry point into the stream to be dropped and replaced with an ‘empty’ padding frame.  The loss of this frame causes corruption of video in all hardware and software decoding of the stream.  The specific sequence of events triggers a prolonged error recovery sequence on ATI hardware.  Microsoft and ATI are working together to address this issue.

APPLIES TO

• Windows 7 Ultimate
• Windows 7 Home Premium
• Windows 7 Professional

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2008334/

This position is an Application Administrator to support operations within our client’s department. This position has a critical role in delivering our services to clients and ensuring successful ongoing operation of our applications and services. It services a highly interactive software development build/release process as well as a rich operational environment with many interrelated applications/database services. The candidate should be self-motivated, detail oriented, adaptable to change and must work well in a flexible team environment with developers, QA, operations staff, system administrators and managers.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Application and database support

• Provide on-going database administration in both back-end and front-end with application infrastructure support for our client’s administration systems, including the deployment of new applications.
• Review the physical design of existing databases for optimal database structures, database performance tuning, security, database backup/recovery strategy, implementing high-availability, and pro-active and reactive performance analysis, monitoring, troubleshooting and resolution of issues, capacity planning, monitoring data growth and system utilization, trend analysis and predicting future database resource requirements.
• Install web-base applications from ground up to full-ballooned implementation and support, including configuration at Unix/Linux/Windows system level, back-end integration with database, front-end integration with user-interface, final delivery to users to fulfill users’ requirement and on-going maintenance.
• Take the lead in ensuring that application and web services are configured and tuned according to application needs; provide troubleshooting as needed.
• Work with System Administrators to ensure test and production boxes conform to the software application configuration needs.
• Support the department-wide infrastructure application for database management, system monitoring and notification, job scheduling, deployment, provision and patching automation, application topology and service level management for campus-wide system performance.

Build/release activities

• Manage the build, tagging and release processes for a number of interdependent Java web applications and background processes in the QA and production environments. Ensure the build and release process is scalable and repeatable.
• Work with the development team to ensure efficient and understandable build procedures are adhered to and conform to a standard process for configuration and release management
• Develop and maintain tools that automate the building of software releases for an Agile-based development process. This is one of continuous integration, where the automated build process can be run many times a day if necessary.
• Work with and support the QA team to ensure automated test suites run as part of the continuous integration build process.

REQUIREMENT FOR SKILL AND COMPETENCIES:

• Expert hands-on with shell scripts, other scripting languages, preferably Perl, and tool automations
• Minimum 2 years database administration experience in Oracle and 3 years Application administration experience in Unix/Linux infrastructure environments is required.
• Hands-on experience of Oracle databases 10g for 24/7 database operations and tool automation in installation, configuration, backup/recovery, startup/shutdown, data refresh, and application integrations.
• Experience with OEM/Grid Control is highly desired.
• Knowledge and understanding of large scale ERP implementation and support like Oracle Financial and PeopleSoft systems.
• Expert knowledge of Apache and Tomcat, and other web/application servers such as JBoss
• Strong Unix and system administration skills with basic network and security knowledge
• Strong experience and ability in web applications deployment, configuration and integration from both OpenSource and Commercial based systems with or without sophisticated vendor support.
• Java/J2EE based programs
• Java/servlet/JSP based web applications
• Experience with Subversion, PVCS or similar source code repository
• Experience with Maven and familiarity with automated build processes
• Experience with the Agile development methodology and concepts of extreme programming and continuous integration
• Understanding of the layers/tiers of web applications and the communication protocol between the tiers with networking protocols (TCP/IP, HTTP, SSL, DNS, FTP, etc.)
• Ability to multi-task and work in a team environment is critical and should have excellent communication skills in both verbal and written forms.
• Ability to manage multiple competing priorities and work under pressure in high stress situations
• Excellent communication skills in both verbal and written
• Ability to work under pressure and to deliver results in a complex and dynamic operational environment

Qualifications

Minimum 5 years as an IT professional in build/release and application/database administration, plus one or more of the following areas: IT infrastructure operations 24/7, systems analysis and design, or application development.

Education
Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related field or equivalent experience

If you are interested, please send your resume to tsotelo@mindsource.com.

I finally completed upgrading our SCCM 2007 central site (and two secondary sites) to SP2.  Though it was successful, there were two issues that occurred as a result of the upgrade which may be useful for you to watch for. 

The first issue is that I was unable to update any distribution points for packages or adding new distribution points to a package.  This was being caused by a malfunctioning Distribution Manager in which the changes were being queued and not processed.

• Issue can first be identified by noticing that updating package distribution points is “stuck” in a state of “Install Pending”
• Check the distmgr.log – it may show that every the manager is attempting to validate every single package on every single distribution point…one at a time. 
• If the distmgr.log will show a line that says “GetObject Failed error 0×8007003
• If a file named “RESETISAPI.TRN” exists within  the DistMgr.box
• Then the solution is founded in http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/969163 for the second solution. 

The second issue that I experienced with the inability for unknown computers to know that there was a task sequence assigned to run.  Short of the long story is that I fixed the situation by deleting the existing advertisements and recreating them.