pwnell's blog

One incident is a co-incidence.  Two is a pattern.  For the second time I dealt with a strange situation that did not seem to adhere to any predictability other than the fact that it will happen.  Sometime.  A Windows 2008 Server Core and now a Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Server with Hyper-V and some virtual machines would run fine for days, then suddenly become unresponsive.  The machine is up, Hyper-V VM's are inaccessible, console is locked up, can telnet to SMTP service but for the most part the system is dead.  Only a hard reset helped.  Until the next time.

The way I fixed the Server Core issue, and hopefully the R2 incident, is by configuring Hyper-V's network settings as follow:

• Since my servers each had two NICs, I configured one for the host OS called LAN, and the other for Hyper-V's exclusive use.
• The LAN interface is the one used to access the host itself.
• The Hyper-V interface is used exclusively for each VM.
• Ensure the "Allow management operating system to share this network adapter" setting is OFF.
  

Using those settings, ensuring the Hyper-V nodes do NOT share the host LAN interface, seem to have fixed the crashing issue.

Everyone knows this most likely, but the fastest way to determine which FSMO roles a domain controller holds is by typing in:

C:\Users\administrator> netdom query fsmo
Schema master               server.domain.local
Domain naming master        server.domain.local
PDC                         server.domain.local
RID pool manager            server.domain.local
Infrastructure master       server.domain.local
The command completed successfully.

I recently had an issue where a client's Microsoft Exchange 2010 server failed the best practices analyzer due to an "Database backup critical" error.  I was confused at first since I had a fully functional wbadmin scripted backup that I could see backed up Exchange.  Only after fiddling for a while did I discover the missing parameter I had to provide before exchange indicated a successful database backup and subsequently cleared out all the thousands of database log files it kept:

wbadmin start backup -backupTarget:\\1.2.3.4\backups -include:c: ^
   -user:msbackup -password:"password" -quiet -allCritical -vssFull -systemState

Without -systemState this never worked.

…when you look up close at about 100x magnification with polarized light:

Here they are at almost 5x life size:

…if you do not have a VERY fast internet connection, this will be a huge pain.  I rebooted, started the onboard OS Reinstall process and it went ahead downloading Lion… With my connection this works:

But imagine that over a 384kbps ADSL line...

I recently had a client that needed to replace a hard drive in a Linux FakeRaid RAID5 array using dmraid.  The process is very unintuitive:

I recently bought my daughter a Canon PowerShot SX40 HS camera for Christmas, call it an early present.  Being an amateur photographer myself, it was inevitable that going out and buying a camera - even though not for me - would not have been a trivial exercise.

If it was me, I would never have purchased this camera.  Anyone with more than 3 neurons will tell you that a camera with a 35x optical zoom lens (24mm - 840mm) will show significant amounts of aberrations, and with a tiny 1/2.3" CMOS sensor noise will be a problem, as well as dynamic range and colour depth.

However, my daughter seemed to like the way the camera holds in her hands, that it felt like a "real" camera and the zoom lens appealed to her.  So… I bought it.  Was about $430 if I remember correctly.  Quite expensive for a Christmas present...

It's been about 2 months now, and earlier this week I got to play with the camera for the first time.  I took my daughter around Stanley Park for a walk as there was a break in our weather.  I took both the SX40 and my new FujiFilm X100 on this outing.  Now there is no question in my mind that the image quality of the X100 is vastly, and I mean vastly superior to the SX40.  But this is not a review of the X100.  It is about the SX40.  And here are my experiences...

Whenever there was a scene to be photographed that fit the 35mm lens (35mm eq.) of the X100, it was unbeatable.  Whether it was under bright sunny conditions or extreme low light, that camera is awesome.  However, for the 80% of the time where that focal length was not convenient, I found myself harassing my daughter for her camera...

Here are some examples.  Ducks at 840mm, 1/200 at f/5.8 @ ISO 160

Ship at 840mm, 1/400 at f/5.8 @ ISO 100

More ships at 392mm, 1/125 at f/5.0 @ ISO 160

Paddlers at 414mm, 1/320 at f/5.0 @ ISO 100

Lion's Gate Bridge at 24mm. 1/640 @ f/4.0, ISO 100

All with one camera… Pretty impressive.  You may wonder about the image quality as these resized images cannot possibly reveal anything other than the reach of that zoom lens.  Here is a 100% crop:

I'd say that is incredible, considering the image quality (granted, this is in the best part of the lens - the centre) at this focal length.  High ISO is really, really good for a camera of this class, though that is something I'll post about later.

For the longest time I used to drink coffee only when it had three tablespoons of sugar in it.  I remember how incredibly sweet coffee had to be before it was drinkable.  In retrospect I guess when your parents only have Ricoffy as option, that is the only way to swallow it.

When I moved out of the house I discovered Nescafe Classic.  A step-up from chicory drain water, this is at least real coffee.  For a long time this is what I drank, and life was good.  But like so many things, we tend to be content with the known at the expense of the unknown.

Eventually I grew up a couple of years ago and started grinding my own beans, and using a Hamilton Beach coffee maker similar to this model, basically made filter coffee at the strength of Espresso with warmed milk.  This was much better, but still lacking the real deal.

Finally, only a couple of days ago I reached adulthood.  And this is what I got:

Not the best on the market (the top models easily reaches $4000 plus), but it has a proper pressurised system that forces the hot water under high pressure through the tamped, finely ground coffee beans.  The grinder itself is a step up from the chopper I used before, it is a conical burr grinder that does not heat the beans, hence deliver a better crema.

The net result is this, within 5 minutes:

The best of it all is that I add absolutely no sugar - the sweetness of the 2% milk is enough.  Took me long enough!

From one of my recent walks of liberty.

…you think you can trust them after being loyal to them for 16 years, through various ups and downs, yet some still manage to find the heart to stab you in your back and then have the audacity turn around and blame it all on you.

From a mathematical perspective this creates quite the dilemma.  Statistically speaking this implies any friend you currently trust, can stab you in the back at any given moment.  Trust is a thing of faith - it cannot be earned or proven or promised.  You either trust and know you can be stabbed at any time, or you don't and lose out on the benefits of trusting others, however you will never be stabbed like that.

I guess this is one down...