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DVD Decrypter beaten!

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

I’ve been using DVD Decrypter to rip and backup my DVDs to iPods for years, despite no further developement since 2005.

DVD Decrypter Version 3.5.4.0 (final)

DVD Decrypter Version 3.5.4.0 (final)

An exceptional tiny application that easily removes the Copy Protection System from DVDs, which enables you to transcode the DVD for mobile device playback. I also use Badaboom, Badaboom is a blazingly fast media converter that formats video files for a variety of devices, including iPod, PSP, iPad, and YouTube, by using your system’s graphics processing unit (GPU).  If you have an Nvidia chipset!

DVD Decrypter output 1

DVD Decrypter output 1

So I was a little surprised when I couldn’t backup Disney’s new Alice In Wonderland…

It starts to report Read Errors (Retry 1 etc), but this DVD disc is brand new out of the cellphone wrapping, so it cannot be physical errors on the media, but something is odd, because if you look at the number of files and total it’s repoting 58GB on the disc, this should read alarm bells.

DVD Decrypter output 2

DVD Decrypter output 2

if you continue, the Retry errors increase and eventually, you’ll get an error message below

DVD Decrypter error message when trying to backup Disney's Alice in Wonderland

DVD Decrypter error message when trying to backup Disney's Alice in Wonderland

if you ignore this error message, it will continue to extract the data, but you’ll end up with a 58GB DVD! It would appear that Disney have done something with the layout to confuse DVD Decrypter Version 3.5.4.0 (final). Maybe it’s the Fast-Play, I don’t know, but as I’ve always said software can always be broken with software, so time to try another software product…

Enter DVDFab HD Decrypter, another backup tool which is also FREE.

DVDFab HD Decrypter http://www.dvdfab.com/en/hd-decrypter.htm

DVDFab HD Decrypter http://www.dvdfab.com/en/hd-decrypter.htm

Ah, this software does the job nicely, shame I still prefer the simplicity of DVD Decrypter, and it’s has a tiny footprint.

So if DVD Decrypter doesn’t work for you try DVDFab HD Decrypter

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Demon Changes it’s website, but still keeps tools for nerds!

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Ever since Demon was my first true ISP (AC – After CIX) back in the days of MS-DOS, Trumpet Winsock (Microsoft Windows 3.1) and Mosaic, I’ve always used Demon’s web-based Internet Tools, (DNS info, whois etc) since to this very day, so I was a bit confused and started to panic, when they had changed the website, but they’ve still kept the tools available now at this URL (web link for people that don’t know what a URL is!).

http://knowledgebase.demon.net/article/internet-tools.html

Demon's Infamous Internet Tools

Demon's Infamous Internet Tools

If you don’t know what they do, there probably not for you!

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NOW is the time

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

If there’s one video clip you got to watch this one…

Years to reach 50 million users:-

  1. RADIO – 38 Years
  2. TELEVISION – 13 YEARS
  3. INTERNET – 4 YEARS
  4. IPOD – 3 YEARS
  5. FACEBOOK added 100 million users in less than 9 months….

watch the video clip for more frightening or exciting statistics…..!

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Catastrophic SAN HP MSA2324i failure

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Not my SAN, one of my clients had a Catastrophic SAN failure on a Hewlett Packard MSA2324i, the whole VMware vSphere 4.0 Enterprise virtual environment was on it, they been without service for two working days.

A power supply fan failed and within 3 minutes the other power supply failed, causing the MSA to start and then reset due to a thermal fault which then caused THREE disks to fail in the RAID6, vdisk! which then caused the vdisk to fail, and hence all the virtual machines!

I’ve just ended my day, after restoring Service!

Thats IT! and I love it!

Off to my bed now, before the dawn chrous!

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Are You Satisified with an average life?

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Are you satisfied with an average life ?
Do I need to lie to make my way in life ?

from the Song – Are You Satisified? – Marina & The Diamonds

Marina & The Diamonds@Leeds Met 31 May 2010 – A few videos

the sounds quality is appalling because the high volume from the PA at the gig overloaded the camera’s internal microphone. but here are a few videos captured live at Leeds Met on the evening of 31 May 2010.

But the Gig was FAB! Thanks Marina!

Outsider and I Am Not A Robot

Oh No

Numb and Obsessions

still on a high, but must try and get some zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..

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Marina & The Diamonds@Leeds Met – Fantastic

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Just back from Marina & The Diamonds@Leeds Met – Fantastic Gig

Marina & The Diamonds @ Leeds Met 31 May 2010

Marina & The Diamonds @ Leeds Met 31 May 2010

Marina & The Diamonds @ Leeds Met 31 May 2010

Marina & The Diamonds @ Leeds Met 31 May 2010

An artist to watch for the future, excellent voice, excellent lyrics, plays piano, writes own songs, attractive……very Kate Bush! (maybe!)

Videos are rendering upload soon….

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Baby SAN (Storage Area Network)

Monday, May 31st, 2010

This is my new baby SAN (Storage Area Network), it’s a MSA 1000 (Modular Storage Array) with Active/Active Dual Controllers, Dual SanSwitch 2/8 connected to a MSA30 external storage box. Currently filled with 18.2 and 36.4GB disks to test and configure before moving any data.

Hewlett Packard MSA1000

Hewlett Packard MSA1000 - bright orange LED lit - Volume rebuilding!

This will replace my aging RA4100’s which are FC-AL, connected to host VMware servers at 1 Gbit/s to provide shared storage. using Compaq/HP Smart Array 5300 with FC-AL modules. Although the MSA1000 is now discontinued, it’s a real Fibre Channel SAN, and can be connected to Fibre Channel HBAs at 2Gbit/s, so potentially faster than iSCSI or NFS even with jumbo frames over gigabit networking, until I get some 10Gbit/s LAN switches! No longer supported by HP or VMware for vSphere 4.0, but then again neither are my RA4100’s!

Three Compaq RA4100s FC-AL Storage Arrays

Three Compaq RA4100s FC-AL Storage Arrays

The manual states, “Migration from RA4100 to MSA1000, removed all the discs from the RA4100, re-insert in MSA1000 in correct order, it will recognise the array configuration, and mount the volume, it should then be ready to present this LUN to your servers” – sounds too easy to me!

it uses a slightly unusual variation of an RJ45 connection, which further research indicates is called an RJ45Z. A normal RJ45 cable doesn’t work, because the Rj45Z has a special notch on it!

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De-Tox!

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

It feels like months since I last blogged, but I’ve just been rushed off my feet, It all started on 16 May 2010, when I lost remote access to a client site, that weekend, I was supposed to be completing an SQL database upgrade. It had to be postponed because I couldn’t contact the site remotely via two different technologies, I suspected that there had been a catastrophic failure.

I received a telephone call on the way to the site on Monday 17th at 8.30am, it was apparent that something was seriosuly wrong.

Five minutes on-site, I discovered that the whole site had been infected with the W32/Conficker.worm, the client was running Sophos Anti-virus, but what made it worse that many of the Windows XP Workstations were not patched with MS08-67, many servers and workstations were infected across the site, and because it was found that some workstations were connected to both networks, both networks were infected. (so if you are reading this, and you’ve not run Windows/Microsoft Update for a while, do it today! – Backup first, and usual disclaimer applies!)

I was just getting the infection under control on one network, when one of the Domain Controllers failed on the other network with a disk corruption fault, which took me a day to recover the server, but the Active Directory Database was corrupted beyond repair and recovery, the Vertias IDR didn’t work, and I had to forceably evict the failed domain controller from the network.

This is what the passenger footwell of my car lo0ked like after two weeks…..

junk food in passenger footwell

junk food in passenger footwell

nice wall paper!

nice wall paper!

Note to self: Must go on a detox!

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Cat fur in my network switch!

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Maybe this is the reason why I’ve discovered cat fur in my HP 1810-24 Gigabit network switch ports.

Angus sits on top of HP 1810G-24 network switch

Angus sits on top of HP 1810G-24 network switch, in between Snap Server 2200 and VIA ARTiGO 2000 2TB NAS

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Up close and personal with Marina

Monday, May 17th, 2010

marinaandthediamondsticket1

My ticket has arrived to see Marina and the Diamonds at Leeds Metropolitan University Student Union on the 31 May 2010, Lindsey thinks I’m having a mid-life crisis, it’s been about 26 years since I last purchased a ticket to see a pop group that was charting for a mere tenner! Lindsey didn’t want to go! So billy no-mates is going on his own!

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