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GoodBye from Andysworld! – LogMeIn Free will no longer be available starting Jan 21 2014 @LogMeIn, Hello @TeamViewer!

Tuesday, January 21st, 2014

I logged into  LogMeIn Free this morning, and was greeted with:-

Soon LogMeIn Free will no longer be available.

To continue using remote access, you’ll need to purchase an account subscription of LogMeIn Pro. As a loyal user, you’re entitled to discounted introductory pricing, with packages starting at $49/year for two computers.* Your new account includes our signature remote access with premium features like remote printing, file transfer and cloud data access, plus desktop and mobile apps to improve your experience.
Please note:

If you do not take action, the Free computers highlighted in your account will become inaccessible on 28/01/2014. Only 7 days left!

soon-logmein-free-will-no-longer-availablesoon-logmein-free-will-no-longer-available1Oh, well I’m not paying for it, I’ll move and use Teamviewer or Google Chrome Desktop instead…

Good Luck LogMeIn, but GoodBye from Andysworld!

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New Desktop Computer Part III: What is Andy going to do with 48GB of RAM in his Desktop PC?

Sunday, December 16th, 2012

48GB of RAM in a Desktop PC, that’s a server I here you say, other than virtualisation with VMware Player 5.0 or VMware Workstation 9.0, or Client Hyper-V in Windows 8.0, or Oracle Virtualbox 4.0, it does seem a bit extreme, even the latest games, or Adobe Photoshop, you will be hard pushed to utilise all the memory.

Those that are old enough, once upon a time, in year DOS! we used a driver called – ramdrive.sys, that you could load into system memory, and turn some system memory into a ramdrive. RAM was expensive years ago, and only a few kilobytes or megabytes could be used as a ramdrive, but system access was almost instantaneous.

about eight years ago, a company wrote a ramdrive driver for Windows 2000 for clients, to use as a Windows 2000 profile drive for the storage of user profiles for a large terminal server project, to speed up the logon and logoff of users. I’ve been searching for an updated version since, that works with the modern Windows OS, now I’ve found one.

Now with the cost of memory for desktop PCs falling, the following company DR Dataram have produced a new RAMDisk for modern operating systems, and it’s FREE, and allows you to create RAMDisks up to 4GB, if you want to create RAMDisks larger than 4GB, you will need to part with 18.99 USD! It supports Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012.

Install the software, specift the size

Install the software, specify the size

Specify Load, Save and Autosave options

Specify Load, Save and Autosave options

and Hey Presto! you’ve got a ramdrive, out of system memory, and the magic of a ramdrive compared to an SSD, checkout the following benchmarks!

Performance of DR Dataram RAMDisk versus 4 x SATA 3 Kingston 200v+ SSDs in RAID 10

Comparison SSD versus RAMDisk

Comparison SSD versus RAMDisk

and for the geeks in the audience, that like IOPS

Comparison of IOPS

Comparison of IOPS

Comparison of IOPS - the numbers!

Comparison of IOPS - the numbers!

So, this Christmas if you want a fast data disk for your OS, spend your money on RAM for your computer, and bin that SSD (they wear out anyway!)

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New Project, so new Desktop Computer! So meet my new Processor!

Monday, November 12th, 2012

I’ve got a new project to complete, more on that over the next coming months (secret squirrel stuff! cannot say any more at present) , so it’s time to build a new desktop computer, it’s been a while the last desktop computer I purchased was in 2007, and that was an Dell XPS 720 H2C, which had an Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor QX6850.

It’s rather strange building a physical computer, because I deal alot with the virtual.

The processor on the new Desktop computer has an Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition (Gulftown)  processor. It has 6 Cores and 12 Threads.

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Whoops – nobody tests Ubuntu 12.04 releases anymore?

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012

whoops-ubuntu12041In this multi-disciplined world I fine myself, in using Unix, Linux and Windows.

Does nobody test Ubuntu releases on Intel anymore? works fine on 64 bit AMD!

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This copy of Windows is not activated.

Sunday, July 22nd, 2012

Been changing some VMware hardware, on some Windows Servers hosted on VMware vSphere, and this error popped up!

Virtual hardware on virtual servers of course!

activated1

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Microsoft Windows XP Professional 3 – too many wizards

Monday, February 20th, 2012

I was having a discussion with my Nephew, which mentioned Microsoft Windows XP Professional 3, I think he was referring to Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3, which turned into a conversation about Microsoft Patches and Updates for Microsoft Windows XP Professional. Since Service Pack 3 to date (20 February 2012), there have been 116 High Priority security updates and patches. (if you include all the Internet Explorer updates and patches).

windowsxpupdates

windowsxpupdates1

My personal favourite Microsoft Windows OS is Windows 2000 Professional, I’ve only just got used to Windows XP Professional, too many wizards, and I’m not referring to Harry Potter!

Security Patches and Updates will continue for  Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service  Pack 3 (SP3) until  April 8, 2014.

See here

support-for-windows-xpSo, there’s no need to rush for that Windows 7 computer just yet……

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Andysworld! Advent Calendar – Dec 13 – x10 Computer Controlled Outside Christmas Tree Lights using VMware ESXi 5.0, a Windows 2008 Virtual Server and Web Services

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

We’ve now also, added the Christmas Tree lights outside, in the Magnolia Tree.

I also got a little bored, and decided rather than using a traditional plug-in 240v 24 hour timer, I would add them to the X10 Computer Controlled System, so I can turn them off via a VMware Virtual Server, running Windows 2008 Web Services!

Lindsey asked “Why?“ – I replied, because I can do stuff like that!

So in thoery I could grant access to this Website, on the Internet to turn them off remotely, or let other people turn them on or off!

x10website

The website is basic, but it functions, just need some graphics and CSS!

Update: I’d already written this blog, and submitted for publishing, before catching an Episode of “The Big Bang Theory” – The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarisation (s1e9) – at this very start of the episode, Howard Wolowitz also demonstrates a light and stereo being power-on via x10, and enabling public access to do the same thing, which Penny also states “Why?” – you can get a really cheap wireless remote from Radio Shack!

Okay, so I’m a nerd! But we all knew that!

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Andysworld! Advent Calendar – Dec 6 – Treat your computer this Christmas and Upgrade your Browser

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Your browser is an important piece of software on your computer. It is what you use to surf the internet: it’s the window around the web sites you visit.

There are many browsers available, each with a variety of features. You may use one of these browsers already

Personally, I use Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari. I thought it was about time to upgrade my version of Mozilla, as some websites, were complaining it was out of date!

old Mozilla Firefox 3.5.19

New Mozilla Firefox 8.0

So, go on, and treat your computer this Christmas, and Upgrade to a Current version!

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How to boot a Server or Workstation from a USB Flash drive or USB External Hard disk

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

All the HP ProLiant MicroServers I’ve purchased without CDROM/DVDROM drives, so how did I manage to install all the operating systems, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Oracle Solaris 11 Express, FreeNAS, VMware ESXi 4.0 and ESXi 5.0 quickly and easily onto the servers.

Well quite simply, I made  my USB External Hard Disk bootable, and copied the ISOs onto the USB External Hard Disk, connected to the HP ProLiant MicroServers, and booted the ISO CDROM from the USB External Hard Disk.

This has the following advantages

1. The read time is much faster than conventional CDROM/DVDROM and USB flash drive.

2. No requirement to burn an ISO image to a CDROM.

3. Keeps all your ISOs in one place.

If you’ve downloaded the software already from the internet, as a download, you already have the ISO ready to configure, otherwise download and install ISORecorder, a brilliant little application, which just creates an ISO image.

Next you’ll need one of the follow applications, and these applications will do the rest, just make sure you set the computer’s BIOS to boot from USB!

1. UNetbootin (Download Link)

UNetbootin

UNetbootin

2. YUMI Multiboot MultiSystem (Download Link)

YUMI Multiboot MultiSystem

YUMI Multiboot MultiSystem

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: R2 testing in VMware Workstation 7.1.4

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Carrying on the nested hypervisor theme from the other day, when I tried VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), free download from VMware, on VMware Workstation 7.1.4, as it’s becoming common place for vendors to allow the use of Hypervisors for free, I downloaded the Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: R2 hypervisor for free to also try in VMware Workstation 7.1.4.

Here are the results

Hyper-V Manager Starting a VM on Hyper-V installed in VMware Workstation 7.1.4
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: R2 installed in VMware Workstation 7.1.4
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: R2 running in VMware Workstation 7.1.4
Using Hyper-V Manager to create and manage Virtual Machines on Hyper-V

Start Slideshow

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: R2 installs correctly, and looks like it’s going to function, but then Whoops, cannot power on any Virtual Machines!

Well these are the results I would expect from installing Hyper-V in a VMware Workstation 7.1.4 virtual machine, as often nested hypervisors do not function correctly. I just thought I would prove this.

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