Network TV Tuner

A few weeks a go, a mate of mine mentioned that he was looking a getting a network TV tuner…. “they’re readily available these days?” i asked…. as i just hadnt thought about it for many years…. sure enough he pointed me to

http://www.jbhifi.com.au/computers/accessories/kaiser-baas/network-tv-tuner-sku-67777/

http://www.kaiserbaas.com/kaiser-baas-product-page/tv-tuners/network-tv-tuner

picked one up, installed it today (was waiting on some other cabling to get finished) – and it works well… quite well. I dont have any wireless G devices anymore to test on…but is all good on wireless N and (no surprise) gig wired connections. Setup was as easy as plug, plug, plug (power, antenna, ethernet) run the supplied DVD…. auto downloads the latest firmware, a simple wizard for config, then config Windows media centre to use it…. very easy….

Handy for when the missus is watching some crappy soppy movie and the cricket or footy is on!

SCCM 2012 and “private cloud”

System Centre 2012 RC’s – cool…. but FFS – give the private cloud shit a rest. Giving hosted services another name doesnt change them from being hosted services…. not sure who’s worse, the marketers that make this shit up or the CIO’s that fall for it. (similar to who’s worse, the spammers, or the people that respond to spam….)

 

 

Recognition that calvinball is the most evolved sport ever!

superfrog and alien breed on GoG!

http://www.gog.com/en/news/gog_com_adds_team_17_to_our_roster_of_fantastic_partners

now ive had my vent, i can go back to happy things…. couple of team 17 games on GoG… yay! I hope assassin makes an appearance too… (but i dont know if that ever made it to PC or it was just amiga… then again, i didnt think superfrog made it to PC either)

Vent #3 – Superannuation

Just quickly for those of you that aren’t Australian…. Superannuation is equivalent to what your country may call a pension scheme.

Super in Australia has a 9% compulsory contributuion rate by the employer…. i.e. i have to pay 9% over and above my employees salary into a super fund on their behalf.

Now, i, and others, can see why the government introduced this. It massively increases the countries saving base, it reduces the government pension burden in the future if people can pay for themselves in retirement (as obviosuly most people dont bother to plan for this)

The reality of it ofcourse is massively different…. as an employer, super is a fucking pain in the arse…. the organisations you have to pay super into are red-tape loving congolermate monsters who love to make it difficult to fufil your obligation to pay employee super.

As a recipient of super – i have absolutely no confidence that my money is being managed well, the 9% additional of my yearly salary that is

1) being managed by the same type of people that packaged toxic mortgages as AAA securities and sold them off around the world

2) is at least 30 years away… i have no confidence that my money will still there in 30 years… between greedy corporate fucks and incompetent governments wanting to get their hands on as much as my money as possible so they can fritter it away… i think the chances are slim

3) If its my money, why the fuck aren’t i in control of it ?

4) Im financially competent. I get the many people in society are not, but why the fuck should i suffer because some people dont understand that spending more than you earn is bad ?

I understand why super is there….. but i still hate it.

Vent #2 – Dell delivery

Last year, i ordered a bunch of servers, rack, UPS etc from dell…. it was late in the year, so delivery before xmas was always going to be iffy.

First up, Dells new-ish delivery partner – schekner (spelling?) left a missed delivery advice for a laptop…. i rang back to find i cannot pick up the package or get it delivered after hours…. so for those of us that work in a different location every day… it made delivery almost impossible. I waited 3 weeks until xmas in order to make sure i was home to get it delivered, but if it wasnt for that, probably never would have got it. The woman i had the misfortune of speaking to was also a complete fucking bitch.

Next, delivery of the server bits and pieces…. 3 servers, a rack and a UPS…. the servers and associated bits (rails etc) turned up in seperate bits and pieces… fair enough. The guy that turned up with the rack didnt have anythign with him to get the 150-kg-ish rack off of the truck…. fortunately my flooring was getting installed that day, so those guys helped get in down. If they weren’t around, basically we wouldnt have been able to get it down…. well done delivery driver!

I took the last delivery a week ago…. but still no UPS… there were extra rapid rails and a box with a manual etc (i always love the box with a manual in it or a single power cable) – but no UPS. The delivery driver that spoke very little english wasnt much help…. so i really had the option of send it all back and miss out on the server and the UPS, or sign for it and miss out on the UPS.

So now ofcourse, i have signed for a shipment which wasnt complete….. that i couldnt get any details on from the non-english speaking delivery driver and im down a couple of grand because of it. the Dell sales guys ive dealt with has been pretty good…. but it wouldnt surprise me if im screwed this time by the fucking thieving delivery bastards.

In addition, i have a couple of PDU’s and no 10 amp plugs (which may or may not be with the UPS in the shed of the scheckner delivery driver), these massively long power cords for the servers that have been a nightmare to route…. and a couple of huge 3-phase plugs which i get to use for comedic entertainment only.

Short version of the vent:  Scheckner – really dont like them – and if Dell continue to use them, i wont be buying Dell anymore.

Vent #1 – HDMI, media players and compatibility

Its been an average day, so im having a vent….. well, a few vents… if you dont want to read me whinging…. ignore the next few posts….

So – ive moved into the new place, but still dont have all the network ports patched etc… so im trying to get things going as far as media around the house as best as possible.

I purchased a astone media gear mp-310DT media centre box for a pretty cheap $130. I havent used it enough to give a full review, but so far it plays all formats ive thrown at it and the HDMI (into an oldschool panasonic vierra TV) works. The speed at which it changes channels is terribly slow and mkv’s that i know have dolby digital dont play as dolby digital though my reciever… but, it works. (and now i have to explain to the wife that she has to use 3 remotes just to watch TV…. FFS)

*edit* – just after typing this the sound on the astone started dropping out too…. and the wife tells me it happened to her the other day too….  yes it is on the latest firmware…. so in short… dont get an astone mp-310DT

Another TV i have is a sony bravia, HDMI ports 1 & 3 just dont work… HDMI 2 on the side of the TV works intermittently.. after some searching around the web, it looks a like a common problem for some bravia models….  so i connected up a borrowed WD TV (not live, its the original WDTV) – which plays xvid’s and mkvs… but the mkv’s with no sound…. grrr….

Then we have the asus ve238 27″ monitor i purchased a while back…. when connected via HDMI, the sound just drops out every now and again… i have found that if i select “all reset” and then power cycle the monitor, the sound comes back…. but fuck its annoying (for example it cuts out half way though a battle in SC2 or RAGE)

Looking at new TV’s, i had the whacky thought of “wouldnt it be nice to have it all in one device” – so started looking at DLNA enabled TV’s… first you have to get through all the marketing bullshit…. “smart TV’s” - what a load of fuckign shit…. the sony’s…. no mkv support, the samsungs seem to have pretty average reviews even though the codec support is good etc….

I dont think im asking for anything that advanced or that out of the ordinary… all this shit has been around for many years…. a TV with decent DLNA support, common codec support, hdmi input/output that works with 1/2 decent picture quality…. but alas – apparently i am.

RAGE

I posted a while ago about RAGE not working on release… primarily video issues that made it unplayable.

Well, its been a while now – and since moving has calmed down a  little, i have started playing RAGE this week…. with all but very minor issues gone (due to ATI driver updates)

The main thing i have to say about rage is “Boooom!”… stuff blows up! its not a game that requires any type of thought…. get big guns (and i like that you can carry all of your weapons…. none of this limit to 2 or 4 shit) point them at the closest bad mutant/gearhead etc thing…. and shoot them until dead… repeat. I do particularly like the pop-rock ammo for the shot-gun.

The car racing parts are pretty dull and its very repetitive in general…. its definately not a “great” game (i.e. fallout 3, bioshock, elite, last ninja 2) …. but its fun, it looks and plays great (i.e. well polished finish) and its one of those games you can fill in 15 minutes with easily and put it back down again when you have to go dig trenches or create a reference build in the middle of the night.

Exchange & AD migration – oddities

Hi all,

 long time no post… been busy moving house (yay) and dealing with all the hassle and things that aren’y done around building a new house (boo)

Anyhoo – recently i assisted a client to move from exchange 2007 to exchange 2010…. the client had completed the install and come configuration, but wanted us to finish off due to time constraints – and also as a check over.

1st interesting bit – This client, for whatever reason, always has lotfs of whacky, non-standard settings. Im not sure what it is, but the lead tech seems to like to tinker a bit and make things non-standard…. and it always causes issues. In this case, he has 3 DC’s. The DC holding the FSMO roles is not a GC, by his doing. Most of you will be familiar with this – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223346 - basically the only reason to have a non GC for the IM is in a multi-domain forest under certain conditions… outside of that, especially in a single domain & forest of this size (1000 users), just make your own and everyone elses life simple and make every DC a GC.

Anyhoo the schema master, as one of the FSMO roles, was on the DC that wasnt a GC…. so the Exchange 2010 SP2 schema prep just kept on running, doing the same thing over and over again (according to the logs). after it took a little while longer than normal (i.e. an hour!) i started investigating…. moved the schema master FSMO role to a DC that was a GC… worked. (and i have recommended to the guy that he makes the DC a GC etc)

2nd interesting bit – In order not to update the SMTP relay, he wanted to swap over IP’s…. fair enough. He did this overnight once the migration of mailboxes was finished. I remoted back in the next morning and found the databases on the 2007 box dismounted…. and they would not mount with error

Couldn’t mount the database that you specified. Specified database: x; Error code: An Active Manager operation failed. Error: The database action failed. Error: Operation failed with message: MapiExceptionNoAccess: Unable to mount database. (hr=0×80070005, ec=-2147024891

I ended up pulling my hair out over this for around 2 hours…. checking adsiedit permissions, file permissions, running the BPA, turning up IS logging etc…. and after all that… there was a hosts file specifying the name and IP of the local machine…. got rid of that, let the server re-register in DNS with its new IP, voila… all good.

hosts and lmhosts are things that should only ever be used in test enviornments for emulating a namespace etc…. they really have no place in production. There are always better ways of managing name registration etc than static files.

3rd interesting bit – Quite a while back i noticed on SCCM that if the Windows firewall service is disabled, SCCM has difficulty communicating… and ever since i have ensured the service is enabled and then the firewall state is set to allow SCCM traffic or disabled within control panel (but the service is still running) depending on the client preference.

Last week i moved a place to 2008 R2 DC’s from 2003 DC’s…. pretty simple affair…. apart from some odd errors showing up in DCDiag…. as if communication with other DC’s was problemsome. Sure enough, firewall service was disabled…. set that to automatic and started it, disabled the firewall through group policy – all good. Fairly obvious moral of the story…. fair enough if you want the firewall off…. but dont disable the service, disable it via group policy or control panel… but leave the service started.

Gabe Newell on piracy

I didnt see this originally, but was lead to it from a link on a site….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLC_zZ5fqFk

Basically, i think his comments are spot on in regards to the piracy issue…. addittionally, piracy is used as an excuse for doing shitty fucking ports from a console to PC….. most gamers will always use their PC as their platform of choice… variety of controls, up to date hardware and just a shitload more flexibility… anyhoo, i digress…. Newell’s comments made me smile… maybe not all game company exec’s are money-hungry idiots… some are money-hungry and smart…. which im good with.

Lync Mobile clients

So, the Lync mobile client for Windows phone came out a week back or so and i just saw on Bink that the iphone one has now been released aswell.

http://bink.nu/news/microsoft-lync-2010-for-iphone-and-ipad-released.aspx

ive been moving house, so hence the lack of blog posts etc lately…. and the lack of completing the server side setup for this…. but imagine over xmas ill get around to this

Sometimes – i wonder if i write xkcd in my sleep – tyler durden style….

AD restores

So i got an email from a client this morning saying “dont ask – but i have lost all of our staff users in AD – Help”

to cut a long story short, the guys had gone into exchange 2010 EMC – and tried to remove staff mailboxes (for another reason i wont go into) and actually removed everything, including the AD account. They claim the exchange right-click isnt clear – and i agree to an extent…. instead of “disable” and “remove” – which need to be interpreted…. how about “remove mailbox” and “remove user + mailbox” – much clearer…. anyhoo – thats off topic – and its not going to change anyway.

On to AD…. so these guys had done most of the right things – they had located a system state restore for a DC from the night before – a DC that wasn’t a CA or anything else that might be intefered with from a restore – and they had run a restore – but had no success.

Anyhoo – here is an official MS article that helps you out – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840001

For the abridged version specifically for this client (they asked for this blog post)

First – Try ADRestore.Net and/or ADRestore…… nice article about those here…. – http://www.petri.co.il/recovering-deleted-items-active-directory.htm

At this client site – we found that using either of these tools bought the object back – but no group memerbships, or other details such as department, address etc. So that was really no good…. next option, an auth restore….

Restart your DC of choice in directory services restore mode (press F8 on boot up to see this option)

Run windows server backup…..select as appropriate…. now this screen is the one that got these guys confused

For some reason “perform an authortive restore of active directory files” does not perform an auth restore…. hey, maybe were doing something wrong – or maybe its just bad terminology again by MS and it means something else….. but i dont really care in this situation – so lets move on…

once the restore is complete – do not reboot

Open a command prompt and use ntdsutil….

ntdsutil

activate server ntds

authoritative restore

if its a specific object you want to restore: restore object <object DN path>

if its an entire OU you want tro restore: restore object <OU DN path>

Reboot – done.

EA – your a bunch of fucking arse clowns…..

So i went over my brother in laws place today and checked out skrim…. ohhh pretty…. and just looks plain good… hes not having any of the crashing issues a few other mates are having…

im going to wait for skyrim, but it did make me want to play something, so i tried to play dragon age:origins – old i know…. but a good game is a good game, not matter its age.

Start it up – get prompted to create a bioware account… no thanks, i already have enough accounts.

Apparently if i dont sign up, i dont get a bunch of content….. so i try to sign up…. i must upgrade my account…. ok, i upgrade my account to an EA master account, register the game etc…. now, i try to login – password incorrect…. funny thats the same password i use to logon to the EA website and the bioware website – and it works. So, from the EA control panel, i click “customer support” – and get taken through to a generic page where i must enter the game name again… and then get a bunch of FAQ’s and manulas – none of therm relating to my issue.

On the bioware site – i have to fill out yet more information (but at least it picks up the correct account) – try to register the game…. after having to re-logon 4 times…. and hey, it wont register, just an endless loop of logon prompts and key entry – yay.

So now ive gone through all this crap – and i still cant get content in the game, which i have already fucking paid for!

so EA…..

1) If you going to make a centralised platform for registering/buying etc games and storing achievements etc… fine…. but make it fucking work. Its a piece of shit at the moment.

2) Why the fuck do i need to register for content i have already purchased. Just because your marketing fucking arseholes have dollar signs in their eyes and dream of having a money printing press – like steam…. doesnt mean you should get my personal details on top of the money i have already paid you for the game – thats fucking dispicable.

3) There is no option for contacting them anywhere on the site…. So you’ll take the cash, implement stupid requirements to shaft your end users, but wont support them when it doesn’t work….

As you may have guessed – im fairly unimpressed…. this is what happens when companies are run by lawyers and marketers instead of people that actually care about the product they are delivering.

RAGE

i purchased rage from steam the other day – as i’ll pay $60 for a new release – but $90 is a bit excessive… to the point where im even going to wait for Skyrim… not an easy task!

Anyhoo – another reason i tend to wait a bit these days is that games are as buggy as all fuck on release… fallout: new vegas definately was….. fallout 3 and oblivion weren;t too bad, but the patches improved things greatly. After a few weeks, these major bugs are normally sorted – but not in the case of RAGE apparently.

Video issues for rage seem to be common place – i get flickering on the entire screen ever time a frame is re-drawn from moving… so its kinda unplayable.

Bethesda are blaming the drivers…. – but cmon guys, your testing cant of been that good to let this one get through – and for so many people…. i get that consoles are easier to develop for, because of the fixed hardware config… but realistically these days you have to allow for 2 mjaor streams of gfx cards on PC’s…. for a game thats going to make you multiple millions of dollars…. is testing on each of them really too much to ask!

And as lambert just said to me “at least it works on consoles” – true….. but why would i play something that will really benefit from better hardware, like skyrim or rage on a fucking console with shitty old gfx ?

Grrr…..