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Intel has unveiled the prototype of a high-speed fiber-optic data system based on silicon chips with integrated lasers and detectors. The system runs at 50Gbps, with Intel claiming future scalability to 1Tbps and beyond. But Intel’s silicon-based optical data connection could eventually allow the industry to replace traditional connections with extremely thin and light optical fibers capable of transferring gigabits of data over long distances. The 50Gbps link is akin to a concept vehicle that allows to test new ideas and develop technologies transmit data over optical fibers, using light beams from low cost and easy to make silicon. Telecommunications and other applications already use lasers to transmit information, current technologies are too expensive and bulky to be used for PC applications. Once this makes it into the main stream tech it will be awesome, I can’t wait!! But only if it can do what it claims.
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This is just a nice little tid bit of information to bring back classic menus similar to XP or even Vista. It is a pretty simple registry hack that can be add pretty easy. Just follow these steps to get it done.
1. Use regedit and edit the following registry keys.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
3. Double click the Favorites entry and replace the existing path with C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
4. Move to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders and repeat the third step.
5. Restart the computer
This should give you a menu that is close to the classic menus of XP. Here is a pic of what it should look like.
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 HFS isn’t a new program but it is definitely a goody. I have been using it for four years now for my file server because it is easy to use and can be run on any Windows OS along with Linux using Wine. It has a customizable HTML web interface and has the ability to setup user accounts. Their website says that there are 137, 775 users around the world. For a piece of freeware that is a great following. First lets start off with where you can find it, of course you can Google it or you can go to the HFS web site at the following link: http://www.rejetto.com/hfs/?f=intro or you can visit the HFS forum where you can download beta version and ask question and receive help from the users and programmer of HFS. The forum link is: http://www.rejetto.com/forum/index.php?c=6.
Installation is easy because it is a self contained executable. It can start with as the OS boots up and run minimized in the task bar.Here is the basic interface of the program. It allows for viewing of connections, shared folders, and current connections. This is a pic of my running server so I blurred out some information that I didn’t want the world to see.
Configuration can take a little bit of time to get the program set up for use in your environment or you can just turn it on and run it as is. However you may need to go over certain things for security, users, and to make folders available for viewing. Here are some pics of some menus that you will see by clicking on the menu button in the upper right corner of the programs window.
  
As you can see there are quit a few options that can be configured and once that is complete you can save it to a file so you don’t have to do it each time it is launched. This is done by the save options part of the main menu. You will also have to save the file system layout by clicking another option. I did not cover every possible option that HFS has because this is a basic over view. To learn more about it just download it and explore away. Now that the folders are added and the basics are configured you can setup users and password for the folder and access to the file server itself. This can be done by right clicking on the house icon in the file system menu on the programs main interface. Then select add users. Pics of these menus are as follows.
 
You can also make files browse able or chose to hide them. You can also assign access to each folder to different users or all users. I’m not sure if the passwords are sent encrypted or not soe I am not sure of the security of accounts. But I have used it for a long time with no problems. You can also have you logs saved to a file or just look at the scrolling window on the main interface.
HFS also has a built in HTML editor for the modification of the web site that is used to access the file server. Here is a shot of the editor, my web page for the file server, the default web page, and a pic of a player that I put in to play videos.
   
All in all this is a very good program and it keeps evolving every day. With the use of rejetto and the group of tester that are members of the forum. So if your looking for a good file server program or just want to check it out, I am sure you will like the price and functionality of this great freeware program.
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 IBM developers have come up with a new way to cool a datacenter. The system uses distilled water to cool the CPUs in the datacenter servers and then pass the heat on to another system for use in heating rooms in the building that the datacenter resides. It has a major impact on the power consumption and carbon footprint of data centers, and the way companies heat their offices. Water cooling for computer has been around for a while now, but this will definitely have a positive effect on electricity usage with the addition of reduced heating costs in the Winter months.
Prof. Dimos Poulikakos said, “With Aquasar, we make an important contribution to the development of sustainable high performance computers and computer system. In the future it will be important to measure how efficiently a computer is per watt and per gram of equivalent CO2 production.” This isn’t something that an average person will have a use for, but it is a good way to help lower the overall cost of running a large server farm.
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 Likewise Software has released a new version of its open-source authentication software for allowing Linux, Apple Macintosh and commercial Unix-based computers to hook into Microsoft Active Directory controlled servers and networks. Version 6 of this open-source software speeds the client log-on time and works better in large, complex environments, according to Gerald Carter, director of engineering for Likewise. The upgraded software also comes with an improved service manager and installation manager as well.
When installed on Macintosh, Linux or Unix computers, Likewise Open can allow users to sign onto a network whose access is controlled by Active Directory. The software also includes a management console for administrators. The client software uses the same protocols that a Windows machine would use to interact with Active Directory, including Kerberos and the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. The software recognizes all the Active Directory policies, such as the restricting of log-ins, the enforcement of password policies and the cataloguing of computers to specific domains.
Likewise Software follows the open-core model for releasing Likewise Open, in which the core authentication software is open source, but the company sells an enterprise version of the software with additional management tools. The enterprise edition has a group policy agent for managing non-Microsoft clients, as well software for auditing and reporting services for logging successful and failed log-ins. The Likewise Open core is licensed under Gnu Public License (GPL) version 2 and Lesser GPL version 2.
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Cisco announced on Tuesday a mobile collaboration business tablet. The new device, called Cius (pronounced “see-us” ), is based on Google’s open-source Android operating system and provides virtual desktop integration with Cisco’s collaboration and communications applications.
Applications Capabilities:
- 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, 3G/4G data and Bluetooth 3.0 help employees stay connected on and off-campus
- HD video (720p) with Cisco TelePresence solution interoperability for lifelike video communication with the simplicity of a phone call
- Virtual desktop client enables highly secure access to cloud-based business applications
- Android operating system, with access Android marketplace applications
- Collaboration applications including Cisco Quad, Cisco Show and Share, WebEx, Presence, and IM
Tablet Highlights:
- 7” diagonal, high-resolution color screen with contact-based touch targets delivers an elegant, intuitive experience
- HD Soundstation supports Bluetooth and USB peripherals, 10/100/1000 wired connectivity and a handset option
- Detachable and serviceable 8-hour battery for a full day of work
- Highly secure remote connections with Cisco AnyConnect Security VPN Client
- HD audio with wideband support (tablet, HD Soundstation)
Cisco Cius will support desktop virtualization. The tablet will come standard with a virtual desktop client application, so it can act as a thin client on your Cisco Collaboration Architecture. The centralized software-as-a-service deployment model provides compelling benefits, including:
• Lower hardware costs: Cloud computing eliminates the need for employees to carry around expensive laptops (and desk-bound workers to use more expensive PCs), so IT departments can replace these higher-cost clients with thin clients, which are less expensive to manage.
• Enhanced security, availability, and efficiency: Centralizing applications in the data center, instead of deploying them locally on clients, reduces security maintenance concerns and risk of intellectual property loss.
• More flexible access to computing capabilities: Getting real-time, on-demand access to business applications and the latest versions of shared documents enables anytime, anywhere collaboration. It is truly a “win-win” for IT and users.
• Controlled migration to cloud computing: You can slowly migrate to cloud computing by deploying business tablets to executives, sales representatives and knowledge workers and then expand mobility across your entire enterprise. Instead of bringing employees to where the work is, you can bring the work to where the employees are.
Virtualization is only part of the story. Cisco Cius operates on the Android operating system, so it delivers access to a diverse and ever-expanding Android developer community. Access to these applications can be open or controlled. Control mechanisms, if enabled, will allow your organization to provision the Google Android applications your users can use. The choice is yours.This is an interesting little touch pad that I am sure I will never see but you never know this may be showing up in your office in the future.
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I recently had a problem trying to get my ESX server to install patches. I used the update manager that you would install with the Virtual Infrastructure Client but it kept coming back saying that there was an error and couldn’t update my server. So after a little research I found a few ways that you can update you server without using the update manager.
The first method is to go to the VMWare update site and download the patches that you need to install. Here is the link to the update web site. From here there is a few things you can do. First you can make a directory on you ESX server and copy over the patches that you want to install. Then you simply un tar them, use the chmod command to change the permissions of the file to 755 or 777, and install using the esxupdate command in the CLI on the machine or the RCLI. You can use several programs to copy over the patches, my favorite is Veeams FastSCP, which gives you access to all of the folders on the server. Here is a screen shot of what your output should look like.
Another way that I like better is to setup an FTP or HTTP site and use a script to update your ESX server using the esxupdate command. You take all of the patches you want to install and create an FTP or HTTP site based on your preference. Once that is created you un tar all of the updates to the site keeping them in the order that they were published on the VMWare web site. Them you create a install script that will connect to the site and download and install the patches. Here is an example of the HTTP Script and here is an example of the FTP Script. I will say that this can be pretty extensive to create the script, un tar all of the patches, and then install. How ever it is a lot faster that doing each patch manually.
The last way is to use a third party patch manager such as VMTS Patch Manager. This is a Windows program that makes installing patches easier using a GUI. I like to learn how to do things myself before I go for the easy to use stuff. Anyhow here is a link to an install guide. Here is a screen shot of the user interface.
I have not had any problems with the Update Manager before, but I was thinking this is good information to know if you ESX server will not update using the GUI. So I hope this helps. Also you can check the VMWare forums for more info on this process.
The following link will open the esxupdate MAN page for syntax when editing the patch install script. Newer versions may have changes to to it that are not in the MAN page.
CLICK HERE
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SeaMicro today unveiled a new low-power server that promises to slash power costs for companies running large Internet services and cloud computing platforms. SeaMicro’s multi-core x86 server runs on Intel’s low-power Atom chips, whose energy efficiency has made them the processor of choice for many mobile phones and laptops.The power profile of the SM10000 allows SeaMicro to pack 512 Atom CPUs into a 10U server, providing the option to fit as many as 2,048 CPUs into a single seven foot, 40U rack. The company says each of its servers use less than 2 kilowatts of power, suggesting that a rack filled with SeaMicro servers can have a power load of under eight kilowatts – a manageable power load for most data centers optimized for high-density computing.
It also includes a load-balancing feature called Dynamic Compute Allocation Technology (DCAT) that provisions traffic and workloads within the SM1000. This also provides power management advantages, allowing the server to focus workloads on a set of CPUs within the server while placing other CPUs in sleep mode to preserve power. ”A utilization threshold for a pool of compute can be set, and if met, CPUs can be dynamically added or removed from the pool,” SeaMicro says in its system overview.
 
System Details
Compute: In the SM10000, the basic building block is a credit cardsized
compute block, comprised of an Intel Atom CPU and its chipset,
DRAM, and a custom SeaMicro ASIC. All the other components normally
found on a standard motherboard have been removed by a patented
hardware-based CPU I/O virtualization technology. Eight of these
credit card-size blocks fit on a 5 x 11 inch motherboard (see figure
above); 64 of these hot-pluggable motherboards are packed into a 10
rack unit SM10000, for a total system density of 512 Atom CPUs.
Fabric Technology: SeaMicro has developed interconnect fabric
technology capable of linking together hundreds of these credit
card-sized compute building blocks. The fabric is contructed by
linking SeaMicro ASICs in a multi-dimensional torus. The fabric is
FLIT-based and wormhole routed, with integrated virtual channel
technology. The fabric has the ability to transmit and receive different
classes of traffic enabling both loss sensitive storage and loss
insensitive Ethernet traffic to be transferred on a single infrastructure.
These technologies combine to produce resilient, low-latency,
high-bandwidth links at very low cost while providing 1.28 terabitsper-
second of fabric bandwidth.
Storage and Disk:
The SeaMicro SM10000 can be configured with
0 to 64 2.5 inch SATA hard disk drives (HDD) or solid state drives
(SSD). The 512 CPUs in the system can be allocated portions of a disk
or whole disks. A physical disk (HDD or SSD) can be divided into
multiple virtual disks – from 2GB to the maximum capacity of the
disk – and assigned to one or more CPUs. Data resiliency is maintained
by marking a disk to be part of a RAID pool or by assigning
multiple disks to a CPU. The system can be configured to run with or
without disk, ensuring the flexibility to appropriately provision storage
for the desired applications.
A disk (either physical or virtual) can be configured to be in
“write” mode for one server and “read-only” mode for the other 511
servers, allowing users to store “read-only” copies of data to be
shared among multiple processors. Multiple “read-only” disks can
be created for redundancy or for different pools of CPUs. This
“read-only” disk enables data center operators to update software
for the entire system by updating the software just once – a huge
operational advantage over existing systems where an update is
required for each individual server.
Ethernet Uplinks:
SeaMicro Ethernet uplink cards provide uplinks
from the supercompute fabric to the external data center network
via 1 Gigabit Ethernet or 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. The interfaces
support link aggregation (IEEE 802.3ad) with LACP both
within and across I/O cards, providing redundancy against link and
I/O card failure. In the SM10000, inter-server communication traffic
remains on the fabric and does not consume any uplink bandwidth,
enabling customers to configure uplinks to their core switches
based on the desired bandwidth.
The uplink cards also include a management processor and provide
a range of value-added features never before included in a server. For
example, algorithms running on the management processor and dedicated
hardware can implement MAC aggregation and hiding. This
enables the system to be configured to expose as few as one and as
many as 64 MAC addresses while continuing to provide an IP address
and a MAC address to each CPU (or virtual machine instance).
This isn’t something the average guy can use but it will sure help data centers reduce their power usage while maintaining a high level of availability and performance.
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Yesterday I was reading an interesting article on ZDnet that talked about Gentoo Linux being infected with malware. Not just from a download but it was included in the distribution its self. The malicious code was found in the unrealircd tarball. This back door exploit has been out there for more than 7 months. This is an indicator of the need for better malware protection on the Linux platform. This begs the question. what other back doors are in open source that we just haven’t found yet? Anyhow this will not stop me from using Linux, it will just make me a little more mindful of that the possibility is out there. I do run anti virus on my Linux servers and try to secure them as good as possible. So just something to think about, and we all know that not all computer geeks love to push the limit. Some just like to cause destruction. Check out the full article at:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/linux-infection-proves-windows-malware-monopoly-is-over-gentoo-ships-backdoor-updated/2206?tag=nl.e539
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PC that’s still reminiscent of the PC’s primordial, text-based beginnings, but the familiarly-clunky BIOS could soon be on its deathbed, according to MSI. The motherboard maker says it’s now making a big shift towards point and click UEFI systems, and it’s all going to kick off at the end of this year.
The first new UEFI products will be based on Intel’s Sandy Bridge chipset, spanning the whole field from entry-level boards to high-end kit. The company says that it expects the boards to be introduced towards the end of this year, and into early 2011. The company says “We won’t consider UEFI as an expensive premium feature but as a must-have for everyone!” UEFI (universal extensible firmware interface) is a continuation of Intel’s original EFI project, which was designed to replace the BIOS with a user-friendly point-and-click interface, as well as addressing many other troublesome areas of the PC’s legacy.
A UEFI system replaces the text-based BIOS with a user-friendly point and click system. Also “UEFI doesn’t support every board; you have to use certain code with certain motherboards.” Motherboard companies spend a lot of time developing their own features and technology that distinguish their motherboards from those of the competition. If these features are designed to interface with the code in a traditional BIOS, then they may not be able to communicate with a UEFI system.
The main difference between a traditional BIOS and UEFI is programming. UEFI is written in C, rather than the assembly code used in a traditional BIOS. However, this means that there’s much more flexibility with the code.
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