I have a a disorder when it comes to my home lab. I always have to try something else, whether it’s the latest technology or just something “I’ve wanted to try”. This leads to a lot of reinstalling servers and networks. This is not all bad as I learn best by doing. This time I wanted to revamp my lab virtualization. Read more
My Letter to the FCC
Dear Mr. Pai,
While I hold no illusions that you will change your mind, I urge you to at least think about what the Internet means to people, not just corporations. The Internet is no longer a technical experiment or a mere commercial venture to sell goods and content. It is part of the fabric of our society, much in the same way highways, roads and utilities are important to our society and economy. Whether for good or bad, it is becoming more difficult to function in society without touching the Internet in some way. Read more
Mac Guest User And the Pet Semetary
Well, this killed an hour this morning. So I ran some Mac updates the other day and now every time I (re)start my Mac, the Guest user shows up as one of the user choices even though it was disabled. I’m running OSX El Capitan and using FileVault and it looks like some weird bug with the EFI implementation. So at least there is a fix found by someone much smarted than I in the weird way of Macs. Here is the fix on StackExchange…
Windows – Can’t delete local printer port
Another reason I hate dealing with MS. I have had this issue with every version of Windows as far back as I can remember so obviously they will never fix the code. So, you want to reconfigure a non-working printer or remove an old entry in the printer server “Ports” tab. But Windows won’t let you – it says that the “Resource is in use.” Huh? I deleted the printer, now I just want to delete the local/TCP port. Turns out there might have been old jobs sticking around and they need to be cleared out first. Uggh.
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/w/printers/18.delete-print-jobs
This isn’t my solution, but I just want to give a shout out to the guy who posted it and hopefully one extra link will give him that much more Google ranking cred.
WordPress Auto Updates
There has been a lot already posited on this subject, but in my corner of the WP world I figured I’d throw in my $0.02. As someone who has been involved with IT for some time now, I’m well versed on the double-edged blade that is auto-updates. On one hand it offers a respite for weary, overworked tech folk, but on the other hand updates are no different from the rest of the software development process – bugs are inevitable and bad things can happen. Read more
Virtualization – Still Rollin’
Almost There
Virtualization has been near and ear to my heart ever since I started using VMware workstation in the late ’90s. I’m sure the ol’ mainframe guys are thinking “pffft, boy, I’ve been virtualizing my *nix and VMS/VAX instances while you were plinking away on your Apple IIe in middle school.” Which is one reason I keep this Dilbert comic on my board at work:
Wireless Mesh (almost there…)
Overview
I’ve been testing a wireless mesh system for the past few weeks and thought I’d post my thoughts. The system I’ve been testing is the Open-Mesh, and more specifically the OM1P which is a pretty slick little device. For those unfamiliar with the Open-Mesh products, it is designed to be a plug-n-play “public” wi-fi setup, but with an extra twist – these things all talk to one another and create a wireless mesh which allows anyone to quickly setup wi-fi hotspots. Read more