VM /ETC makes Top Ten Blogs that VMware Administrators must read!

Posted on July 16th, 2008 in blogs, vmetc.com by Rich

Eric Siebert has listed VM /ETC as one of the Top 10 Blogs that VMware Administrators must read! I am honored to have this site listed among my favorite virtualization bloggers. Be sure to check out Eric’s entire list and update your bookmarks and RSS feeds with all 10 links.

By the way, Eric’s virtualization knowledge base at vmware-land.com and his posts at Tech Target’s SearchVmware.com are also highly recommended reading for virtualization professionals!

Thanks Eric!

How to check if your CPU supports hardware virtualization

Posted on July 14th, 2008 in how to, vmetc.com by Rich

If you are planning on re-purposing some of your existing server hardware to run the latest virtualization products or to take advantage of modern hardware optimizations for virtual hosts and machines, you need to be able to determine which of your servers already have Intel-VT or AMD-V features. Here are some utilities and commands you can use to check from both Windows and Linux operating systems.

Picking a Hotel for VMworld 2008

Posted on July 3rd, 2008 in vmetc.com, vmworld by Rich

This week I’ve been researching and planning my trip to Las Vegas, NV for VMWorld 2008, and I wanted to share some of my findings. Specifically, I’ve been trying to make the decision to book a room for the week at one of the official conference hotels listed on the VMworld 2008 web site or try finding a better deal on my own. I figured what I have discovered could possibly be helpful for at least a few of the 10,000 to 12,000 other conference attendees.

Basically, my hotel decision has come down to 2 important factors:

  1. The proximity of my hotel to the Venetian (where the conference takes places) and the logistics of getting back and forth.
  2. Finding a “wife-worthy” hotel that is affordable and agreeable to my company.

Hotel Logistics

What if? VDI and Mobile Phone Virtualization

Posted on June 20th, 2008 in news, vdi, vmetc.com by Rich

Businessweek.com reported back in April about how VirtualLogix’s Peter Richards is building a virtualization layer for mobile phones. Virtualization Goes Mobile explains that just like virtualization for the computer, a phone could use virtualization software to simultaneously host multiple operating systems such as RIMM, Symbian, Windows Mobile, or Google Android. Assuming VirtualLogix can work out each individual operating system’s dependencies on their current physical hardware device (qwerty keyboard, touch screens, etc.), imagine finally being able to have just one smart phone on your belt.

So, while we’re fantasizing about the possibility let’s not stop there.

San Diego Media Blog

Posted on May 16th, 2008 in partner, vmetc.com, vmware by Rich

I wanted to share some of my photos from my week in San Diego at VMware Partner Exchange 2008. I have some panoramic shots of San Diego by night and day, a shot from the bay of the Sheraton Hotel and Marina, as well as photos from the party at the Wavehouse. I took some time after the conference ended Thursday afternoon to take a harbor cruise. The San Diego Harbor Excursion offers 1 hour tours of both the North and South Bay, and luckily I had time to take the full tour.

I used Google’s Picasa to create a quick collage of some of my favorite shots of the week.

This post also has a short video of the surfers performing for us in the Bruticus Maximus wave machine at the event party. Enjoy!

Things that make you go hmmmm - May 16, 2008

Posted on May 16th, 2008 in vmetc.com by Rich

I’ve listed 3 quick links that made me grin this week. Hopefully they will do the same for you!

VM /ETC IE font and pics problem fixed .. I think

Posted on May 14th, 2008 in vmetc.com by Rich

I finally got to the bottom of the weird, bold, font problem and the missing pictures on the home page of my site when using Internet Explorer. Turns out that a plug in, In Series, was part of the issue. I removed the plug in and the home page looks normal again in IE6. I tested IE7 too, and the fonts are fixed but the “Latest” post now seems to be disappearing. Scrolling down the page and then back up again will occasionally make the first post appear again. The missing pics were fixed by an upgrade to my theme.

All flavors of Firefox have always worked perfectly. So, I guess you could say my site is optimized for Firefox!

Let me know if you see any other issues with other browsers too.

Thanks for putting up with the IE problems, and thanks for reading VM /ETC.

DRS and Power Management under the hood of my Prius

Posted on May 8th, 2008 in drs, vmetc.com by Rich

I ended up with a Toyota Prius as my rental car for the week in San Diego. I’ve never driven a Prius before, and honestly, I’ve never really had an interest in the car until now. Like most, I knew that the Prius uses a Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD) engine, but I had no idea about all the cool technology built into making the car so efficient. As a matter of fact, the Prius engine technology is in some ways similar to the Distributed Resource Scheduling and Power Management features of VI3 Enterprise.

According to wikipedia’s page about the HSD:

San Diego here I come

Posted on May 4th, 2008 in VAC, home, partner, vmetc.com by Rich

San Diego from Google EarthI am headed to San Diego today for VMware Partner Exchange 2008. It should be another great week of learning and networking. I am looking forward most to the hands on labs for Site Recovery Manager, ESXi, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, and Lab Manager. There is also separate technical solution tracks for beginner, intermediate, and advanced breakout sessions. The exhibit pavillion, called the VMware Experience, sounds interesting too. Quoting the event website:

Things that make you go hmmmm - May 2, 2008

Posted on May 2nd, 2008 in vmetc.com by Rich

Just one entry this week. Take a side. Were we better off with the virtualization available 20 years ago, or are we better off today? Has it even changed at all? Justify the current technologies in the modern data center.

Put VM info on the desktop with BGInfo

Posted on May 1st, 2008 in how to, vmetc.com by Rich

BGInfo Vista desktop screenshotDuncan’s post Show VMware Tools version with BGInfo at yellow-bricks.com not only taught me something new about using BGInfo with virtual machines, but it also inspired me to expand on how useful this tool is when administrating your virtual infrastructure. The utility is not new. Most administrators already know about BGInfo and many use it on both physical and virtual servers. However, I too often find the tool is installed but not correctly configured to update the desktop data correctly. In this post I will explain how to make sure that BGInfo updates the data on the desktop every time an administrator logs on, and I will also explore how to mass deploy a customized configuration.

First, for those that may not know about BGInfo,

Things that make you go hmmmm - April 25, 2008

Posted on April 25th, 2008 in blogs, hyper-v, microsoft, vmetc.com by Rich

This weeks edition is centered on the topic of quick migration versus VMware HA and VMotion. We start with a post from the Windows Virtualization Team’s blog site and then explore some responses from a couple popular blogs in the virtualization community. Finally, if you have not seen Microsoft’s Quick Migration in action then check out the video at the end of this post. Links to the full posts are provided by clicking the section titles. Enjoy!

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