Full Posts from Current Stories Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:14:17 -0400 http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8PZV9GNoneKen K. Yeehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8PZV9Ghttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8PZV9GI've been using VMs quite a bit lately and one thing that has always bugged me is how big a standard installation of XP/Vista/Windows7 is.  You're in a VM where the devices are pretty much standard...there's no need for all the device drivers.  I don't care about media center either...or even loading the old version of MSIE.  I found a few useful tools to shrink these installs down as well as a few other useful links after the break... ]]>Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:14:17 -04000http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/CommentsRSS?Open&id=379E7C0D8E4A971E85257975007FA904http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/PostComment?RunAgent&id=379E7C0D8E4A971E85257975007FA904http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8P95MHFunKen K. Yeehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8P95MHhttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8P95MHI didn't think this was possible given all the negative reports I'd seen on this, but apparently Intel's open source efforts have paid off with their built-in HD3000 graphics core.  My new MythTV frontend/backend machine seems to work fine w/ a few minor changes to MythBuntu 11.10.  More after the jump...
]]>Sun, 4 Dec 2011 22:04:43 -04002http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/CommentsRSS?Open&id=8C761D1826E7E1DE8525795D000A1F9Dhttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/PostComment?RunAgent&id=8C761D1826E7E1DE8525795D000A1F9Dhttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8LJQMGWebKen K. Yeehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8LJQMGhttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8LJQMGSince this took a while to find, I thought it was worth a blog post in case anyone else runs into it.  When you use BadBoy to capture a script for JMeter, it sets the HTTP Request implementation to Java, which does have limitations, and to Redirect Automatically instead of Follow Redirects.  The problem with this, if you use cookies for session logins, is that most login implementations will do a redirect (302) after the post w/ the username/password and this redirect contains the session cookies (.ASPXFORMSAUTH in ASP.Net) that are set during the redirect to indicate the user is "logged in" and JMeter will only read these cookies into the Cookie Manager if you have Follow Redirects turned on:

Oddly enough, you can also set the HTTP Request implementation to HttpClient4 and it will work fine no matter which checkbox is selected.  The checkbox should really be a radiobutton instead too, but that's a JMeter UI quirk

You also have to set the HTTP Cookie Manager to Compatibility mode (it defaults to RFC2109 which doesn't always handle cookies properly because not all web servers follow those guidelines):

]]>Fri, 9 Sep 2011 15:17:27 -04001http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/CommentsRSS?Open&id=EB27D987054A8495852579060068EC9Chttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/PostComment?RunAgent&id=EB27D987054A8495852579060068EC9Chttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8KMQQLAndroidKen K. Yeehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8KMQQLhttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8KMQQLAnd Google wonders why there's fragmentation of devices and lack of tablet apps :-P

When Honeycomb was first released, they released the interesting concept of Fragments (conceptually like Portlets in the web world) for developing your UI.  This made it harder for app developers because they would have to build a separate tablet version of their app and a different phone version of their app since this new API wasn't for older phone based Android versions.  Google released the promised Android Compatibility Library (ACL) that was meant to address the lack of Fragments API in phone apps, however, this library isn't complete for all the common UI features in Honeycomb.  Most notably, the very useful ActionBar (conceptually like a toolbar in desktop apps) is not supported, so you almost have to rip all the support out of your code to get it to compile for phones, unless you use AndroidBarSherlock which Jake Wharton was nice enough to build on top of ACL (though it doesn't support ActionMode which let you make the ActionBar context sensitive). ]]>Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -04001http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/CommentsRSS?Open&id=35B7C6BBF7203F5D852578E900660E0Ahttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/PostComment?RunAgent&id=35B7C6BBF7203F5D852578E900660E0Ahttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8KDP7HWindowsKen K. Yeehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8KDP7Hhttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8KDP7HWow...it really is a minimal install.  I got it to a minimal 3.7GB VM file (compared to about 14GB for a Win2008 Standard install) by doing the reboot/compact trick (after the files are installed by the installer, reboot using the CD and go to Repair mode to get a command line and execute "\windows\system32\compact.exe /c /s /i" to compact everything on the C: drive).
After the first Windows Update, you can also delete all the files out of the download cache which is in \windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download (why Windows doesn't do this automatically after it installs them, I have no idea)-:
If you had IE installed (not installed if you installed Core server), you can also disable IE ESC by doing "“\Windows\system32\rundll32.exe” \Windows\system32\iesetup.dll,IEShowHardeningDialog" to bring up the dialog or you can do it the hard way by mucking with the registry.  If you don't do this, you get all sorts of aggravating behavior like not being able run executables off a network share, not being able browse any untrusted sites, etc.  Unfortunately, this doesn't affect .msi files which cannot be run off network shares.
And if you don't want to remember all the arcane (yes, arcane, and I'm very used to using Linux so I actually like command line tools) Win2008 Core commands, you can grab CoreConfigurator to make your life easier.  Win2008 Core isn't really command line because it brings up the graphics subsystem).
Install vim (add it to the path by modifying the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment), wget and KpyM SSH and allow ssh through the Windows Firewall (netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="SSH" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=22) and you're all set for remote admin of a minimal server.
]]>Wed, 3 Aug 2011 14:03:56 -04000http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/CommentsRSS?Open&id=001BCD2DCAF7BE13852578E100613675http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/PostComment?RunAgent&id=001BCD2DCAF7BE13852578E100613675http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8K53ZQNoneKen K. Yeehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8K53ZQhttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8K53ZQI wanted to test clustering of Domino 8.5.3 and Centos 6.0 was just released so I thought I'd see how well that worked in a VM.  It turned out to be a lot more painful than expected, so I'm documenting this in case anyone else tries this :-P ]]>Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:41:52 -04002http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/CommentsRSS?Open&id=E69DE4565417637A852578D90006EA98http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/PostComment?RunAgent&id=E69DE4565417637A852578D90006EA98http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8JMQEHGeneralKen K. Yeehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8JMQEHhttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8JMQEHIn the quest for a chair that feels comfortable for 8+ hour days of computer usage, I stumbled on reviews of SmartMotion Technology's SwingChair and decided to try it because of the unusual concept of a chair without seat/seatback tilt locks.  It's one of the few chairs I think would work well for people who are sitters and perchers. ]]>Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -04000http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/CommentsRSS?Open&id=83E5D14B50907442852578C90067567Ehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/PostComment?RunAgent&id=83E5D14B50907442852578C90067567Ehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8JK348TechnologyKen K. Yeehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8JK348http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8JK348I've never heard anyone mention tweaking things to make your SSD better, so thought it'd be good to list these suggestions from an Intel Insight article:
- Turn off defragging (Windows 7 does this automatically but not older OSes)
- Turn off SuperFetch (SSDs are fast enought that it doesn't matter and wastes memory; Windows 7 turns it off automatically)
- Don't bother with ReadyBoost (SSDs are faster than USB flash drives)
- Disable system indexing (SSDs are fast enough that it doesn't matter...I always turn it off because it's a resource hog
- Disable System Restore (wastes 15% of space on your SSD)
- Disable hibernation (SSDs boot up a lot faster than regular drives)
- Remap My Documents and user directories to your hard disk if you use one w/ the SSD
- Change your BIOS storage mode from IDE to AHCI before installing Windows (enables TRIM support so the SSD doesn't get worn out quickly)
]]>Thu, 7 Jul 2011 20:54:41 -04000http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/CommentsRSS?Open&id=657420DE7B340297852578C70004247Chttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/PostComment?RunAgent&id=657420DE7B340297852578C70004247Chttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8HZ3KSIBM/LotusKen K. Yeehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8HZ3KShttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8HZ3KS The short summary is that this is a book that gives you guidelines for developing Domino web applications the non-XPages way (introducted in Domino 8.5), and gives you pointers to where you can look for more information, but isn't a "cookbook" kind of book with a lot of samples.  It's targeted at Domino developers who are new to web development on Domino, but are decent at HTML/CSS, and Javascript.
]]>Sun, 19 Jun 2011 21:19:35 -04001http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/CommentsRSS?Open&id=FA246768EF5598CD852578B5000451F9http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/PostComment?RunAgent&id=FA246768EF5598CD852578B5000451F9http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8HQSYKFunKen K. Yeehttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8HQSYKhttp://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/d6plinks/KKYE-8HQSYKYou'd think Scott Adams would sell these by now, but noooooo :-P  I needed one for a friend's recent MBA graduation gift, so had to make my own.  Thought I'd document it since I couldn't find anything Googling for it. ]]>Sat, 11 Jun 2011 17:17:37 -04001http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/CommentsRSS?Open&id=95293C135E6D930D852578AC007432E5http://www.keysolutions.com/blogs/kenyee.nsf/PostComment?RunAgent&id=95293C135E6D930D852578AC007432E5