daemon.child

I have a template virtual machine created in Fusion that I'd like to share with a colleague. If this was an ESX virtual machine, I'd probably export it as an OVF file. In Fusion, it has been a tricky thing to do. Until now. Version 3.1 includes the OVF Tool if you know now to install it.

Yesterday, I upgraded to Fusion 3.1 on my MacBook. The upgrade was easy and painless. When I started up my Windows VM this morning, as expected VMware Tools began to automatically update itself.

When the vCentre Windows service starts, it tries to connect to its database. If the database is ready, then that's fine. If the database isn't properly started, then vCentre fails. Unfortunately,this is the usual case when you install the SQL database and vCentre on the same operating system. You reboot vCentre and it fails to start up automatically; you have to go and start the 'Virtual Center' service yourself. That's just rubbish.

In one weeks time, I'll be picking up my P45 and leaving my current employer to head on to pastures new. There. I said it. But I'm not really supposed to. I've been asked to keep quiet about it in the office. As I doubt many of my colleagues ever read my blog, I think I'm safer posting it here than on my Facebook profile!

Park 10 meters from a vertical wall on flat ground. measure the height from the ground to the centre of your headlight lens. Subtract 10 cm and mark this new height on the wall. This mark should be the level of the horizontal part of the beam pattern, with the angled section kicking up about 30 degrees to the side. The point where the beam pattern shifts from horizontal to upwards should be directly infront of each lens. Its easier to do 1 lamp at a time so you can see the pattern clearly - cover the other light with a rag. (dave21478, TMF)

To centralised your steering rack,lift up the carpet and on the passenger side there is a hole through which the rack can be accessed (hole might still have a bung in it).Looking through the hole there will be a little plastic stopper in the rack,take this out and use a dowel of some sort (a drill bit is ideal about 5-6mm i think) put in the place of the bung,turn the steering wheel (or probably road wheels in your case) slightly to find the centre and the dowel should drop into place. (taken from rosco454, TMF)

Also:

On one of my recent courses a delegate noted that a full format doesn't inflate a thin disk. I've got an answer for him in this article. First, let's prove what he saw.

This article shows you how to clear the unused disk blocks inside a VMDK file in order to improve the efficiency of thin provisioning and virtual machine backups. We'll cover both Windows and Linux virtual machines. Before we get started on the 'how to' section, I think it's important to understand why we need to do this at all. What difference will this process make and why do you care?

Last night my mum asked me how she should best share photos with my aunt. Actually, she requested to be told how to create a zip file so that she could send photos by email. I'll show how to do that of course, but I'll also give some alternatives.

It is prescient that I was about to post the following, another one of my old blog entries, when I received a Skype message from a client who has lost the password to a Nokia. The password reset procedure requires local console access, so is secured by the usual physical access protections that should be applied to all comms rooms.

Remember that the following was originally written in 1999 and has been updated only a little bit for this blog. How many other IT manufacturers can reference consistency over ten years? Anyway...