ESXi is Sexy

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On Monday I started playing with VMWare's ESXi server, which is now a free product. Despite their colossal screw-up yesterday, I'm loving this product. I've tried several other server & client virtrualization products in the past, but this is the first server product I've really loved. Installation was simple, it took me maybe 10-15 minutes on my Dell R905 server, and performance has been fantastic. I'm sure I'll find something else to hate about it later, but so far, I'm questioning if I'll ever want any non-virtual servers again...

Problems with Samsung BD-P1200 and Weeds Blu-ray discs

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We tried to watch Weeds Season 2 last night on my Samsung BD-P1200 Blu-ray player, but the disc wouldn't work the second time we tried to play it, though it had worked fine the first time (though the menus were really slow).  After much cussing, cleaning of the immaculate disc, and scratching my head, and rebooting of my player, I found this thread at AVSForum that indicates I'm not alone.  Hopefully Samsung will fix this with a firmware update soon to fix this issue.  In the mean time, I'll just be thankful that I rented the disc from Netflix, and I'm not stuck owning this turkey.

Asking the Oracle

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My new mantra is that the only people who complain about Microsoft software are people who haven't had to deal with Oracle software.  I've spent the last couple days attempting to install version 10g of their Calendar software, as we're currently running an ancient version.  It takes real talent to screw up software this much.  In version 5.4, you double click an .exe file and 2 minutes later you have a working server.  Version 10 requires you to put the software on the web, as they've removed the handy GUI administration app, and replace it with...well... I'll let you know if I ever get to see it, but it's supposed to be a web administration app.  I should have brought a book with me to work, to read in between updates from "Bob", the Oracle Support guy in India who's helping me.

Free upgrade

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While on our trip to Europe, my old Canon PowerShot S230 digital camera suffered an image sensor failure.   I'd given it to Holly to use when I got my new Nikon Coolpix 5200 a couple of years ago, which she promptly claimed as her own when the Canon died.  When I got back to the States, I found out that the image sensor failure was a "known issue" and that Canon would fix the camera for free, even though it was looong out of warranty.  Yesterday, I drove to the Fed Ex depot in Waterloo to pick up the camera ("In-Person Signature Required"), and discovered that Canon upgraded me from my old 3.2 Megapixel camera to a refurbished 5.0 Megapixel SD400.  Fortunately, I even had a spare 2GB SD card on hand, so I wasn't even miffed about having my old Compact Flash card now rendered useless...

Pardon our dust...

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This site is being slowly reassembled on my new hosting provider, but it's going to take some time to get everything reassembled.  I need to pick a design theme for this blog, upload all the old HTML files generated by Movable Type, and figure out what I'm going to do with Holly's blog that was here too. The rest of the static files are easy to upload, but I'm very tempted to re-do the whole site... If only I had the time...