Ferminator's Weblog

Hello world!

ferminator — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:03:08 +0000

How about that – it even blogs automatically. This is done in IE8, by the way. Most of the interface looks what it’s supposed to. I think.

Vista SP1: Changes to mstsc.exe

ferminator — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:08:00 +0000

Just a heads up if you’re used to “mstsc /v:server /w:1024 /h:768 /console” like I am. It seems someone at MS thought it would be a good idea to change “console” to “admin”. I’m sure there’s a good reason; you let me know as soon as you’ve found it…

PowerShell V2 … but not for everyone

ferminator — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:54:00 +0000

Coming soon … PowerShell V2 CTP. But:

The PowerShell V2 CTP is not for everyone. You should read this PowerShell Team blog entry ( http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShell/archive/2007/11/02/ctp-watch-this-space.aspx ) to find out what it is and what it isn’t and then make an informed decision before installing the CTP.

Most important note: The current version of Powershell, V1, and this CTP will NOT run side by side on the same machine. You’ll actually have to uninstall V1 in order to be able to install V2 CTP. Don’t ask me why this is so, since from what I meant to have understood about PowerShell is that this should be possible. It probably will be possible with V1 RTM (what we have now) and V2 RTM (what we’ll have in a few weeks/months). Just not yet.

I’ll be in Barcelona next week, attending the IT Forum as an MCT Ambassador. As soon as I get more details, and if allowed to, I’ll post here.

We are not amused

ferminator — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 13:59:00 +0000

For some years now I’ve been a MS certified professional, having taken different tests that earned me the MCSE, MCSA, MCDBA etc. I’m also an MCT, certified to teach official Microsoft curriculum courses. A few months ago, MS Learning announced they would go single provider for their testing. Unfortunately, they didn’t choose the far, far better provider VUE; instead they decided to go with Prometric. This provoked quite an outcry in the community, since Prometric over the last ten years has constantly come in second (and they were only so good because there were only VUE and them).

I’m not thrilled, and I continue being appalled by the way both MSL and Prometric are handling this. See also Thomas Lee’s blog<http://tfl09.blogspot.com/2007/09/prometric-testing-and-assessment-blog.html> about how Prometric “really listens” to us.

Windows Vista SP1 is coming…

ferminator — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:22:00 +0000

See here<http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/pages/windows-vista-service-pack-1-beta-whitepaper.aspx> for an overview of what to expect. And check this out:BenefitsTradeoffsThe standalone service pack will include all languages. It can update all PCs running Windows Vista -regardless of language[2]<http://windowsvistablog.com/ControlPanel/Blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=NewPage&bpt=2#_ftn2>.Componentization brings benefits such as the ability to uninstall updates in any order more reliably.The standalone package will be large (1 GB for x86).Installing the service pack will require a large amount of free disk space (7 GB for x86 and 12 GB for x64). However, most of this space will be reclaimed after installation.SP1 will improve the performance, reliability, and other areas of Windows Vista.Windows Vista contains a significant amount of files shared with Windows Server 2008 and therefore benefits from the continual improvements made during the Windows Server 2008 development cycle.[3]<http://windowsvistablog.com/ControlPanel/Blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=NewPage&bpt=2#_ftn3>SP1 will change a significant number of files; customers cannot apply SP1 to offline Windows Vista images.1 GB to download, and up to 12 GB of free space required on the system partition, at least during the installation… I can hear the screaming starting already.

iPhone hacking in Switzerland

ferminator — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:53:00 +0000

Yes, of course you’ll need a Swiss Army knife. And about 6 hours of your time.

Under The Stairs: Vista Patches – Mini SP1??

ferminator — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:09:00 +0000

See Thomas Lee’s post: Under The Stairs: Vista Patches – Mini SP1??. No, it’s not SP1 (yet), but it looks like those patches should have been in there from the beginning.

Vista Media Center and DVB-S

ferminator — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 16:17:00 +0000

Ok, so this (DVB-S) isn’t officially supported. Having said that, though, I got my shiny new Vista Ultimate based Media Center up and running using two Hauppauge PVR-4000 cards. See here (sorry, only in german at the moment).

Now wouldn’t it be nice, since the card is a “hybrid” (meaning analogue cable, DVB-T and DVB-S), being able to use all 3 methods? Apparently that’s not how things work in Media Center. I’ve got an idea or two and will keep you posted in case I figure it out…

Kissing MS Virtual Server goodbye

ferminator — Tue, 22 May 2007 09:09:00 +0000

I’ve decided to set my main focus for virtualization on VMWare rather than its MS counterpart(s). Part of it was a quite snobby answer from MS support one day about virtualization of 64bit machines. I’m sitting in a class at the moment (it’s PR slides time, so I can justify spending a few seconds with this) and so far, I like it. More to come …

Honeymoon – back

ferminator — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 14:10:00 +0000

_DSC1693
Originally uploaded by Ferminator.

Back from New Zealand and Thailand, I’m afraid. We spent our honeymoon in NZ, driving around the North and South for 3 weeks (so now we know where we’ll spend more time the next time we visit) and relaxing 10 days in Bangkok (not) and Koh Samui (very much). See also http://familiesanchez.blogspot.com for some more pictures, and of course http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferminator for the whole lot of them. A little bit of patience with flickr, though, since I have to upload about 1000 pics and being on ADSL, uploading is not that fast.