Monthly Archives: February 2011

Aligning VM Partitions Without Losing Data

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If you align your virtual disks the performance of your VM:s increases. The only problem is when you have a n already installed VM that doesn’t have aligned disks.

Do you really want to create a new VM with aligned disks and then install the OS, VMware tools, applications etc?

I found a great guide on how to align partitions without losing data on tuxyturvy.com.

It basically boils down to the following:

1.  Make sure the disk is defragmented
2.  Boot the system with the Gparted live CD.
3.  Select the parition you are wanting to resize and choose (Move/Resize)
4.  Shrink the volume by some amount, the smaller you shrink it the faster it will copy during the move step.  I usually shrink it a GB or so larger than the amount of data on the drive.
5.  Move the partition to right by a few MB’s to free up space at the start of the disk.
6.  Once the move completes, exit Gparted, not the entire live CD, just the Gparted application
7.  Start the terminal window on the live CD
8.  In the command window type ‘parted /dev/sda’ (substitute your actual device here) to start the command line parted editor
9.  Create a new partition at the start of the disk to fill in the space up to the section where you want to align your parition.  For example, if you want your system partition to start at sector 128, create a very small partition that takes up space from sectors 63-127.  The command would be something like this:

mkpart primary 63s 127s

This tells parted to create a new primary partition from sector 63 to sector 127.  That means the very next sector available is 128, a stripe aligned partition.  You may want a different start sector based on your array (some use 64K, some 128K, some bigger) but I’ve found the 128K alignment to work well with both 64K (Equallogic) and 128K (EMC Clariiion) stripe sizes.

10.  Exit parted and restart the Gparted GUI by clicking the Gparted icon.
11.  Use the Move/Resize option to resize the NTFS partition to fill the entire remaining space.  As pointed out by several users, you MUST uncheck the “Round to Cylinders” option prior to this.  I guess I thought this was obvious since we’re trying to align to a specific sector but that’s why I’m not a documentation writer.
12.  Exit gparted, run parted again, remove the small partition you created earlier and reboot.

ZoomIt, a great tool for Windows presentations

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Last week I cama across a great little Windows application, ZoomIT.

It’s a small, free app that let’s you zoom in and draw on the screen. Simply put: awesome! :)

ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image. I wrote ZoomIt to fit my specific needs and use it in all my presentations.

ZoomIt works on all versions of Windows and you can use pen input for ZoomIt drawing on tablet PCs.

Download it here.

Fix: Bootcamp system time issues

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I’ve had some time problems with my bootcamp installation. When boot in back in to Mac OS X after using my bootcamp partition the system time is +1 hour in Mac OS X.

This was quite annoying..

But after some searching I’ve found a solution on forums.macrumors.com.

  1. Boot up your bootcamp partition and logon to your Windows instalaltion
  2. Open Regedit with administrative rights
  3. Create a new DWORD string value called RealTimeIsUniversal in:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > TimeZoneInformation
  4. Open Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Services (or “manage computer” and go to services) and select apple time service. set this to be DISABLED.
  5. Done

This will prevent Apple Time Service to “sync” the time on your Bootcamp partition an Mac OS X, wich it does poorly.

Linked: GParted 0.8 can recover data from lost partitions

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GParted is an extremely handy LiveCD to keep in your technician’s toolbox, and its new version features one very major addition: GParted 0.8 can now help you recover data from lost partitions. After analyzing your drive and doing its best to resurrect missing information from the partition table, GParted will now let you mount partitions it finds in read-only mode so you can copy your data to another drive.

via GParted 0.8 can recover data from lost partitions.

How to import/export files to/from a Sharepoint server

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I found a great way to migrate all your files from a Sharepoint server. I have kind of had it with Sharepoint, at least for small installations. (You can read more about my new setup in How I built a Apache front-end for a Windows Share with SSL and LDAP Authentication)

The problem came up when I wanted to export all the files form the Sharepoint server. My first instinct was to open Sharepoint in Windows Explorer. But it kept throwing me the “your client does not support opening this list with windows explorer” when I tried to open the Sharepoint in Windows Explorer.

I was almost ready to give up when i found SPIEFolder. A great little application that did exactly what I wanted. I just downloaded is and ran it on the Sharepoint server, 2 minutes later the Sharepoint was exported.

….If only Microsoft could write tools like this. ;)

Introduction

Allows you to either Import a file system folder (And all files and subfolders) into a SharePoint Document Library, and also export a SharePoint Document Library to the file system for WSS 2.0/SPS2003 or WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007. This tool completely replicates the a document libraries folder hierarchy to the file system when exporting, and replicates the folder hierarchy from the file system to the document library when importing.

Importing

The folder can be imported into a Document Library using the following syntax (Note the “import” argument: Example usage:

spiefolder http://krichiemoss "Shared Documents" c:\spiefolder\SeedFiles import

The end result is that the file system folder and complete contents and folder hierarchy is created in the document library on SharePoint

Exporting

To export a SharePoint Document Library to the file system, and replicate it’s folder hierarchy and contents, simply list the sites URL, List Name to read contents from, and File System path to export to. (It is not necessary to supply the optional “export” keyword as it is the default operation.

Example usage:

spiefolder http://krichiemoss "Shared Documents" c:\spiefolder\SeedFiles

This will export the contents of “Shared Documents” to the file system into the folder specified via c:\spiefolder\ and replicate the document libraries folder hierarchy.

Download: http://spiefolder.codeplex.com/

Snag It, a great tool on my Mac

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I really like small screen-capture tools. I’ve been uing Jing for a long time. And on my Windows computers I’m using Greenshot.

The problem is that Greenshot does not exist in a Mac build.

So after the numerous different applications I’ve tried, Snag It is the winner on the Mac.  It’s simple, clean and gets the job done quickly.

I have to mention that I was using Skitch for some time. But it kept crashing and it didn’t play well with Spaces. Also I hated the fact that it stored all of my screenshots online, without even asking!

Linked: Change your mac boot logo

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Apparently you can change the Mac boot logo. I haven’t tried it but it sounds kind of fun!

Let’s face it. Part of the whole Mac experience is not having to reboot you machine 3 times a day… ;)

Tired of the grey Apple logo on your Mac? Why not “think different” and “switch” it to something else? “The notebook for everyone” doesn’t give you “the power to be your best” without a little personalization.

What we mean to say is, the Apple boot logo can get very boring over time and there is no easy option in OS X to change it. However, with a few items you can customize it to just about anything you want, or you can confuse your friends by changing their logo without them knowing for a harmless practical joke.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/41091/how-to-customize-your-mac-boot-logo/