Wings for your Windows Explorer!

http://ejie.me/

Clover 3

Wings for your Windows Explorer!

Clover is an extension of the Windows Explorer, to add multi-tab functionality similar to Google Chrome browser. After install Clover, you will be able to open multiple folders within the same window, and you can also add folder bookmarks.

Outernet - Information for the World from OuterSpace

https://www.outernet.is/

'Streak' for Gmail notifies senders when a recipient reads an email

Here is a new feature - email tracking - that changes the way you track sent emails. Streak has come up with a Google Chrome browser extensionthat lets senders track when recipients open and read an email.

Once you have installed Streak for Gmail, the first thing to do to get started with email tracking is to toggle the feature on while composing an email using the "eye" icon. You can default email tracking to on or off in the Streak Settings tab in Gmail's settings interface.

Users get read notifications when their email is read. Users can change the default setting of desktop notifications to chat or email notifications in the Streak Settings interface.

Open any tracked email and the right sidebar of Gmail will show a timeline of reads of each individual message. You'll find the reader's name, device and location. For even more details and stats, the "Show Details" link can provide more information displayed graphically.

There is also a "Recently Viewed" link inside of Gmail. This link shows up underneath your "Sent Mail" folder, and if you don't want to see it you can just click the triangle to toggle it off.

Clicking on that link will take you to a list of your emails ordered by the date that they've most recently been read. Emails are annotated with the actual view date and they appear in an order based on when they were viewed (newest up top) instead of when you sent out the email.

By default, you can send 200 tracked emails a month but its really easy to unlock unlimited email tracking by sharing Streak Email Tracking with friends You'll be given the option to share when you first start with email tracking or when you hit the 200 email limit in a month.

"Streak is currently free while in Beta and there will always be a free plan. In the future, Streak will offer paid premium features," says the company.

http://www.streak.com/

Seven ways to set up multi-booting with Windows 8 and Linux

Ref:- http://www.zdnet.com/seven-ways-to-set-up-multi-booting-with-windows-8-and-linux-7000026392/

1. Install the Linux GRUB bootloader

Well, the first and certainly the simplest if it works properly, is to install the Linux GRUB bootloader as the default boot object, and have it control dual-booting with Windows. 

To do this, of course, you have to have a UEFI-compatible Linux distribution - the ones I have tried and can vouch for are openSuSE, Fedora, Linux Mint and Ubuntu, but there are others and there are more coming in the near future. 

If you have a UEFI Secure Boot compatible Linux distribution, you don't even have to change the UEFI configuration settings, although a lot of people will choose to disable Secure Boot anyway. 

When you install a UEFI-compatible Linux distribution, if everything works as it should and the UEFI firmware configuration works properly and does not get improperly "reset" (which I have seen happen far too often), then when you reboot after installation completes you will get the GRUB boot menu, and you will be able to choose either Linux (the default) or Windows 8 to boot from it. 

At that point you are almost home free - but be aware that I have personally seen (and personally own) systems which at some later point will suddenly reset the configuration to boot Windows for no particular reason. If this happens, you should consider using one of the other methods described below, because my experience has been that it doesn't happen just once.

2. Use the BIOS Boot Select Key

The second possibility is that you choose a UEFI-compatible Linux distribution, the installation goes along just fine, but when you reboot it comes up with Windows rather than Linux. This can be very disheartening, but it is actually not that difficult to work with. 

The important thing to remember is that the Linux installation will have added itself to the boot list: you just need to be able to get to that list to boot it. 

The simplest way to do that is to use the BIOS Boot Selection option, which is activated by pressing a special key during the power-on or reboot process. That "special key" varies between systems, I have seen Escape, F9 and F12 used on some of my systems, and I'm sure there are others. 

When you press it, the Windows boot process will be interrupted and you will get a list of available operating systems - probably Windows 8 and Linux. I personally don't care for this option because I don't like to have to "race" with the boot process to make sure that I press the Boot Select key in time, and if I am distracted or too slow then I have to go all the way through Windows boot and then just immediately reboot to get back to the Boot Selection menu. 

But a lot of people don't seem to mind it, and it certainly is an option which requires a minimum of fiddling and fighting with stubborn BIOS configurations. One way that this can be made a bit easier is to go into the BIOS setup and choose a start-up delay, many systems will allow you to set anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds of delay before Windows actually boots, thus giving you a lot more time to press the magic key.

3. Enable 'Legacy Boot'

The third "simple" possibility is to enable 'Legacy Boot' in the BIOS configuration, and just ignore the whole UEFI issue. 

This is not an option that I personally prefer, in part because I am stubborn and in part because as Adam Williamson explained to me some time ago there are some functional advantages to UEFI boot. But it certainly is a viable option, and strictly in terms of getting Linux installed and booting it might actually be the absolute simplest solution. 

The only problem that I have seen with this option is that some systems make it difficult to enable Legacy Boot, either the option is well hidden in the BIOS configuration, or you actually have to set a BIOS password before they will let you change it. I have heard that there might be some systems which don't have Legacy Boot support at all, but I have never seen one like that.

Anyway, if you choose this route not only does it make things much simpler for installing and configuring dual-boot, it allows you to install pretty much any Linux distribution you want, without regard to UEFI compatbility. 

I have personally used this option to install non-UEFI Linux distributions, such as SolydXK, PCLinuxOS and Linux Mint Debian Edition in a multi-boot configuration with some other UEFI-compatible distribution. I can then go back and disable Legacy Boot, and just use the UEFI-compatible GRUB to boot the non-compatible Linux.

4. Try using the Windows bootloader

The fourth possibility should be to use the Windows bootloader to dual-boot with Linux. I say should be, because people keep posting comments which say "just use easyBCD to set it up", or even "use bcdedit", but try as I might I can't get it to work. 

I wrote about this a year or so ago, when I got my first UEFI system, and I assumed at that time that the problem was just that easyBCD was not completely adapted to support UEFI boot, but now I have tried it again, with the latest version of easyBCD that I could get from the NeoSmart web page and I still can't get it to boot Linux at all. 

Now, it may be that I am just too dense to figure it out, but if anyone is going to come along and post a comment that says "it works fine", then please be prepared to be very specific, and give exact details of what you did to get it to work. Because I have tried everything thing I can think of, and no matter what I do the only thing I get when I try to boot any Linux installation is a message that says "Windows Failed to Boot". 

I have also searched the web for more information, and the only concrete examples I can find are those who have failed, the same way that I have.  I can find lots of places that say "easyBCD works", and "use easyBCD to multi-boot Windows 8, 7, Vista, XP, MacOS and Linux", but not ONE which actually says "we did this with Windows 8 UEFI and LInux, it worked, and here is what you have to do".

What I did was the following.  I downloaded and installed easyBCD 2.2 on two different Windows 8 UEFI systems (the recently purchased HP Compaq, and my Acer Aspire One 725). When I then ran easyBCD (as administrator, of course), I was surprised that it came up with a list of operating system for its boot configuration. I know that the Windows bootloader had not been seeing or offering to boot anything other than Windows 8. It took me a minute to realize that what it was listing was everything which was in the BIOS boot list. 

That was exactly what was being offered if I used the Boot Selection option, as described above, but if I just let Windows boot normally there was no sign of these others. Even if I put a 30-second delay in Windows boot, using either bcdedit or easyBCD, it would stop and list only Windows 8.  So why was easyBCD listing all the others? I didn't understand, but I hoped that it might be a good sign, that easyBCD was at least finding the other options, and all I had to do now was add them to the normal WIndows bootloader menu.

I tried to do that, first by just marking one of the Linux distributions as the default boot object. easyBCD let me do that with no complaints, but when I rebooted it just came right back up with Windows. Bah.

Then I tried using the "Add" option in easyBCD, and gave all the information for one of the Linux partitions.  This time at least when I rebooted it showed the Linux option in the boot list, but when I tried to boot it I got the "Windows Boot Failed" message. I shouted at the blasted computer that I wasn't even trying to boot Windows, so how could that fail, but that didn't help either.

Then I saw that what easyBCD was actually setting up was an attempt to boot something called /NST/neogrub.efi (or some such thing close to that, I don't have the exact name in my head right now, and I am fed up with easyBCD and Windows, so I'm not going back to look again). 

So I tried putting various bootable files in with that name - first I tried the grubx64.efi image from one of the LInux distributions, then I tried copying the boot block (first 512 bytes) of the disk and/or Linux filesystem, as used to be done in order to dual-boot Windows XP and Linux, and then I got desperate and just put a Linux kernel under that name. Of course, none of those worked. 

I finally decided, based on my own experience and the lack of success stories or real configuration information on the web, that easyBCD is of no use whatsoever in setting up dual-boot Windows/Linux with UEFI boot enabled. It might be possible to use it if you enable Legacy Boot, and then set it up exactly the way that it used to be done on Windows XP, but if you're going to do that, then just use method three above, and save yourself a lot of trouble.

After fighing with easyBCD for a very long time, and finally surrendering, I decided to make a run at the bcdedit utility, which is the standard Windows approach to this kind of configuration. I am reasonably familiar with this program, as I have used it to set up dual-boot on Windows XP, so I wasn't exactly blundering around in the dark. 

But again, no matter what I tried it didn't boot. I could get the Linux item added to the Windows bootloader menu, and I could set all kinds of different things as the boot object, but none of them worked. Finally, just to prove to myself that I wasn't doing something just fundamentally wrong (or stupid), I just set the boot object of one of my Linux attempts to be Windows 8, and it booted right up. Grrrr.

So, my conclusion from all of this is that one of the major reasons that easyBCD is of no use in setting up Linux dual-boot is that it is basically impossible to use the Windows 8 bootloader to boot Linux with UEFI boot enabled. Again, it might be possible with Legacy Boot enabled, but I don't care enough at this point to find out. 

If you know that I wrong about this, and you have personally set up a Windows 8 system to boot Linux using the Windows bootloader, then please tell me this in the comments, and please, pleasebe specific and tell me how you did it, because I would love to know.

5. Install a different Boot Manager

The fifth UEFI multi-boot option is to install a different Boot Manager, such as rEFInd from Roderick W. Smith. This has the advantage of being able to boot almost anything - Windows, Linux, MacOS - and it is very powerful and very flexible in automatically finding whatever might be on the disk and presenting you with a boot selection list. 

Unfortunately the one thing it doesn't solve is the "uncooperative/unpredictable BIOS configuration" problem described above. If Windows, or the boot process, or something else is monkeying around with the BIOS configuration and preventing you from permanently setting GRUB as the default bootloader, then it is almost certainly going to prevent you from setting rEFInd as well.

6. Try a workaround

The sixth option is not exactly a solution to the uncooperative/unpredictable BIOS configuration problem, it is more of an ugly workaround for it. 

It turns out that in addition to the normal "boot sequence" list in the UEFI boot configuration, there is also a "next boot" option, which specifices a one time boot configuration. 

This is normally null, so the system follows the boot sequence list, but if it is set the system will try to boot that item first, and will also clear that setting so that on the next boot it goes back to using the default boot sequence list. 

The next boot configuration can be set from Linux using efibootmgr -n XXXX, where XXXX is the item number from the boot list; to find out the number for your Linux installation(s), just useefibootmgr with no options (or efibootmgr -v if you want to see all the gory details): the number will be something like 0001 or 0002 in most cases. 

This "next boot" option could be turned into a semi-permanent work-around by adding theefibootmgr command to the Linux startup scripts, so every time you boot Linux it would reset the value so that it would boot Linux again the following time. I didn't say it was nice, or elegant, or even pretty, but does work, because I have tried it.

7. Trick the default boot process

Finally, the seventh option is to "trick" the default boot process by putting the Linux shim.efi (orgrubx64.efi if you disable Secure Boot) image in the place where the Windows Boot Manager is normally located. 

On the systems I have tried, this is in the EFI boot partition (typically /dev/sda2 on Linux, mounted as /boot/efi), under the name /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.  I have had some success in doing this, but be warned that some systems (especially HP Compaq) are so aggressive about checking and resetting the default UEFI boot configuration that sometimes they will actually notice that it is not the "original" bootmgfw.efi program insttalled, and they will actually go and get a copy of the original and put it back in place, thus undoing your clever deception. You can probably imagine how irritating and frustrating it is when this happens...

So, there you have it.  Seven different options to set up multi-booting with Windows 8 and Linux. 

I suppose there are others that I have not thought about, or that I am not remembering right now, but these are what I think are the most obvious.

I have tried all of these at one time or another. The simplest and nicest of course is the first, just install and boot grub, if that works on your particular system. I also know some people who swear by the second option, just press Boot Select, and they think that I am just being lazy and stubborn by not using that.

Beyond those two, it would probably take more dedication, learning and trial and error to get the others working (some I still haven't gotten working). But in the long run, if you are determined to dual-boot LInux and Windows, you should be able to do it.

Windows Desktop Gadgets

Battery Meter
http://addgadgets.com/battery_meter/

http://addgadgets.com/

http://8gadgetpack.net/

Battery Meter displays your battery status with icons, percentage remaining, time remaining, current voltage, charge rate, discharge rate, current charge capacity, and maximum charge capacity.

Flyout features can be shown by clicking on the icon or title to display the following information: manufacturer name of your battery, device name, unique ID, serial number, chemistry, retain capacity, maximum charge capacity, designed capacity, and designed voltage.

In settings you can change the gadget size up to 400%, fixed unit to watt hour (Wh) ampere-hour (mAh), adjust the color of the gadget’s background and text, and set auto update notifications.

Cloud Computing....?

Cloud Computing is the use of Computing Resources(Hardware like Hypervisor,Storage,switches  & Software like Virtualization,vlan trafficing , dynamic ip allocation ) that are delivered as Service over the Network.It's called cloud since all these above mentioned resources can be scaled on request  and based on usage.

Why cloud Computing is preferred / benefits of Cloud Computing

·      Scalability : -The customer doesn't have to know (and buy) the full capacity they might need at a peak time. Cloud computing makes it possible to scale the resources available to the application. A start-up business doesn't have to worry if the advertising campaign works a bit too well and jams the servers.

·      Pay Per Use :- Customers pay only for what they use. They don’t have to buy servers or capacity for their maximum needs. Often, this is a cost savings.

·    The cloud will automatically (or, in some services, with semi-manual operations) allocate and de-allocate CPU, storage, and network bandwidth on demand. When there are few users on a site, the cloud uses very little capacity to run the site, and vice versa.

·     Reduces Cost :- Because the data centers that run the services are huge, and share resources among a large group of users, the infrastructure costs are lower (electricity, buildings, and so on). Thus, the costs that are passed on to the customer are smaller.

·    Application programming interface (API):- Accessibility to software that enables machines to interact with cloud software in the same way that a traditional user interface (e.g., a computer desktop) facilitates interaction between humans and computers

·   Virtualization technology allows servers and storage devices to be shared and utilization be increased. Applications can be easily migrated from one physical server to another.

Types of Cloud Computing :-

·         Public Cloud

·         Private Cloud

·         Hybrid Cloud

Public Cloud  :- In public cloud applications, storage, and other resources are made available to the general public by a service provider. These services are free or offered on a pay-per-use model. Generally, public cloud service providers like Amazon AWS, Microsoft and Google own and operate the infrastructure and offer access only via Internet

Private Cloud : - Private cloud is cloud infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, whether managed internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally.

Hybrid Cloud : -  Hybrid cloud uses both public and private cloud infrastructure.

Cloud computing  Models

·       Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).  IaaS  offers  computers - physical or  virtual machines - and other resources like storage so that developers and IT organizations can use to deliver business solutions.Cloud providers typically bill IaaS services on a utility computing basis: cost reflects the amount of resources allocated and consumed.

·         Platform as a Service (PaaS). Pass offers computing platform typically including operating system, programming language execution environment, database, and web server. Application developers can develop and run their software solutions on a cloud platform without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers.

·       Software as a Service (SaaS). In the SaaS , the service provider hosts the software so you don’t need to install it, manage it, or buy hardware for it. All you have to do is connect and use it. SaaS Examples include customer relationship management as a service.

Woman Protection Apps

Help Me on Mobile

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onmobile.helpme&hl=en

YWCA Safety Alert

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ywca.main&hl=en

Fightback

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.canvasm.wsa.view&hl=en

I AM SAFE

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobiwhiz.iamsafe.app

Scream Alarm!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gopal.appmaker.android.com&hl=en

Alert.Us - Family Safety GPS

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=us.alert

cab4me taxi finder

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cab4me.android&hl=en

Nirbhaya

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smartcloud.nirbhaya&hl=en

VithU

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.startv.gumrah&hl=en

Women Safe Circle                                               http://www.windowsphone.com/en-in/store/app/women-safe-circle/24ff65e9-f3e5-48fa-b88a-7a75de5421ce

mdefence

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zestwings.mdefence

Telegram

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.telegram.messenger

Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security. It’s superfast, simple and free.

With Telegram, you can create group chats with up to 200 people so you can stay connected with everyone at once. Plus, you can share videos up to 1GB, send multiple photos from the web, and forward any media you receive in an instant. All your messages are in the cloud, so you can easily access them from any of your devices.

For those interested in maximum privacy, we've added Secret Chats, featuring end-to-end encryption to ensure that a message can only be read by its intended recipient. When it comes to Secret Chats, nothing is logged on our servers and you can automatically program the messages to self-destruct from both devices so there is never any record of it.

We built Telegram to make messaging safe again so you can take back your right to privacy.

Why Switch to Telegram?

FAST: Telegram is the fastest messaging app on the market because it uses a decentralized infrastructure with data centers positioned around the globe to connect people to the closest possible server.

SECURE: Security flaws in popular apps like WhatsApp have gotten a lot of bad press recently, so we made it our mission to provide the best security on the market.

CLOUD STORAGE: Never lose your data again! Telegram offers free unlimited cloud storage for all your Telegram messages and media that you can securely access from multiple devices.

TelugumAta

http://teluguvijayam.org/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.telugu.telugumata

TelugumAta is a keyboard which can be installed and used in all applications on your android device. TelugumAta allows one to type in Telugu on the phone or any android device where in Telugu letters are realized by single key-strokes (instead of multitaps) very fast and very conveniently. All characters are accommodated in two layers unlike other apps.

*AirStream: Stream PC over the air*

Now stream movies, music & photos from PC to phone on your home network. No more hassles of transferring files to SD Card, AirStream play it all for you.
http://airstream.io/

Canonical Has Created An “Ubuntu And Android Dual-Boot” Application For Android

http://linuxg.net/canonical-has-created-an-ubuntu-and-android-dual-boot-application-for-android/

Hello Linux Geeksters. The Ubuntu developers have released the “Ubuntu and Android dual boot developer preview”, a tool that enables the users to run in dual-boot Ubuntu Touch and Android, on their Google Nexus 4 device. Most likely, support for Google Nexus 7 and Google Nexus 10 will be implemented soon.

Being still under massive development, it is not ready to be used by regular users yet. Since many Nexus enthusiasts don’t afford to wipe the data on their phones entirely and switch to Ubuntu Touch, the new dual boot feature may increase the number of Ubuntu Touch users fast, taking in account that Ubuntu Touch has became quite stable.

As I have already said, the Ubuntu dual boot application is installable only on Google Nexus 4 smartphones with an unlocked boot-loader (for now), Android 4.2 installed and 2.7 GB of free space. You have to download the Android app on your phone and install it, enabling you to reboot into Ubuntu. More information can be found in this wiki.

For those who don’t know, Ubuntu Touch is officially supported only on the Google Nexus smartphones and tablets, despite the fact that it has been experimenally ported on OPPO Find 5, Pantech Vega Iron, Xperia Tablet Z and many other phones/tablets. The first stable version of Ubuntu Touch, based on Ubuntu 13.10, has been officially optimized to work onLG Nexus 4, but it is not mature enough to compete with Android yet. After the latest Mir updates, Ubuntu Touch can be successfully installed on all the existing Google Nexus devices: LG Nexus 4, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10, except Nexus 5.

Create your VMware test lab using AutoLab

AutoLab is a way to bring up a VMware environment through scripted installs to create test/lab environments. Read why Lauren Malhoit calls this tool awesome. 

It's my opinion that every person who works with VMware should have a test lab. Although it would be ideal to have the same hardware as your production lab and completely duplicate the setup, that's often not feasible. There are also things that come along with a test lab that make them annoying, for lack of a better word. Either you messed something up during testing and need to rebuild, or you'd like to test a different setup, which means you need to start completely over. This is where AutoLab comes in.

vExpert Alastair Cooke is the man behind this solution, with some help from Damian Karlsonand Veeam, a virtual backup and recovery company. As of this writing, AutoLab version 1.1a is out. In general, AutoLab automates your lab setup. If you have access to VMware Workstation,VMware Player, or ESXi servers/clusters, then you can use AutoLab for free. I have mine running on VMware Workstation, which is running on a laptop with 16 GB of RAM. It is recommended you have at least 8 GB of RAM on whichever hardware you use. You can bring up different versions of vSphere (4.0 and up) as well. This is nice if you want to check out a new version, or if you need to test something on an older version.

A brief synopsis of the setup

There is a deployment guide that tells you exactly how to run this setup, but just to give you an idea, you download an .OVA file that contains several VMs (including ESXi hosts and a vCenter). You deploy the .OVA and that brings the VMs up in Workstation (or Player, ESXi, etc.), and they're all powered down. You then power on the NAS VM, which is just a FreeNAS solution. Once that VM is powered on, there is a build share you need to populate with several VMware and Microsoft ISOs. Once that share is fully populated according to the documentation, you can begin an automated build of the lab. It starts with your domain controller (the DC VM). All you need to do is power it on, and AutoLab takes care of the rest. Once this is done, there is a Validate script that makes sure all scripts and installs ran properly before you move on to the next step (Figure A). You then move on to scripted installs of the vCenter and hosts. Figure A

Click the image to enlarge it.

To be clear, AutoLab doesn't necessarily take less time to build a test lab, but it takes a lot less effort and babysitting. You can literally start the VM and then leave it alone for an hour to work on your production environment or read a book. All of the install information, networking, storage, etc. is taken care of for you.

In the newer versions of AutoLab, there are scripted installs for VMware Horizon View andVMware vCloud Director. This is perfect for testing these things out. Also, when something breaks or you need a new proof-of-concept, you just restart the build. In addition, you don't need to repopulate the build share if you decide to rebuild; so, once that's done the first time, you're all set. Veeam has two VMs in the .OVA file that let you test its Veeam ONE and Veeam Backup & Replication products.

I mentioned using VMware Workstation, Player, or ESXi before to install AutoLab; however, these still require that you have some hardware behind it all. A company called baremetalcloudis offering an AutoLab solution for those who don't have any hardware handy. You pay baremetalcloud monthly on a subscription basis according to the compute resources you need. A really nice thing about what baremetalcloud has done is they use Clonezilla to manage the images; this helps with the time to provision. What takes AutoLab around three hours to provision on your own hardware, takes only about a half hour using baremetalcloud. Mike Laverick has a great write-up about baremetalcloud and AutoLab.

Summary

AutoLab is such an awesome tool; I highly recommend it to anyone looking to build home or test labs. Some VMware knowledge would be helpful if you're looking to use AutoLab. It's not difficult, but I imagine it could be somewhat confusing to someone who hasn't installed ESXi or vCenter before.

The three mistakes I made creating a Hyper-V virtual machine

When creating a Hyper-V virtual machine from scratch, beware of issues with Windows licenses and disk creation. Oh, and don't forget the administrator password! 

Our upcoming ERP upgrade project needed two new servers. We'd embarked on a virtualisation strategy and already had an IBM host machine, so the clear choice was to build them as virtual machines (VMs). These would be created from scratch rather than being physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversions.

I hit two pitfalls I wasn't previously aware of and made a mistake any self-respecting IT pro would be ashamed of. This article isn't so much a step-by-step how-to as a cautionary tale. 

Activation failure

One of the VMs would be a database server, so I was reassured to read of other IT prosendorsing the use of SQL Server in a virtualised environment. What's more, my IBM host server runs Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, which includes Windows licenses for up to four guest VMs, so I knew I wouldn't have to buy any operating system (OS) licenses. With the IBM server, we were given two Windows license keys: one for the host server and a "virtual key" for use with VMs.

In Hyper-V Manager, creating a VM from scratch is as simple as running the New Virtual Machine Wizard. After allocating the required memory, choosing to create the VM not connected to the network, and specifying a location for the virtual hard disk (.VHD) file, I chose to install an OS from a DVD (Figure A).

Figure A

OS installation options

Since my database application needed Windows Server 2008 R2, I retrieved the OS DVD for another server running that OS and installed from that. When it came to the request to Activate Windows, I entered the virtual license key, which was rejected. Research indicated this was because the virtual key only works if the guest VM runs Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. Now that wasn't obvious.

With a sigh I swapped to the IBM Windows DVD and restarted the setup process, this time choosing the Enterprise option. Since there was already a copy of Windows installed (the one that wouldn't accept my license key), I accepted the option of moving the existing files to a folder called Windows.Old, planning to delete them later. Unfortunately, this "in-place" install failed with an error, and I had to start from scratch, choosing to format the disk partition. Finally, the install completed, and the virtual key was accepted by the activation process.

Password failure

Continuing the setup process, I logged in with my chosen administrator password and followed the steps to upgrade the Hyper-V Integration Services. This required a reboot, after which I attempted to log in as administrator again -- and couldn't get the password right. I looked in disbelief at the password I'd written down, tried it several more times, and then tried a few variations. I couldn't believe I'd made a mistake like this. I'd managed to get the password right a couple of times up to now, but clearly that wasn't the password I'd written down.

There is a non-drastic way out of this embarrassing hole -- a password reset disk. However, I hadn't created one. I never do. I'll never need one of those, or so I thought. That only left me with the drastic solution -- reinstall the OS again. When I did, I chose an admin password no less secure but far less prone to mis-typing.

I've still not created a password reset disk, because, of course, I'll never need one.

Another disk, please

My new VMs were created with a single .VHD acting as the C: drive. I needed extra drives on both of them. To do this, the VM must first be shut down. In the Settings dialog for the VM, selecting an IDE Controller provides the option of adding a new Hard Drive. Creating the drive is wizard-driven, including the choice of disk type, size, and location. I specifically wanted a fixed size disk, rather than dynamically expanding, to guarantee the best performance for SQL Server. On clicking Finish, the wizard creates the new .VHD file.

And then you wait a long time -- at least 20 minutes for a 250Gb drive. Not only that, I started receiving complaints that applications on a different virtual server weren't responding. The explanation, it seems, is that when creating a fixed size .VHD, Hyper-V explicitly zeroes out every part of the disk to be used by the new .VHD. This is done for security purposes. (Note:Today when trying this link to an MSDN blog I was presented with a signup/login page I hadn't seen before. To get to the link I first had to cancel that dialog and then try again.)

My guess was that this zeroing process required so much disk I/O that it was affecting the other VM (which was on the same host). Sure enough, when the disk creation finished, the applications sprang back into life.

I apologised to my users and wondered if I could avoid this slow, resource-hungry process for the other disks I wanted to add. The MSDN article linked to a follow-up post describing a Microsoft tool designed to circumvent the slow creation by overwriting the relevant area of the disk without wiping it first. Since my host machine's disk had very little data on, it would have been safe for me to use that tool. In the end, though, I decided to stick to the normal way, but this time give my colleagues some pre-warning of the knock-on effects.

I (and they) waited patiently while the disks were created, and finally my new VMs were ready.

Summary

In creating two new Hyper-V VMs I discovered that the "virtual license key" supplied with Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise only works if the guest VMs also run Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. I also found that adding a fixed size hard disk to a VM can be a slow, resource-intensive process that potentially affects other VMs on the same host.

Set up a basic website with Apache

Here are instructions on getting your small business website up and running with Apache on Linux or Windows. 

Apache is the most widely used web server on the planet -- and with good reason. Not only is Apache flexible and powerful, but it's also quite easy to get running and to start serving up content.

The idea of using a web server that relies so heavily on the command line and flat text file configuration might be rather daunting, but it doesn't need to be. I'll walk you through setting up a basic website with the latest iteration of Apache on Linux or Windows (I'm assuming you have a Linux or Windows machine ready for the task). After you follow this tutorial, you'll have either a Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP (WAMP) or a Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) server running and a "Hello World" page greeting your users.

WAMP

There are lots of WAMP servers you can install to get your Windows-based Apache server set up, but my favorite is the WampServer package, which installs everything you need for a web development environment. Here's how to install WampServer.

1. Download the WampServer installer.
2. Double-click the installer to start the process.
3. Walk through the user friendly installer wizard (it's a typical Windows application installation).

Once the installation is complete, you should see an entry for WampServer in your Start menu's All Programs section. In that menu, click the start WampServer entry. When the WampServer starts, left-click the icon in the System Tray to see the menu (Figure A); from this menu, you can start or stop the services and gain quick access to the server's configuration files. 

Figure A

The WampServer menu.

To get your website set up and running, the most important information you need is:

• Document Root: This is where your website files will live. For the WampServer, these files will be in C:\wamp\www.
• index.html: This is the most basic page for your website and should reside within the Document Root.

By default, WampServer will use the index.php file for its default page. Within the C:\wamp\www directory, rename the index.php file to OLD_index.php. In that same directory, create the index.html file and put this single line in the document:

Hello world!

Save that file and make sure your WampServer is running. Open your web browser and point it to the address of your WampServer. You should see the text (in bold):

Hello world!

If you do, congrats! Your WampServer is up and running.

Linux

I'll demonstrate how you can have a full-blown LAMP server up and running with just a couple of commands. For simplicity sake, I'll be demonstrating this on a Ubuntu 13.04 server. Here are the installation steps.

1. Open a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install tasksel.
3. Type your sudo password and hit Enter.
4. Accept the installation.

After tasksel completes the installation, go back to the terminal window and do the following:

1. Enter the command sudo tasksel.
2. In the resulting window, use the down arrow key and move to LAMP Server (Figure B).
3. Press the Tab key to move down to OK and hit Enter.
4. When prompted, enter the passwords for MySQL.

Figure B

When this installation completes, your LAMP server will be running.

What you need to know:

• Document Root: /var/www/
• Index: The LAMP defaults to index.html for its main page. You can edit that page directly for your website.
• To start and stop Apache, issue these commands: sudo apachectl start or sudo apachectl stop.

Congratulations! You now have a web server. I bet you had no idea setting up Apache for simple web pages was that easy.

Keep in mind that Apache isn't limited to basic web pages; it's also just as easy to serve up robust and dynamic sites with this powerhouse server.