January 2009 - Posts

• MMS 2009 Session Catalog is Live!

  Filter on presenters or other criteria here: http://www.mms-2009.com/public/sessions.aspx Posted Jan 26 2009, 09:07 PM by Rantings of an IT Pirate

• Day of Days - BOTH submitted MMS 2009 presentations are in!!!

  I am stoked!  BOTH the VMM and DPM submission candidates for 2009 made it into MMS 2009! Dear Bradley First of all, many thanks for the breakout session topic(s) you proposed for this year’s MMS 2009 event.  I am pleased to tell you that the content review team have selected the following breakout topics for presentation at the event: Status 0-Accepted Title Backing up VMs in Data Protection Manager - How Deep Can You Go? Speakers Bradley Bird Status 0-Accepted Title Physical to Virtual Migration with VMM 2008: Real to Surreal Speakers Bradley Bird 2009 bodes really well so far! Posted Jan 22 2009, 08:40 AM by Rantings of an IT Pirate

• Weird Issue When Ripping CD Collection into Zune

  I have been putting off writing this post for some time now.  I figure if someone sees this and it helps them, great! My wife got me a monogrammed 16GB Zune for Christmas which is a fantastic gift for a "techie" husband, I highly recommend it! I am Canadian so one of the first things I read at the forums is that the Zune Marketplace is not available to Canada. I had heard on the radio that it was and had read in the forums about various workarounds to do with changing the locale on your PC.  I still get miscellaneous errors on the site ranging from runtime errors, to sign in errors, to being redirected.  This is despite the site actually working for me the first time I logged in just after Christmas when the Zune was brand new. Well, the end result is I cannot get it working and a couple of my Canadian colleagues confirm these issues...  Hopefully I'll be blogging about the Zune Marketplace being available to Canadians some time soon as I really want to see what is available for Podcasts and the different applications offered through the site... Now, I have been able to RIP my CD collection into my Zune which is awesome! For those new to this technique, "ripping" is making your CDs available to be read electronically through computer software players like Zune or Media Player, or iTunes... This has been going on for years, just I am new to this world... Once "ripped", you can pick and choose what songs you want and create custom play lists.  Play lists are tantamount to the Mix CDs or Mix Cassettes you made when you were younger for a party, to go out, or the Gym workout... The issue I found is a strange behaviour present when ripping CDs into the Zune Collection.  The Collection is the catalogue of songs, albums, album info, album art, etc made from your actual CDs.  This is available to be played in your Computer without necessarily connecting the Zune player. Now, to load selected songs, albums, album art, etc into your Zune you need to "Sync" it.  Syncing leverages a cable (usually USB2 or FireWire) and uploads selected items into the Zune player. I am limiting my post to Music because I haven't really had occasion to try Photos, Podcasts, or Movies yet due to absence of the Zune Marketplace. I have read that you can also obtain some of these elements via Discovery.  Perhaps, I'll expand on that in a later post. I ran into a few issues while ripping my CDs...  Occasionally, the information is not found or incorrectly read from the CD itself while ripping.  You can manually edit just about all of this information to properly search your catalogue for songs and other selections rather than just seeing "Unknown track"... I also found that while the Zune software is loaded, I intermittently cannot rip some CDs.  The CD is read correctly in windows, but the Zune software does not know how to interpret the new disc so does nothing. What I have found as a workaround, is to close the Zune software altogether and eject the CD.  Then, close the CD tray, and allow the autoplay settings to launch Zune and the CD should start being ripped automatically. I hope this helps someone to further enjoy their Zune! Posted Jan 12 2009, 05:49 PM by Rantings of an IT Pirate

• Simulating a Disaster Recovery Scenario while transitioning laptops

  I recently received a new Dell E6500 laptop.  As any ITPro knows, transitioning the primary machine is never easy...  Lots of settings, program issues, backup data, etc... In my case, this was finally my official jump into 64-bit from Vista 32-bit to Vista 64-bit.  There have been a few issues, such as a Canon LiDE 20 scanner which I really like for portability that I will need to say goodbye to as well as my Microsoft webcam not working yet because of 64-bit compatibility... ;-) I also noticed when I configured dual-boot that some of the hardware does not get detected properly natively...  I am still working on that...  See this article for further info: http://owsug.ca/blogs/brad/archive/2009/01/07/Old-School-Dual-Boot-Configured-on-my-Dell-Latitude-E6500.aspx For the laptop transition, I had been faithfully backing my Dell D820 laptop up with Windows Complete PC Backup.  This is the utility that is installed by default with Windows Vista and it runs famously. By using a utility called vhdmount which comes with Virtual Server 2005 R2, I was able to  mount the backup image from my D820 offline and use it as if it were a local disk to transfer files.  I have this image archived on an external USB drive which is fantastic as a safety net... Read more on my Tech Republic article here: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/networking/?p=785 For great, in-depth, technical training on System Center, check out www.infrontconsulting.com/events.htm. Posted Jan 10 2009, 03:35 PM by Rantings of an IT Pirate

• Transition to Consulting - Swimming with the Sharks, the Year in Review

  In October 2007, I made the decision to leave my former full-time employment with the University of Ottawa for a far more risky venture, independent consulting.  I have a good deal of experience in IT and had run my own company for almost 3 years in the past so I was not entirely new to the consulting challenges. In November 2007, the page was turned for me to start in my new chosen lifestyle. I decided to associate with Infront Consulting Group which helped the transition immensely.  Infront Consulting and their team of consultants are both specialized and highly skilled in the Microsoft System Center space.  Given that a large portion of my experience to date was focused on monitoring, this has been a "win-win" scenario. Through Infront, I have had the opportunity to meet and work alongside with several MVPs.  Rory McCaw (MOM MVP), Pete Zerger (MOM MVP), and John Hann (MOM MVP). I was also given the opportunity to deliver training for them in the form of Microsoft Official Curriculum, custom training, as well as their in-house boot camp for Advanced System Center Operations Manager training. The team at infront has been very supportive in terms of providing mutually beneficial engagements but also in providing direction to focus skill development so as to be the most useful and responsive to market demands. Last year also proved interesting in the sense that I discovered I really like presenting publicly.  I am not sure of an alternative way to find this out other than being subjected to it. I was given the opportunity by Microsoft to present in front of professional audiences publicly in my hometown of Montreal and Ottawa at TechDays08.  I presented sessions in the Infrastructure and Virtualization tracks.  I got to work alongside with friends and peers such as Mitch Garvis, Daniel Neremberg, David Myers, Todd Lamothe, and Kim Frank. For IT Pros or consultants that don't know, this is a fantastic way to generate exposure and expand on your networking with contacts.  One slight disadvantage that consulting has brought about is that as VP, I can no longer dedicate as much time or resources to the Ottawa Windows Server User Group as I have in the past.  My colleague Garth Jones, who is president of the User Group is in a similar boat... We still give what we can in terms of time and guidance and are thankful of the support from devoted members and administrative contributors in keeping the group going.  Surprisingly, much of the support we have received comes from members who do not live in Ottawa proper but the surrounding areas.  This is true dedication! For myself, as far as Community contributions, I share knowledge I have gained about user group governance and running study groups with others that have interest and I maintain a blog where I disseminate and share information through posts such as this. I will continue as well to present in different events as much as possible since I like doing it. This year, I was presented with the MVP award for Management Infrastructure and although it was awarded in January, it was based on the past years' events so I count is as part of my first year in consulting.  Not a bad way to end the year, but it sets the bar higher... I can only hope that the next and coming years will be as enjoyable and productive as this year has been for me! I am happy to discuss the process of becoming a consultant with anyone that has interest in this topic. Posted Jan 10 2009, 02:48 PM by Rantings of an IT Pirate

• Banged off 2 new certifications in the 1st week of 2009!

  This week, I completed the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack: Configuration (70-656) and the Virtual Machine Manager: Configuration (70-403) certifications.  2009 is looking like it will be a productive year! For great, in-depth, technical training on System Center, check out www.infrontconsulting.com/events.htm. Posted Jan 09 2009, 11:23 AM by Rantings of an IT Pirate

• Old School Dual Boot Configured on my Dell Latitude E6500

  I have not had a reason to use dual boot in years.  Right now, out of all the systems that I own, my Dell Latitude E6500 is the most powerful. I use my laptop as my primary machine and have for 4 years now.  I have no other systems right now that can expand to 8GB of RAM and are 64-bit so my laptop is serving double duty as my primary work system as well as a demo/lab system capable of running Server 2008 with Hyper-V. The laptop is configured with Windows Vista 64-bit and that runs famously.  Now, I could conceivably run only Windows Server 2008 on the laptop.  In fact, I have colleagues who feel that is the way to go.  I disagree with this point. As an IT professional, my customer base is varied.  I believe that Vista is still struggling in market adoption.  I also believe that Windows Vista is a more secure and a better Operating System than Windows XP.  What better way to demonstrate that than by example? Another reason I prefer to use a client OS is that I have worked with lots of IT pros who all but stop using them because of where they are in their career.  In my mind this is a mistake as you lose touch. If you stop using the client OS that your customers use, you are not as familiar and stop evolving with the product.  For instance if someone had been using Windows XP and stopped before SP2 came out, to me that would be a BIG deal. Also, if you need to simulate or reproduce an issue that a customer is having, it is much faster if you have the same Operating System installed. OK to the meat of the matter... So I have Windows Vista installed on my laptop as the primary OS.  I connected an external eSATA capable disk and installed Server2008 on it.  To do so, I inserted the Windows Server 2008 DVD and ran setup from within Vista as if I was going to upgrade.  The installation picked up that this was not an upgrade and proceeded to install Server 2008 on the external drive. Incidentally, I did this in under 30 minutes to a login prompt of server 2008.  That is pretty impressive! Dual boot installed seamlessly given the way that the laptop was being setup.  That was a lot easier than I remembered... Now Server 2008 on my Dell does not inherently detect all of the hardware.  For instance, neither my onboard NIC or internal wireless cards were detected.  After I inserted my PCMCIA Linksys card I was fine, but otherwise I may have been stranded. I will attempt the 64-bit Vista drivers in server 2008 as I have read several blog posts that confirm they work and will write a follow up post. When all is said and done, I now have Windows Vista 64-bit installed and Server 2008 with Hyper-V.  I select which OS to boot from dual boot and this required no changes to the boot sequence. Production laptop and demo system all-in-one! Posted Jan 07 2009, 11:39 AM by Rantings of an IT Pirate

• I made Microsoft MVP - Management Infrastructure

  I received a really interesting E-mail this morning from Microsoft.  Here is the message: Dear Bradley Bird, Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. WOW!  I am stoked.  I have been working for just about 3 years towards an MVP and I did it!  I was awarded for the category of Management Infrastructure.  I would like to thank all of my colleagues who helped make this possible.  I know for sure that Mitch Garvis of the Toronto IT Professional User group and Garth Jones of the Ottawa Windows Server User Group helped in the nomination process but I was told that there were others who supported it as well.  I apologize if your names don't appear but my thanks! My profile is below: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/default.aspx?viewas=public Posted Jan 01 2009, 04:43 PM by Rantings of an IT Pirate