Welcome to MSDN Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

January 2006 - Posts

There is a useful function called GetDiskFreeSpaceEx( ) . The GetDiskFreeSpaceEx function retrieves information about the amount of space that is available on a disk volume, which is the total amount of space, the total amount of free space, and the total Read More...
It's finally here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx Read More...
A topic that I find eternally fascinating... CNET published a series about the history of harddrives. A few quotes: The IBM System 305, the world's first hard drive , debuted in 1956 and relied on the random access method of accounting and control (RAMAC) Read More...
While researching for the previous post, I just started a few searches for VSHADOW on the internet, and I found more interesting usages of it. One example: EqualLogic published a nice technical report of using VSHADOW to backup/restore Exchange, SQL and Read More...
Jeff Trumbull published a very nice script on how to backup a Virtual Server image wiht about one minute of downtime! The solution uses VSHADOW.EXE, a small command-line utility that can be used to create shadow copies. VSHADOW is part of the VSS SDK Read More...
A while back, our team helped the Small Business Server team with some interesting VSS issues just before shipping SBS 2003. The issues were solved, and each member of our team got a free CD of SBS 2003. So, I decided to do something with it - an SBS Read More...
I always thought about writing a post about physical-to-virtual migration strategies in combination with VSS, but I never got to it. So it's not surprising that others started to uncover this trail :-) One particular technique in this area is described Read More...
So, what if you take the principles behind BitTorrent (share more bandwidth to get more data) and put them as a way to store your own, personal data? You get something interesting. Allmydata attempts to do just that - building a storage grid that can Read More...
Finally! I just noticed a new service in the http://live.com family: Live Favorites ( http://favorites.live.com/ ) You can import your existing IE favorites, organize them with drag-and-drop via an AJAX interface, etc. Read More...
As an unexpected side effect of an experiment, Horatiu Nastase (of Brown University of Providence, Rhode Island), found something which looks like a black hole: When the gold nuclei smash into each other they are broken down into particles called quarks Read More...
There were some recent rumors that XBox 360 has some plans to offer a Blu-Ray external drive. However, I just read that the XBox team announced that they are fully commited to HD-DVD and have absolutely no backup plans for Blu-Ray. The question of whether Read More...
I just installed a recent Vista build on my dev box, and I noticed a new set of options to add a custom search engine in IE 7. Which got me digging . For your browsing pleasure, here are some links: - This page describes the current list of providers, Read More...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060116/ap_on_hi_te/seagate_drives Seagate's new drive, the Momentus 5400.3, was being shipped as of Monday, the Scotts Valley, Calif.-based company said. The shift to perpendicular recording allows it to bump up the maximum Read More...
Let's see how this game will play out: 1) Amazon will come up with more and more interesting stuff. I expect to be surprised. 2) Someone, probably Yahoo, will buy digg and memeorandum. These sites are hot. 3) In 2004, Google captured everyone's interest Read More...
I saw this a while back and I thought it was a damn good ad. In case you haven't seen it, it's worth a click: http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2005/11/22/banned-xbox-360-ad-best-ad-ever/ P.S. By the way, while are on 360-related Read More...
ACM Queue published an interesting interview with Phil Smoot. Phil is the person in charge of managing the development teams at Hotmail. Read More...
Simon Gerber wrote a slightly-negative article titled Switching to Windows: Not as easy as you think . Any Windows developer should read this article. Why? Beyond anything else, it is a perfect example of how a Unix/Linux-oriented people are sincerely Read More...
If you have an urn who already contains either a black or white ball, and you add a white ball to it, and then you subtract a white ball from it, then what is the probability of having a white ball left? [update: adding the fact that the original ball Read More...
Fortune.com just published their top100 list for the best companies to work for in US - here . Microsoft made it on #42 on the full list (which is an improvement from the #57 last year). But the most surprising part is that Microsoft is now on the second Read More...
The VDS API is now live on MSDN ! What is it? VDS offers a COM-based API for volume, disk and LUN management in Windows Server 2003. In Windows Server 2003 R2, we also have additional integration with iSCSI targets and MPIO. For example, you can use it Read More...
Forget the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD battle. Think H-ROM. At CES, InPhase gave more hints on this technology in collaboration with Hitachi Maxell Ltd: InPhase will be the first company to deliver a holographic product for professional archive applications in Read More...
Whoohoo! Windows backup is there. Proeminently: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/default.aspx#wvC2 They also mention the Shadow Copy (aka Previous Versions). This is a standard feature now in Windows Server 2003, which is invaluable for Read More...
As previously published here , this is a quick-and-dirty method to get yourself in a relatively safe position: 1) Click Start, click Run, type "regsvr32 -u %windir%\system32\shimgvw.dll" (without the quotation marks), and then click OK. 2) Restart the Read More...
 
Page view tracker