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January 2006 - Posts

Getting the free space available under a certain directory

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...
Posted Tuesday, January 31, 2006 8:25 PM by AdiOltean | 1 Comments

Internet Explorer 7 Beta2 available for download

It's finally here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx Read More...
Posted Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:45 AM by AdiOltean | 3 Comments

A brief history of harddrives

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...
Posted Thursday, January 26, 2006 11:35 PM by AdiOltean | 2 Comments
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More VSHADOW stuff: how to backup Exchange, SQL, NTFS

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...
Posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12:47 PM by AdiOltean | 1 Comments

Fast backup of Virtual Server images (using VSHADOW)

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...
Posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12:39 PM by AdiOltean | 0 Comments

How to build a cheap backup server

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...
Posted Saturday, January 21, 2006 12:18 PM by AdiOltean | 5 Comments
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Using NTBackup to achieve P2V

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...
Posted Friday, January 20, 2006 1:48 AM by AdiOltean | 4 Comments

Storage grid in the sky - a new concept?

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...
Posted Friday, January 20, 2006 12:07 AM by AdiOltean | 2 Comments
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Favorites - this time, for real!

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...
Posted Thursday, January 19, 2006 8:58 PM by AdiOltean | 1 Comments

First artificial black hole created?

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...
Posted Wednesday, January 18, 2006 12:31 PM by AdiOltean | 2 Comments
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XBox 360 committed to HD-DVD

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...
Posted Monday, January 16, 2006 10:42 PM by AdiOltean | 2 Comments

The OpenSearch 1.1 specification

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...
Posted Monday, January 16, 2006 12:42 PM by AdiOltean | 1 Comments

Perpendicular storage arrives on laptops

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...
Posted Monday, January 16, 2006 7:45 AM by AdiOltean | 2 Comments
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My top 10 tech predictions for 2006

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...
Posted Sunday, January 15, 2006 3:32 AM by AdiOltean | 6 Comments

Banned XBox 360 ad

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...
Posted Sunday, January 15, 2006 2:41 AM by AdiOltean | 1 Comments

How Hotmail works? - an interview with Phil Smoot

ACM Queue published an interesting interview with Phil Smoot. Phil is the person in charge of managing the development teams at Hotmail. Read More...
Posted Saturday, January 14, 2006 12:31 AM by AdiOltean | 1 Comments

Unix guy shares his experience in switching to Windows

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...
Posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006 11:22 PM by AdiOltean | 3 Comments

Puzzle: another probability problem

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...
Posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006 6:45 PM by AdiOltean | 10 Comments
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Microsoft - again, among the 100 best companies to work for in US

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...
Posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006 2:03 AM by AdiOltean | 3 Comments
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The VDS API is now public on MSDN

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...
Posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 4:04 PM by AdiOltean | 2 Comments

More news on holographic storage

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...
Posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 3:55 PM by AdiOltean | 3 Comments
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Windows Backup - highlighted as one of the main Vista features!

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...
Posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 12:20 PM by AdiOltean | 2 Comments

How to stay safe with the new Windows vulnerability

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...
Posted Tuesday, January 03, 2006 7:35 AM by AdiOltean | 5 Comments
 
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