An alternative to Dropbox

With the popularity and ease of use of services such as Dropbox/box.net I have heard a lot of rumblings from users and companies looking for “business” solutions to the file sharing problem. While there does appear to be a multitude of cloud-based solutions the number of companies offering non-cloud based alternatives appear to be pretty slim and (in my opinion) overpriced with prices ranging anywhere between $1,600 to $11,000 a year for only 20 users. Based on my experience purchasing business software over the years I was anticipating something standard such as a one time software purchase ($1,000-$11,000+) with a …

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Solaris 11 Samba / ZFS Configuration

The following is a summary detailing step-by-step how to setup Solaris 11 as an active directory integrated file server using Samba and ZFS. Most of this configuration comes from a tested configuration on Solaris 10 as well as Linux, but with the release of Solaris 11 and some changes in ZFS my previous instructions needed to be updated. The configuration has currently only been built and tested in a virtualized environment and though I do try and test as vigorously as possible please make sure to test before putting into production. I make no promises/warranties regarding any of this information. …

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2008 Citrix Profiles

The more time I spend building Citrix/TS servers on Windows 2008 the more I realize that even though some of these changes have made things more difficult at first they ultimately will make creating new servers a bit easier once everything is scripted properly. The following document contains registry entries and script information and is provided for informational purposes only. Use at your own risk. Customizing the Start Menu It used to be possible to create a user account, customize the profile and then copy the profile over the Default User profile. This method is not possible in 2008 and …

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Windows 2008 Policy Settings for a Citrix Server

Lately I have been setting up a few Citrix XenApp Servers using Windows 2008 R2. I was surprised to learn that some of the things I took for granted in 2003 policy are not available in 2008 R2 and I needed to either create registry hacks or file policies. So I thought I would take some time to document some of these setup procedures. Windows Explorer In the left hand pane of Windows explorer I wanted to remove the Favorites, Libraries and Network folders. To do this you first need to navigate to the ShellFolder keys below and grant Full …

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Discovering the Chromebook

As I have been beginning to explore the Chromebook I have started building a list of different commands and thought it may be useful to publish them. I will try to keep this updated as I go. About Commands The following will give you a listing of different about: pages that you can get to by typing them in the browser. There seemed to be some good areas for basic networking information, system information and access to experimental features. about:about To access/enable experimental features type the following into the url bar. These commands may change over time. about:flags Keyboard Shortcuts …

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Chromebook Enterprise?

This last week I was given a very nice surprise by a guy I work with when he presented me with a Chromebook. He had been trying to use it for a while but found that he tended to favor his iPad and it really wasnt getting the miles to make it useful. So here we are….. Sitting here writing this article with this Chromebook in my lap I guess I am thinking, now what?… From what I have heard this seems to be peoples first opinion but I am convinced that it wont be my only opinion. First of …

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GIT Hosting with gitolite

Setting up GIT hosting using gitolite This is my first git server and after some reading I decided to build gitolite to manage my git repositories. To begin building we need to generate a public/private key pair on your workstation and then we need to download and install gitolite from github since gitolite is not currently available in my servers distribution (Ubuntu 10.04). Alternately, you could install gitolite from your distribution (but that may change these instructions a bit). From your workstation First I generated a DSA keypair on my workstation. $ ssh-keygen -t dsa Generating public/private dsa key pair. …

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Transitioning Subversion to GIT

So it has been a long time coming, I have heard about the benefits of GIT for a while now but have not had time to play with it much. So far I am looking forward to improvements in performance over SVN as well as a more secure implementation to share sections of my repository with colleagues. Lastly I hope at a later date to circle around and build out an active directory/ldap enabled config and to start using GIT to manage Linux configurations; but first I need to get my data out of Subversion. To begin we need to …

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Solaris 10 Mirror Repartition

I ran into a problem a while back because I used a manufacturer installed system without installing the OS myself and I overlooked the manufacturer defined partitioning scheme. After the system was in production I realized that the root file system was not using the entire disk and I was wasting about 400GB of disk space on the root mirror. So I had to repartition but I didnt want to reinstall. This documentation requires that the BIOS is able to choose between boot disks and may not work on all systems. Please use these instructions at your own risk, test …

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Using smpatch

After using the Sun update connection software and having lock-ups on several occasions, I have found it much easier and more reliable to use smpatch. Depending on your comfort with patching a system there are several options to make this process very manual or extremely automated. smpatch updates are split up by four main commands (add, update, download and anlayze) which allow you to either perform an update in one step or break down an update into multiple steps. smpatch add Only applies the patch, all other functions require analyze and download. Does not consult patch policy before applying a …

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Category Archives

Technology

Technology has always been an important part of my life. It began with my first 8086 computer and the days before the internet BBS’ing. I started businesses designing web pages and building computers/networks/infrastructure for people when I was younger and began working in the IT sector about twenty years ago.

Over the years I have very thankful for all of the support documentation written by other people and so as time permits I try and provide some of this information back here. I hope this can be of help.

I make no promises/warranties regarding any of this information. The following information contains my opinions from my own experience. The following documentation is provided for educational purposes only and should be used at your own risk.