Today one of the employee’s said, “Hey did you hear FaceBook is going to charge a fee?” My jaw about hit the floor! How can you charge for facebook? I don’t even need to email FaceBook or call them to tell you it’s a myth. FaceBook is like Taco Bell… if it’s easy to get to… You will go. If it’s far away, you might not go. FaceBook is a fad similar to Friendster, Myspace, etc. One day some new service will come out offering super farming and free something cool that everybody is into. We will think of FaceBook as just another social networking site of the past. I could be wrong, but I’m sure something new and hip is right around the corner.

So is FaceBook going to charge? Answer is no. If they did we would see Friendster come back from the grave.

I wanted to give a heads up on the new CLEAR 4G service. I use it in the uglyvanfreewifi project to provide free Internet. Additionally I have the laptop modem card for when I’m on the go. I have a real problem with the new service. The upgrade was a snap, they sent me an email, I confirmed a few things and boom I had the new modem and was up and running. Few things you should know when upgrading to the new CLEAR 4G.

• The Power pack looks the same. It’s not.
• The New modem is MORE picky than the old one. Don’t assume it will have the same coverage as your previous Clearwire service. We have found that the new modem gets terrible signal compared to the old one. Yes, we are sure of this.
• Speed, or should I say lack of speed. Even when the modem has full bars it’s not very fast at all. Don’t get me wrong, it’s faster than the old service. It’s just not what you think 4G is going to be.
• Speaking of Bars… It is horrible to get full bars on both the laptop modem and the full size modem. Additionally the laptop modem has no external antenna. So if you have projects that require laptop modem with large external antennas. Not happening!
• Traveling… Clear’s coverage is not like ATT, Sprint, Verizon, etc. Don’t think of this device as something you can take on vacation. Check coverage way before you think about getting the service. This is not a real mobile card.
• NAT/PAT on their full size modem!!!!!!! Holy crap clear! What were you guys smoking? With the large modem they automatically provide NAT/PAT routing. That means you get a private IP and not a public. So if you want to do something cool with your modem…. You have to DMZ and double NAT the network. TERRIBLE!
• Windows 7. If you got it… Do not install the software on the CD provided. (laptop usb only) You have to first download the software.

So what do I think about the new Clear? Oh how I wish I could get out of my contract? Anybody want to take over my contract… Hit me up. I would love to get out of it. Clear, you had your chance to shine on this new product. Seems like you blew it. Hope you guys figure it out.

This is the email we sent out to our customers. You can see the virus in action here on Youtube.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUTnBeqECM4

Aloha Everyone,

Normally Digitech will not send out a system wide email to inform customers of viruses or other non-email related issues. However, because of the overwhelming service calls regarding a new virus/rogue software, we feel it necessary to let everyone know how dangerous this new virus and program is. The new virus/program is called Antivirus live.

This program will infect your computer through Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, friendster, facebook, myspace and any other website with open advertising systems. This virus is infecting computers through scare tactics.

More than likely you will see a warning saying your computer is infected. When you click to close the warning, you are actually clicking to install the virus. When you see the warning, hold the alt key and then click the F4 key (on PC). This will terminate the fake virus warning.

We cannot stress enough about the seriousness of this virus. It disables ALL programs and downloads additional viruses. If you get infected, please unplug the network connection to the computer and immediately call us or any other respected computer repair company. Because of it’s disabling affect we are unable to repair computers infected with Antivirus Live remotely.

If you are at a business we strongly recommend you avoid websites with potentially dangerous advertising. Using Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer will NOT protect you from this new virus. Additionally MOST antivirus programs are not stopping this virus because of the way it’s infecting your computer.

We have had approximately 30 phone calls yesterday and have 10 computers in house with the same virus. That tells us this virus is very effective at fooling the average user. Use caution in the next few days. Make sure your antivirus is up to date and Windows Updates are installed. This will help you avoid this virus.

If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to give us a call.

Digitech Solutions LLC.

Recently I tested out the new VLK of Windows (Final Release) at the office. Few things I ran into that I though you should all know.

1. Make sure and pay attention when the upgrade says you need to remove some programs first. I had my first install go great without removing the noncompatible items. But then later it crashed.
2. When you finally get upgraded to Windows 7 you might have to reinstall programs such as Cisco VPN client. But don’t worry, the latest version works just fine.
3. Give yourself a little over an hour for the upgrade. Keep in mind my hardware is faster than your average user.
4. The Windows 7 Upgrade Disk DOES NOT BOOT. You have to have a current running licensed copy of Windows running in order to install. Not like before when it would ask for the previous OS disk to complete the clean install.
5. If you try and do the clean install from the Advanced option. It make change your OS hard drive to drive D and set you up for dual boot. Sucks when your hard drive says d: instead of c: as we are all used to c:
6. If you use intellitype software for your Microsoft keyboard and mouse make sure you are on version 7 of the software.
7. PCHELPWARE will not PIN to the taskbar. (LAME)
8. VMware Vsphere Client stopped working. Will try and reinstall that.
9. Norton Ghost doesn’t work.
10. Pidgin works fine.
11. Winscp, Putty, Firefox, Keepass and other great programs work fine.
12. Angry IP Scanner will work after you tell Windows it’s ok.
13. CC Cleaner caused my machine to crash on the first install. So something is up. I wouldn’t recommend it yet. I’m sure they will figure it out soon.
14. Altigen Altiview (VERSION 5.0) including IP talk seems to work just fine. (AMAZING!)

Finally for all of you AVG 8.5 users. I couldn’t save to the desktop or anywhere from Internet Explorer 8. The problem was AVG. I was trying to download some new themes and they just kept magically disapearing. I removed AVG and it corrected the problem. I’m going to reinstall AVG to see if it happens again. Gadgets are goofie. You place them, reboot and they go away. Still working on a fix for that. Thank God they ditched the sidebar. Kind of strange how Microsoft will get us hooked on something then take it away from us. Oh, well such as life.

New GUI is slick, Fast and reliable. I think Apple is going to have a run for their money on this one. No more annoying UAC bull (execpt for the serious system changes). Almost all of my strange software works just fine, unlike the upgrade from XP to Vista. I thought I was going to hate the new taskbar, but it’s really growing on me. Keep in mind I have been snorting Windows Taskbar since 95. So if I like it, you might just like it too. Hats off Microsoft! Now let me log back into my CENTOS Box

For the GEEKS who follow this. I was on Vista Business VLK downloaded from eopen. I purchased the VLK Windows 7 PRO VLK and download the ISO from eopen also. Good Luck guys.

Installation

Recently I had the chance to begin testing VMware ESXi 4.0. One noticeable difference is installing ESXi to a thumb drive. On ESXi 3.5 you would have to download the ISO. Extract the DD image and write it manually to the thumb drive. This was not too hard if you have done it a couple times, but the first time can be a little bit difficult. ESXi 4.0 resolves this issue. With ESXi 4.0 you just download the ISO, burn it to a CD, boot from the CD and tell ESXi to install on whatever free media is available on your system. When software is difficult to install is never good. Good job VMware! Somebody must have been wearing their thinking cap!

Vsphere vs. Infrastructure client.

Another noticeable difference right off the get go is the new interface client to the VM host. They have changed the name from Infrastructure client to Vsphere. I like the new interface. Seems to have better detailed information and looks a lot cooler.

Faster.

I don’t know if I’m imagining this or if this is really the case. But it seems as though my VM’s run a bit faster on ESXi 4.0. I’m sure there are some notes somewhere on VMware’s website talking about machines running faster. But I do my best to make sure and not read all of their selling points. I like to see the software work for myself.

Some quaky things.

Make sure and read the Hardware Compatibility list before installing ESXi 4.0. Something I encountered that scared the crap out of me was a loss of my Management Network Card. Let me explain:

I have a single onboard NIC which registers as a EtherExpress Pro 100/s Server adapter. I have two more onboard NIC’s that register as Broadcom 5704 Gigabit network adapters. (In case you are wondering the motherboard is a Thunder K8SD Pro (S2882-D).)

When I upgraded from ESXi update 2 to ESXi 4.0 the EtherExpress Pro 100/s adapter completely disappeared. I haven’t spent the time to figure out why it disappeared. Because this was a production machine I had to immediately get the management console working on the Broadcom NIC’s. So word of caution to people upgrading to ESXi 4.0! Just because you have ESXi 3.5 working on your server doesn’t mean that ESXi 4.0 is going to have all the same compatibility as 3.5 did.

License.

Make sure when you register your copy of ESXi for you pay attention to the license part. The license from ESXi 3.5 does not work on 4.0. But don’t worry, the free license is still as functional as the previous ESXi 3.5.

Final Thoughts.

I think ESXi 4.0 was a very nice upgrade, definitely worth taking the time to upgrade your systems. VMware has enabled my business to make a lot more money off of physical hardware. Additionally I’m saving expensive rack space here in Hawaii. Colocation in Hawaii is probably one of the most expensive places in the world. So thank you VMware for making free products that work well and are easy to use!

Aloha,