ITIL Mindmap

Found some very nice ITIL mindmap:


http://www.mindmeister.com/5972018/itil-v3-core



Another one
http://itservicetoday.blogs.com/files/itil-v3-interactive-mindmap-1.pdf

Delete invalid Control Panel item

I have an invalid icon in Control Panel without text and image, since the name is missing I don't know which .cpl file is referring to. Since there are no reference to a .cpl, then the invalid icon is most likely a namespace entry implemented in the registry. In that case, use the following method to manage Control Panel namespace items.

The object would be present under one of the following registry keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ ControlPanel \ NameSpace

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ ControlPanel \ NameSpace

IIS MIME Type

After installed the Web Server role in 2008R2, I cannot see web images, and the MIME type is missing in IIS manager. I figured out that I need to add the Static Content role services in order to see images ad the MIME Types under (IIS) Manager.

How to perform an Active Directory health check

Managing Active Directory health usually comes down to three main tasks: installation and deployment, maintenance and break-fix repairs when something goes wrong. In this tip, we're going to review how to build a reliable Active Directory, focusing particularly on the preventative maintenance aspects.


It's way out of the scope of this article to talk about how to properly configure Active Directory. Fortunately, Microsoft has some great resources on their Technet website. I also strongly recommend that anyone who is running Active Directory get the O'Reilly books Active Directory and Active Directory Cookbook. These have been on my bookshelf for years, and I turn to them whenever I'm working in AD. I find that AD is complex enough that the normal short Web resources just aren't good enough to help in design and deployment. Once your Active Directory is up and running, you do need to perform regular maintenance on it. Every AD guru has their own set of procedures on how to check Active Directory health, but in this article, I'll share mine.

1. Check your backups. In fact, this is so important that I wrote a whole separate Active Directory management Tech Tip about it. 
2. Make sure your replications are working. AD depends on multiple databases being kept in close synchronization by passing around updates and changes. This entire process is called replication, but it's not the entire directory that's being replicated, just the changes. The whole process isn't tremendously complicated, but if your replications stop working properly, your directory

1. won't be reliable. You can always run "repadmin /showrepl" to see the status of recent replications and whether changes are properly synchronizing. It's unusual for there to be a failure in a LAN case, but if your domain spreads across a WAN, you can have delays.
   When a change is made, it won't instantaneously replicate everywhere. Nevertheless, in a healthy AD forest, your replications will all be within a few hours of each other. Repadmin tells you when the last replication was, and all of the servers should be on the same timetable.
   When I have more than 2 controllers to look at, I use "repadmin /showrepl * /bysrc /bydest" to get a snapshot of the entire AD domain controller network. Do this monthly.
   
2. Check the event logs. As far as I can tell, it's impossible to eliminate all errors from the event logs, especially during boot time. But for an AD domain controller that has been booted for at least a few hours, you should have nothing other than informational messages in your event log for the directory service. It's important to check event logs both when things are working properly and when you think you have a problem, so you can see which error messages are "normal" for your Active Directory deployment. If you are regularly getting anything other than information messages (usually about defragmentation and backups) in your Directory or DNS application error logs, you have a problem which needs to be resolved. This is another monthly task.
3. Know when to defragment. The Active Directory database can get large and fragmented if you have a large directory that runs for years and years, and you can increase performance by performing periodic maintenance. In Windows 2008, you can stop and start AD as a service and perform database maintenance tasks. In earlier versions, you have to boot up into DS Restore Mode to get direct access to the directory. In either case, your preferred utility is Ntdsutil, which lets you check database integrity and reclaim space from, or defragment, the database. This is more of an annual task than a monthly one, but it is something you should plan for at least once a year. Ntdsutil has another important job: It is used to reset the Directory Services Restore Mode Admin Password, something you need to do every time a system administrator leaves your company. (This can be done without booting into Restore Mode in Windows 2003 and up.)
   
4. Use Dcdiag. I saved the best for last, because I love this tool. Dcdiag has almost 30 different tests it can run to verify the health of your Active Directory, ranging from basic connectivity and security settings errors for directory servers to very specific issues such as missing machine accounts. Yes, it's cryptic, it's confusing, it's about as hard to use as anything Microsoft has published. But it has an abundance of tests included, and it can catch all sorts of very interesting errors. I start with "dcdiag /a /v /c" (/a means "all domain controllers", /v means "verbose logging" and /c means "comprehensive set of tests.") to see what the big picture of errors is going to be -- and there are almost always a few that have to be looked at, even if they turn out to be innocuous. Some errors that Dcdiag will find, such as system log errors and KCC errors, are common but transient, often because a system has been rebooted. But others, such as the Role Holder test, indicate a serious problem when Dcdiag reports a failure. (Note: "Repadmin" and "Dcdiag" are both command shell-based applications included in the Windows Support Tools. They're in the Support\Tools folder on the Windows Server 2003 installation CD, or available from Microsoft as part of KB892777.)
   If you can get a clean Dcdiag run for your domain controllers, then you are almost guaranteed a healthy and properly operating Active Directory. Not every error in Dcdiag is a big deal; some of them won't really impact operations at all. However, you should run this tool regularly and make sure you understand every single error and whether it is something you need to fix or not. I run Dcdiag monthly on systems which are not throwing errors, but if I have recently fixed a problem, I like to run it more frequently, such as once a week, to be sure that other problems do not creep into the directory.

Once you get the hang of it, Active Directory is a wonderful thing. It can act as a single repository for information about users and groups, Windows computers, printers and more. Of course, for reliability, you always want to have multiple Active Directory servers backing each other up. This is critical to the overall security of your network; if you depend on Active Directory, and it goes down, then you've got a real problem. Building a reliable Active Directory should give you the confidence to use AD for other applications. For example, most network and security devices can use RADIUS for authentication of administrators, which helps to centralize password management and account management. Similarly, almost all security devices that are user-aware (such as SSL VPN systems) and will authenticate against Active Directory.

prstat timestamp

The prstat command of Solaris 9 doesn't has timestamp information. The following command can add a timestamp:

$ prstat -c 15 | nawk '$1=="PID" { "date" | getline d ; close("date") } { print d,$0 }'

Source: http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1583326&page=10

The registry cannot load the hive (file)

Today one of my user has problem when booting his PC. The OS is Windows XP, the blue screen of death appears while booting, the problem is "The registry cannot load the hive (file): ".

Find the solution on Internet, first, boot from Windows XP CD-ROM, press 'R' to enter recovery mode; choose the Windows installation; then in command prompt, type

ren c:\windows\system32\config\software software.old
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config

Reboot the PC, Windows should boot normally. However, the applications in Add/Remove program control panel are gone. It is require to reinstall some application back.

If you are joining a Domain, type

gpupdate /force

After that, you should login to domain properly.

Source:
http://www.searchmarked.com/windows/how-to-recover-from-the-stop-c0000218-registry-file-failure-registry-cannot-load-the-hive-file-systemrootsystem32configsoftware-blue-screen-of-death-error.php

Following the Penelope tutorial Part 1

I started the Penelope tutorial a week ago. The touch input method is really unfamiliar to me. After reached page 31 of the tutorial, I stop there and starting to learn more in depth about the objects and function calls, because the tutorial manual is not down to the detail very deeply.

The first thing is about access the screen, there is an object "GUITexture" to deal with the touch input.

gui = GetComponent(GUITexture);

That is the texture image of the thumb pad, in addition, the pixelInset member variable store the location and dimension of the image on screen, that means, chaning gui.pixelInset.x and gui.pixelInset.y will alter the location of the image on the screen.

The second thing is how to access the input on screen, the Input class and its methods deal with both normal input (keyboard/mouse/joystick) as well as touch input.

For instance, the Input.touchCount return the number of touches, Input.touches return the list of touched objects during the last frame. Input.acceleration and Input.accelerationEvents deal with accelerometer I think.

By using Input.touchCount to get the number of touches, using Input.GetTouch(int x) in a loop to get the Touch objects of each touch.

Example:

var count : int = Input.touchCount;

for (var i : int = 0; i < count; i++) {

  var touch : Touch = Input.GetTouch(i);

}

Touch object is a struct which has several variables. For example

fingerId	The unique index for touch.
position	The position of the touch.
deltaPosition	The position delta since last change.
deltaTime	Amount of time passed since last change.
tapCount	Number of taps.
phase	Describes the phase of the touch.

Input.GetTouch(int x).position return the Vector2 variable;

Input.GetTouch(int x).phase return the Enumeration of TouchPhase

Began	A finger touched the screen.
Moved	A finger moved on the screen.
Stationary	A finger is touching the screen but hasn't moved.
Ended	A finger was lifted from the screen. This is the final phase of a touch.
Canceled	The system cancelled tracking for the touch, as when (for example) the user puts the device to her face or more than five touches happened simultaneously. This is the final phase of a touch.

Prepare Postgresql on CentOS in 5 steps

There are a lot of resource on setting up Postgres server, instead of refer the steps from different resource, I drop a notes for quick reference, this guide is written for Centos 5.x.

1. Install the Postgresql server using either YUM or Package Manager.


2. Before starting the server, run the command "service postgresql initdb" to initialize the database.

The database will create in the default location:

/var/lib/pgsql/data


3. Start the database server

chkconfig postgresql on  (set the server startup at boot time)
service postgresql start (start the server)


4. In order to allow connection for remote host, change the line in /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf as:

local all all trust
host all all 0.0.0.0/0 trust

And change the line in /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf

listen_address = '*'


5. Now using pgadmin client to make a new connection:

Maintenance DB: Postgres
Username: Postgres

Learning texturing in Blender

What I learned so far about blender are:

Introduction
Interface
Navigation
Create, Edit object

Material


I am on learning about texture in blender, the Displacement Mapping is wonderful. I draw a simple shape in MyPaint, and the rendering is really interesting.

I am on UV mapping section, after finish this chapter, I will back to Unity tutorial.

Delete unuse Java Console in Firefox

Every-time when you update the Java client, a new version of Java Console add-on will install in Firefox. However the old version of Java Console are not uninstall automatically. Moreover, uninstall the old version of Java installation will not remove the add-on automatically.

The most annoying thing is the Uninstall button in Firefox Add-ons dialog was dim out. Finally, I found the solution from the following discussion:

http://www.overclock.net/networking-security/690003-how-remove-java-console-firefox.html

The steps is simple. To delete the old Java Console add-ons, run Firefox as Administrator.

Delete UUSee buttons

After install UUSee, there are 2 custom buttons added in the Google Toolbar. However, it cannot be simply delete because the delete button shaded. I follow the link below and successfully delete the UUSee buttons. In Windows Vista, go to \ProgramData\Google\Custom Buttons, there two xml. Delete them, and UUSee button gone.

Reference: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/07/01/how-to-delete-and-remove-custom-buttons-from-google-toolbar-permanently/

IRC client

I found a very nice IRC client AdiIRC, as I need to chat on Unity IRC channel. mIRC cost $20 is too expensive for such small program.

http://www.adiirc.com/