Keeping track of the new hotfixes from Microsoft can be a bit of a pain in the arse. Just installing them blindly on a box from the update services, when they come around, is just a little too cavaliere although there are a number of various resources to help; various webpages, tools, etc. However, Microsoft have just opened up a new hotfix ‘blog herewith the following schedule. You might find this a bit more palletable, if you're deep into a feed aggregation addiction.

Having trouble booting this version of the network installer for Debian under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1? Supply it with the following kernel options at the “Press F1 to install” screen: 8042.noloop clock=pit If you want to know why this works then carry on reading.. Still here? This is probably quite boring, so I don't blame you if you give up half way through! Generally an OS gets the current time from the CMOS during startup, and then sets up a timer to generate periodic interrupts.

Why is csccmd 1.1stillnot publically available for download (yes, it is massively different from version 1.0)? I first required this excellent facility a little over 2 years ago now - having used it multiple times to extract files from the CSC since, without having any problems, I can only assume its because its been forgotten. This is a bit of a shame, especially given the amount of trouble I had to get that file officially then, apparently it's even worse now - unless you have no qualms with “other” resources.

A few days ago ‘Centro’ got renamed to the Essential Business Server (EBS). This seems like a bit of a cock up, to say the least. Maybe I should step back. Not many people are familiar with Centro. I mean EBS. Once upon a time (way back in 1997) there was BackOffice Small Business Server, a product developed by Microsoft for the small business, bundling many of the commonly used features into a nice little product.

At work we use Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 a fair bit. In some circumstances, particularly when running a Windows guest, the virtual hard disks can grow exceedingly quickly. Thankfully, there is a provided set of tools to help with this problem. A precompactor and a compactor. You run the precompactor to zero out the free diskspace, you then pause or shutdown the virtual machine and run the compactor. This is all well and good, unless the virtual machines are running in a production environment and you need to do this at 2am in the morning.

Whilst arguingdiscussing the merits of Exchange over RPC over HTTP/S, with SIR-Millarand Theo, and how it would've been nicer to see some viable calendaring alternatives in the long term (and how I've become a corporate whore), I started thinking about my current personal calendaring system, only to come unstuck. I really should be storing my calendar remotely, and not relying on the $work calendar. Unfortunately there are relatively few calendaring solutions out there.