Nested VM Hypervisor aka Enabling VT-x for Guests

To enable nested VT, add this line to the .vmx file of the ESXi virtual machine:

vhv.enable = "TRUE"

The easiest way to do this is download the .vmx file from the data store, edit it, and over-write the original.

Cop that IBM you W@nkers.

About time.

IBM has now been banned from bidding on any Qld State Government projects until they "address what the state says are IBM's project governance issues".

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/08/08/0225222/australian-state-bans-ibm-from-all-contracts-after-payroll-bungle

http://delimiter.com.au/2013/08/07/banned-qld-govt-outlaws-new-ibm-contracts/

Not really enough of a consequence in my opinion though.

How about:

"Until they pay back the money they stole (above standard market rate) and money taken for projects not delivered".

And then given them a 20 year ban on top of that out of spite anyway.

F#$%ers.

Fortinet Forticlient VPN on Windows 8 - how to make it work.

My work laptop recently received the Windows 8 treatment and all I can say is - wow - what was the point of that?

If you use the Fortinet VPN client, you'll instantly start raging because it doesn't work.

Here's the hot tip - to make it work, you have to manually enter the default port number (if that's what you use) of 10443 in the connection settings box.

It's already there and greyed out but apparently there was a glitch in the Matrix and this somehow became broken on Win 8...

Samsung Tec Tiles. Necessary? No. But damn cool.

I'm constantly impressed by my Samsung i9305 (or S3 4G if you will) Android Smartphone.

Whether I'm firing up sudo commands within the terminal emulator to do some external access testing or using my Qi charger on my desk to power the sucker up again, I'm constantly impressed with what you can do with this unassuming looking device.

I was having a conversation with someone the other day along the lines of "wouldn't it be great if you could just get in your car and your phone would turn on its bluetooth radio automatically?".

While you're at it, why not fire up driving mode and either the music player or Google nav?

I said "yeah - I remember something about Samsung selling programmable NFC stickers" and the inner geek in me thought I'd better have a look...

After a bit of Googling around I found the stickers in question and remembered they were marketed as "Tec Tiles" by Samsung.

For the reasonable sum of approx. $3 a sticker I ordered a pack of 5 off eBay and am well chuffed.

The setup was literally as easy as install the app on your Android phone from the Play Store and select what you want the sticker to do.

You then "write" to the tag (will have to look into this as I suspect the phone actually just reads a sticker ID or something and associates that with commands in a database or something - or it could actually program the sticker - who knows?) and that's it!

I've now got a nifty little Samsung NFC sticker in my car that I simply tap my phone against and I'm in (what I like to call) driving mode.

Necessary? No.

But they're damn cool :)

Best HTPC Remote Control (Hand Held) Setup

It was a sad day when my official Microsoft MCE remote (1039 model - picture below) packed it in.

Official MCE Remote = Awesome.
Sadly no longer in production.

I'd gotten very used to this remote with its nicely functioning and highly responsive buttons and the way it "just worked".

As this remote is no longer in production (and there is no updated version) I was left with the option of getting the closest thing to an official MS remote which was the Happuage MCE Remote Kit which runs for about $50 in Australia or a cheap ebay generic kit which ran for about $20.

I ended up going with the ebay generic version which worked but was quite frustrating in that buttons didn't register properly and was very unresponsive (as in lots of delay) when buttons did actually register.

So - if you're new to the Media Centre game and want a good quality remote setup, what's your best option?

If I was doing it all again (or had to start from scratch right now), my recommendation would be to buy the cheap ebay MCE kit and throw away the remote but keep the USB IR receiver.

Next, go out (or stay in I guess these days...) and get yourself a Logitech 
Harmony remote.

There are various models ranging from $20 - $200 depending on the level of fanciness you feel you need :)

Cheap ebay Generic Kit =
bad remote performance but a
good way to obtain a USB IR receiver.

I purchased a bargain clearance model Harmony 200 for $15 from JB HiFi and am super impressed with it.

I simply signed up via myharmony.com to access the configuration service and fired up the browser based plugin which then let me start configuring up my remote.

I used the software to configure the primary profile (as you can see there are three profiles - tv, cable and DVD which can be mapped to any device you desire) as a Microsoft 1039 Media Centre remote and waited for the config to sync to the remote.

I then thought - it can't be that easy.

I walked into the lounge and pressed the power button and the HTPC woke up straight away.

Logitech Harmony. Get one. Now.

Am very impressed at this point.

I then proceeded to give all the other buttons a whirl and everything worked perfectly.

All commands were mapped as I expected and the buttons register first time every time.
As a bonus the interface is nice and responsive.

This is all using the original USB IR receiver from my Microsoft MCE remote kit (which is the same what's included in the ebay kit mind you).

I then took it a step further and loaded the profiles for my TV and Stereo Mini System on and was further impressed with the setup.

The only thing I had to do in addition to this was manually configure a button for use with the stereo mini system profile so that I could scroll through my input selects.

This was as simple as using the Logitech configuration software and pointing the original remote at the new remote, pressing the desired button and then dragging and dropping the newly learnt command to the relevant button in the configuration software.

The ultimate party piece is when you've setup the special "Watch TV" button at the very top left of the remote correctly.

By default this will turn on and off your media centre and TV simultaneously.
Spending 5 minutes more with the software will allow you to also make it include your stereo / amp in that process which is just awesome.


Very impressive stuff :)

Minix Neo X5 Mini Android Media Center

Finally.

An Android based media center device that is small, powerful and has a decent remote control and keyboard option.

Minix has just released the Neo X5 Mini and it looks bloody good.

Spec wise it's very similar to it's previous incarnation but got shrunk in the wash and now has a better remote.

The device is orderable from Deal Extreme for the very reasonable price of $89 (AU).

For that you get a tiny little media center that's capable of running XBMC with hardware acceleration (using the MX player trick), HDMI output, SPDIF output, 802.11n 2.4GHz support as well as 2 USB ports, an  ethernet port (think it's only 100mbps) and an SD slot.

Inside the SoC it packs a Rockchip RK3066 Dual-Core 1.6GHz processor (Cortex A9 architecture) and a Quad-Core Mali 400GPU.

That little GPU will more than take care of 1080p decoding :)

Full specs are available at the official Minix product page.

It comes with a small remote that is meant to better than the one included with the standard size Neo X5 and also supports the mini keyboard / wii-mote style thingy / accelerometer controller (available from Deal Extreme for $40 AU).

This pricing is not great at the moment due to the over-inflated US dollar (waiting for imminent crash...).

There's an XBMC release (Neon XAF build) compatible with the Neo X5 mini over at xbmcandroid.com including instructions.

I highly recommend changing the theme to Confluence :)

Check out the youtube clip below for a great full review and to see XBMC in action.

LED Downlights - MR16 12V, GU10 240V or 12V MR16 Backwards Compatible Philips Master Bulbs

As anyone living in Queensland knows, we're about to be further screwed by our state government and power companies on power costs to the song of 21.4% with no reasonable explanation why.

I personally think the laws relating to what a state government is allowed to do urgently need a shake up but that's a topic for another day (although I will say this - primary services should NEVER be privatised. EVER.).

Anyway, now everyone needs to scramble and do whatever they can to minimise the impact of this dick move.

So job number one for a lot of people is going to be getting their lighting sorted.

For me, this is a priority as my house uses exclusively 12V MR16 50W halogen downlights throughout.

That equals one big-ass power bill.

For the uninitiated, there are two types of downlight voltage and socket formats (with the LED incarnation pictured below):

1: 12V LED Light (achieved using a transformer hidden in your ceiling - one per light) with MR16 pins.

2: 240V LED Light with GU10 socket.

I've got the first type (12V/MR16).

So off I went and whacked a 5W LED 12V MR16 globe in there and no dice.

The thing wouldn't even turn on.

As it turns out, 12V/MR16 LED lights are only designed to work with special LED transformers.

The two older types are electronic (what I've got - small and light plastic things) and iron core (big and heavy funnily enough).

Now apparently the Iron Core transformers will actually make your LED lights work however they will shorten the life span of the bulb.

Some good information on the topic is available here.

Anyway - I'm now faced with the situation of having to get this compatibility issue sorted.

The three options I've got are:

1) Replace all the electronic transformers with LED transformers and use 12V MR16 LED lights

2) Throw out all the old transformers and have a GU10 flexible cable wired straight onto the end of the 240V cable.

3) Replace 50W halogens with Philips Master MR16 12V Bulbs (with patented compatibility circuitry).

To explain the differences a little further, we need to get familiar with the anatomy of what's involved.

In either scenario, there is a transformer (also called a driver), a controller Integrated Circuit chip and the actually LED's themselves.

In the 12V/MR16 scenario, the transformer is separated out from the LED bulb which simply contains the IC chip and the LED emitters themselves.

In the 240V/GU10 scenario the transformer is integrated into the bulb (that long white bit at the top) as well as the IC chip and LEDs.

Now there's one other option to address this issue...
This involves using a specially designed 12V MR16 bulb made by Philips which contains patented circuitry  designed to work with old 12V electronic transformers (described on this page).

So I started reading up on each option and came up with a quick list of Pros and Cons for each:

MR16 12V

Pros:

• Separated transformer which allows bulb to run (almost) entirely cool giving best chance of long bulb life
• If transformer blows bulb should survive (being that the bulb is the expensive part).
• MR16 lights are generally a shorter profile so should fit better in convex gimbals (light fittings).

Cons:

• Higher deployment cost (new transformer for every light).
• Sources suggest that use of any transformer (even LED specific) can potentially cause a fire.

GU10 240V

Pros:

• Cheaper to deploy as GU10 sockets much cheaper than LED transformers.
• Bulbs cost the same as MR16 verisons.
• Uses slightly less electricity as transformer integrated directly in bulb.

Cons:

• Integrated transformer generates some heat which may slightly shorten bulb life.
• GU10 sockets require a ground cable to be wired in. This can be an issue if there's not a ground cable already running to the transformer.

MR16 12V Philips Master (Backwards Compatible)

Pros:

• Electrician not required
• Immediately start enjoying power savings
• Cheapest option overall

Cons:

• Still using a transformer so not perfect in terms of safety or efficiency.
• 10W model has a fan which can become louder over time and seize due to dust or bugs (7W model has no fan).

Decision:

I decided to give the Philips Master LED 7W a crack and they worked perfectly :)

I also gave the 10W version a try and can confirm that the fan sound is annoying and they aren't actually any brighter and they don't fit in standard halogen fittings properly (radius too large) whereas the 7W models are fine.

If you're interested there's a discussion concerning the Philips Master 7W going on over at Whirlpool that I'm participating in... (Not my thread).

I got a quote for re-wiring all my lights to GU10 sockets and when I did the math it worked out about $1300 cheaper overall to replace all lights in the house with Philips Master models as it did to re-wire and purchase decent (Philips Master quality or better) GU10 bulbs and new fittings.

Some personal feedback regarding the Philips Master bulbs is:

• Generally speaking they are excellent
• They are best suited to areas of a high concentration of LED bulbs (areas where my lights are spaced fair apart are a little bit darker than areas where they are close together).
• The colour temperature is pleasant in the home.
• The light output is solid. What I mean by this is that there is no motion strobe effect. I tried a Nichia 8W 60 Degree 3000K bulb and while it was compatible with my old transformers the light it produced it obviously wasn't cycling very fast. To clarify, when you look at the light it produces it appears solid and there is no flickering. When motion occurs within the light coverage area however the object creates a strobe effect (imagine a very old movie with a poor framerate where the motion is very jumpy).

The only area in my home where they don't quite cut it is the main dining area where the bulbs are unfortunately spaced very far apart.

I will probably have to bite the bullet for these four bulbs and get some LED transformers por a GU10 socket installed so I can increase my bulb options to get some super-bright Cree LEDs.

Hope this has helped and that your decision is easier than mine was!

By the way - all work involving 240V wire connectivity alterations must be carried out by a licensed electrician (duh).

Also (and this is a bit of a grey area) I would personally make sure that any bulbs you purchase meet Australian standards.

The only standard I could really find that they must comply with is C-Tick however according to what I read on the interwebs the manufacturer isn't required to put this on the packaging.

Chances are if they've paid for it they would though.