Chatter Of The Squirrel

Mininova is Down!

http://mnstat.com/images/blog/index.html

Been using Mininova for the past couple of years to get my daily TV shows and random movies. I enjoy its clean interface, that always shows the top 10 torrents in each category, so I have a pulse on what’s hot each day. New DVD releases seldom escapes me. Or if an extraordinarily popular anime pops up, I am made aware of it.

And now it’s gone. There are plenty of alternatives out there, but mininova was comfortable, like an old shoe.

Turning 33

It’s odd that I was spending the remaining few weeks of being 32, listening to the tracks from Avenue Q over and over on my HP. It’s always amusing, but it also constantly reminded me that I was turning 33.

When the clock actually ticked over, I was in PutraJaya taking pics of the night scenes with Por and a whole bunch of other photogs.

I think I got a couple of good ones. Didn’t have a sweet wide-angle to get creative with the architecture / bridges. But my sweet-ass DA 50-135mm lens still took some killer pics.

Would love to share them here, but Streamyx is being a b****. [Probably cos I'm downloading Grim Fandango and Psychonauts]. And my LightRoom to Picasa plugin is missing.

So I was pretty much up all night.

And I had to wake up really early in the morning. To pack my bike and gear to meet up with Moses to go riding at Sg Dua.

Prepared everything. Calories. Tire pump. Inner tubes. Wrenches. Chain breaker. Hex wrenches. 3L of H2O. Print-out of the track with GPS coordinates programmed into my Garmin 60C.

We found the start of the trail alright. Geared up. Headed down the narrow tarmac road and just got past the Orang Asli settlement when my tire exploded.

Wasn’t just the inner-tube. But the outer tire itself gave way with a loud pop and a hiss. Been using this set of Panaracer tires for close to 7yrs now I believe. Although it was most untimely, I guess I can’t fault it for giving way.

Tried to patch the inner tube, but knew it would be pointless. With that tear, it just can’t hold in the air-pressure.

Had to give up the biking. The flat happened right next to a trail going down to a waterfall, so it wasn’t a COMPLETE loss.

It’s a really cool waterfall. And very private.

What made it a DEVASTATING loss though, was when I slipped. With my Nokia 6120C still in my hip pocket. And my favourite DA40mm lens took a blow on a rock, resulting in a minor dent which affected focusing smoothness, and obviously also destroyed the resale value. :’(

What a start.

Tech: Microsoft Hyper-V, cheaply

One way to use Microsoft Hyper-V, will be to purchase the MS Server 2008 R2. And you’ll have all the virtualization thingies built-in. Job-halfway-done.

Or, Microsoft also makes their Hyper-V available for download. Free. Completely. But installing this alone is useless, cos you don’t have any of the management consoles needed to actually create the virtual machines you installed Hyper-V for!

There are ways to use the command line interfaces to create VMs, but after that there’s no way to install anything INTO the VMs. Unless you’ve got some .vhd ready made somewhere else that you mean to copy in and start up. Otherwise, no dice.

BUT~! Microsoft also gives you the Hyper-V Management Console with Windows Vista. Get it up to SP1, then download the MMC from Microsoft. Free again, discounting the cost of the Vista.

This is the cheapest way to have a hypervisor virtualization system going: 2 machines, and 1 Vista license.

Step 1:
Download Hyper-V from Microsoft. Burn to a DVD. Install it on your machine. Very easily done.

Step 2:
Download the Hyper-V MMC into a Vista machine. Very easily done.

Step 3:
I thought this will be as simple as clicking the Hyper-V Console, point it at the Hyper-V machine. Maybe sort out some User/Password shit, and GO~!!

Step 4:
Disillusionment sets in. Microsoft Firewall is enabled on both OS. This blocks the remote machine’s attempt to connect to the HyperV machine. There’s like a hundred and one thing to sort out to make them TALK!

This is the Gordian Knot of Microsoft’s bullscatery~! If you’re able to make this work, then you’ve truly conquered the arcane mysteries of Microsoft networking.

Step 5:
Tear out hair.

Step 6:
Praise the Lord for geeks with too much vacation time.

HVRemote is a true life-saver.

Download it on the client machine. Copy it over to the HyperV machine.

My two PCs are on a workgroup. Not a domain. So I created an Admin user on both systems, with the same password. This probably helped in getting them to see each other, at least a little.

I did:

On the HyperV machine:

cscript hvremote.wsf /mode:server /add:adminuser

Reboot

On the Remote PC machine:

cscript hvremote.wsf /mode:client /AnonDCOM:grant

cscript hvremote.wsf /mode:client /FirewallHyperVClient:Enable

cscript hvremote.wsf /mmc:enable

Reboot

The reboot is absolutely important. Or else the MMC will only be halfway working. I wondered why it took ages to create a virtual disk. But everything worked well after the reboot.

Also, I had to enable the Intel Virtualization Technology in the BIOS.

I could create a new VM, and installed CentOS 5.4 x64 in it.

Had some trouble trying to install it while mounting the .iso image on the remote machine. Some other permission error. Wasn’t worth the grief. I just copied the image over into the HyperV machine, and mounted it from there.

Game: World Of Warcraft is 5 years old

Dang~! How time flies…

When I started playing WoW, gold was still less than US$400/oz.

Game: Torchlight with cheat

Torchlight is a pretty fine game to play, while waiting for Diablo 3.

It integrates some of the best elements from Diablo 2, and World Of Warcraft. Lots of monsters to hack and slash. Lots of loot. And plenty of ways to bash in your foes.

Forget challenge. Forget the story. Forget FMV. It’s just mindless clicking fun. And it works fine in a windowed screen, so I can have Star Trek:TNG playing on one monitor while I disintegrate goblins with a laser beam. All the while, I can still tab out and carry out some semblance of a conversation on MSN.

It’s a nice game that just works and gives you no grief even if you don’t have the latest graphics card that comes in a box-so-big-you-can-use-it-as-a-casket.

But there is a bug. A nice one.

Talk to the vendor that sells you Identify Scrolls.

Left click on the Identify Scroll, bring it over to your inventory box, and left-click on your item. And behold, the item is duplicated!

Use this to duplicate your gems till you’ve got all you need.

So. Much. Fun.