Saw this on http://www.virtualization.info - HP has a set of tools targeted at virtual machine management and migration. The suite of tools looks *very* interesting as it promises to do not only P2V (Physical to Virtual) migration but V2V (Virtual to Virtual) migration and will work with both Microsoft's Virtual Server and VMWare's ESX/GSX products. Cost prohibits most of us from taking it for a spin - they're going for the true enterprise play here. But if it does what they say it does, it would be pretty handy for folks planning a rollout of virtualization technology on HP hardware.

source: virtualization.info
Wednesday, February 16, 9:48 PM

HP launching its new ProLiant server line also launched a tool easying physical server virtualization called ProLiant Essentials Server Migration Pack.

Quoting from official page:

The ProLiant Essentials Server Migration Pack radically simplifies server consolidation projects. Server Migration Pack (SMP), a companion product to the Virtual Machine Management Pack, automates the manual processes required for a physical server to virtual machine (P2V) migration. SMP raises the bar on P2V automation, so that a typical migration process can be completed in a matter of minutes. The SMP's advanced migration technology also provides the ability to support virtual machine to virtual machine (V2V) conversions. V2V provides the ability to covert Virtual Machines between different underlying virtualization layers including: VMware ESX / GSX and Microsoft Virtual Server.

Nice article from John Howard on using ADS (Automated Deployment Services) and VSMT (Virtual Server Migration Toolkit) to change the size of the hard disk when you move a physical server into a virtual machine.

Congrats Rob, Scott and team. Nice work!

source: Rob Howard's Blog

I'm thrilled to announce the immediate availability of Community Server version 1.0:

Download Now!

We will release the source code within the coming days, we have also begun work on version 1.1. The theme for version 1.1 is:

• Performance - we intend to run both www.asp.net/forums and blogs.msdn.com on Community Server. Today these sites serve millions of users on the same 2 web servers and single database server. We've introduced new architecture into Community Server and we expect performance and scale to be better overall, but we know we'll identify some new issues with these high traffic sites.
• Simplification - We want to focus on simplifying the platform. We are going to introduce more wizard as well making the administration UI even more user friendly.
• Quality - A big goal for Community Server was to release a product that was of very, very high quality. We are shipping with defects - actually about 50 that we know about - but most are minor and have acceptable workarounds. We fixed over 900 bugs (that we tracked). Our goal for 1.1 is to make the platform even better than 1.1.

Cool! Now, anyone willing to work on a .Text to WordPress migration tool? ;-)

source: Meandering-Blog.Com
Monday, February 7, 4:55 PM

Jayson Knight has posted a DTS package for .Text to CS translation.

You can read about it on his blog.

Cool post from Forever Geek.

source: Forever Geek
Tuesday, February 8, 11:33 PM

Whatever your online, random stuff generator needs might be, chances are that The Generator Blog has already found it for you.

Among the listed generators:

• The Biblical Curse Generator
• Music Genre Name Generator
• Super Hero Generator
• Geek Code Generator
• Dear John Letter Generator

This is cool stuff. The Green Button is my favorite source for MCE related information - the improvements are welcomed. Especially the speed fixes!

source: Chris Lanier's Blog
Tuesday, February 8, 7:47 AM

Interested in learning about what Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) is? Sharing your experience? Seeing others experience? If so, check out www.thegreenbutton.com. The server move is complete and load times are so much faster and it's just going to get better. We have more members then ever before and having been a visiter and member of the site since it started almost 2 years ago I can say that it's my favorite source of information for Media Center information!

The Green Button
http://www.thegreenbutton.com/

Chrissy is getting all scientific now with her http://www.canblogspam.com project. She has setup honeypots in an effort to lure those nasty comment spammers into revealing their tricks. Great idea.

source: a tech-centric blog from the left
Wednesday, February 9, 2:09 PM

So tonight concludes my VSLive 2005 experience. I learned alot and hope to post some here. The most exciting things for me where IIS 7 and the SQL Server 2005 XML datatype.

Bill Vaughn, author of a ton of tech books including ADO.NET and and ADO Examples and Best Practices, was my favorite speaker. I like his style -- he kept me laughing and his sessions were educational & entertaining.

Until then, I setup a few honeypots for spambots. I think I missed the last harvesting session which may explain why the blog, http://wordpress.canblogspam.com, is cached in Google but has not been attacked thus far. I setup a MT engine to also test MT spambot patterns. That honeypot can be found at http://movabletype.canblogspam.com. In the event that URLS with 'spam' in them are ignored by spambots, I'll link the mirrors at http://wordpress.netnerds.net and http://movabletype.netnerds.net.

Here's to a quick harvest and learning more about the enemy!