Microsoft Support Lied

I had to call to straighten out a huge snafu on their part with a customer's purchase of MS Office 2010 and gaining access to their product keys.

While I was on the phone (and being talked down to - you all know how much I *love* that) I was told that you MUST burn the ISO to a DVD, and that no the installer won't work if you mount the ISO via something like Virtual CloneDrive.  Big lie!

Proved it today that, yes in fact, Virginia, you can run the MS Office 2010 setup from a virutal DVD, using Virtual CloneDrive just fine.

Just thought I'd share.

Richard Bliss

Thought I'd share with you all that Richard Bliss, formerly of GWAVA and GroupWise fame, has just released his book today on lulu.com.  He is in the process of porting it to Kindle and Nook formats as well.

Here's the blurb on the book:

This book is a collection of 9 BlissPoints. They are unique marketing concepts that the author has developed over the past 22 years of marketing for Hi-Tech Start-ups and Fortune 500 organizations. These BlissPoints have enable him to see things differently, no matter the situation. They are examples where he has stolen the show and literally moved the spotlight away from the traditional and focused it on the unusual or the unique. Each point is a different area where he has found success by emotionally connecting to his audience and by doing things a little differently. The author believes in going against traditional thinking and exploiting things that others have missed. So, here's his challenge to you: "Look for the value and overcome the fears that keep you from stepping out on stage, whatever that stage may be. Go ahead! Steal the show."

If you're interested, here's the link to it as well:


http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/stealing-the-show/18832009

Well whadda know?

Somebody paid attention AND I passed 7,000 page views. Didn't realize that many people found me.

Anyway, there are 2 winners currently: Amanda and Rhonda.  If anyone else is paying attention and emails me my page view count, I probably have a t-shirt around that you'd like. :)

Hey, I'm at almost 7,000 page views!

First person(s) to email me at wmnug at yahoo dot com to tell me I'm over 7,000 page views (scroll to the bottom of this page to find my counter) will get....well, I don't know what you'll get yet. It will most likely depend on where you live because customs can be a pain.

I just noticed today, and I've no idea how I got to this many page views to begin with, so I don't know when this will end. But it might be fun. :)

OES2 Linux Activation Fails or OES2 Linux says there are no updates available

Another issue related to the cloning of virtual servers from a VMWare template. Don't get me wrong, I love VMWare, but the human element involved in cloning servers (especially after some time has passed) always shoots me in the foot.

I stumbled upon this when I was doing updates for a customer. A few servers updated just as they should, while others were saying there were no updates available.  Then when re-activating them via Novell Customer Center I realized I'd used the wrong server name. Doh! SMH - again. One of those steps I overlooked after cloning the server. Part of this depends on your particular template process, but if you're not controlling the process this "fix" is a good thing to have in your toolbelt.

This comes from a Novell TID that was not easy to find. Hopefully this post will make generic searches outside of the Novell KB a bit easier.

These are the error messages you may encounter:

• ERROR: Could not add'https://update.novell.com': Failed to download XML metadata: Download failed: (https://update.novell.com/repo/repoindex.xml) serializationStream supports seeking, but its length is 0
  
  ERROR: Could not add 'nu.novell.com': Failed to parse XML metadata: Can't add repository at https://nu.novell.com/repo/$RCE/SLED10-Updates/sled-10-i586: Unknown Error: Downloading metadata failed (is YUM source?) or user did not accept remote source. Aborting refresh.
  
  ERROR: Could not add 'nu.novell.com': Failed to parse XML metadata: Can't add repository at https://nu.novell.com/repo/$RCE/SLES10-Updates/sles-10-i586: Unknown Error: Downloading metadata failed (is YUM source?) or user did not accept remote source. Aborting refresh.

My trigger was that the servers were saying no updates were available and it had been 6 months since I'd touched them and they weren't setup for automatic updates.  This is apparently due to a corrupt cache.

Here's how to fix it:

1. Close the Novell Customer Center Configuration tool if it's running
2. Open a terminal window and su if you're not already logged in as root
3. Run the following commands
• rczmd stop
• rm -rf /var/cache/zmd/*
• rczmd start
4. Launch Yast2  and select Software | Novell Customer Center Configuration
5. Correct the server name if it's wrong and finish the activation process

This is all laid out in Novell TID #3818394 with the title of "Activation fails with an error downloading XML data" if you want to see the official resolution.

Cannot create NSS volume on OES2 Linux box

This was one of the aggravating issues I ran into over this past Summer/Fall.  It was my own fault, but trying to find a solution was not easy.

Here's the assorted searches I performed:

• cannot install an NSS volume to eDirectory
• ERROR: NSS Admin Failed Creating Edirectory Objects
• Error -676 When Trying To Create A Pool Or Volume via NSSMU or iManager
• cannot create NSS volume on OES2 Linux on VMWare

This happens more often than I care to admit on virtual servers.

If you have cloned the server in question from another server - for instance using VMWare templates - you may be using the same NSS admin name as the orginally created server. This is the real issue. It's not a VMWare issue and it's not really an OES2 Linux issue, it's a doh!, slap my forehead issue.

Here's how to fix it:

1. Open up a terminal window
2. Type the command "id novlxregd" and confirm that the nssadmin name is wrong
3. Go into Yast | OES Install and Configuation. 
4. "Enable" reconfiguration under the NSS section. 
5. If the name doesn't match your server name, i.e. cn=server2admin,o=novell if the server with the issue is named server2, simply run through the NSS configuration after changing the name to the corrected name
6. Let it finish and the type the "id novlxregd" again and you should see the correct response now.

I ran into this after having used a template for a multiple server migration for a customer. First one that I'd missed this on, but it wasn't my last.