This poor blog has long been neglected. I'm not doing much with Novell anymore due to changes at work, but still love GroupWise and SUSE and ZENworks. I will try to do more with keeping up news on these products over the next few months.
Just to catch you all up on what's been keeping me busy, here's what's been going on.
I have several friends losing the battles to cancer, lost my sister to Pancreatic cancer as well.
I published a cookbook - all my cookie recipes, plus breads and muffins. It's on Amazon, I really need to get it over to SmashWords and B&N, but for now it's on Amazon and I'm frantically trying to do an update and reformat of the eBook version to match the print version as I work on this blogpost. It has already been pirated to some "free" eBook posting sites, please ignore those. I'd like to at least break even on the $500 I paid for coverart and assistance with formatting for Amazon.
Not that you really need to buy it anyway as the key recipe everyone wants is on my other blog (which is posted further down).
Anyway, you can find it here:
Or if you prefer a spiral bound copy you can order it from my Etsy shop:
The recipes can be found here:
At work I've been busy learning BladeLogic, NSH scripting and new compliance rules for HIPAA, SOX, DISA and PCI.
Which reminds me, if your a BMC customer who would like to present at this year's Engage conference in Vegas in October, there's a call for papers, deadline is February 28th.
Since I'm busy studying for the VCP exam, I'll have to miss this year's submission deadline and hope to make it next year instead. Still a toss-up at when I will be back at BrainShare as I'll be footing the bill and most likely will be footing the bill for this year's Engage conference due to new management stylings at my current gig.
And I've been busy teaching other people's kids to bake, working on my 4 different book series which desperately need attention and editing before I can publish them. As usual, not enough hours in the day!
Ok, enough lolly gagging about, I have studying to do!
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Friday, August 15, 2014
To BrainShare or Not To Brainshare 2014
It's been forever since I posted something. I've been working in Server Automation land using BMC's Bladelogic and Microsoft OSes. While I'm still catching up on Linux, I don't get to use it at work any more, which makes me sad.
I'm debating about taking vacation and hitting BrainShare this year (done it before, why not again?). The cool part is I can get a First Class seat for less than double a SouthWest fare, but if I do that I'd no money for a hotel room.
I could just rent a trailer, haul it with my F150 "Fluffie" and camp out for the conference, but it's in November. In Utah. It will be cold and snowy all the way there and all the way back. So I've nixed that idea.
My other conference option is BMC's Engage conference, which is in Orlando. In Florida. Where it may be rainy and blustery but definitely warmer as it will be in October.
What to do? What to do? Guess I won't decide for myself today, but if you can swing it I'd suggest going. I'm sure several friends of mine will be doing amazing presentations that you won't want to miss.
Make sure you don't leave until Thursday though or you'll miss the Conference Party on Wednesday night. Yes, the conference is shorter now and is scheduled every 18 months. Which seems odd, but it lines up nicely for different vertical markets that are typically busy during the traditional US Spring Break times and others who are busy in the Fall.
To answer the age old question: "Does Mary work for Novell?" Nope, I don't. I haven't even tried to mooch a pass this year. But I may have a way to get some cookies out there.
Oh, and thinking of cookies, I finally published my cookbook. If all you want is the Snickerdoodle recipe you can find that at: http://pyrhaven.blogspot.com/
Otherwise the book is here:Merry Mary's Marvelous Munchies
I'm debating about taking vacation and hitting BrainShare this year (done it before, why not again?). The cool part is I can get a First Class seat for less than double a SouthWest fare, but if I do that I'd no money for a hotel room.
I could just rent a trailer, haul it with my F150 "Fluffie" and camp out for the conference, but it's in November. In Utah. It will be cold and snowy all the way there and all the way back. So I've nixed that idea.
My other conference option is BMC's Engage conference, which is in Orlando. In Florida. Where it may be rainy and blustery but definitely warmer as it will be in October.
What to do? What to do? Guess I won't decide for myself today, but if you can swing it I'd suggest going. I'm sure several friends of mine will be doing amazing presentations that you won't want to miss.
Make sure you don't leave until Thursday though or you'll miss the Conference Party on Wednesday night. Yes, the conference is shorter now and is scheduled every 18 months. Which seems odd, but it lines up nicely for different vertical markets that are typically busy during the traditional US Spring Break times and others who are busy in the Fall.
To answer the age old question: "Does Mary work for Novell?" Nope, I don't. I haven't even tried to mooch a pass this year. But I may have a way to get some cookies out there.
Oh, and thinking of cookies, I finally published my cookbook. If all you want is the Snickerdoodle recipe you can find that at: http://pyrhaven.blogspot.com/
Otherwise the book is here:Merry Mary's Marvelous Munchies
Monday, May 12, 2014
Sprint Samsung Tab 3 - reset using the Calculator
This doesn't exactly clear the PRL as I mentioned in my earlier post, but it does reset the device without losing data, allowing you to then re-activate the tablet.
- On the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Tap Calculator icon.
- On the calculator, type (+30012012732+.
- When the Factory Mode Screen and the key pad appear, press ##72786#.
- Device clears previous internal programming information and restarts.
- After device reboots, the device tries Hands Free Activation
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 on Sprint "Preparing Network" bug fix
Those that have known me for awhile know I have a love/hate relationship with Sprint. I've been with them for well over a decade and only stay for the unlimited data. Because, truth be told, ALL of the mobile phone providers have crappy coverage at my house. You'd think living on the top of a hill with line of sight to the various towers would make it have better coverage, but no.
I'll put the story on how I ended up with the tablet after I post what I did to fix it first.
Let me say I love, love, love the Tab 3 device. It's perfect for what I need and the screen is amazing.
Problem/Symptoms:
Here's what fixed it, and I'm betting you don't have to go through the others if you try this first:
Hopefully you are now passed the never ending "Preparing Network" issue and are now on the Sprint Network.
So, here's the story of how I ended up with a Tab3, courtesy of our ever tolerant local Sprint Store rep Ash, who has had to put up with my menopausal-fueled fits of rage thru this process.
My Samsung Galaxy S2 nearly got bricked when the Jelly Bean update was installed (by me, following Sprint's instructions...I should've known better). Because my beloved BlackBerry Curve was a Nextel phone and the towers were now removed I couldn't go back to my Curve. So I rode out our contract, with a flaky phone and relying on Google Voice on my Touch or AW laptop (thank you Google!) to get through my work day.
Our renewal finally came up and my hubby talked me into the HTC One Max as my fat fingers and touch screens don't like each other. I fell in love...the HTC One Max fit my hand perfect, it's faster than my S2, love the front facing speakers and the screen is to-die-for! Unfortunately, I had nothing but call quality problems, even with a Sprint Airave (their network extender) sitting right next to it. Much frustration later, and with a heavy heart, I took the HTC One Max in to trade out for a Galaxy S5, which they didn't have thanks to the punks that broke in and stole the majority of their inventory the night before. I settled for an S4.
We gave a lot of thought to switching to Verizon, which also has the HTC One Max, but they would not provide the network extender for free and the end result would be more costly than our Sprint contract due to the way their data plans work. I also checked with AT&T, TMobile, and MetroPCs and none of them would provide the network extender for free as Sprint had because we only have 2 devices. Apparently there's some unwritten rule on minimum device counts to qualify for a free extender when the provider knows their service sucks where you live.
I like the S4, it's bigger than the S2, but still too small for my fat fingers. It's a nice device, and if the Galaxy Mega had the same specs, or matched the S5 specs I would have given serious consideration to the Mega which is fairly close in size to the HTC device.
I went back to the Samsung device lines due to the new, not widely advertised, feature that Sprint and Samsung worked out. If you have the right Samsung model(s), you can now do wi-fi calling (think VOIP) using whatever wi-fi connection you have access too. This is a HUGE help when the airave connection isn't perfect or if the towers are acting up due to weather. The call quality is amazing using wifi, and it's far more stable, so now I can work from home with a reliable, clear calling option.
Still, I really missed the Max. Sprint was running a deal of a $49 tab, with a data plan of course. My hubby decided that it might be a fun toy for my birthday and we didn't have any Android tablets yet. So we bit the bullet and got it. But then I got this annoying "Preparing Network" message and missed my 14 day return window (I was having too much fun playing with the tablet).
Sprint has yet to resolve the issue properly and train the customer service folks who are getting all the cranky customer calls. I will however, stop by the local store, say hi to Ashraf and show him what I did to fix it. And hopefully, customers needing help will find this post and be able to get their device working properly.
I'll put the story on how I ended up with the tablet after I post what I did to fix it first.
Let me say I love, love, love the Tab 3 device. It's perfect for what I need and the screen is amazing.
Problem/Symptoms:
- You've had the device activated at a Sprint store or you've activated it yourself.
- It has a check mark in the upper left corner of the tablet.
- Notification window says "Preparing Network" many minutes, hours, days, weeks later and it is not resolving.
- First I contacted Sprint support via chat
- Automatic go-to response for them was visit the Sprint Zone, which is NOT installed on the latest Tab 3 devices
- Following their instructions I did a cold boot, reset the PRL using the calculator (I'll explain this later) and reset to CMA from LTE/CDMA
- Performed a data-destroying full hard factory reset
Here's what fixed it, and I'm betting you don't have to go through the others if you try this first:
TRY THIS FIRST:
1. At
the Home Screen, click on the Menu (it's next to the home screen button).
2. Turn
off Wi-FI
3. Select
More settings | Mobile networks | Network mode and reset it to CDMA mode. This
will require a reboot of the tablet
4. IF
your device is NOT activated
a. scroll
down to Activate this device
b. wait
for it to reboot
5. Once
your device IS activated
a. scroll
down to System Update (it's right below Activate this device)
b. tap
on Update PRL, let it finish
c. tap
on Update Profile, let it finish
6. The
"Preparing Network" notification should go away if you are in normal
Sprint 3G network ranges.
7. Verify
you can get to the Internet, launch a page you haven't visited in some time or
launch YouTube and select a new video. If those work then you have Sprint
network access and this is just a cosmetic error.
8. Once
the "Preparing Network" notification and you've verified you can
access the 3G network you can switch back to LTE/CDMA mode. You will end up
with the cosmetic error of the "Preparing Network" icon stuck in the upper
left corner.
Hopefully you are now passed the never ending "Preparing Network" issue and are now on the Sprint Network.
So, here's the story of how I ended up with a Tab3, courtesy of our ever tolerant local Sprint Store rep Ash, who has had to put up with my menopausal-fueled fits of rage thru this process.
My Samsung Galaxy S2 nearly got bricked when the Jelly Bean update was installed (by me, following Sprint's instructions...I should've known better). Because my beloved BlackBerry Curve was a Nextel phone and the towers were now removed I couldn't go back to my Curve. So I rode out our contract, with a flaky phone and relying on Google Voice on my Touch or AW laptop (thank you Google!) to get through my work day.
Our renewal finally came up and my hubby talked me into the HTC One Max as my fat fingers and touch screens don't like each other. I fell in love...the HTC One Max fit my hand perfect, it's faster than my S2, love the front facing speakers and the screen is to-die-for! Unfortunately, I had nothing but call quality problems, even with a Sprint Airave (their network extender) sitting right next to it. Much frustration later, and with a heavy heart, I took the HTC One Max in to trade out for a Galaxy S5, which they didn't have thanks to the punks that broke in and stole the majority of their inventory the night before. I settled for an S4.
We gave a lot of thought to switching to Verizon, which also has the HTC One Max, but they would not provide the network extender for free and the end result would be more costly than our Sprint contract due to the way their data plans work. I also checked with AT&T, TMobile, and MetroPCs and none of them would provide the network extender for free as Sprint had because we only have 2 devices. Apparently there's some unwritten rule on minimum device counts to qualify for a free extender when the provider knows their service sucks where you live.
I like the S4, it's bigger than the S2, but still too small for my fat fingers. It's a nice device, and if the Galaxy Mega had the same specs, or matched the S5 specs I would have given serious consideration to the Mega which is fairly close in size to the HTC device.
I went back to the Samsung device lines due to the new, not widely advertised, feature that Sprint and Samsung worked out. If you have the right Samsung model(s), you can now do wi-fi calling (think VOIP) using whatever wi-fi connection you have access too. This is a HUGE help when the airave connection isn't perfect or if the towers are acting up due to weather. The call quality is amazing using wifi, and it's far more stable, so now I can work from home with a reliable, clear calling option.
Still, I really missed the Max. Sprint was running a deal of a $49 tab, with a data plan of course. My hubby decided that it might be a fun toy for my birthday and we didn't have any Android tablets yet. So we bit the bullet and got it. But then I got this annoying "Preparing Network" message and missed my 14 day return window (I was having too much fun playing with the tablet).
Sprint has yet to resolve the issue properly and train the customer service folks who are getting all the cranky customer calls. I will however, stop by the local store, say hi to Ashraf and show him what I did to fix it. And hopefully, customers needing help will find this post and be able to get their device working properly.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
How to Reinstall AlienWare Respawn and use Existing Recovery partition
The Background:
I have been an AlienWare fan for quite awhile now...that loyalty is going downhill since Dell took over. It used to be that when AlienWare sent you a machine, you got FULL recovery (as in OOTB setup) discs. Dell stopped doing that a few years ago. Silly me didn't notice - at least not in time.So imagine my surprise when I realize, after reinstalling Windows 7 Pro, that I not only didn't have the entire set of drivers and software packages on the provided Resource CD, but I couldn't build recovery discs even though the partition was intact and I could launch the AlienRespawn utility. Because I'd done the install the way I did, I still had the Alienware Respawn software on the hard drive. I had not made my recovery CDs from Alienware Respawn, at least not for this desktop. I was a "good girl" and did it for my M11x, so I tried to make a bootable USB drive off of that laptop and then copy my desktops recovery partition. No that was not successful, it would start but the BCD didn't jive with a few other files that I didn't have on hand but Alienware Respawn seems to create on the fly.
After much digging, and many internet searches I took a chance on what may/may not be a Dell-owned site, but I found the file I needed (which I later found on my M11x as well).
The Fix:
As long as your recovery partition is intact you will be able to make yourself a set of recovery disks or bootable USB/UFD (take your pick of term) and restore your system back to the original configuration. Some other posts say this will only work on laptops, but it worked just fine for my Aurora R2 desktop.
Step by Step:
- Go to this site: AlienRespawn - The Heros! and download the AlienRespawn_Basic.exe file.
- If you're not 100% certain about your machine's current configuration I suggest running the "Easy Step 1" on the right side of the page. Just to be certain that your machine can run the respawn utility.
- Launch the AlienRespawn_Basic program. Follow the prompts. I went with almost all the defaults except for the Emergency Backup option - I included my "Downloads" folder so I didn't lose some of my work already done (like downloading FireFox and Kaspersky, in addition the respawn program).
- Don't panic when it starts in on the recovery partition configuration. Mine was left intact, it didn't reformat or overwrite any of the files on that partition.
- When the install is done you'll need to reboot.
- AlienRespawn should show up in your All Programs list, go ahead and launch it.
- The main screen may tell you that you need to create your recovery disks (it will be in red), pick your choice of discs or USB.
- If you choose USB, make sure you have at least a 16GB stick around that you can afford to have reformatted and lose all data that's on it.
- I used the USB option and it only took me an hour to restore my machine back to OOTB settings. (I still recommend making DVDs though as you may forget and overwrite your USB stick.
- Once the recovery set is done you can restart your machine, hit F12 to pick your boot device and start the restore process. (The F8 option won't work here as the AlienRespawn option is not listed.)
- When the restore is done, you'll have to set it up for it's first use, just like you did when you first got it.
- Finally, do the Toy Story Woody "I did it! I did it!" happy dance.
And if you're like me and your machine had to be reimaged due to kids installing things they shouldn't and getting a PITA trojan, you will lock your rig down tight and not allow any kids near it ever again (especially teens!).
Big shoutout to the folks behind the AlienRespawn site, you saved my sanity (because I couldn't possibly be beaten by a stupid recovery partiion, but was too lazy to hack the .wim to get it to work with just WinPE).
Monday, August 26, 2013
GroupWise News
I meant to post these earlier but life has been getting in the way, so playing catch up now.
If you're just
getting around to installing Novell Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack 1.2.5.299 that was released back in May - it has been released in the Patch Finder with
Z10 fixes and a few other bug fixes
(http://download.novell.com/patch/finder/) -
and are having YaST errors when trying to install, you may
want to go check the Forums for a thread that was started on 8/7/13. It's in
the Data Syncronizer/DS Mobility Pack forum.
You may have a repository issue that is fairly easy to resolve yourself.
So save yourself an SR.
In other GW news, if
you're experiencing the deleting messages on a BlackBerry 10 device issue, Datasync
has just entered into it's beta phase (which is good news) with an anticipated
release date of "late 2013" to resolve the issue where when a message is deleted from the Blackberry device, it is also deleted from the server and
not simply moved to trash.
Monday, August 19, 2013
VMWare News
As all Novell folks know, the vast majority of Novell admins are versed well beyond Novell products and across a multitude of technologies. A few may not realize though that VMWare started as a means for those of us going the self study route for Novell certs to use the equipment we had on hand to setup practice labs.
I've been using VMWare now for a long time, and have been tossing around the idea of getting my VCP but have been stymied by the mandate to sit the entire course before being "allowed" to sign up and take the exam. That's because there is no local center to take the $2,500 class at, so I'd have to include travel expenses, which put it out of my reach.
Not any more! As of August 12, 2013, VMWare has made the class available via the web. Yay!! Now I can save up my pennies and take the course, which includes electronic version of the guides, practice tests AND an exam voucher. Not too shabby.
Here's the link with the info on their new OnDemand training:
I've been using VMWare now for a long time, and have been tossing around the idea of getting my VCP but have been stymied by the mandate to sit the entire course before being "allowed" to sign up and take the exam. That's because there is no local center to take the $2,500 class at, so I'd have to include travel expenses, which put it out of my reach.
Not any more! As of August 12, 2013, VMWare has made the class available via the web. Yay!! Now I can save up my pennies and take the course, which includes electronic version of the guides, practice tests AND an exam voucher. Not too shabby.
Here's the link with the info on their new OnDemand training:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
