VMWare Server Timesync on Ubuntu 7.10

I had installed VMWare server on Ubuntu with little pain, but it would not keep the time stable in the XP guest. I had installed the VMWare tools, but it wouldn't help - it would get up to a day off in a short period of time.

Turns out that my processors automatically scale down (Core 2 Quads), and so I needed to edit /etc/vmware/config and add the line host.cpukHz = 2400000 which is the correct one for my 2.4GHz CPU. After this, I restarted the vmware-server service, and the time is perfectly synced.

I was able to confirm the kHz number to use by running burnp6 from the cpuburn package on all four cores and looking at /proc/cpuinfo to see what speed it reached.

Windows Vista still uses the NT 3.5 file picker!

Glorious 3D accelerated Windows Vista Home Premium still uses the NT 3.5 file picker for adding fonts! If you right click in the fonts window, and select install new font, you get.....



Windows NT 3.5 will live forever!

German

As we all know, Germanic is the opposite of "cute." Compare, if you will, the words for "butterfly" in various languages (use your best, exaggerated accents for best effect):

• Spanish: Mariposa

• Italian: Farfalla

• French: Papillon

• Portuguese: Borboleta

• German: SCHMETTERLING

Apache 413 error problems

I had an Apache 2.2.3 HTTPS server configured, and it kept complaining that the uploads were too large. I tried setting the php.ini settings, adding LimitRequestBody, nothing worked. It still died.

Then I looked in the ssl_error_log and discovered:

request body exceeds maximum size for SSL buffer

which was the hint I needed. I was using Apache SSL client certificates, which have a limit of 128K, and if re-negotiation has to happen, a larger POST will fail.

This Bugzilla posting had the clues - You have to set the following as DEFAULTS for your SSL server, not just the directory.

SSLVerifyClient require

Otherwise it forces a renegotiation of some sort, and fails with a 413 error.

Connecting a Nintendo DS/Wii to an Airport Express

I was trying to do this, and it was driving me up the wall. I put it in WEP mode, but the DS/Wii wouldn't take the password.

The trick is you need to use the HEX password, which is not what Apple uses by default.



You need to use "Equivalent Network Password" to see the WEP code the DS/Wii will want. Once you have this, it'll connect quite easily.

Of course if you're only using a Wii, you should use WPA2.

VMWare Server USB on Ubuntu 7.10

If you want to use USB devices with VMWare Server on Ubuntu 7.10 you need to do the following:

Shutdown VMWare

sudo mount -t usbfs usbfs /proc/bus/usb/

Start VMware, and load your virtual machine.
Select the USB device in VM -> Removable Devices -> USB

Note that if you want usbfs to be mounted at boot, you'll want to add this line to /etc/fstab:


usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0


I put it directly under the proc entry.

Awesome desktop images

I was looking for some 1080p images, and found them at InterfaceLIFT.org. If you edit the URL a bit, you can directly search for 1080p. There are some very nice ones; now I only need to find some uncompressed TIFFs.

Remotely waking up a Mac

I had forgotten to change a cronjob on my Mac Book Pro at home, but by the time I got to work and sshed back in, it was asleep.

The server was on Gentoo, so I looked at the Gentoo wiki and found that "emerge wakeonlan" would get me the tool to wake up the Mac.

But now I needed the MAC address, and it was asleep! But I remembered dhcp, and looked in /var/lib/dhcp/dhcp.leases and sure enough, there was the MAC address of the Mac.

Running wakeonlan, waiting for it to come alive, and sshing in worked great.

Paladin Song

I'm a dwarven pally,
Short and stout,
Here is my hammer,
Here is my mount,
When I see a Horde,
I scream and shout,
'Bubble shield and hearthstone out!'

Phoenix LOL

Here is a flickr set of Phoenix Wright in a LOLCats theme.