Virtualisation Podcasts – Keeping your finger on the Pulse

For many years I’ve found listening to Podcasts a great way to keep up-to-date with Virtualisation and Technology.

It all started with the VMware Communities Roundtable podcast, where I quickly realised the commute to work didn’t have to be “dead time”.

Here’s my current list of Virtualisation and Tech podcasts:

  1. Packet Pushers Datanauts
  2. Speaking in Tech
  3. In Tech We Trust Podcast
  4. The Cloudcast (.net) – Weekly Cloud Computing Podcast
  5. The Full Stack Journey
  6. Virtually Speaking Podcast
  7. The Geek Whisperers
  8. VMware Communities Roundtable
  9. Cloud Insiders
  10. vChat (MP3 VERSION) – The Latest in Virtualization and Cloud Computing
  11. The Data Center Insiders Podcast: Virtualization | Cloud Computing | Enterprise IT | VMware | EMC

The best Podcast app I’ve found to date is Overcast, as it has very useful features including Voice Boost and Smart Speed, Playlists, and a great UI.
Oh yeah, and it’s free!

I’ve you want to quickly import the above podcasts, download and import my OPML file here: overcast-adam-rush

Initiate Siri using Ford Sync without touching iPhone

Scenario

You have set up your iPhone to work with Ford Sync over via Bluetooth, and you can make/receive calls fine.

However, to use Siri over Bluetooth, you have to physically hold down the Home button of your iPhone; you cannot do this using the Ford Sync voice control paddle on the steering wheel.

Solution

  1. Activate the Voice Control paddle on your steering wheel.
  2. Say “Dial Mobile Name”.
  3. After a short while, you will hear the “Siri beep”, and it seems you have to be quite quick to say something, else Siri will cancel itself.
  4. You can give Siri any normal command and it will work over Bluetooth fine. (I have found the volume is quieter than normal for some reason).

I can’t find any mention of this feature anywhere online, so I can only assume it is unsupported. Still, it works, so it’s a great workaround until something better comes along 🙂

Some other useful links:

Citrix XenApp lab setup notes including iPad configuration

My good friend Steve and I were up till 02:30 Fri night / Sat morning doing further testing with Citrix XenApp 6.5 and the Citrix Receiver app on the iPad.

There were a few teething errors, but we got everything working fine in the end; including configuring an ActiveSync Profile for the iPad that installs a Root Certificate and pre-configures the Mail app to work with Exchange.

We used Hyper-V to setup a base VM of Server 2008 R2, then installed the following VMs using differencing disks which are similar to linked clones using VMware:

  • A Domain Controller with Certificate Services installed
  • SQL Server 2008 R2
  • XenApp and Licensing
  • Citrix Web Interface and Secure Gateway
  • Exchange 2010

After a few short hours sleep, I decided to do exactly the same in my home lab too. Usually I use my ESXi server, but I thought this would be a great time to test out the latest version of VMware Workstation.

I didn’t take screenshots as usual, but here’s the notes I made:

[Read more…]

BlackBerry Users cannot send or receive emails after Exchange reboot

Scenario

You have restarted your Exchange server after applying some updates, and now your BlackBerry users are complaining that emails are not coming through. Even though emails they send from their BlackBerrys seem to send fine, the recipients are not receiving them either.

Solution

Restart the BlackBerry Enterprise Services (BES) server or individual services.

What happens after rebooting an Exchange server is that BES loses the MAPI connections, and cannot reconnect when the Exchange server comes back online.

Read more here to automate this process: http://blog.mohsinabbas.com/2011/02/16/bes-services-to-restart-automatically-after-exchange-reboot/