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Connection issues with recent Samba versions and the DNS-323

I was trying to connect to my DNS-323 from my laptop running a recent version of Ubuntu. When I attempted to map a share I received the following error.

Server requested LANMAN password (share-level security) but 'client lanman auth' is disabled
tree connect failed: NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED

The solution is to put

  1. client lanman auth = Yes

in the local (client) smb.conf file.

How to Change the UUID of a VirtualBox .vdi

I was trying to restore a .vdi disk image that had been manually backed up (i.e. copied). The problem when trying to add this copied disk image to a VM is that the UUID conflicted with a virtual disk that already existed.

The easiest solution is to change the UUID of the either disk image. The following command worked for me. Note the "/" in the path, I was using a Linux laptop so for a Windows based system you should use "\" in the path instead.

  1. VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid /path/to/diskimage.vdi

Fixing the Kaspersky Outlook plugin

Periodically the Kaspersky Outlook plugin stars to misbehave, causing a pop-up warning every time a user tries to send an e-mail message. I found a straight forward solution at the following site: http://www.fixkb.com/2010/03/add-in-kaspersky-mail-checker-cannot-be.html

I had to change the suggestion slightly to reflect the Windows 7 path difference from XP.
There is also a typo on his page (there are too many “l”s in his CLI example for .dll).
Also pay attention to the version number in the path.


regsvr32 -u “C:\ Program Files (x86)\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0\mcou.dll”
regsvr32 “C:\ Program Files (x86)\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0\mcou.dll”

How to use any MAC address on a VMWare ESX/ESXi guest.

We have a software license that was tied to a particular MAC address. When we virtualized this machine, the license was no longer working as the MAC address had changed.

If you go in to the properties for the network adapter with the VMWare Infrastructure Client, you will see that you are limited to a range of MAC addresses (essentially you cannot change the vendor portion of the MAC).

Apparently there is no way to put any arbitrary MAC address and unbelievably this is an intended behavior.

First I set the MAC address to be manually specified in the range allowed. Then I enable the "Tech Support Mode" and enable ssh support. I then use an ssh client to connect to the VMWare server, I then navigate to the folder containing the guest VM, and I edit the .vmx file associated with it as ESXi conveniently provides the vi text editor. The value you want to change is called ethernet0.address although the number will be different if the guest has multiple Ethernet adapters.

Simply type in the desired MAC address and then save the file. When you boot up the guest you should be able to verify that the MAC address has indeed been changed.

Setting the CPU Frequency Govenor from the Command Line

Most modern processors support some level of frequency scaling, that is they change the speed or frequency that they are running at in order to reduce energy consumption. You can usually change the frequency with a GUI app but what happens if there is no GUI running (on say a server). The command is called cpufreq-set. You can get details (like processor statistics and current governor in use. Both of these are provided by the cpufrequtils package which you can just apt-get or aptitude install

The problem is that cpufreq-set only sets one core or CPU at a time. On a dual or quad socket this could get quite tedious. Fortunately there is an easy solution.

  1. for each in `cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep processor |cut -f 2 -d \:` ;do sudo cpufreq-set -c $each -g performance ; done

What I do is run a small little bash script that iterates over all the CPUs and sets the governor to one set as a parameter to the script.

  1. #!/bin/bash
  2. # Wrapper to easily set the CPU Frequency Governor
  3.  
  4. # Check that a valid governor is set
  5.  
  6. GOVERNOR=$1
  7.  
  8. USAGE="This script requires a CPU governor as an argument, which should be one of: conservative, ondemand, userspace, powersave, performance
  9. For example: cpuscale.sh ondemand"
  10.  
  11. if [ "$#" = "0" ]; then
  12.         echo "$USAGE"
  13.         exit 1
  14. fi
  15.  
  16. # Creating an array with each of the CPUs numeric ID

Changing your search provider to Google in Internet Explorer

I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so surely there must be a better way to change the default search provider to Google in more recent versions of IE.

To make it easy I have a link that I can click to accomplish this very task:
Click this link to make Google your Search Provider in Internet Explorer

Here is the raw HTML that makes that link (note that it is all one line if you copy and paste it):

  1. <a Href="#" onClick="window.external.AddSearchProvider(&quot;http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/3/C/A3C89D63-E2F0-460D-9F5F-23B51EA52B5E/Google.xml&quot;);DCSext.ie_asp=&quot;Google&quot;">Click this link to make Google your Search Provider in Internet Explorer</a>

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