FreeNAS

I ran across FreeNAS in a Google search a couple of days ago and decided to give it a try on an old Dell Precision workstation 410. I booted off of the live CD I created from the ISO file I downloaded from SourceForge. I am need to move an aging FTP Server and thought that Freenas might do the trick. Install went fine and I was able to use the web gui to do further configuration of the Freebsd v7.1 OS. I used three additional drives to create a ZFS single parity raid drive. The old FTP server I use is running VSFTPD and FreeNAS uses ProFTPD by default. It took some command line hacking to find the proftpd.conf and modify my LDAP based accounts to get ProFTPD to allow the accounts access. After a quick rsync of data from the old server to the new FreeNAS, I am ready to put it thru the test. I will update as I can to verify performance and other issues that might arise.

Odesk Provider

Online File Sharing

I was needing a way to share a few large files with some different individuals and decided to search for free and easy to use online file sharing.

Microsoft has Windows Live Sky Drive. http://skydrive.live.com/

MediaFire “File Hosting Made Simple”. http://www.mediafire.com/

Currently I think Sky Drive requires all parties to have a Windows Live ID, but MediaFire does not. I was able to create the account and share the folder with multiple people using a customized URL. They were not required to create a MediaFire account just to access the files I had made available.

Speed up Revit FBX Renderings in Max Design

A simple change in the DesignVIZ options can vastly improve mental ray Pre-Processing when rendering scenes imported from Revit FBX files.
In Notepad, open the file "CurrentDefaults.ini in your local User's files (typically at C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMaxDesign\2010 - 32bit\enu\defaults\DesignVIZ.mentalray\CurrentDefaults.ini").
Search for the parameter 'DontRepeatRefMsg' and change it's value from 0 to 1.
Four lines down is the parameter 'InvalidateTMOptimization' and change it's parameter from 0 to 1. You should now have:
DontRepeatRefMsg=1
; comment comment comment...
; comment comment comment...
; comment comment comment...
InvalidateTMOptimization=1
Pre-Processing at the start of mental ray rendering should now happen in a few seconds instead of minutes.
You have to restart Max to accept the change. You should also edit the DesignVIZ.mentalray preset at your program installation folder, usually "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\Defaults\DesignVIZ.mentalray\FactoryDefaults\CurrentDefaults.ini"
Be sure to do the editing for both x32 and x64 if you have both installed. Editing the INI file in the Max installation folder prevents a change if you choose an option from the "Customize>Custom UI and Defaults Switcher".

Source website:
http://newsletters.hagerman.com/newsletters/ebul81-ME.htm

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Enable the Administrator Account In Vista Home Premium

1. Go To Start > Accessories > Command Prompt
   Right-click on the icon “Command Prompt” and choose “Run-As Administrator”
2. A DOS box will appear.
3. Type the following
   1. net user administrator /active:yes
      (this will enable the administrator account)
   2. net user administrator /active:no
      (this will disable the administrator account)
   3. net user administrator password
      (this will set the password on the account)
      (in this example “password” is the password)
   4. net user
      (this will list all the user accounts on the system)

Vista Home – Net Account

I stumbled on how to accomplish changing the password expire settings in Vista Home Premium.

To remove the password expire date in Vista Home Premium, you have to use the old command line and use the net command to do this. I looked all over the GUI account dialog box for an option to to this but could not find one.

So to lift the password expire day do this.

 

1. Under Start>Accessories> “Right-Click” on Command Prompt and click on “Run As Administrator”
2. This will open a dos dialog box. At the prompt type in
1. net accounts (this will list out all the settings for the current user)
2. net accounts ? (this will list the syntax for using the command)
3. net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited (this syntax will remove the password expiration date)
4. net accounts /maxpwage:100 (this will set the password to expire in 100 days)