OH MY GOD! the Easyraid X8P died?

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad


Well… first there was a 1.3 TByte RAID5 volume that showed several defect sectors…and then it disappeared completely.



Now what? – We changed the internal cabling of the host system … nothing changed. The SCSI Interface Card does see an Easyraid X8P device but no volume shows up in the Disk Management.


Fortunatly I made a copy of all the data to our – now working – Promise VTrak m500i…

the Network Appliance FAS270 and DS14MK2 arrived…hurray

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

28x 146 GB hardrives (Seagate Cheetah ST3146807FC and Hitachi Ultrastar HUS103014FLF210)…I am waiting for my now.netapp.com login to be activated at the moment – so I could not do any tests. NetApp decided to not deliver any CD or manual inside the two packages…weird.

The hardware itself looks very very promising (got the joke?)… it’s all redundant and quite heavy. You can clearly see that it’s far more pricy than the cheap promise/easyraid hardware.


Eggs! Eggs!? Eggs?


on top the FS270 and below it the DS14MK2. All equiped with 10k UPM SCSI drives.

As soon as I got all my logins I will post several tests and information about the two devices. So be sure to check back often to technology-ninja.com

hadn’t the time (and money) to go to PDC05?…listen to (nearly) all tracks for free…

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad


If you didn’t attend this this years PDC05 you can watch and listen to nearly all tracks from this professional developer conference for free:



Anybody want to make some comments about the myth that Microsoft does not talk about it’s technologies in-depth?


Update: Be aware of the fact that if you want to download ALL of the material(like I am doing at the moment) it’s about 24 gigabytes…


Source: http://microsoft.sitestream.com/PDC05/

VGA resolution is fun on a Windows Mobile device…

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad


Since the JASJAR / MDA pro has a gorgeous 640×480 display there are some tools – originally designed for Windows Mobile 2003 SE to allow you to use the high dpi display with all it’s capabilities.


The normal case is that Windows Mobile scales everything up when it detects a higher resolution than 320×240 (QVGA). Since that means that all text on the screen looks really good but takes the same space like it would on a QVGA.


And there comes ozVGA. It’s a small tool that helps you to configure the systems dpi settings to better match the display. That does not necessarily lead to a better readable display but you’ll have much more space on the display since it’s used in it’s “unfiltered unoptimized raw dpi”-beauty.



before ozVGA



after ozVGA.


There are some bugs to this moment: the status bar at the top is not displayed correctly. Some of the applications cannot cope the high dpi (such as the calendar…) – But I hope that future updates of ozVGA will solve that.


Source: http://oz.sciox.org/

Halloween

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

BtK is definitely not the only person playing with food before Halloween… and Maria did the painting for my very first real Halloween Pumpkin!



click to enlarge (60,36 KB)


And, what a surprise… it’s a pumpkin… how disgusting!



click to enlarge (73,22 KB)


But one day, a man has to do, what a man has to do. so I was brave.



click to enlarge (66,18 KB)


Finally, everybody was happy…



click to enlarge (75,65 KB)



click to enlarge (47,08 KB)

it’s JASJAR / MDA pro time… yeeeehaa!

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad


After several weeks of waiting today the JASJAR / MDA pro arrived together with the T-Mobile UMTS contract + USIM.


As you can imagine the unpackaging was quite an event (I am not posting the pictures that show me retardedly smiling)



Everything in place….





UMTS…narf!


Since ahzfs JASJAR also arrived today and the third one is on it’s way and expected to arrive on monady we now can just start over developing the applications for our research project.


Microsoft Research presents: Virtual WiFi

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad



“VirtualWiFi is a virtualization architecture for wireless LAN (WLAN) cards. It abstracts a single WLAN card to appear as multiple virtual WLAN cards to the user. The user can then configure each virtual card to connect to a different wireless network. Therefore, VirtualWiFi allows a user to simultaneously connect his machine to multiple wireless networks using just one WLAN card. This new functionality introduced by VirtualWiFi enables many new applications, which were not possible earlier using a single WLAN card. For example,



  • With VirtualWiFi, you can connect to a guest’s machine or play games over an ad hoc network, while surfing the web via an infrastructure network.
  • You can use VirtualWiFi to connect your ad hoc network, which may contain many nodes, to the Internet using only one node.
  • VirtualWiFi can help make your home infrastructure network elastic by extending its access to nodes that are out of range of your home WiFi Access Point.”

    • Source: http://research.microsoft.com/netres/projects/virtualwifi/

    What now about the Promise VTrak m500i? Final news.

    Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad


    So I was asked why I would accept another test, after all the unsuccessful tests and support calls. The point is that I wanted to give Promise a second chance because they contacted us on their own talking about concerns they have that we do have some problems with their Promise VTrak m500i.


    After all we got our hands on a disclaimer-less firmware update which solved at least our 3 Terabyte problem: We could not create a 3 Terabyte RAID volume. It just did not sync. 2 Terabyte was the maximum volume size.


    This bug is fixed. The other ones not. Like the complete crash of the m500i when you try to enable DHCP on the management network interface…

    Promise M-Class | Logical Drive 0 Info and Settings
    

     LdId              : 0                 ArrayId          : 0
    
 OperationalStatus : OK                NumOfUsedPD      : 14
    
 NumOfAxles        : 1                 RAID Level       : RAID5
    
 Stripe            : 64KB              Sector           : 512Bytes
    
 Capacity          : 2.94TB            PhysicalCapacity : 3.17TB
    
 SYNCed            : Yes               WWN              : 22a6-0001-5501-c7bf
    
 SerialNo          : 114163942163624924927000000000000
    

     Alias             : raid_3TB
    
 ReadPolicy        : ReadAhead
    
 WritePolicy       : WriteBack

    Hurray! 2.94 Terabyte!!

    Promise M-Class | Controller 1 Basic Information
    

     Alias             :
    
 Vendor            : VTRAK-MB
    
 Model             : VTRAK
    
 OperationalStatus : OK
    
 PowerOnTime       : 3 hours
    

     CacheUsagePercent : 0%                DirtyCachePercent : 0%
    
 CmdProtocol       : SCSI-2            WWN               : 2000-0001-5500-2027
    
 PartNumber        : P29000020000036   S/N               : M06G05715100016
    
 Revision          : 3                 ManufactureDate   : Jul 23, 2005
    
 BootLoaderVersion : 1.05.0000.00      BootLoaderBldDate : Jun 17, 2005
    
 FirmwareVersion   : 2.00.0000.00      FirmwareBuildDate : Oct 3, 2005
    
 SoftwareVersion   : 2.00.0000.00      SoftwareBuildDate : Oct 3, 2005

    We actually discovered some software limitations…for example the H2bench which I used for the benchmarks:

    H2bench — by Harald Bögeholz & Lars Bremer / c’t Magazin für Computertechnik
    
Version 3.6/Win32, Copyright (C) 2002 Heise Zeitschriften Verlag GmbH & Co. KG
    
Dutch translation by F&L Technical Publications B.V.
    
*** drive too large.

    And interestingly there are some limitations in Windows. After I connected the iSCSI device and initialised the drive:




    I had two partitions…automatically created. Because the maximum size of partitions on a MBR-Volume is 2 Terabyte.:


    “Because partition tables on master boot record (MBR) disks only support partition sizes up to 2 terabytes, you must use dynamic volumes to create NTFS volumes over 2 terabytes. Windows XP Professional manages dynamic volumes in a special database instead of in the partition table, so dynamic volumes are not subject to the 2-terabyte physical limit imposed by the partition table. Therefore, dynamic NTFS volumes can be as large as the maximum volume size supported by NTFS. Itanium-based computers that use GUID partition table (GPT) disks also support NTFS volumes larger than 2 terabytes.”


    So I just had to convert it:



    and there it is:

       3086914 MB Speicherplatz auf dem Datenträger insgesamt.
    
    307200 KB in 2 Dateien
    
         4 KB in 9 Indizes
    
         0 KB in fehlerhaften Sektoren
    
    162455 KB vom System benutzt
    
     65536 KB von der Protokolldatei belegt
    
   3086456 MB auf dem Datenträger verfügbar.
    

          4096 Bytes in jeder Zuordnungseinheit
    
 790250239 Zuordnungseinheiten auf dem Datenträger insgesamt
    
 790132825 Zuordnungseinheiten auf dem Datenträger verfügbar



    Since there are some problems with the machine left and I am testing it right now you can expect some more news on that subject…


    Source 1: Promise Disclaimer Trouble
    Source 2: Size Limits in NTFS/Windows

    Blinkenlights reloaded

    Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

    Surprisingly Blinkenlights is back for our viewing and gambling pleasure. If you are in Berlin these days, make sure you’ll take a look.



    (it’s the building in the upper middle…which is used as a big b/w screen)


    Source 1: http://www.berlin.de/webcams/.bin/index.php
    Source 2: http://www.blinkenlights.de/

    hex168 = 360

    Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad


    It seems that there is another cool viral concept going on these days regarding the upcoming Xbox 360 launch in november/december.



    The point seems to be that the roman numbers I, VI, VIII in these crop-circles are 168. And all links point to the website hex168.com which shows us the same circle:



    Since hex 168 is 360 decimal…


    Sounds weird? Yes. Cool, eh?


    Source: http://www.hex168.com

    Microsoft Imagine Cup 2006 – it’s in india this time…

    Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad



    Imagine a world where “technology helps us to live healthier lives”


    As last year there will be an international competition and a national competition. The categories in the international competition would be:




    • algorithm



      • prices:



        • 1st: $ 8000,-


        • 2nd: $ 4000,-


        • 3rd: $ 3000,-


      • rounds:



        • Round 1 – Complete online quiz


        • Round 2 – Complete take home challenge


        • Round 3 – Onsite 24hr WW Algorithm Finals


      • timetable:



        • Nov 1, 2005 Registration Opens


        • Jan 30, 2006 Registrations Closes – Competition begins


        • Feb 6, 2006 Round One Begins


        • Mar 15, 2006 Round One Closes


        • April 1, 2006 2nd Round finalists announced


        • April 5, 2006 2nd Round Begins


        • May 8, 2006 2nd Round Closes


        • May 22, 2006 6 Worldwide finalists announced


    • short film




      • prices:



        • 1st: $ 8000,-


        • 2nd: $ 4000,-


        • 3rd: $ 3000,-



      • rounds:



        • Round 1 – Abstract, digital storyboard


        • Round 2 – Film, and written film description


        • Round 3 – Onsite 24hr WW Finals Short Film competition


      • timetable:



        • Nov 1, 2005 Registration Opens


        • Feb 1, 2006 Abstract/storyboard submission window opens


        • Mar 1, 2006 Abstract/storyboard submission window closes


        • Mar 13, 2006 Community voting begins


        • Mar 24, 2006 Community voting closes


        • April 1, 2006 2nd Round finalists announced


        • April 5, 2006 2nd Round design submission begins


        • May 8, 2006 2nd Round design submission closes


        • May 22, 2006 Worldwide finalists announced (6 teams move on)


    • information technology (IT)




      • prices:



        • 1st: $ 8000,-


        • 2nd: $ 4000,-


        • 3rd: $ 3000,-

      • rounds:

        • Round 1 – Complete online quiz
        • Round 2 – Complete business cases

      • timetable:

        • Nov 1, 2005 Registration Opens
        • Jan 30, 2006 Registrations Closes – Competition begins
        • Feb 6, 2006 Round One Begins
        • Mar 15, 2006 Round One Closes
        • April 1, 2006 2nd Round finalists announced
        • April 5, 2006 2nd Round Begins
        • May 8, 2006 2nd Round Closes
        • May 22, 2006 6 Worldwide finalists announced

    • visual gaming

      • prices:


        • 1st: $ 8000,-


        • 2nd: $ 4000,-


        • 3rd: $ 3000,-


      • rounds:



        • Round 1 Upload round 1 DLL


        • Round 2 Upload round 2 DLL


        • Round 3 24 hr onsite worldwide finals competition


        • details relased to those competitors who achieve this status


      • timetable:



        • Nov 1, 2005 Registration Opens/ Round One Begins


        • Mar 15, 2006 Registration Closes/ Round One Closes


        • April 1, 2006 2nd Round finalists officially announced (however qualification for 2nd round will be shared with competitors as they do or do not achieve the minimum mark for advancing)


        • April 5, 2006 2nd Round Begins


        • May 8, 2006 2nd Round Closes


        • May 22, 2006 12 Worldwide finalists announced


    • interface designer



      • prices:



        • 1st: $ 8000,-


        • 2nd: $ 4000,-


        • 3rd: $ 3000,-


      • rounds:



        • Round 1: Abstract must be less than 250 words, in English. Storyboard must be less than 25 MB, using .xpr file format as source files and should run inside of a presentation framework such as HTML, PPT, etc.


        • Round 2: Website or other self installing/running interactive interface design using .xpr source files


      • timetable:



        • Nov 1, 2005 Registration Opens


        • Feb 1, 2006 Abstract/storyboard submission window opens


        • Mar 1, 2006 Abstract/storyboard submission window closes


        • Mar 13, 2006 Community voting begins


        • Mar 24, 2006 Community voting closes


        • April 1, 2006 2nd Round finalists announced


        • April 5, 2006 2nd Round design submission begins


        • May 8, 2006 2nd Round design submission closes


        • May 22, 2006 Worldwide finalists announced (6 teams move on)

    and the categorie of the national competition:




    • software design



      • teams up to 4 people


      • Rounds:



        • pre-round 1: Proposal (Deadline: end of january)

        • pre-round 2: Development of the project (Deadline: end of april)


      • at least one mobile device and one web service is used along with .NET 2.0


      • pre-rounds end on 05.05.2006


      • national prices:



        • 1st: trip to the international finals in india + chance to win there


        • 2nd: tba.


        • 3rd: tba.


      • international prices:



        • 1st: $25,000


        • 2nd: $15,000


        • 3rd: $10,000

    Subscribe here:



    Source: http://www.thespoke.net

    the iSCSI ramdrive benchmark; and a detailed hardware listing

    Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad


    Harhar! No big deal this time. Just some “lets see what happens” crap. We got a 1 GByte ramdrive and the Linux iSCSI Enterprise Target.


    sequential read rate medium (unthrottled): 77979 Kilobyte/s
    sequential read rate Read-Ahead (Latency 1.15 ms): 59963 Kilobyte/s
    repeatedly sequential read (“coretest”): 59901 Kilobyte/s


    Isn’t that surprising? I would have expected the NICs to perform much better. But obviously 85 Megabyte/s is the maximum speed possible. The most surprising thing is the fact that we do not see a constant line but some peaks. We made 2 additional benchmarks and got the same result… anyone who could possibly explain what’s going on there?


    In the comments of a previous benchmarking article was the question “What hardware do you use?”. So here’s a complete listing:


    iSCSI Server Hardware:


    Mainboard: Intel Torrey Pines SE7210TP1-E
    Network: Gigabit LAN onboard (Intel 82547-GI Ethernet)+ Intel PRO/100 S (82557/8/9)
    CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3 Ghz / 800 Mhz FSB / HT / Prescott
    RAM: 4x 512 MB DDR PC400 Kingston (KVR400X64C3A/512)
    HDD: 7x SATA 250 GB WD2500JD


    iSCSI Client Hardware:


    Mainboard: Intel 915G/GV/910GL Workstation (8291xGx GMCH + ICH6R) PCI Chipset
    Network: Gigabit LAN onboard (Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit) + Intel PRO/100 S
    CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3 Ghz / 800 Mhz FSB / HT / Prescott
    RAM: 4x 512 MB DDR PC400 Kingston (KVR400X64C3A/512)
    HDD: 3x SATA 250 GB WD2500JD





    The tests as PDF:


    Test 1: ramdrive.pdf (26,08 KB)
    Test 2: ramdrive2.pdf (26,1 KB)
    Test 3: ramdrive3.pdf (26,13 KB)

    Sorry I pushed the wrong button…

    Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

    For gods sake why seem some people unable to use a phone? In 8 out of 10 cases when I call them, they just reject my call – calling me instantly back “Oh sorry, I must have pressed the wrong button”.


    IT’S COLOR CODED! Green for GO Red for NO-GO.


    Actually there are only TWO buttons on the phone that are enlighted. So how come that they almost always push the wrong one?


    GRRR!

    Star Wreck: A fan movie

    Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad


    It seems that there are more and more fan films these days. After the announcement of a german Star Wars movie there is “Star Wreck” – a Star Treck parody available for download.



    “The first Finnish full-length scifi parody is made from astounding special effects, action and loads of dark humour. It is the product of a core group of five Finns and many people who’ve helped us during the seven years it has been in the making. You can download the entire movie by clicking here. For free, of course.”


    Source: http://www-fi1.starwreck.com/

    Microsoft Student Program Workshop: “get productive in one day”

    Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad


    Since yesterday the Studentpartner team is meeting in Aachen. The agenda is quite huge so they gave a short progress report this night:


    Start of the build-up: 10:00


    CISCO Switch CAT 3750, CISCO PIX Firewall 525, HP Integrity 2600, HP Pro Liant 360 Server up and running.



    17:00:
    The helpdesk was available based on a Sharepoint Portal Server. The login screen is working:




    around 23:00


    the cabling works, V LANs configured, the IP Network runs.


    The team installs the server software:


    – Exchange
    – MOM
    – ISA 2004
    – Windows Server 2003 EA
    – ADAM
    etc.





    Source 1: http://msdnaa.uni-duisburg.de
    Source 2: http://www.studentprogram.de