Yet Another IT Professional Blog

Today, I needed to do some tests with a newer version of the Chef Client and test my cookbooks. To version 14.12.9-1 to be precise. I also upgraded my ChefDK on my workstation to the 4.2.0 version. I believe that upgrades Ruby version as well and now I have ruby version 2.6.3p62 Right after the upgrade, I tried with a basic knife node list command to see if I needed to reboot or anything was broke... Everything seems to be working fine, except I get this annoying "warning" message. As it's just a warning, I don't really care about it as it just seems to annonce something that is deprecated... Problem; You receive "warning: Win32API is deprecated after Ruby 1.9.1; use fiddle directly instead" warning when using ruby or chef knife commands. Solution; You need to comment out that warning message in Ruby lib scripts.

Yep... Another update and another bug. I just applied this months updates on my computer at home and guess what? It caused almost a "fatal" error on my VMWare Workstation virtual machines! As soon as my computer boots, I tried to fire one of my vms and I got the following scary message.

Recently, I was working on a vSphere 4.1 upgrade to vSphere 5.5 and of course, first thing first; I had to update all the physical servers to the latest versions of BIOS, firmware, drivers… At a first glance, this seems an easy procedure. I’m thinking to use the Dell iDrac console to update most of the stuff but I soon realized that I wasn’t able to update NIC firmware and BIOS through the iDrac. When you go to the Dell Support web site to download the drivers for a specific model of server, you’ll realize that Dell is offering at least 4-5 different troubleshooting and updater utilities… Some of them are as big as 7.5GB ISO files! The problem with these utilities is that they are not really well documented and it takes a lot of effort to prepare and use them.  Here are a couple of examples;

I am an owner of the Dell Venue 8 Pro since it has been out and to be honest, for a device that I only paid $299, I am extremely happy about it. It's not a powerful device where I can use it as a replacement of my laptop or my desktop... Not even close! But...

Deploying Java 7 Update 5 through your Organization with GPO and Scripts… Java is a critical component for your computer. A lot of software and web sites rely on the existing of Java on your computer. Probably, without even noticing, you are using Java either for playing Online games, or printing a document or using an application on a smartphone… While Java is a great technology and widely used, it can be harmful for your computer if you don’t keep it up to date. Because Java is an environment where it can execute commands, Oracle is working on the software in order to correct all the security issues. If you are responsible for your workstations on your company, than you are directly responsible to deploy and keep up to date Java. I consider Java as it’s a part of the OS. Speaking of the devil, Oracle has just updated Java to version 7 Update 5. Here, I’ll explain how to deploy this version to all of your computers at your company whether an older version is already installed...

UltraVNC is a “must have” tool for “Help Desk” IT stuff. Without this tool, I will have to get up from my chair to go and see a non-critical message that appears on user’s system. Just to press “Enter” for the user. With a VNC application well setup, I could connect to the any user’s screen from my desk with the help of 2-3 clicks. I will explain you how you can setup VNC servers/clients in your enterprise so you can be lazier and be more efficient from your desk. There is more than 1 way to accomplish this task. I’ll use a method where an “Active Directory” is a requirement. Please read this entire article before preceding your deployment. Minimum requirements; -           Active Directory Infrastructure -           Newest UltraVNC software (Download from HERE ) -           Text Editor Software (I use Notepad++ but Notepad or any other...