VMware Tools and Ubuntu 9.10 problems

With update of VMware ESXi 4.0 to VMware Hypervisor 4.1 I had to reinstall all vmware-tools on all my Ubuntu 9.10 virtual machines. There was no way for me to figure out why it does run on one of them automagically and not on any other machine.

I googled the internet left and right and no help. So I decided to figure out the thing by myself. The thing is that there was a link missing for start-up script. So here is the whole thing needed to be done:

cd /etc/rcS.d
sudo ln -s ../init.d/vmware-tools S38vmware-tools

After that everything works OK again.

VMWare...

Recently I went from using stand alone machines to VMWare ESXi server. It gives me much more flexibility. We purchased HP ML350 with 16GB Ram and one processor so far. Will try to upgrade it soon.

Anyway, the first major thing was, I didn't want to install new machine from the scratch over and over. We have several Ubuntu servers and I just needed one install which I would reuse as a base for different servers.

The way to do it in ESXi is:

1. Prepare one virtual machine for cloning. In my case it was to make a basic installation of Ubuntu server. Don't forget to install VMWare Tools, so you don't have to do it for each of your clones later.
   
2. Then go to your datastare and make a directory for a new virtual machine. Go back to the directory of your Ubutu server installation from previous step. Copy all *.wmx and *.wmdk files over to your new directory.
3. When done go to the new directory, right click on *.wmx file and choose "Add to Inventory". Finish the wizard.
4. Start your new virtual machine.
5. Go to console and edit /etc/hostname file to have the name you want your virtual machine to have.
6. Go to console and edit /etc/hosts. Change hostname from the name of your cloned machine to the one form previous step.
   
7. Go to console and edit /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules You just need to comment first line and change eth1 to eth0 in the second line.
8. In console edit /etc/network/interfaces and change IP of your machine.
   

After those steps your "cloned" virtual machine is ready. Now you can install whatever software you need for the particular case.

iPhone menace....

OK. SO it is next 12 hours (in which I slept for some 7 hours). While I was using the phone in other 5 hours (for some 30 minutes), iPhone rebooted on me 3 additional times, once in a phone call....
I am finding the device unsatisfactory and calling provider to replace it with any BB model... It is not worth my time....

...iPhone...

So my old Nokia wasn't enough for me. I was in a market for a new phone. I really wanted iPhone. I am so very fond of my MacBook Pro, why should be iPhone any worse...
Well wrong... I am not sure if there is same company behind both of these products. Definitely iPhone doesn't seem to be related to the manufacturer of the first one. I assume the other company is sharing a logo with the first one. I just don't understand why....
So what is wrong just 24 hours after I got my iPhone 3GS? First of all the phone just keeps on rebooting. I open contacts, go to a group and phone reboots. I open calendar application, phone reboots. I open Safari and load a page, iPhone reboots... The phone rebooted on me some 20 times or more during mere 24 hours (in which I slept 8 hours)...
Second biggest problem is that in first day of use (and let me tell that it was nothing more but normal phone usage), iPhone hung in a contact application. After 20 minutes of trying getting out from frozen application I started to look up instruction on how to reboot the iPhone. And just when I reboot it, it hung with an Apple logo screen.
I gave up and let iPhone do whatever it was doing for next 30 minutes... When I returned and nothing happened I thought that the device was broken. But I googled a way to unbrick the phone and restore it. Well it works now for 10 minutes.... Will see what will happen next.
Now, let me express my opinion on some of the features. I like the gui. Idea is great. What is not great, even very weird is how the phone is crippled. It was pretty common for me to exchange contact info via bluetooth. Well you know... With iPhone you can just forget it. I am an musician. In our band we often do some home composing and then we exchange the result. You can do your guessing... Yes, we can not exchange our creations over bluetooth. It was working for us even among different phone brands: Nokia, SonyEricson, Motorola... Now we can not exchange our data during lunch break. Weird? Well for me YEAH DAMIT!!!!
One would expect that the iPhone would be able to sync with the MacBook Pro over the bluetooth. Well one would be very stupid to expect that. Adding to this design flaw there is this another one that it is not using USB mini to charge. This means that I had to add another cable to carry with me. I just can not grasp why would the same designers who designed so many practical and useful features into MacBook Pro would do such an unpractical thing as creating a redundant cable which you have to carry around. It is pretty logical to carry USB cable to connect external hard drive. Why to add another USB cable when you already have one? Apple designers? Anyone? I just want this single answer.... And another one about bluetooth. To cripple functionality beyond usefulness is something which in my opinion goes well against the reasons why I switched to Apple. Or is Apple plain greedy and Steven decided to get any buck possible sacrificing user experience refusing to customers something every other phone maker ofers?
And the last thing which gets on my nerves. It really does. I would like to add a ringtone to a group of users. It so plain easy. I'd like to add Imperial March to my customers and Rebel Theme to my guys. Well you can guess. Not possible. More over I own the CD's with Star Wars soundtrack. So why can not I take the song I imported through the iTunes from CD I own and assign it to any contact I want. I just have to purchase ringtone. And this is nothing but greedy.
Well I give it a spin for few more days, but the way I have to battle the tool (iPhone) I wanted to use to make my life better, I just assume I return iPhone to my operator as something not worth my effort....

Buying software

Well, I want to have my software legal. So I was buying Adobe CS4. I decided for Premiere Premium Edition. I started looking for the prices. I wanted to support local reseller (fighting the crisis), so I looked up the price at local Adobe reseller. Well the price for the package was 1900 Euro (2717 USD) in sale. I then checked Adobe store for the price 1188 Euro (1699 USD). I still wasn't satisfied so I went shopping at pricegrabber.com and came up with a reseller price of 520 Euro (744 USD).

Well I am not sure of Adobe's sales policy and I am not sure why local sellers don't fight for better prices with Adobe. The story is the same as with the Apple. For the price of one license I can have three from the USA seller. With that high price local companies are not motivated to buy legal software. They usually don't look for better prices overseas.

I am definitely happy I am not the Adobe shareholder. If I am, I had to ask board of directors, why they don't do something to penetrate more into overseas markets and why they set the software price so high.

And I wonder why local resellers don't push Adobe to change the pricing policy. I bought the package overseas of course, so they actually lost my business.