“Apparently, the game’s menu screens aren’t framerate-limited. This means that when there’s nothing else going on, your graphics hardware renders the bejeezus out of those screens…”

As the post says, you need to add the following lines to your variables.txt file in Documents\StarCraft II\variables.txt:

• frameratecapglue=30
• frameratecap=60

It will cap your framerate to around 60fps. To show you just how bad this issue is, I used FRAPS to show the framerate before and after the file edit:

Starcraft II - Mission Archives menu at 340 frames per second (Before)

Starcraft II - Mission Archives menu at 63 frames per second (After)

I don’t know whether this is operating system specific, but I do know that other menus such as Lab Upgrades causes the same issues. I had a friend FRAPS his game and he was experiencing the same crazy numbers as I was.

I run the game using the Ultra graphics setting across the board at 1920 x 1200 resolution; you may get different framerates for your system but no doubt the problem will occur regardless. Whether it affects Macs or not remains to be seen. My gaming system is as follows for your reference:

• Intel Core2 Extreme 9650 quad core CPU
• 2 x NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX graphics cards, SLi capable
• 4GB DDR2 RAM
• 1TB hard disk space
• Windows 7 OS

Blizzard has just released a new StarCraft II patch, version 1.0.1. Unfortunately it does not mention any fixes for graphical issues. Hopefully they will pick up on this soon.

There are several solutions I have found, but this one is best as you don’t need to SSH into your web server… and you may not have access anyway if your blog is hosted by a third party. WordPress sometimes has excessive delays for carrying out schedules; by default you only have 0.01 seconds to initiate the cron job for scheduling. Cron is a time scheduler for Unix/Linux based systems, and it is handy for automating tasks. In this case, our automated task is to post blog entries at a specific date and time without manual intervention.

So to fix this issue, use FTP to access your WordPress install and edit cron.php in the wp-includes folder.

• Find this line entry in cron.php: wp_remote_post ($cron_url, Array (‘ timeout’ => 0.01, ‘ blocking’ => false));

• Change the timeout to 20 seconds: wp_remote_post ($cron_url, Array (‘ timeout’ => 20, ‘ blocking’ => false));

Save the file and upload it back onto your webspace.

But after four days of not sleeping I cracked it. I’m not one for giving up, especially when it comes to technical quandaries of this nature. In fact, I love challenges like these and I’m about to share with you so you can avoid the pain. Lets go back in time for a bit…

The Problem

After installing Windows 7, I bought a LG Blu-ray SATA drive from PC World; not the best place to buy hardware but they had a fairly decent deal on them. So you just buy one, install it in the Shuttle, pop in a Blu-ray disc and away you go right? Wrong. So very wrong. The Shuttle comes with an Intel GMA3100 chipset for the onboard graphics card. The picture quality produced via HDMI is quite good for an onboard, but when it comes to playing Blu-ray, it is one of the most hated chipsets known to man. I have tried both Cyberlink PowerDVD and Corel WinDVD 2010 but they failed to play a Blu-ray disc. You will be greeted with something like this:

Infinite patching for both programs produced the same result. Is it a hardware problem? Well lets go through the motions:

• HDCP compliant graphics card – Check.
• HDCP compliant monitor – Check.
• HDMI connection working correctly – Check.
• Up to date graphics card drivers – Check.

So what on earth is going on?

The Solution

It’s a software problem, as in the main producers of DVD/Blu-ray playback software have limited support for the Intel GMA graphics chipset. Maybe there is a way to get the above programs to work on my system, but I gave up. After trawling through the internet, I stumbled upon one random post on a forum. It mentioned using Total Media Theatre with the Japanese version of the files required for the video renderer. What?! Yes, without the renderers for Total Media Theatre pulled from the Japanese version of the software… it will not work. Don’t ask me how or why or what kind of crazy software development cycle is going on here, but that’s how it is.

So you need:

• Total Media Theatre version 3 installed
• VMR renderer files from the Japanese trial version (linked here for your convenience)
• Save the renderer files to: C:\Program Files\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Theatre 3\Codec

And that’s it! As if by magic, you can fully enjoy your Shuttle as it was meant to be.

My Shuttle and Inglourious Basterds. White Totoro approves.

Back up your files and database!
Before commencing any work, make a back up of the following as a minimum requirement:

1. Load up your favourite FTP client and make a copy of these files and folders from your existing site.

• /wp-content/plugins
• /wp-content/themes
• /wp-content/uploads
• .htaccess file (this is a hidden file by default, view all hidden files within your client to see it listed)

If you can make an entire copy of all folders within your site, then please feel free.

2. Make a copy of the WordPress SQL database by exporting it into a .sql file. Most hosters have SQL tools available, such as phpMyAdmin within cPanel to do an export.

cPanel - phpMyAdmin tool

phpMyAdmin - Export tool along top toolbar

When doing the database export, make sure all tables are selected. It may also be an idea to backup each table into individual files, I’ll tell you why in a moment…

Install WordPress
Now do a new install of WordPress on your new webspace and create a new SQL database. During the install process, make sure the table prefix matches exactly as your existing database. This is defined in the wp-config.php file:

WordPress table prefix

Just to add, I use EditPlus as my PHP editor which works really well.

Once WordPress is installed, delete all the tables in the newly created database using phpMyAdmin etc.

Import and upload
Now to put all your content back in. Import the .sql database file you backed up earlier and import it into the currently tableless database. You should now see all the populated tables, which contains all your blog settings and posts.

Upload the plugins, themes and uploads folders from your backup via FTP to your new WordPress install. Bear in mind to upload them to the same folder structure, replacing any existing folders. If you are using the same domain name as before and just changed website host, then you are pretty much done. You may need to put your old .htaccess file back in, if you cannot get permalinks to work as intended. If you bought a new domain name then you still got some work to do…

Replacing old domain name references with new. Welcome to SQL!
This is where the fun begins, you will now learn a few SQL commands which will come in very handy in this instance. Making SQL changes directly to the database instead of looking through WordPress settings via the GUI is my preferred method. Also some of these changes can only be made via SQL. Go back to trusty phpMyAdmin again, and load up the SQL tool:

phpMyAdmin - Executing SQL commands

• Changing the HomeURL and SiteURL – The HomeURL and SiteURL is an absolute path to your site. Since your site location has changed, we need to update this too or else your blog won’t load.
  • UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'http://www.youroldsite.com', 'http://www.yournewsite.com') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';

• Changing the URL for Content – WordPress loves absolute paths instead of relative, so again another change is required to make sure the URL for content in each post record is updated to the new.
  • UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE (post_content, 'http://www.youroldsite.com', 'http://www.yournewsite.com');

• Changing the GUID – This is a very important change. The GUID houses the absolute location of where your posts are. Visitors to your site won’t be able to get to your articles as it will still be pointing to the old address.
  • UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = REPLACE (guid, 'http://www.youroldsite.com', 'http://www.yournewsite.com');
• Changing GUID for attachments/images – You may not need to do this, but if you find images and galleries are broken then you may need to update the GUID for the location of images. The best way is to check the current GUID location for images before making changes:
  

  phpMyAdmin - GUID for attachments

  • UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = REPLACE (guid, 'http://www.youroldsite.com', 'http://www.yournewsite.com') WHERE post_type = 'attachment';

Pitfalls and user awareness

SQL Oops
Not everything went to plan, it was 2am and I think I mistyped one of the SQL commands. Lo and behold the entire GUID column was blank in the wp_posts table. GASP! Remember earlier I mentioned backing up each table into individual .sql files? Well this is where my life was saved. I made several changes to other tables in the database and the last thing I wanted was to restore all the tables and start again. When you do a SQL database backup at the top level, all tables are backed up into a single file. But since I also did seperate table backups, I did a quick restore for wp_posts only and voila! I executed the correct find and replace command again and everything was good to go.

Permalinks and .htaccess
Another issue I came across were permalinks, I like them to look pretty. For some reason, all my permalinks were now coming up with /index.php/2009-01-nameofpost. What was index.php doing there in the URL? It definitely wasn’t there on the old site. I changed the setting within WordPress to try to prevent that from being appended, but it didn’t work. It looked like the .htaccess file was not updating correctly, WordPress normally updates this automatically to set the use of permalinks. If your web host uses Apache, then it will most likely be utilising the mod_rewrite module for this to work. I restored .htaccess from backup which fixed it, but here’s what mine looks like if you need a point of reference:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

And that’s it, job done! It’s actually less painless than it looks, as long as you make backups of your old site then you can always restore back if things don’t go to plan. Good luck!

Corporations all over the world have been warned to stay away from Internet Explorer version 6, including our very own government. The figures published from another Guardian article outlines just how badly organisations in the public sector need to update their software. I am particularly fond of this:

“More than 750,000 workstations in the NHS and 500,000 in the Department of Work and Pensions use exactly that combination… The DWP installation of IE6/XP in 2002/3 took a total of three years…”

The private sector is not any better. From my own personal experience, businesses still use Internet Explorer 6. It’s almost like a safety blanket that is difficult to let go of. Version 6 has been a browser staple for many years and investing time and effort to roll out new versions is sometimes considered not a priority. Using other browsers is difficult, as Internet Explorer is the main product for domain integration such as the use of group policies.

For many, this is a lesson learned but perhaps a little too late. Details of  the MS10-002 security bulletin issued by Microsoft can be found here.

My victim gadget of choice is the HTC Shift. As many are aware, Vista runs below par on the Shift. If you have too many applications open, you feel that it is begging for more coal to be shovelled. I wanted to replace the operating system for a long time, I thought about Kubuntu and maybe installing Jaunty Jackalope. However, I think there’s more challenge in trying out Microsoft’s new operating system. Everyone knows how efficient a Linux distribution is; the HTC Shift has low specifications being a UMPC and I wondered if Windows 7 was resource hungry.

The Install

You will need the following items to follow my procedure:

• External USB DVD-ROM drive (I used my XBox HD DVD drive)
• External USB hard drive
• Hard drive partitioning software tool
• Bart PE CD with Norton Ghost software tool

1. Plug in your external USB DVD-ROM drive and reboot so that the BIOS sees it as a bootable device.
2. Backup your existing hard drive using a Bart PE bootable CD, make a Ghost image of the existing partition and saving it onto your external USB hard drive. You can plug in two USB devices using the provided USB hub that came with your Shift. You can skip this if you wish, but I tend to lean towards caution.
3. Partition the hard drive so that you can dual boot between Vista and Windows 7. If the Windows 7 install goes pear shaped, you have something to fall back on. I gave about 10gb to Windows 7, in hindsight 15gb would have been more comfortable to give room for app installs but I managed. I used a bootable CD that has Acronis Partition Expert to split the drive.
4. Reboot and install Windows 7 RC. It will take a while to extract all the files it needs and then it should reboot itself to finish the install.
5. Once Windows 7 is installed and you boot into it, there’s a handy guide that takes you through most of what you need to do next. However there are some things that aren’t documented, yes I ran into some teething problems…

The Problems

• Intel Graphics Drivers: Stick with the drivers that came with Windows 7 as they seem to work fine. When I tried the Intel drivers from the HTC website it caused a blue screen crash. The graphics card detected automatically and works out of the box.
• Shagctrl Control Center: This does work fine but there are some caveats. You need this installed to use the 3G connection from the WinMo side as you did with Vista. Make sure the modem is turned on when in Vista and BEFORE you install Windows 7. That includes the wireless and Bluetooth, this is to ensure it is detected and drivers are automatically installed. I found without the Shagctrl, the drivers required for the Generic RNDIS (the 3G internet pass-through functionality) refuses to install. Secondly, before installing Shagctrl, ensure Aero effects are disabled. I will talk about why next.
• Screen resolution: After you install Shagctrl and reboot, the resolution will be forced into 1024 x 600. This is all very well, except coupled with Aero effects in Windows 7 you will get a blue screen crash. It’s not the end of the world though, as you can turn off Aero via the registry, using something like a Bart PE CD to edit it outside of the OS (the Vista method works in Windows 7 as well). The easiest way of course is to turn off Aero before the Shagctrl install, as mentioned above. You can set the resolution back to whatever you wish afterwards. The resolution button works perfectly; you can flip between 800/1024 at will as before. I left it at 800 because I like Aero.

The Conclusion

After using it for a while, Windows 7 has given my Shift a new lease of life. It runs much more smoothly than Vista and the on-screen keyboard is a definite improvement. I hardly use the real keyboard anymore now, unless I am typing up a document. Overall, I am very pleased with the results and all functionality is intact. I was apprehensive about whether the 3G connectivity would still work or not, but I was pleasantly surprised. I would advise any HTC Shift owner to ditch Vista and use this, you won’t be disappointed.

HTC Shift - Windows 7 logon screen

HTC Shift - Windows 7 desktop

Of course, you still have your vMotion and Hypervisor features, which we know and love. The new addition I am mostly interested in is vNetwork, using standard and distributed switches. This new technology appears in vSphere, developed in conjunction with Cisco. From this collaboration, you can now have proper virtual Cisco switched in your environment. With full IOS capabilities, or shall we say virtual IOS. This is pretty cool in my book.

If you are new to virtualisation, then let me tell you this. As a company, you would be foolhardy to dismiss the idea of virtualising your I.T infrastructure. Not only do you save rack space, but also you can potentially reduce your carbon footprint by 40% or more. Overall, the level of cost-saving is too great to ignore. Of course, not every physical box can be P2V (physical to virtual) but almost all can be. This week, I completed my virtualisation project at work. I now have a fully functional Exchange cluster that is also running Veritas Volume Manager. These two factors alone caused me much headache over several months. This was mainly because the physical clustering ran on an EMC SAN using fibre channel connections, and trying to mimic that using thick disks in ESX AND for Volume Manager to recognise said disks was not an easy task to perform. Not to mention the numerous cluster problems with Exchange, I have a nice collection of knowledgebase articles on my desk.

In the end, I decided to build it from scratch within ESX. It took much longer than anticipated, but it is fully functional and barring the physical hardware differences, it is a 100% replica of the physical boxes in the server room. The cluster was the last hurdle in the entire environment, a heavy burden finally lifted. Yes as you can tell, I am extremely relieved that it is now accomplished and I can have my life back.

Their alert underlines what we already know, so it is not exactly a revelation to us. However, I find it interesting that the problem has escalated to such an extent that Homeland Security has been involved. Possibly, there is the feeling of an attack at national security, cyber terrorism anyone? I had a pleasurable evening last night with some friends, and we discussed whether the Chinese government engineered Conficker. I personally feel it is most likely an independent organisation or the Russian government. However, without going into a whirlwind of skulduggery and conspiracy, we were perhaps wrong on both counts and it is some 16-year-old code monkey, which just happens to be bored for the past year or so.

On a lighter note, I am now officially on holiday and I am visiting a friend of mine in Holland next week. I managed to achieve as much as I can at work, and I have locked away all pens and Post-It notes from the prying eyes of work colleagues. Call me possessive, but I would like my desk to be intact and to have all contents unmoved when I return. I am sure I will make some sporadic blog posts on my travels; I will be taking a British Airways flight, which means my first visitation of Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport. I hope that the baggage handlers are not on strike…

Not that any complaints were issued, myself and many others were quite relieved but we pre-empted the problem early on and thankfully our security precautions were not put to the test. Perhaps the warning of impending doom was the April Fool’s joke in itself, maybe we will never know. Nevertheless, this is perhaps not the last we will hear of this and as ever, new security vulnerabilities appear every day.

If you were not so fortunate, then you may be interested in this. As part of our research, Sophos released a newer stand-alone Conficker clean-up tool. We have not needed to use it, but I thought it prudent to share if you are still fire fighting in your I.T environment. You will need to have a MySophos account to download the tool; you can create one on their site.

As stated, this behaviour is the same as Conficker.B but introduces a wider scope in terms of which domains it will try to target. This will no doubt indicate that the virus writers want to spread this as widely as possible. If you were like me, then you would have been fully security patched by now across all affected platforms. The main thing here is to:

• Update your systems with MS08-067
• Keep your AV software up to date
• Monitor port 445 traffic if possible

Taking precautions is the main thing, and if you are sensible, you will not encounter this virus at all. Given how this worm is still causing problems, mainly in enterprise environments, all system administrators should be fully up to speed with this. Our company policy of banning USB devices is still in place, and we have resorted to burning files onto CD/DVD R/W. However, in certain cases we have permitted usage of USB drives.  We have separate “sheep-dip” machines, which are completely standalone, with McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.5 installed. It seems to do the trick, we scan the USB drives prior to usage, copy the files you need and then scan it again afterwards.