VMware® Workstation 6.5 provides the deepest OS support, best-in-class virtual machine architecture, the richest desktop user experience and an unmatched set of features to enhance productivity.

InfoWorld says that VMware Workstation 6.5 is “the gold standard for desktop virtualization…truly a world-class product and a pace-setter for the entire industry.”

VMware Workstation 6.5 is packed with new features, including:

• “Unity” view provides a seamless desktop experience.
• DirectX 9.0c with Shader Model 2 graphics enable Windows 3D applications and games.
• Easy Install simplifies the creation of Windows and Linux virtual machines.
• Powerful Record and Replay for groundbreaking debugging capabilities.

Workstation 6.5, the leader in desktop virtualization.

Get details about all of the new features.

- The VMware Workstation Team

The information in this article will allow you to run WordPress permalinks on Windows Server 2000, 2003, or 2008 using IIS5, IIS6, or IIS7.

Ok, first of all there is no real MOD_REWRITE setting for IIS5 or IIS6.  That’s an Apache mod and though there are some ISAPI_MOD_REWRITE projects floating around out there, most of them do NOT do the exact same thing as MOD_REWRITE does and will not function in IIS as MOD_REWRITE does in APACHE.

For programs such as Wordpress that normally are designed for Apache installations, you can install the following ISAPI filter and all your Permalink problems go away.

First, what is a Permalink. A permalink is what Wordpress uses to form the URL of your posts/pages into something more SEO friendly or human readable. (HINT: Get to Permalinks by logging into your WordPress Admin Panel your http://www.domain.com/wp-admin/  Click on SETTINGS, Permalinks.)

By default, a wordpress standard URL on Apache is formed as such: http://www.nickmattern.com/2008/10/06/sample-post/, In IIS, the WordPress URL uses the index.php file to display your permalinks, ex. http://shelbygirl.com/index.php/2008/10/06/sample-post/

Obviously the IIS URL doesn’t help the user remember your URL  What most users and search engines want to see is a descriptive URL.  www.domain.com/index.php?a=4423 is a LOT harder to remember than www.domain.com/AboutUs would be.

Format your Permalinks in the following manner: /%postname%/, making sure to begin each string with a /% and end each string with a %/.  If I wanted my URL to have the Year/Date/Postname, I’d format my Permalink string as such: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/

Now back to why this matters for IIS.  First, Apache forms URLs without the need for index.php to be involved with the URL.  Be default, in IIS, your permalinks will use this format: http://shelbygirl.com/index.php/2008/10/06/sample-post/ (Notice the index.php) whereas Apache will simply use http://www.nickmattern.com/2008/10/06/sample-post/. Now, according to numerous Google Blogs, the index.php shouldn’t really matter, and that’s mostly correct.  The problem you’ll find is your users not being able to remember the index.php, they’ll simply see the domain.com/postname, not the domain.com/index.php/postname.

By installing the filter listed above (You’ll need to have access to the IIS manager and your PHP.ini file) you can eliminate the need for the index.php to be included in any URLs that Wordpress cranks out.  Be sure to back up your PHP.ini file before you change it and while you’re at it, make a backup of your IIS Site as well.

Once the filter is installed, restart IIS and change your permalink structure accordingly, then test out your WordPress content. If it doesn’t work, go back and reread the instructions.

Hello,

As many of you already know, on August 12, 2008, we experienced a code issue with the updated versions of ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 (Update 2). The issue triggered a premature expiration of the product license, causing a range of possible problems including the inability to power-on virtual machines on affected hosts.

At that time, I wrote that we would do everything in our power to ensure this type of incident is never repeated. Since then, we have initiated a major examination and evaluation of our product release and quality assurance processes. This effort has yielded a number of areas for improvement, and we have already begun making needed changes.

• We have removed any instances of the type of “time-out” code from all major, minor and maintenance code releases for VMware enterprise products and will not incorporate this type of code in our licensed products going forward.
• We are instituting a range of enhancements to our quality assurance process to place even greater emphasis on standardized, automated quality testing.
• We are driving greater transparency, accountability, and oversight on the entire product release lifecycle with new formal documentation and auditing procedures.

While these are necessary and important steps, they are by no means the sum total of our efforts in this area. VMware’s products and internal processes have been designed to support mission critical environments, and we take the responsibility that comes with our role as a core element in IT infrastructures very seriously. To that end, we are taking further actions to improve the overall VMware customer experience going forward.

• First, we will continue to ensure that VMware products are designed to support the reliability, availability and serviceability needs of enterprise production environments. We are investing significant resources towards improving how our products are installed and upgraded (such as with VMware Update Manager); developing more technology enablers that work to eliminate downtime (e.g. Storage VMotion) and redesigning how licensing and activation work. To get a sense of where we are pushing the boundaries here, I invite you to register to be part of our beta programs for VMware Infrastructure and other products.
• Second, we will improve and better align our efforts around supporting and communicating to customers in response to product issues. We have established a company-wide effort intended to streamline and standardize how we reach out to any of our customers affected by a product issue.
• Third, we will continue to provide our customers with the guidance and proven best practices to deploy, scale, and manage VMware across their datacenters. By enabling our customers to better “operationalize” their VMware environments, we will be helping them to anticipate, plan for, and easily respond to any issues that come their way. This kind of assistance is already available through our Professional Services and VMware Authorized Consultant offerings. We are making this kind of information more accessible to all VMware customers with our recently launched VI OPS portal, along with a new “VMware on VMware” program designed to provide insight into how we use our products in our own production IT environment.

We at VMware have always set high standards for ourselves in terms of product quality and customer experience. Going forward, we’ll continue to raise the bar here.

Thank you for your continued support.

Paul Maritz
President and CEO
VMware

Dear VMware Customer,

We have re-issued the entire ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 release (ISOs, upgrade tar and zip files, and patch bundles). They are available for download at http://www.vmware.com/download/.

Please note this update is only relevant to customers who did not install the impacted release of ESX 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908) or ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103909). If you have installed either of these please visit http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/esxexpresspatches.html and install the express patch.

Thank you,

The VMware ESX Product Team

Dear VMware Customer,

This message is to inform you that we are experiencing a delay in releasing the new version of ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2. Our testing of this release is taking longer than anticipated. We are now targeting to release the update between 2:00 AM PDT (0700 UTC) August 14 and 8:00 AM (1500 UTC) August 14 PDT.

We apologize for the delay. VMware engineering teams are working around the clock to deliver this new version. We will continue to keep you informed of developments until this issue is fully resolved.

Please note this update is only relevant to customers who did not install the impacted release of ESX 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908) and ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103909). If you have installed either of these please visit http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/esxexpresspatches.html and install the express patch.

Thank you,

The VMware ESX Product Team

Dear VMware Customers,

We have released the express patches for the product expiration issue. Please go to http://www.vmware.com/go/esxexpresspatches for download and KB articles. Since our last customer email we have completed our verification tests that the express patches we’ve released are fully compatible with the VMware Update Manager. Please see the KB articles for deployment information regarding Update Manager.

The KB articles are kept up-to-date. Please refer to the KB articles for information and updates.

In our last update, we referred to an initiative by our support and engineering teams to find an option to apply the patch without the necessity of entering maintenance mode and VMotion of VM’s to other servers, or VM power-off and re-power-on. Our earlier tests have not found a consistently successful way to address this. We continue to investigate this possibility, as we know that it would reduce the maintenance burden on our customers who may not have a patched server available for VMotion.

We are on target to release updated versions of the ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 patch at 6 PM PST today. This is for customers who have not already upgraded to the previously released version of ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2

Thank you,

The VMware ESX Product Team

Problem:

An issue has been discovered by many VMware customers and partners with ESX Update 2 (build number 103909) and ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908) where Virtual Machines fail to power on or VMotion successfully. This problem began to occur on August 12, 2008 for customers that had upgraded to ESX 3.5 Update 2. The problem is caused by a build timeout that was mistakenly left enabled for the release build.

The following message is displayed in the vmware.log file for the virtual machine:

This product has expired. Be sure that your host machine’s date and time are set correctly.
There is a more recent version available at the VMware web site: http://www.vmware.com/info?id=4.
————–
Module License Power on failed.

Affected Products:

- VMware ESX 3.5 Update 2 & ESXi 3.5 Update 2. Thank you, The VMware ESX Product Team

- The problem will be seen if ESX350-200806201-UG is applied to a system.

- No other VMware products are affected.

Resolution:

VMware Engineering has produced express patches for impacted customers to resolve the issue.

Here is my review of the Dell T105 Server:

Configuration:

• Dual-core AMD Opteron @ 1.8MHz
• 4 GIG 800MHz RAM
• 2x 250G SATA HDDs, no RAID
• 1x 100mb NIC
• No OS

My Enhancements:

• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
• AVG Network Edition

PROS:

• Quiet Machine. This is one you can easily keep in the open office, not in a rack or closet. (it’s a desktop by the way)  The HDDs are cheap and make TONS of noise when utilized.
• The machine is quite quick to boot, even with SQL server, IIS, AVG, and Active Directory running.  Boot takes about 2 minutes, which for a server is pretty good.
• The two 250G hard drives are plenty of space for my web front ends, a SQL server, and IIS logs of my heavy traffic websites.  The drawback is that I didn’t get RAID as I knew I was supposed to…  Next time.
• Inexpensive. I paid just under $700 for my configuration, and it comes with a 3 year warranty.

CONS:

• I purchased my machine without RAID, and with a DVD-ROM for installation media, I only have 3 SATA ports available for HDDs, and no onboard RAID to use.  Dell offered a RAID controller, multiple in fact, and I should have purchased one.
• No Gigabit NIC.  Again, Dell has this upgrade option, I simply didn’t utilize it.
• Operating system upgrades weren’t competitively priced.  I could purchase the license for Server 2003 for about $300 cheaper than Dell was offering.

Verdict:

The Dell T105 Server (Dell T-105) is an extremely good choice for small 20-30 person offices or those who wish to host multiple websites with 4000-10000 hits per day.  If you want a system that will last you 5+ years, this one is not it. The HDDs are consumer class and the ventilation isn’t going to keep the parts happy for 5 years.  If you keep this system in a well ventilated area and patch it regularly, it will give you excellent performance at an affordable price.

Find the Dell T105 on the CHEAP!

Dell PowerEdge T105 Server Brand New! Factory Sealed! US $399.95

Dell Poweredge T105 Dual CORE 1.8 w/ 2x 750GB HD w/ 4GB US $985.00

Dell Poweredge T105 Dual CORE 1.8 w/ 2x 750GB HD w/ 4GB US $985.00

Dell PowerEdge T105 2.8GHz 2GB 2x250GB WIN 2003 SRVR R2 US $899.00