The problem is that files were being created when a user was saving out an excel spread sheet. This would have happened with any document that was in the folder. The file that was created was a random, 8 alpha-numeric, and no extension.

So where did this issue come from? Permissions. Group A had access to the entire directory tree. With in that tree there was a fold that Group A didn’t need to have RW access to. So I check the boxes to deny them access. The dialog box pops up and states that deny will over write allowed access rights. All is good I though.

The junk files keep coming. I’m beating my head against the desk. Then it dawns on me. Why not just stop the inherited permissions and just copy them to the parent folder in the tree. I did that. then I deleted the special permissions for the deny access. Then I un-checked the allow delete permissions. So they are not allowed to delete, but they are not denied deleting either.

This worked like a champ. Forced replacing the permissions down the tree. Now Group A has permissions on all the other files and folders, but the do not have permission for this one directory and sub directories to delete files/folders.

Problem solved.

One of the articles that was listed today, or at least in the RSS feed, linked back to an article at the Free Software Foundation website, fsf.org.

This article mentioned about Microsoft and their rule of non-free software. Users that have no rights to the software that they run. They also stated that Microsoft had a hotline setup to check your software if you thought that it might be a fake. I thought that this was rich, and I decided to give them a call regarding this issue.

When I called up, I stated that someone on the street corner was handing out software that was just burned to a CD. I knew that this was wrong because all software cost money. I explained to he the that guy told me that the software was Ubuntu Linux and that I wanted to make sure I had a right to use the software as I didn’t want to go to jail.

The lady on the phone informed that that Linux she believed to be free, but I would need to check on it. She also stated that this was a Microsoft fraud hotline and didn’t do anything with Linux. I informed her that I just wanted to make sure I had a legit right to use the software, and that I couldn’t believe that it was free.

So I hung up the phone with her and had a good laugh. The phone number is (800) R-U-LEGIT.

VMware is a great. When I first started using it I was really happy that the player was free. I was able to use VMware images or drives that others had created with little effort. The problem I ran into was that I was unable to build an image from the ground up.

I found some blank images of HDs on the web. They has some configuration files that came along with them and I was able to build from scratch so to speak. I still needed to keep blank copies of the files and still had to edit the ini files so that I would be able to generate different images.

This worked great for all of my Linux builds on Windows. Just need a base config file to work with all most all distroes of Linux. My problem came when I wanted to make a Windows XP image. I was tired and I didn’t want to waste the time on the net to do the config file right and see what others had done. I was just being lazy, and when you are pressed for time, the lazy way is sometimes the best way as well. It is not a shortcut.

So I downloaded VirtualBox from Sun because I had been using it on my Linux box at the house. I also have used VMware on Linux but same issues occur there with building new images. Back on track.

I installed VirtualBox and opened it up. I was able to start the build of a new image right way. A wizzy-wig walked me though the process. I didn’t have an HD setup, VirtualBox walked me though creating a new drive for the install. When it was done with the drive it booted from the CD and I started the install as if it was a fresh computer install.

This made life easy, as I needed to get the image over to a co-worker so that he would have IE6 for testing websites. Don’t get me started there. The ease of use made me take a closer look at it when I got home. I have a different setup there and I like using programs that are cross-platform, which in this case VMware and VirtualBox both are.

The install on Ubuntu went well. I have ben wanting to try out some new spins of Linux OSs so I thought this to be the best way to do it. VirtualBox allows you to boot from ISO files as well, and prevents you from having to burn it to CD. I connected the ISO of a Linux distro I just downloaded though bittorrent from Linuxtracker.org. It went great. Worked like a charm.

Then I thought to myself, What about 64bit distributions? I have a 64bit proc with AMD-V technology. I should be able to make good use of this. Didn’t work. WTF? Looked on the site and VirtualBox said that 2.0 would work. Ubuntu doesn’t have 2.0 in the repoes. So I attached to Sun’s repoes for VirtualBox. Installed 2.0 and 64bit with AMD-V worked like a cham. I was able to install and run 32bit and 64bit Linux OSs in VirtualBox. With 4gigs of ram, I was more than please that it didn’t slow down my Ubuntu host OS even with 2 VirtualBox’s running and playing with Compiz-Fusion.

If I had my pick, and I do. I would take a good close look at VirtualBox for personal use. It might not be ready for commercial use yet. I don’t know, I didn’t use it in that fashion and therefore can’t really form an opinion on it. But, from what I can tell and in my usage, Virtualbox wins the race with me. The ability to build and install, without the time to configure each config file is well worth the trouble to do a simple install.

This is a huge release for the OpenOffice.org folks. OOo 3.0 has built in support for Microsoft office 2007; Word, Excel, type applications. I have been using the Beta, RC2, RC3, and RC4 for a while and and have not seen any issues. I don’t use the a lot, but I don’t use Office style product a lot either.

From what I can tell with my usage, this is a very solid release from OOo. So if you can get though to the DL, let me know how it goes. I will keep trying myself.

The site seemed to be updated and really legit. The I looked that the download page. It asked for information and then it wanted to charge me a yearly fee. DO NOT get caught by this. It is a scam from everything that I can tell. Even the address itself doesn’t belong to OOo.

Here is the link: http://daily-new–product.org/re.php?lnk=1203356060&e=mark@mouseclone.com it redirects to http://67.214.168.130/openoffice/index.asp?aff=001&camp=openoffice_espd&kbid=1587&sub=oo_espd&pop=1. So the first flag is that it is in IP form and not domain. The second would be asp. I don’t know of any Linux, or OpenSource people for that matter that write in asp for a website. I’m sure that there are some, that do, but I wouldn’t think many.

So, just don’t get caught by this. It got though my spam filter and looked more or less legit. It really helps to be informed.

I had a problem with the Scalix server, the problem was really with Sendmail. Sendmail stopped sending out messages. The queue was backing up and we didn’t have a support contract with Scalix. Little to my knowledge Scalix would have bailed us out of this on the spot with out a contract just to get the server back up and running and we renewed our contract with Scalix the following Monday, this was a Friday evening. We know that now!

Moving right a long. I went home on Friday worried about the server and all of the email. I start Friday night and worked til about 3am. I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out. Saturday came along and I would work on it for a few hours and stop. Then the big day for messing things up.

Sunday came around and I was a little tired. I was stressing because Monday was around the corner and I really needed to have the server up and running. I did what I thought was a good thing. It was something that I had done before just not because of something like this.

I ran the command cp -R /var/opt/scalix/foo /var/opt/scalix/bar. The command in itself was not problem It did the copy. I don’t know why I did a copy instead of a move, I just did. As soon as the copy was done I deleted the directory, rm -rf /var/opt/scalix/foo. As soon as I did that, I got that sinking feeling in my gut. You know you just messed up big time when you get that feeling.

What had I done wrong? Scalix has permissions, hardlinks, and symlinks though out that directory. Files liking back to files and a database linking to files and so forth. I don’t understand the complexity of it all yet. Because I just did a simple cp -R it didn’t back up any permissions and set eveything to root. I don’t even know about the hardlinks that were involved. If I’m not mistaken, cp will copy the hardlink as a file and not a hardllink, that is bad.

In the past with moving the server, I always did an rsync -avH. This always gave me the copy of the files the way that I needed them. I should have done the same here instead of using copy, but only because I have used rsync before and I knew it would work. The cp command doesn’t seem to have a switch for hardlinks, so it might not have worked at all.

Lesson: Until you can find a proven way to do something better, then stick with what you know. Try your best to manage stress, as with mission critical applications, a mistake will cause you a lot of pain. Make sure your backup is done properly

I have more to write up on this, but I will have to save it for later. What happened to the mail store was just short of complete loss. It was a cluster. Scalix couldn’t even get all of it fixed after 3 days of working on it. So never ever just copy a Scalix mail repository without first making sure that you have the proper switches in place so that you can restore it back like it was.

I was able to recover about 98.5% of all mail, calendars and contacts. Very few things got missed. I still have a copy of the data. I only had 2 people say something about missing data, and for the most part it was personal stuff they shouldn’t have had at work in the first place.

It was a hard lesson learned. I don’t think that my recovery rate would have been as good if it was not for the time that the Scalix Support Team spent trying to fix it and running omscan and omcheck. I’m sure that the ran other things a number of times trying to get it fixed. Just there was so much to fix, it could have taken months to get it all done.

I will get the details of how I recovered the data out of the busted mail store and re imported it back into a new mail server at a later date and time. In the mean time if you have questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments below.

What is a PC. Apple stats that they are not PCs. The “Hi, I’m a MAC and I’m a PC” ads clearly point out that Apple is not a PC. But they are wrong. Apple also stats that PCs run Microsoft software. They are wrong on that point as well.

You also have others stating that Microsoft controls 90% of the PC market. That statement is wrong as well. It is impossible to a software company to control hardware. You might use Microsoft Windows OS on a PC, but Microsoft doesn’t control or dominate the PC market. That market is left up to Dell, HP, Apple, and other companies that make PCs.

Yes, you read that correctly and it wasn’t a miss type. Apple’s MACs are PCs. Every computer, unless it is a server or mainframe, is a PC. PC stands for Personal Computer. That means from the iPhone to the HCT Dream that is coming out, to the desktop or laptop. They are all PCs.

Personal Computers for you to use. You should have the right to run Microsoft OSs, Apple OSs, and Linux OSs on any hardware that is supported by these vendors.

A little recap. Microsoft does not equal PC. MACs equal PC. A PC is a set of hardware, an OS is an operating system on a PC that allows you to complete task. Education by media equals dumbness.

The Mojave Experiment seemed to take people from the streets that knew nothing about computers or OSs and sat them down in front of a re-skinned Vista and asked what they think about the OS.

let see the clip itself that was aired.

From the first part of the video you hear peoples take on Vista who have never tried it. They have heard from people, and more than likely geek friends that didn’t like it either. There is a major reason for this.

If you bought a computer in 2006. There was a chance that Vista wouldn’t work with your hardware. Even if you did manage to get Vista to load, then you might end up with a very slow system. The requirement for Windows XP was not as high as they were for Vista. All of the bells that are turned on in Vista, really wouldn’t work well with hardware that was a year old. I didn’t say it wouldn’t work, it just might not work well.

The other thing is that if you have had a printer or some other external device that you used with XP, like a webcam, there might not be drivers for it. Your printer or webcam just might not work. It doesn’t matter if you spent $300 just a year ago, you were left to hang in the wind, by either Microsoft or the people that made the device. It is not often that a company will go back and fix a driver on a discontinued product.

So, you got Vista installed, in all of its glory and it is running well. You now have another learning curve ahead of you. Not everything is named the same. Things work differently, and are located in different places. Vista was a complete redesign of the Windows series of OSs, much like XP was when it first came out.

So lets say that you have good hardware and have learned where things are in Vista, the ones that you needed for now. Try installing some of your games or even other software. You will then have another compatibility issue. Some older software will just not work.

So now you know where people got all of their negative ideas about Vista. It came form people that were beta testing, people that rolled it out into their environments at work, and just from people that didn’t know to look for hardware compatibility.

This caused people to not only go out and buy a boxed edition of Vista, but to have to buy a new computer with Vista already installed on it. They have now spent almost $1000 on just getting Vista installed. That can’t be good for the bank account.

So lets take some time and look at some of the videos of the Mojave Experiment. I want to give a few pointers and where Microsoft is misleading with this experiment.

The first one is about typing calc into the search box in the Windows Menu. Well I would like you to know that this “feature” of Vista has been in all of Windows from 3.11. The name file name for Calculator is in fact calc.exe. It is located in c:\windows\system32 directory.

What about other programs? Well you know what MS Pint is in there as well, same directory. Just type in mspaint and MS Paint will load on your screen. The file name is mspaint.exe. Yet another one is Notepad. Just type in notepad and it will run Notepad for you. What about Solitaire? Sure, just type in sol and Solitaire will run. The file name is sol.exe.

By now you will see the patten. You can browse to the c:\windows\system32 directory. The applications that are in the folder my be ran from a command prompt, Run box (start -> Run or WinKey + R), and the quick search in Vista, which is a combo of search and run functions.

On to the next video. This, I feel, was a direct bash against Ubuntu in my opinion. Ubuntu has been gaining in market share, as well as the rest of Linux. It is free, easy to install, and will do what most people do with computers. Surf the net and check email. Although Ubuntu does more than that, most people will not use PCs for much more.

The reason it is a bash or slam against Ubuntu is that Ubuntu is brown. The coloring theme is brown. That doesn’t appeal to some people, others love it. It is simple and basic. Some people do not need the flash, they just want it to work. There is even some arguments in the Ubuntu community about Ubuntu going to another theme color. The things is, if you don’t like your theme, you are welcome to change it. The cost for the feature? Free. No cost to you at all.

I also didn’t understand asking about the name Mojave. It really got negative feed back. 10 minutes ago they were all saying how much Vista sucks. This really didn’t prove a thing about the name.

The Mojave Experiment seems to be a big lie to me. You know. They didn’t show the problems with upgrading. Also, like any OS: Mac OS/X, Linux (pick your flavor), Windows (pick your flavor), there will always be some problems. Mac’s may be the best by far. Mac controls the OS and the hardware. If I was going to pick somethings that I have a lot of choices on, then it would be Linux. Microsoft to me is middle of the road. It is more to the side of the Macs though, control. Linux gives you more freedoms, but the price tag on that is a little frustration with drivers or something else, it is great for basic computing.

Over all I use Linux at home. I run MS Windows Servers and RedHat Linux servers at work. I am a MS hater, but my hate is becoming more of understanding that I just don’t like MS and the stuff that they do. MS has its place, it just happens to not be in my computer.

Please feel free to comment, flame, or do nothing. One last thing as well. The Mojave Experiment movies do not work on Linux. The ones on the Mojave Experiment website. So I’m concluding that MS is trying to sell to MS users and not the public as a whole. So Microsoft, are you out there, that is why your wmv files have been uploaded to Google. More people can see them that way. This advertising cost you nothing MS, so don’t bitch.

The improvements are (taken from AMD):

• CrossFireX support
• Adaptive Anti-Aliasing support
• Support for new Linux operating systems
• ATI OverDrive™ Support for Linux
• ATI MultiView™
• Auto Detection and installation of distribution packaging

The Crossfire support has really got me hoping that they will start supporting the HD 3800 series as well. I bought an 3800 series a few months ago. So that part I can’t wait to see what happens.

The other nice feature that I noticed was that I now have the ability to overclock my GPU. I don’t know how much that will help me. I figure doing that on a system that is simi unstable as it is, could cost me a lot of time. I’m not willing to risk it yet. I will do more looking into the abilities of it though and report back here at a later date. Maybe with screen shots even.

So in Ubuntu you have brown. Brown is everywhere. I like to have some custom stuff done to my desktop. So I created to Gnome Login screens. The Zelda screen was created for my wife Sydney and the second was an AMD Spider login for myself.

I was asked on my personal blog, Mouse Clone, how to install one, so I thought that I would share it here. So lets get started.

First step: Use Add/Remove Applications to install Start-up Manager. This will allow you to modify the GDM Login screen.

Second step: Either make or download a GDM Login screen. You can get Zelda or AMD Spider that I made from Gnome-Look.org.

Third step: We are going to say that you downloaded to your desktop. Go into System -> Administration -> Login Window. Put in your password for sudo. Click on the second tab, which is Local. Click Add. Browse to your desktop, or where ever you downloaded the tar.gz file. Click on the tar.gz file and click Install. Then you will need to select the GDM theme.

Forth step: CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE will restart your Gnome session. Make sure you have saved your work before you do this. I’m not responsible for your data loss.

A special note. Make sure that for Theme: you have Selected Only. Otherwise you may have to login a few times before you will see it, if it is set to randomize selected.

I would also like to say thanks to Julien for asking the Question over at Mouse Clone.