A VMware ESXI Low Power server for learning at home is something I have been interested in for a quite a while. Both VMware Esxi and Microsoft’s Hyper V Server is something i’ve kept randomly hearing about over the years, I recently did some reading up and decided a little VMware ESXI Low Power server dedicated to running virtual machines on my home network would be perfect. I’m always experimenting and trying new things in my free time. Usually when its been something totally new, for example a beta of Windows i’ve simply installed it on another hard drive and dual booted it. I personally don’t think that’s the most piratical thing in the world to do, I find that I end up booting back in to my main operating system, then staying in it. So this is where VMware Esxi or Microsoft’s Hyper V Server would be perfect, the idea is a little low powered pc can sit in a cupboard and run virtual machines, then be remotely accessed from any PC on my network. So with the idea in my head this is a project i wanted to do, i set about looking firstly at low power usage computers. Most of the thing i looked at were not really suitable, either been vastly underpowered in the case of Nettop…
Windows 8 Install’s just got even easier on computers / laptops from OEM’s. Yesterday I had my first chance to do a clean Windows 8 install on a Laptop that shipped with Windows 8. Windows 8 from OEM’s no longer supply you with a product key, that product key is now embedded in the BIOS. With that in mind I was wondering how a re install was going to work. Well, it worked just how I hoped a Windows 8 re install would! I installed Windows 8 using a standard ISO from Microsoft’s Technet, meaning it had nothing special embedded in the ISO, or any other pre-installed apps from OEM’s, just a clean Windows 8 install exactly how Microsoft intended. Once the Laptop booted for the first time I checked and Windows 8 said it was already activated, great stuff! With Windows Vista and Windows 7 i had a collection of .XRM-MS and the associated product keys, so usually if i had to do a re install again i could use my Technet ISO’s, import the XRM-MS licence then when i activated with the key tied to the XRM-MS licence it would pick the SLIC information up in the BIOS and activate its’self offline. Basically Microsoft have now removed…
Looking back at the Grand Theft Auto 3 series It’s pretty mind-blowing that games you formerly played via loading up a disc on your cutting-edge gaming console or PC just ten years ago can now be downloaded and played on your cell phone in a matter of minutes, Insane! Although one particular drawback of digital downloads is that you no longer get the experience of unwrapping the cellophane and packaging and diving in to explore those printed manuals, liner notes – and in the particular case of Rockstar games, those quite helpful printed map posters! Grand Theft Auto 3 has been out on iOS and Android devices for over a year now, with Vice City having recently been released. With that in mind Rockstar has released high quality .jpg files of the maps included in the box with Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City and San Andreas. Perfect to print out if you wish, or just browse as you play the games on your iOS and Android phones / Tablets. As it also happens Grand Theft Auto 3 is currently on sale on both the Google Play and iTunes stores for £0.69p, a real bargain! The game is a quality conversion to modern day mobile…
Recently i have been playing about with Windows Server 2012, for my birthday earlier this year Nathan was kind enough to give me a licence for Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 which he got from Dreamspark. This was most appreciated as i’ve not had access to Dreamspark since i graduated from University. As ive had the week off work i finally got time to install Server 2012 and configure IIS 8, along with PHP and URL Re-Write support. After a big of tweaking i was able to get my Wordpress install working as it did on Apache, complete with Pretty Permalinks. I got a pretty good deal on a new server hosted with OVH, for around £10.50 a month inc vat. this got me an OVH mKS 2G server which contains an: Intel Atom N2800 (1.86ghz Dual Core with Hyper Threading) 2gb DDR3 RAM 500gb SATA hard drive 100mbps connection with 5TB bandwidth per month With the cheap OVH servers its a lottery which processor you get, so i was quite lucky to get an Atom N2800, as it could have quite easily been a 1.2ghz single core Celeron. As you can see i ended up with quite a good server compared to what i could have…
Here is how you can get Black Ops 2 and Halo 4 for £28.92 each when pre-ordering from Tesco Direct. First add the two games to your basket: Halo 4 and Blackops 2 Next enter the following codes in this order at the checkout: TD-MXTN Gives £10 off TD-KMPW Gives £5 off TD-PXTM Gives £5 off The above should give you £20 off a £75 spend allowing both games to be purchased for £57.84, or £28.92 each. Remember to select separate delivery at checkout so you will get both games on there respective release dates. The codes can also be used with other bundles too. Of course you don’t have to purchase Halo 4 and Blackops 2, this should work on any game, DVD / Blu-ray or CD.