Monday, August 30, 2010

Problem Steps Recorder in Windows 7.

I found this great utility in Windows 7 called Problem Steps Recorder - What it does is records all the clicks/actions that you perform on various applications/browser and creates chronological screenshots accompanied with steps as a mht file.

Here's the link to a brief introduction: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd320286.aspx

Summary:
0) To launch this tool go to Start -> Run (or press Windows + R) -> psr.exe and press OK.
1) This tool is pretty useful for QA & Support staff wanting to record proper steps to configure/install something without having to go through the pain of documenting and screenshot-ing the steps. Particularly useful when end users want to depict their problem to someone.
2) Unfortunately, at the time of writing this blog this tool is available only on Windows 7.
3) In case you're unable to see your steps recorded in the final mht file, it could be because the application you've launched is as administrator. You'll need to locate psr.exe -> RMC on it -> launch it as administrator to record steps at such times.

This is one great tool by Microsoft!

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Thursday, August 26, 2010

Cloud computing 360 degrees

I needed to present the implications of Cloud Computing and how my company could take advantage of it. Here's a brief primer on different things I considered while giving my judgement.


Types:
• Private Clouds (used by big enterprises)
• Public Clouds (used by SMEs )
• Hybrid Clouds (used by big enterprises and service providers).

Characteristics:
• End user doesn’t own any of the infrastructures. For private clouds you do own the infrastructure –however these are different set of players and rules of the games are different here.
• Pay as you use instead of straight-away renting infrastructure from a 3rd party.

What can a Cloud do OR what are the manifestations of Cloud:
SaaS: examples of Gmail, Salesforce
Paas: Solution Stack, like say LAMP , Microsoft BPOS.
Iaas: Providing entire infrastructure that one may need to run a datacenter. Eg: Amazon & 3Tera
Pros:
• Zero to near zero capex
• Device and location independence.
• Shared infrastructure & costs
• Low management overhead.
• In theory you can cancel the contract and stop paying whenever you want with absolutely no overheads.

Cons:
• High opex.
• Security a major concern, since data is stored on infrastructure owned by someone else.
• Technology/Software locking possible.
• Highly dependent on the service providers.

What market leaders say:
• Companies like Google, Microsoft, HP, IBM are pro-cloud computing. They are developing products/service models around cloud computing.
• Richard Stallman (creator of GNU and Open Source) & Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle) strongly oppose cloud computing on basis of security concerns. Larry Ellison thinks Cloud Computing is just a new term for already existing infrastructure.

Switching Between 32-bit and 64-bit Kernel in Solaris

This is extremely useful if you're testing/certifying your product against different architectures on Solaris OS. Typically you need to see if your software installs and works properly in both 32 and 64 bit modes of operation.

By default Solaris boots into 64 bit mode provided the underlying hardware supports it. If you need to boot in different modes, here's the command you need to issue from shell:

Solaris x86, 32 bit:

eeprom boot-file="kernel/unix"

Solaris x86, 64 bit:

eeprom boot-file="kernel/amd64/unix"

Solaris SPARC, 32 bit:

eeprom boot-file=""

Solaris SPARC, 64 bit:

eeprom boot-file="kernel/sparcv9/unix"

After you've issued one of the above commands, you'll need to simply reboot the system.

To check the current architecture of your Solaris OS here's the command:

root@was6test # isainfo -kv
64-bit sparcv9 kernel modules