nehalem processors have an integrated ddr3 memory controller which supports 3 memory channels.
some information regarding specing out a dell poweredge r710…
the server has 18 dimm slots, all 18 slots may be used when filling them with single or dual ranked dimms (up to 8GB single dimms). only 12 dimm slots may be used when filling them with quad ranked dimms (16GB).
the dimm slots are divided 9 by 9 for each processor socket. 9 / 3 equals 3 dimms per channel.
if the channels are going to be fully populated one should buy 800MHz dimms, because that’s the speed they’ll run at in a full channel configuration. 1333MHz dimms can only operate at full speed in a 1 dimm per channel configuration.

info regarding nehalem: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/Intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3448&p=5

i was installing vpnc related packages to test out a cisco vpn connection. i ended up installing networkmanager in the process and then was very unpleasantly surprised to find that my wireless connection no longer functioned. from googling it seems that networkmanager and mandriva’s net applet contend with each other. and from this blog:  http://artipc10.vub.ac.be/wordpress/mandriva/networkmanager-in-mandriva.html, it seems that you have to set one or the other to the dominate role. seems like something interesting to mess around with sometime. right now, i was too irritated with not having a working wireless connection so i removed networkmanager and was able to connect again.

side note: vpnc for my cisco vpn connection did work. rdesktop currently doesn’t support network level authentication so i’ll need to disable that.

mysql database restores that include large binary blobs might fail.

first variable to modify would be: max_allowed_packet
increase the value as needed for the restore.

other variables of interest:
net_write_timeout
net_read_timeout

took 27 minutes to restore an approx 2.5gb database.

i’m compiling my own list of what i consider useful powercli info…
connect-viserver -server <servername>
get-vm = list vms on host

i’ve been putting off getting properly acquainted with powershell for about 2 years now. benny has recently re-piqued my interest for PS.

for AD i’ve been automating tasks with VBscript & ds* commands and the need hasn’t arrived yet that i needed to do something only in PS. i’ve done minor tasks in exchange 2007 with it however.

anyways, some basic powershell information for future reference:
powershell 2.0 is out now
vmware’s PS extensions are called “vsphere powercli”
there’s a community created powergui IDE for PS…but PS 2.0 ships with its own environment called “windows powershell ISE”

csvde -f output.csv -r  objectclass=user
then further customize the columns in excel and save again as csv.

benny sent me this powershell script and the link (for further info):

Import-CSV “C:\NewUsers.csv” | ForEach-Object -Begin {$Temp = ConvertTo-SecureString “P@ssword1” -asPlainText -Force} -Process {New-Mailbox -Name $_.Name -UserPrincipalName “$($_.UserName)@mydomain.local” -OrganizationalUnit “mydomain.local/Users” -Database “Exch07\Mailbox Database” -Password $Temp -ResetPasswordOnNextLogon $true}

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb310752%28EXCHG.80%29.aspx

update 1/10/2011:
csv dump a particular OU
csvde -f output.csv -d “OU=myou,DC=mydomain,DC=com”

or get just the user info with dsquery
dsquery user * ou=myou,dc=mydomain,dc=com -limit 0 > dump.txt
i believe there’s a typo in the above…the following works:
dsquery * ou=myou,dc=mydomain,dc=com -attr sAMAccountName userPrincipalName -limit 0 > dump.txt
however just returning the two specified attributes

at some point…

http://hackaday.com/2008/05/01/how-to-make-a-digital-synthesizer
http://hackaday.com/2008/05/29/how-to-super-simple-serial-terminal