Windows - Delayed Write Failed when copying to USB disks

Trouble transfering large files to USB devices? I've had quite some problems with Delayed Write Failed even after caching disabled, increasing the system page size, etc. when transfering large files to Western Digital USB 2.0 500MB and 2TB MyBook Devices (though this looks like an issue with USB storage devices in general).

Messages like these turn up in Even Viewer:

{Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file . The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

or

Application popup: Windows - Delayed Write Failed : Windows was unable to save all the data for the file. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere. 

To fix this enabled SoftRetry for USB transfers:

Start - run - cmd. Type:

• reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USB\EnSoftRetry /v Data /t REG_DWORD /d 1

Other hacks to get around this issue:

Look into HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management at LargeSystemCache and SystemPages.

Disable write caching on the disk (Right click the drive letter -  Properties - Hardware - Select the Disk - Properties - Policies - Optimize for quick removal).

Make sure you monitor errors under Start - Run - eventvwr.msc -> System.

DHCP Server on AIX

# vi /etc/dhcpsd.cnf

leaseTimeDefault 30 minutes
leaseExpireInterval 3 minutes
supportBOOTP yes
supportUnlistedClients yes

network 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0
{
 subnet 192.168.0.0 192.168.0.11-192.168.0.16
}


# startsrc -s dhcpsd
0513-059 The dhcpsd Subsystem has been started. Subsystem PID is 335890.

# lssrc -ls dhcpsd
Log file: /usr/tmp/dhcpsd.log
Log Level: 0x16
Client Expire Interval: 3600
Reserve Expire Interval: 900
Bad Addr Reclaim Interval: 4394967295
Database Save Interval: 3600

 
IP Address Status Duration Time Stamp Client ID
---------- ------ -------- ----- ------- ---------
192.168.0.11 Leased Infinite Nov 13 12:22 1-deadbeefcafe
192.168.0.12 Leased Infinite Nov 13 12:24 1-abadcafebabe
192.168.0.13 Free
192.168.0.14 Free
192.168.0.15 Free
192.168.0.16 Free

Bitlbee - Yahoo and IM console client on AIX

Bitlbee supports XMPP/Jabber (including Google Talk), MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM and ICQ and creates a localhost IRC server you can connect to with say EMACS ERC irc client. Great for the whole ssh -> screen -> EMACS -> ERC deal.

It's quite nice for consolidating all your communication inside of Emacs (IRC via ERC, mail and news via GNUS, IM via bitlbee), etc.

Luckily, Bitlbee compiles out of the box on AIX, and you don't even need root permissions to use it.

Simply download it and compile it with say gcc:

% gunzip -c bitlbee-1.2.3.tar.gz| tar xf -
% cd bitlbee-1.2.3
% ./configure --ssl=openssl
% gmake
% ./bitlbee -D -n -v -i 127.0.0.1 -p 12345 -c ./bitlbee.conf

Now connect your IRC client to localhost port 12345 and create your account.

register password
account add yahoo username password
account on

Solaris Performance Monitoring

Performance monitoring tools on Solaris using split GNU screen windows :-).

Adding more speeddial boxes to Opera.

By default, Opera uses a 3x3 grid for the speeddial. You can change this to whatever you want by editing the speeddial.ini file.

Open a new opera tab and type in opera:config and search for "speeddial" in the Quick Find bar.

You now have the location of speeddial.ini from User Prefs - Speed Dial File. Edit this file.

Make sure you close Opera, and edit this file.

Add the following lines to the top of the speeddial.ini file:

[Size]
Rows=4
Columns=4

This should give you a solid 16 speeddial boxes.

Making VMware Console work with Firefox 3.0.1

If you're running VMware Server 2 and require the console plugin to work with Firefox, you can use this trick to make it work once you update to Mozilla Firefox 3.0.1:

Just edit the VMware Console plugin install.rdf and change the:

3.0.0.*

to

3.0.*
or
3.0.1.*

and restart Firefox. Now update Firefox and all should work fine.

The install.rdf should be located in the plugin folder (~/.mozilla or similar on UNIX and Document and Settings or User/username/Application Data on Windows. Example:

C:\Documents and Settings\cmihai\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\eqz4a1i8.default\extensions\VMwareVMRC@vmware.com

Just search for VMwareVMRC.

VirtualBox 2.0 Released.

The 2.0 release of VirtualBox is now available.
http://www.virtualbox.org/

IRC-ing on AIX with EMACS ERC

Emacs ERC (M-x erc) is a IRC client built into newer releases of EMACS.

To build this you need the bos.adt sets and a compiler (gcc or xlc will do just fine).



Remember to set TERM=dtterm for colors :-).

VMware ESXi Hypervisor Now Free

After making VMware Player and VMware Server available for free and the VMware toolkit open source under a GPL license, VMware now makes VMware ESXi Hypervisor available at no cost.

SedTris - a Tetris game written in sed.

I've seen irc clients written in sed and I've seen a lot of sed magic in my time, but this is just ridiculous...

A Tetris game written in sed.

http://uuner.doslash.org/forfun/sedtris.sed