Virtual Box

vbox2Recently I was looking for a virtualization software because I needed a virtual operating system to test stuff and a place to install iTunes where it couldn´t do any harm.

More accidentally I found Sun´s Virtual Box – which is free and open source. It´s small, fast, reliable, supports x64 virtual systems on a 32bit machine, runs on several plattforms (win, mac, linux, open solaris) and is very advanced in it´s functionality.

And did I mention that it´s free ?

I´m using it with a Windows 7 x64, a Windows XP x64 and a Windows XP 32bit installation and in all 3 environments it runs great. For windows users it provides a nice graphical user interface.

vbox1It supports USB, LAN and IDE / SATA sharing – the guest with the host machine and a possibility to pass-through the devices directly to the virtual machine. Furthermore you can mount iso´s directly into the virtual machine and use them as boot device or simply as CD-drive.

The only thing I miss is a good Direct 3D integration. Though there is an (experimental) support for D3D, it doesn´t work to good practically. I tested it with some older games and most of them fail to recognize the virtual graphics adapter as a real D3D compatible graphic card. This is kinda sad, cause it would have been an easy possibility to enjoy older games in a Windows XP or a MSDOS virtual machine.

But as final conclusion – if you need a free, reliable and fast virtualization software, Sun´s Virtual Box is your pick.

Resizing a VirtualBox VDI image / hard disk

I´m using Sun´s VirtualBox for a while to host multiple Operating Systems on my machine. I discovered that it is not possible to re-size fixed disk images without doing a completely fresh install of that virtual machine. I found a quite helpful post at Nick Heppelston´s BizTalk Blog to solve this problem.

I found this fascinating quote today:

In my previous post I extolled the virtues of Sun’s desktop virtualisation software, VirtualBox. One thing niggled me though – I couldn’t easily expand a Virtual Disk Image (VDI) and was regularly reaching the space limits of the modest 20Gb disks I was creating; I needed an easy way of expanding disks before I could use it as my main virtualisation platform and felt comfortable in recommending it to my readers.modhul.com, Nick Heppleston’s BizTalk Blog, Dec 2009

You should read the whole article.

Windows XP 64bit & T-Mobile web’n’walk Stick 3 / Huawei E170

Well this is part 2 of my personal driver odyssey with Windows XP 64bit. I own a T-Mobile web’n’walk Stick 3. Without branding it´s a Huawei E170 and – important at a later point of this article – similiar to a iCON 225 USB HSDPA / HSUPA modem.

stickThe problem :

After installing Windows XP 64bit the usb modem doesn´t work. Installing the provided drivers directly from the device (the device is also a USB mass storage) is without any sense, cause it comes without any 64bit drivers.

If you´re lucky the device is listed as not working in the device manager. If you aren´t then it simply doesn´t appear.

The software (T-Mobile Internet Manager) will install anyway (together with the not compatible drivers) but it will probably say something like “Device not found / or device not connected” although the stick is connected and may as well blink blue (HSPA) or green (EDGE).

The solution (might differ for every particular case) :

0.) Plug your web’n’walk Stick into a USB port of your pc. Update the firmware of the web’n’walk Stick with the software from the T-Mobile webpage (can be found here).

1.) Install the drivers and the software directly from the updated stick and restart your pc.

2.) Start the T-Mobile Internet Manager, check if the device is recognized and if you can connect. If so, congratulations, this one was easy for you. If not – continue with step 3.

3.) Download the iCON 225 device drivers (can be found here – Driver Installer 4.0.17.0) and extract it to a folder on your disk.

4.) Uninstall the T-Mobile Internet Manager and restart your pc.

5.) Install the iCON 225 driver, by using the \TcpSchema 2\without service\x64\DriverInstall.msi from the folder where you extracted your iCON driver. Restart your pc.

6.) Open the device manager and check if the USB mass storage device (aka the stick) has a yellow exclamation mark. If so, unplug the stick from the usb port, wait a moment and reconnect it (the exclamation mark should disappear afterwards).

7.) Now install the T-Mobile Internet Manager by using the setup.exe directly from the usb sticks T-Mobile Internet Manager folder. Restart your pc.

8.) Start the T-Mobile Internet Manager and yesssssssss now the device is recognized and you can connect.

Have fun !!!

Appendix :

devicemanager

These 2 Huawei devices must appear in your device manager. Otherwise the stick won´t work at all. In some cases you might see these devices already after installing the inital drivers and software from the stick (Step 1), but marked as not working with yellow exclamation marks. In this case, ETNA will help you out. ETNA is a user developed driver by Maysi2k originally designed to bring a web’n’walk Stick to live with Windows Vista x64. But ETNA also proved suitable for some Windows XP x64 installations.

Howto :

0.) Download and extract ETNA to a folder on your disk.

1.) Open the device manager, choose the yellow marked device(s) – (you have to do it one by one).

2.) Update Driver and give Windows the folder you extracted ETNA to search for newer versions.

3.) Windows will automatically install the ETNA drivers for the appropriate device.

4.) Repeat these steps until all the Huawei devices are no longer marked as not working.

5.) Start surfing !

Windows XP 64bit

Well I heard many good things about Windows XP 64bit, especially in combination with dual core cpu´s and x64 designed applications. So I decided to install it on my Fujitsu Siemens Si 1520 notebook.

I prepared myself that this might be a little complicated but I didn´t expect such an nightmare. At first I got my hands on the Windows XP 64bit Superior Release, June 2009. It installs pretty smooth and really quick (about 20 minutes total) and recognizes nearly all of the devices.

But…drivers for all the not recognized devices are damn hard to find and in about 70% of the cases simply unavailable. A good try are the Vista x64 drivers – they may not work either ;-).

My installation of Windows XP 64bit didn´t recognize the beloved Conexant High Definition Audio Chipset. And who can live without sound today ? I couldn´t so I started to search the net for suitable x64 drivers. Fujitsu Siemens as manufacturer doesn´t support XP 64. They have a Vista x64 driver, but that one doesn´t work. I found a great variety of drivers in the net, though most of them didn´t fucking work.

It took me around 3 days to get the Conexant Windows Vista x64 driver working, (yeah I know it´s a Vista driver, but the XP 64 driver didn´t work) but than the epic fail. Sound from the internal speakers (sound like shit), but no sound out of the headphone plug. The red SPDIF light was there, but no SPDIF headphones in sight – and by the way – who the hell needs SPDIF headphones ?

I was pretty annoyed, searched the net again, found nothing, got angry and decided to modify the Vista x64 driver on my own. And after some modifications on the INF files there was SOUND – also out of the headphone plug. You can find the modified driver at the end of this article, with absolute no warranty for anything. It should work with nearly any Fujitsu Siemens notebook that has a Conexant High Definition Audio Chipset.

But there´s one important limitation. I didn´t manage to get the microphone plug working. I couldn´t find the correct routing within the INF files. Any help is appricated. The internal microphone is working, but not the microphone plug.

I also own a T-Mobile web’n’walk Stick 3 (a Huawei UMTS / HSDPA / 3G usb modem). Though T-Mobile provides an update for the device, I couldn´t get it working. Also not with the included XP 64 drivers ?!?!

My conclusion(s) so far :

+ fast and reliable operating system

+ great for dual core cpu´s in combination with a bunch of memory ( > 3 GB)

+ high speed on x64 applications

+ more “modern” than the antiquated Windows XP SP2 32bit

– driver compatibility is a nightmare

– driver support by the manufacturers is bad

– requires too much time to get all the things working

Modified Windows XP x64 Conexant HD Audio Device Drivers by Pac, October 2k9

Download : windows_xp_x64_conexant_hd_audio_device_drivers

Instructions & Notes : readme_first

Photo Gallery back online

After some days of downtime, the Photo Gallery is back online.

It now uses a very advanced version of MiniGal (MG2) called kh_Mod (current version 0.3.2.). If you are looking for a really lightweight photo gallery tool then kh_Mod is the perfect pick for you. It doesn´t require a database server – though it supports mySQL -, it´s really easy to install, has a rich admin interface and is easy to use. It´s based on PHP – give it a try. It´s worth your time.

admin_mg2_01(main screen of the admin interface)

Version 0.3.2. has a small bug concerning the PHP memory management. There´s a bugfix available from the author which will be included in release 0.3.3. In the meantime you can download it directly from the author´s site (just replace the file in the package with the one in the include directoy of your installation) :

http://www.tangata.de/kh_mod/files/pac/mg2admin_functions_033.zip

The latest release (0.3.2.) of kh_mod is here :

http://www.tangata.de/kh_mod/index.php?aktion=3&ln=en

(Thanks to Klemens for the great support !)

Ärger mit DHL

(only in german – sorry)

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Nachdem mir aufgefallen ist, dass ich meine eigenen negativen Erfahrungen mit DHL hier noch gar nicht niedergeschrieben habe, möchte ich zunächst auf 2 Artikel verlinken, die ziemlich genau meine Erfahrungen mit DHL wieder spiegeln :

wirres.net – wenn der postmann zweimal nicht klingelt

http://www.ankegroener.de/?p=2494

Sobald ich mich mal wieder gut genug fühle um in alten Erinnerungen zu kramen werde ich diese auch noch hier verewigen.