Add Disk Space in Windows Hyper-V Server

Need to extend or add disk space to a Virtual Machine? The wonderful thing about virtual server technology is that disk space can be added super easily. The days of purchasing extra hard drives of any sort online and then installing them in a server are slowly coming to an end. Now disk space can be added, or extended in this example, through virtualization technology.

The following applies to extending a current virtual disk drive to Server 2008 R2 or 2012.

 

 

SQL Server 2008 Database Mirror Setup Fails

Sometimes setting up Database Mirroring or Replication from one database to another for disaster recovery or fault tolerance etc. can be tricky.  I ran into an issue where the mirror kept failing, even after the full backup [from the Principal] and restore [to the Mirror] of the database and most recent transaction logs completed successfully. I encountered ‘handshake failed’ and encryption algorithm errors.

It was indicated in Event ID’s 1474 and 1433.

Fascinating! I elaborate on a resolution here.

 

Theme directory “twentyfifteen” does not exist

WOW, that was scary! I just went into my WP-ADMIN to update some Plugins and the theme [I heard there was an update @ 4.2.2], and I ended up losing my site: we are talking full on, white page, so a screen shot would not really do justice to how scary that is. There was no error code or message in site. Is this a “White Screen of Death”? I had the 2014 WordPress theme installed, nothing more except a few plugins. I did notice before trying to update WP 2014 that 2015 was sitting there unused, and I checked the box. Big mistake [?]. I guess I really should have simply removed 2015 altogether until I was ready to move to it or not checked the box. But shouldn’t we be able to update both the 2014 AND 2015 theme, without taking the site down? Lesson learned!

I also ended up with this rather ugly message in the Themes WP-Admin area upon finishing the themes updates:

“theme directory “twentyfifteen” does not exist”

Yikes! Site down, and limited options! Did I mention I am NOT USING 2015. I guess by checking both boxes, the assumption by the application is I wanted to upgrade to 2015.

I panicked and started searching frantically over at my friend, the Google search engine. Unfortunately, none of the fixes applied to my situation and some did not work for me. The fix was surprisingly easy, but I admit I ‘rolled the dice’ on it, as I was not sure if I would lose my site for good, or at least until a full reinstall. [I DID have some backups of the content].

I was still able to get into my http:// sitename/wp-admin so at least I had that going for me. Gratitude! I went into the Appearance and themes area, which is where the ugly message was showing and I added the 2014 theme back. I reinstalled it. This all happened so fast, I had to do it twice – sorry but I am not sure why this was necessary, but the WP 2014 site indeed came back!

 





 

Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Packs a Serious Punch

Yahoo is reporting the Microsoft plan to truly boost Surface Pro 4 power specs. It looks like it may be delayed a bit, but will be a force to reckon with, if specs are of importance.

“The device is supposed to pack some serious high-end specs, according to Venture Capital Post, including two size options (12-inch and 14-inch) with 2K resolution displays, Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processor options, 16GB of RAM and a stylus. However, these specs are yet to be confirmed.

Actual pricing details for Microsoft’s rumored laptops isn’t available at this time, but the Surface Pro 4 should be more expensive than the recently unveiled Surface 3.

A few days ago, Microsoft quietly announced the Surface 3, a 10.1-inch Windows tablet that costs just $499 and will be upgradeable to Windows 10 later this year.

A fall release for the Surface Pro 4 would likely mean a launch in line with Apple’s new iPads. In fact, Apple is rumored to launch a larger iPad of its own, the 12-inch iPad Pro, which might compete directly against Microsoft’s Surface Pro line.”

Yahoo article

Internet Explorer 11 Crashes on Windows 8.1

It’s so shocking when you have a brand new ASUS Windows 8.1 hybrid touch, keyboard laptop, but standard web surfing CRASHES continuously. Who expects this? Probably not Apple users.

Anyway, I have Internet Explorer 11 on this Windows 8.1 ASUS. I love it, I really do.

IE-11

But one thing I noticed is that if I open up a Word Document off OneDrive, for example, and keep that Word document sitting around for a while, then my Internet Explorer will crash!

If I do NOT have Word Documents opened, no crashes. Weird!

So, a workaround is to close Word documents in order to surf the web without crashed. But is that the best solution? No. Word should be able coexist with … Internet Explorer. For the record I am using Word as part of Office 2010. I may try to edit documents online (using Office 365) as the default – this may resolve the issue long-term. At this point, I still prefer using the locally installed Word but I cannot handle IE crashes and restarts. So, another real fix is this: go into Internet Explorer’s Internet options, into Programs – you can see there is an HTML editing option. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY edits web pages in Word [the default]! Microsoft Word is the king of standard and advanced document editing, but it is not used for editing HTML pages. I do not care what anyone says otherwise ;>

So, do yourself a favor and change this to Notepad. This will not eliminate certain other types of crashes, for example, PISS POOR design on websites – something all too common these days. But it will go a long way to stop many crashes.

IE-11b

Adding a Server in Netikus Event Sentry

I am a big fan of Netikus Event Sentry for monitoring of servers and their services, as well as whether they boot up … or go down. Recently on a few new servers, I noticed I kept getting an error upon trying to deploy the Event Sentry agent: “The network path was not found”

It looks like a little work needs to be in the local advanced firewall on the target server, as it is blocking the agent. Once I opened the advanced firewall, I enabled all the Inbound “File and Printer Sharing” related rules, except the

es

Cloud Security

Quick, which is more secure, premises or cloud based data?

This fellow makes an excellent point on Cloud Security and the common question, that is that maybe the Cloud is only as secure or insecure as the Business owners, Executives and I.T. Department desire. Maybe the hacker are the least of our problems?

“The truth: Although you may not control the data on your premises, you still own and control the data. You may not be able to visit the data center and have lunch in the server room, but you still can control both the data and the layers of security safeguarding it. I’ve yet to see a public cloud provider that does not allow this configuration. No, your data is only as vulnerable as your security protocols, cloud or not.”

It’s not the hackers you should fear

Silverlight Frozen on Microsoft Site!

I had the strange experience of Silverlight, a piece of … Microsoft software, completely freeze while on a Microsoft site [Azure Portal]. The message informed me that ‘Protection’ mode was there to defend me so I was not allowed to enter, or something similar. Gee, thanks!

I love the idea of protection, but shouldn’t Microsoft know that it’s own services are safe? In addition, why is Microsoft locking my page up completely? I was not able to click the “Allow” button. What a tease! Even “Don’t Allow” was frozen.

I even tried the trick of cascading all pages to see if there was a secret hidden pop up box or page. No go. Or should it (not) know about its own safety? Ok, what do I know? Silverlight is an ‘add on’ to Internet Explorer, a Microsoft product and in fact is now firmly intertwined  with Windows 8.

So, to be more concise: I am working on Azure SQL. I try to get into the Azure or SQL Manager to practice some queries on my new database, but I encounter the following, which you may not be able to verify through the ethernet, but I assure it is frozen stiff.

silv

Regardless, the only way to ‘solve’ the Silverlight screen freeze, is –

1) End the IE process via hard close within Task Manager

2) Completely disable Internet Explorer Protected Mode [restart of IE needed]. Go into IE Options, then Security tab, then remove all 4 checkboxes to Internet, Local Intranet, Trusted, and  Restricted Sites or zones.

Not much help, but you can try downloading the latest Silverlight version: Silverlight page. I already had the latest so I resorted to the 2 steps above.

To me, it is ludicrous that Microsoft Internet Explorer PROTECTED MODE needs to be disabled in order to get a MICROSOFT PRODUCT to work.

Azure SQL Database Naming

I just love this note on creating and accessing an Azure SQL Database! It may take a little getting used to for some, because gone are the days of bland Database names such as, “PRODUCTION_DB__1”.  Lol.

“Notice that you did not specify a server name. Because the SQL Database server must be accessible worldwide, SQL Database configures the appropriate DNS entries when the server is created. The generated name ensures that there are no name collisions with other DNS entries. You cannot change the name of your SQL Database server.”