Convert Windows Server 2008 R2 from Physical to Virtual

I rebuild my computer recently.  By that, I mean I bought a new motherboard, cpu, memory, hard drive, and case.  I reused the power supply and dvd burner, keyboard, and mouse.  I even got a new monitor.  So it wasn't so much a rebuild as a replacement.

Anyway, I had Windows Server 2008 R2 on the old machine.  I backed up all of the data, but I thought it would be nice if I could virtualize the old machine.  That way I could go back and get data, run old programs, check settings, etc.

I mounted the old hard drive in the new computer so that I could do a physical-to-virtual image.  The old drive was 600GB with a 100GB boot partition and a 500GB data partition.  There are several physical-to-virtual tools available.  Some run on an already running system, and some run on a disk.  I wanted one that ran on a disk.

I use VirtualBox instead of VMware, so I didn't want to use the VMware tools.  I decided to use Disk2vhd from the excellent Systernals Suite.  It creates a .vhd file, which is a microsoft format.  VirtualBox can read those natively.

I had the drive that I wanted to image already mounted as e:\ and f:\.  I chose just the e:\ drive to image and let the software run.  When it was done, I had a new .vhd file.

I created a new windows 2008 machine in VirtualBox and attached the virtual drive.  I started it up, and of course got a blue screen.  The OS couldn't find the boot drive.  This is caused because the disk controllers/IDs/or something else is different.  The solution is to make changes to the registry.

To change the registry of the virtual disk, first take the physical disk online.  If you don't there will be a conflict with disk IDs later when we try to mount the virtual drive.  I used Windows 7 to mount the vhd.

Go to Computer Management, then Disk Management.  Click on one of the drives in the lower right so that the module is active.  Then right click on Disk Management and select Attach VHD.  Select the .vhd and make sure it gets mounted to a drive letter.

Now, open a command prompt.  I did this as administrator.  Assuming that the .vhd is mounted to drive e:\, I ran these commands:
C:\>reg load HKLM\VHDSYS e:\windows\system32\config\system

This loaded the .vhd registry to the current registry under HKLM\VHDSYS.  I started regedit and modified the Start key from 3 to 0 under these two entries:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\VHDSYS\CurrentControlSet1\Services\Msahci

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\VHDSYS\CurrentControlSet1\Services\IastorV

I closed regedit and then unloaded the .vhd registry with this command in the command prompt:

C:\>reg unload HKLM\VHDSYS

Then, I started up the virtual machine.  It booted normally.  Then I installed host additions.  That gave me a better resolution and mouse integration.

However, the machine was not activated, and the old key did not work.  I'll have to research this more.

Refs Still Suck

That didn't take long.  Refs on the Green Bay game suck as bad as ever.  I wish they would have stuck with the replacements and let them get better.  A missed offensive interference call on the Saints first touchdown.  Then absolutely blowing the fumble by Sproles on the kickoff.

The catch by James Jones to seal the win was absolutely ridiculous.

Mac and Cheese

I've been trying to make a decent mac and cheese for a while using white cheeses.  I usually cook it on the grill and it ends up being a little thick from too much cheese.  I finally hit a good batch yesterday.

Of course, the only thing I measured was the milk, but here are the rough ingredients and measurements.

• 8oz elbow macoroni
• 2T butter
• 2T flour
• 2c milk
• 1/2t black pepper
• 1/2t white pepper
• 1t salt
• 1/2t basil
• 1t onion powder
• 2/3c smoked gouda
• 2/3c white cheddar
• 2/3c gruyere
• panko crumbs

Prepare the noodle a little al dente.

Make a rue (cook butter and flour) until slightly toasted.

Add milk to rue and whisk.  Add the spices or whatever you think will taste good.  Bring to boil while mixing so it doesn't scald.  Cook until it thickens; about 5-10 minutes.   Remove from heat and add cheese.  Stir until it melts.  Add to noodles.  Put in buttered 9x9 pan.  Add panko crumbs to the top.  If you feel like messing up more dishes, mix the panko with parsely, salt, pepper, and Parmesan in a food processor until it is fine.  Sprinkle on top.  Cook for ~20 minutes at 400° F.  I added a little milk (about 1/4c) because it had been so thick in the past.

It turned out great!  The smoked gouda is delicious in mac and cheese!

I am a CISSP Now

I got my confirmation email saying that the (ISC)2 board of directors had awarded (!) me with the CISSP certification.  I'll continue with flying lessons and start my continuing education requirements.  It's nice to have the pressure off now.

Fresh Windows 7 Install Using Upgrade License Key

I have a Windows 7 Pro Upgrade key.  However, I like to install to a fresh disk.  I entered the key during install, but I was told it was an invalid key.  This had me a little worried.  Here is how to solve the problem.  I used option #2, the registry hack.

I installed to a fresh disk.  After installation, I tried to activate, but I was told that the key was only valid for upgrades.  Here is a fix, assuming that you are legally entitled to upgrade, meet the requirements, and have an appropriate key:

• Open regedit
• Go to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
• Change key MediaBootInstall from "1" to "0"
• Close regedit
• Open an administrative command prompt and type the following command
  C:\>slmgr /rearm
• If it works, a dialog will appear saying "Command completed successfully.  Please restart the system for the changes to take effect"
• Reboot and follow the activation procedure

Packers lose to Niners

That makes it a bad weekend for Wisconsin football.  The Packers never seemed to get in sync offensively, and the defense continued its multiple year trend of poor communication in the secondary.  After all the draft picks spent on defense this year, the defense still doesn't look any better.  I want to believe that the coaching is good, but at some point you have to wonder.

I did like how they used Randall Cobb out of the backfield.  I think he'll end up being a great weapon this year from the slot, the backfield, and returning kicks.  As long as he holds on to the ball.

I didn't notice anything out of the 1st round pick, Nick Perry.  He was involved in one sack, but quiet the rest of the time.  The same goes for the rest of the defense, except Clay Mathews and perhaps Charles Woodson.

They'll have a tough test Thursday against Chicago.  They defense better get their act together quick (I've been saying that since the start of last season, and it's getting old).  The offense needs to get in sync, too.  If not, this will be a long year for me watching the games.

Wisconsin Upset by Oregon State

As a University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni, I like to watch the Badger football games.  Not this one.  They trailed 10-0 late in the 4th, when they finally scored a touchdown.  Being behind, they were in a 5 wide set for much of the game, with Montee Ball as the fifth receiver.  That is definitely not their strength. 

I'm not terribly impressed with their new quarterback, and I don't think the coaching staff did a good job adjusting.  I usually don't armchair quarterback, but this was pretty disappointing.  I hope that they can get the offense fixed by the time the Big 10 schedule starts.  It shouldn't be hard - hand it off to Montee Ball 30 times a game.

Hopefully the Packers will have a much better start tomorrow!

Making a Universal Windows 7 SP1 USB Installer

I used a usb stick to install Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium and Professional on my new sony laptops.  It works on both bios and uefi machines.  You'll need a couple things in order to do this.

1.  A 4gb or larger usb stick
2. A Windows 7 Ultimate x64 iso (download is provided later)
3. A bootmgfw.efi file from a working windows installation or from online

I followed two different guides to get it to work on both bios and uefi machines.

• Guide to install from usb
• Guide to install from usb to uefi machine 

I tried the Microsoft USB/DVD download tool, which I don't recommend using.  I also used an ei.cfg iso removal tool from http://code.kliu.org/misc/winisoutils/.  This is also unnecessary.  

First, here are some things that did not work.

1. I've used the ei.cfg removal tool in the past.  It is supposed to set a flag so that the ei.cfg file does not get written when burning a dvd.  It worked before.  Now that I was extracting the files to usb, the flag was not honored.
2. The MS USB/DVD download tool will burn the iso file to a usb drive or dvd.  I used it to write the iso to my usb stick.  It wrote the files just fine, but it formats the drive to NTFS.  This will not work with uefi machines.  I tried to format the usb stick to fat32 and then run the MS tool, but it reformatted to NTFS.

Here are the steps I used to get a univeral (any version of Windows 7 x64) usb installer that works with bios or uefi machines.

1. The first step is to download the Windows 7 Ultimate x64 iso from http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-24395.iso
2. I prepped the usb drive following the guide at Maximum PC.
1. Format to fat32
2. Open admin cmd prompt
3. Run diskpart
4. Type "listdisk" and find the usb stick
5. Select the disk with "select disk X" where X is the disk number from listdisk
6. "clean" - removes all partitions
7. "create partition primary" - creates a new primary partition
8. "select partition 1" - selects the new partition
9. "active" - makes partition 1 active
10. "format fs=fat32" - this is different from the guide, which uses ntfs
11. "assign" - to give the usb stick a drive letter.  It might get one automatically after formatting.
12. "exit" - exits diskpart
3. I extracted the files from the iso to a folder on my computer.
4. There is a great utility in the Windows 7 installer to create a bootable usb drive.  In the boot directory, there is a utility called bootsect.exe.  In the command prompt, cd to the boot directory and type the following, where x is the drive letter of the usb stick:
   c:\temp\win7\boot>bootsect /nt60 x:
   This will create a bootable fat32 usb stick.
5. Copy the extracted files to the usb drive.  This will give a usb stick that will install Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on bios machines.
6. Remove the ei.cfg file from the usb stick.  It will be in the sources folder.  The ei.cfg file tells the installer which version of Windows 7 to install.  Without it, it will ask the user during install.  Now you have a usb stick that will install any version of Windows 7 x64 on bios machines.
7. Two more things need to be done to get this to boot on an uefi machine.
1. Copy the "boot" folder under efi\microsoft to the efi directory so that it is efi\boot.
2. From a working Windows 7 machine, copy c:\windows\boot\efi\bootmgfw.efi to usb stick\efi\boot.  If you don't have a working Windows 7 machine, you can find the file online.

Now, the usb stick should boot on any machine and install any version of Windows 7 x64.  You'll have to provide your own valid key.  I was able to install Windows in under 10 minutes using an old usb stick.

Grilling 1/2 Turkey Breast

So, it looks like a big bone-in chicken breast.  I read recipes online, and they say to cook 20 minutes on one side, then another 10 on the other at a lowish heat on the grill.  This seemed a little low to me, so I put it in on the upper rack expecting 45 minutes on medium heat.  45 minutes later, and it was 140 some degrees.  I cranked up the heat and let it ride.  After an hour or so, I pulled it out.  Crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside.  Actually more like blackened skin and done ok in the middle.

Lesson - grill your turkey breast slowly.

Reinstall Windows 7 on Sony S13A (SVS13A190X)

I recently posted a review on the Sony S13 laptop that I just got.  I'm going to reinstall Windows 7 SP1 because I like to know what is on my machine.  Even though I ordered it with Fresh Start (limited bloatware), there was still a crapton of Sony utilities, links to services, and other applications that I don't want.  I'm also installing an SSD.

The first step was to recover the applications from the restore partition on the existing drive.  There is a good explanation in this thread, which I'll expand on later.  There is a slightly different procedure with the UEFI machines, which is documented in post 21 of that thread.

In addition to the software that came with the machine, I downloaded all of the latest drivers and applications from the Sony web site.

I downloaded Windows 7 x64 Ultimate sp1 iso from Digital River and created a Universal Installer so that it can install Windows 7 Home, Professional, or Ultimate (delete ei.cfg in sources directory).  I installed to a USB drive and modified it so it could install on an older machine with a regular BIOS, or the Sony with UEFI.  I'll document that later.

I replaced the Hitachi hard drive with a 256GB Samsung 830 SSD.  It was a little tricky to remove the existing drive and ribbon cable.  Once it was out, there are two rails on the hard drive which I transferred over to the SSD.  I put the SSD in and replaced the bottom cover.

The next step was to install from the usb stick.  I chose the correct version and let it rip.  It took about four minutes to the first restart.  I had to pull the usb drive so it could reboot to windows, where it completed installation and restarted again.

On this restart, I enter user name, computer name, and password.  Then I entered the windows product key, which was on the bottom of the laptop.  After that, I was at the desktop, where I could start installing drivers.

I followed this guide for installing the software.  This is the order that I used.  Reboots took about 11 seconds.

Motherboard/SATA

1. Intel chipset driver 9.3.0.1019: INDCHI-00265280-0042.EXE (reboot)
2. Intel® 7 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI / SATA RAID Controller Update 11.1.3.1001: INDOTH-00269039-1040.EXE (reboot)
3. Intel® SATA Driver Registry Patch 120417: INDOTH-00268213-0042.EXE (reboot)
4. Intel® Management Engine Interface 8.0.0.1262: INDMEI-00267507-0042.EXE (no reboot)
5. Microsoft® Hotfix KB2708549 Update 6.1.7601.17832/6.1.7601.21854: MIOOTH-00268675-1042.EX (reboot)
   This hotfix resolves an issue where a blue screen may occur during startup when a USB hard drive or port replicator is connected after running a System Recovery.
   
6. Sony® Firmware Extension Parser Device Driver 8.0.2.3: SODOTH-00264792-0042.EXE (reboot)
   This enables support for function keys and other laptop specific functionality.
7. Sony® Shared Library 5.10.0.12150: SOASSL-00264711-0042.EXE (no reboot)
   Required for Sony applications (not sure which ones)
8. Hotkey Utilities 1.0: SOAOTH-606A0000-0042.EXE (reboot)
   After reboot, it continued installation.  (reboot #2)
   This enabled the function hotkeys
9. Intel® USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller 1.0.4.220: INDUSB-00266909-0042.EXE (no reboot)
10. Realtek® PCIE Card Reader Driver 6.1.7601.92: REDMCC-00266072-0042.EXE (reboot)

Graphics

I couldn't take the low resolution any more; it was making my eyes bleed.

1.  Intel® HD Graphics 3000 / 4000 Driver 8.15.10.2712: INDVID-00267845-0042.EXE (reboot)
2. NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 640M LE Driver 8.17.12.9618: NVDVID-00267034-0042.EXE (reboot)
3. Intel® WiDi Software 3.1.26.0: INAWID-00266775-0042.EXE (reboot)

Sound

1.  Realtek® High Definition Audio Driver 6.0.1.6570: REDAUD-00265997-0042.EXE (no reboot)
2. Audio Driver Registry Patch 20120308: REDAUD-00266875-0042.EXE (reboot)

Network

1. Realtek® PCIe GBE Family Controller 7.53.216.2012: REDETH-00266641-0042.EXE (no reboot)
2. Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6235 Driver 15.0.1.1: INDWLL-00265236-0042.EXE (reboot)
3. Intel® Centrino® Wireless Bluetooth® 4.0 + High Speed Adapter 1.0.13.30079: INDBLT-00265296-0042.EXE (reboot)

Other (touchpad, camera, fingerprint scanner)

1. Synaptics® PS/2 Port TouchPad 16.0.0.5: SPDTPD-00267239-0042.EXE  (reboot)
2. WebCam Companion® 4 Software 4.0.21.457: ARACCU-00266402-0042.EXE (no reboot)
3. AuthenTec® AES1660 Fingerprint Sensor 3.2.1.10: AUDFPD-00265311-0042.EXE (reboot)
4. Infineon® TPM Professional Package 3.70.2281.0: IFAOTH-00264024-0042.EXE (no reboot)

At this point, I had a fairly clean system with all drivers and necessary software installed.  I wasn't sure if I wanted the Vaio CPU fan control, Vaio Hardware Monitor, or Vaio Smart Network, so I skipped those.  I realized that there were more recent Intel drivers for the HD 4000, USB 3.0, and WiDi, but I left those for later.

Before I did anything else, I activated my copy of windows.  I had entered the product key during install, but activation said that I had to call the automated telephone system.  Rather than do that, I reentered the key from the label on the bottom of the laptop.  It activated fine that time.  I should have done that first in case there were any issues.

Windows Update

The first thing I had to do was update windows update.  Then two rounds of updates.

Applications

1. Firefox: I downloaded the latest version using another computer to a network share.  I installed Firefox and copied my profile over.  I started firefox using "firefox -profilemanager" to create a new profile and choose my profile directory.  The profiles are stored in %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles by default.
2. 7-zip: this is a great free zip/rar/archive tool that opens just about everything.
3. MS Security Essentials: A nice, lightweight free antivirus.  I used firefox to download the current version.  I installed it and ran a scan right away.
4. Keepass: I use keepass to store my passwords, so I installed this.  I use the keefox plugin for firefox, so this actually pulled the current version and installed for me.
5. Dropbox and Boxcryptor: dropbox application and an encryption helper for it.
6. Steam: wanted to start downloading games.

Optimize Windows 7 for SSDs

Now that Steam is downloading games, I wanted to tweak the SSD.  I followed several guides:

• Seans Windows 7 Install and Optimization Guide for SSDs
• The SSD Optimization Guide Redesigned

Here is what I actually did.

• Disable system restore.  I never use this and wouldn't trust it anyway.  Go to System, System Protection, click Configure, and disable it.
• Disable indexing by right clicking on the ssd drive and selecting properties.  Go to the General tab and uncheck "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties."  Select for that drive and all subfolders.  You may have to give administrative rights.  There might be an error when trying to apply attributes - select ignore all and let it update all the files.
• Disable disk defrag by right clicking on the ssd drive and selecting properties.  Go to the Tools tab and click "Defragment Now..."  On the Disk Defragmenter dialog, click "Configure" and then uncheck the "Run on a schedule (recommended)" box.
• Disable hibernation.  I haven't used it for a long time (I had an SSD in my previous laptop) and don't miss it.  It reserves disk space equal to the amount of memory you have.  I have 12GB of memory, so this is a good chunk of space.  Open an administrative command prompt and type:
  C:\>powercfg -h off
• Turn off the pagefile.  I have 12GB of memory and can do without the pagefile for now.  If I had only 4, I might leave it on.  Go to System and select Advanced System Settings.  In the Performance section, select Settings.  In the Performance Options dialog, under the Virtual memory section, select Change.  Uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives."  Choose "No paging file" and click Set.  Accept the warning, then click ok to get out of the dialogs.
• Disable superfetch and prefetch.  These are used to load frequently used programs into memory so that they load faster.  They'll load fast enough from the ssd.
• Run regedit.  Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters.  
• Right click on EnablePrefetcher.  Select Modify, enter 0, click ok.
• Right click on EnableSuperfetch.  Select Modify, enter 0, click ok.
• Close regedit 
• Go to services (run services.msc).  Scroll down to Superfetch and set it's startup type to disabled.
• Windows Search.  This is the indexing service.  Go to services (run services.msc), scroll down to Windows Search.  Double click to bring up it's properties.  Stop the service if it is running, then change the startup type to disabled.
• Disable startup splash screen.  Run msconfig.  Go to the boot tab.  Select the "No GUI boot" checkbox, hit ok.

Other

At this point everything is functional.  It's just a matter of adding some favorite applications and transferring any remaining data from the old laptop.  Here's a list of some basic applications to install.

• Systernals Suite
• Printer drivers
• Pidgin (IM client)
• VLC
• Virtual Box
• Java
• Flash
• Foxit (pdf reader)
• Chrome
• Media Player Classic
• MS Office or alternative (Open Office)

Sony S13A Quick Reviews

I bought two Sony S13A laptops recently.  I bought the new 2012 Ivy Bridge model (SVS13A190X) and the older Sandy Bridge model (VPCSA490X).  These made it to my short list because they had a very hard to find combination of features that I find important.

My wife and I have been using Acer 1410 laptops for almost three years.  I like these because they are small (11.6") with a reasonable keyboard.  They have dual core celerons (SU2300) that are fast enough for browsing, and we could play Diablo II on them.  I put an SSD in mine along with 4GB ram, and it was fast enough.  They weigh about 3lbs 2oz.

I have three gripes about these laptops.  I dislike the glossy screen with a fiery passion.  I fixed it by using a matte screen protector.    My second gripe was the low resolution screen, 1366x768.  I hate it, but it is far more suitable for the 11.6" screen that the 15.6" laptops that have the same resolution.  My wife found it hard to read, so she wanted a slightly bigger screen.  The final gripe I have was the cpu.  While it was powerful enough to run some games, it is still a slow celeron from three years ago.

With that in mind, I determine that these were the key features I was looking for:

• Resolution greater than 1366x768 (bleh)
• Non-glossy screen
• Discrete graphics to be able to play casual games (think Diablo II, Torchlight II)
• Bigger than the 11.6" machines that we have now
• Light
• Decent battery, 4+ hours

Basically, I wanted a 12.1" gaming laptop with better than 1366x768 resolution, a matte screen, and good battery life.  Good luck finding this mythical configuration.  The 11.6" Sager gaming laptop is very close, but has poor battery life.  I found this thread to be extremely useful: http://forum.notebookreview.com/what-notebook-should-i-buy/662161-thin-light-11-14-notebooks-gaming-worth-compendium.html.

I knew that my wife wouldn't go for the Sager.  It was too small for her, weighed too much, and had poor battery life (my biggest issue).  I had always avoided Sony in the past because I felt that they were overpriced.  However, I could not find anything suitable in the 13" and smaller size.  I started reading up on the new Sony.  They had all the features that I thought were important:

• 1600x900 screen (yes!)
• Anti-glare screen (wtf?  It's not matte, but it's better than the glossy screens)
• Discrete graphics - not only discrete, but they are one of the few to use the new nVidia Kepler core graphics cards
• 13.3" screens - It's about 2" wider and 1" deeper than our 11.6" Acers
• Light - they are about 3lbs 8oz, so not too much heavier
• Battery - I don't check, but it seems to get 4+ hours if not gaming

The non-glossy, high resolution screen really sold it for me.  I appreciate that, so I decided to give them a shot.  I've also read that the 640m can be overclocked to 650m speeds, so this seemed like a winner to me.  My wife doesn't game as much, so I got an older model with a Radeon with a docking station for a discounted price. 

Thoughts on SVS13A

I got the i5-3320M cpu (middle choice) and the 2GB GT 640m (Kepler core).  I am happy with the wight and thickness.  After using an 11.6" laptop for several years, I find the laptop and screen to be too large.  I am happy with the resolution, though.  The anti-glare screen is also very nice, although it is not IPS.  I've read that people are not happy with the color reproduction or tint.  I haven't noticed anything, but I'm coming from a crappier screen.  The Sony screen seems fine to me.

The keyboard is backlit.  I wasn't looking for this feature, but it is useful to have.  It is a chiclet style, and I am used to that from the Acer.  I don't notice any flex, although that has been a complaint on the forums.  The keys are a nice size.

The trackpad sucks in my opinion.  I've always hated trackpads and much prefer the trackpoint found on some IBM/Lenovo laptops and some Dell's.  One thing that I liked about the Acer was that the trackpad buttons went along the front bevel, so you could click them easily with your thumb.  The Sony has a big trackpad with the buttons hidden inside of it.  I guess it looks nicer, but I want functional buttons.  I would much prefer to have buttons along the front edge so that I could easily hit them with my thumb.  I also hate the tap-to-click function of trackpads, so I need good buttons.  Gestures are also iffy.  I can't state how much I hate trackpad gimmicks; I really want two solid buttons.  It is so bad that I bought a lapdesk with a mouse area so I can always use a mouse with the laptop.  It is so bad that I almost would prefer the older model with trackbad buttons over the newer model.  I hate the trackpad, but I'll probably get used to it eventually.

The laptop runs great.  It has Optimus, so it should switch between the Intel HD 4000 graphics and the nVidia GT 640m LE as needed.  It plays games fine.  It is easy to type on.  It has great connectivity:  GB lan, dual-band wireless N, bluetooth, Intel Wireless Display, two USB ports, hdmi, SD slot, and even an optical drive.  I'm not sure that we need the optical drive.  I wish the USB 3 ports were on the left, so they wouldn't interfere with using a mouse on the right.
I haven't reinstalled windows yet, but I will soon.  I have added 8 GB of ram and will install to a 256 GB SSD.  I am currently reviewing all of the applications buried in the recovery partition to see if there is anything that I need.  I'll document that process in another post.

So far, I really like the laptop.  I bet I'll like it even more with an SSD.  One issue that might pop up is that the SATA ports appear to limited to SATA II unless you buy SSDs from Sony.  If this is true, it is a shitty, shitty, shitty move by Sony.  I don't know why companies do that crap.  I do know - money - but it doesn't mean that I care for it. 

Thoughts on VPC13A

My wife loves her S13.  It is the previous model.  It is almost identical to my laptop other than Sandy Bridge, a Radeon, and a different trackpad.  In my mind, the cpu is about the same, the Radeon is definitely slower, and the trackpad is much better because it has buttons.  It was also more than 33% cheaper and came with a docking station.  The trackpad is a different brand and has less gesture capability.  I like it better.

Graphics Comparison

Because the two laptops are so similar, I wanted to see how much of an impact the newer graphics card made.  I ran 3DMark 11 on both computers right after I started them up.  The SVS has a Ivy Bridge i5-3320M at 2.6GHz, while the VPC has aSandy Bridge i5-2450M at 2.5 GHz.  The SVS has a nVidia GT 640m LE (2GB), and the VPC had a Radeon HD 6630M (1GB.

SVS 3DMark 11 scores:
P1339 3DMarks
Graphics score: 1225
Physics score: 3419
combined score: 1108

VPC 3DMark 11 scores:
P990 3DMarks
Graphics score: 876
Physics score: 3513
Combined score: 905

I don't benchmark much, but I do know that benchmarks can and will be manipulated by hardware manufacturers.  Take the results with a grain of salt, but it looks like the newer model is anywhere from 20-50% faster according to 3DMark.  I think both will be able to play the games we want to play, and I'm happy with the screen, resolution, keyboard, speed, and connectivity of these laptops.  Firewire would have been nice, but I'm pretty happy with them.

Passed CISSP Exam!

On July 23rd, I took the CISSP paper exam in San Diego.  It is a six hour test with 250 questions.  I am usually very good at taking tests, but this one was a little more difficult for me.  I took three passes through the questions.  First, I answered the ones I knew for sure.  There were a little over 100 in this category.  Then, I answered the next set that I was pretty sure about.  That added another 50 or so.  I needed 70% to pass, so about 175 questions correct (there are new questions for evaluation that don't count, and I've heard that the questions are weighted).  I answered almost all of the remaining questions in the third pass.  That took a little under four hours.

After I had answers for all of the questions, I started marking the answer sheet.  As I went through, I did a final sanity check.  This part was boring.  Even though you should stick with your original answer, I did change a few of my answers.

Four weeks and one day later, I got an email from (ISC)2 saying that I passed!  I just need to submit my endorsement form and resume.  I should hear back from them a few weeks after that.

Rainbow Tables

A friend asked me about rainbow tables, so I thought I'd document what I remembered from my Offensive Security class two years ago.

Rainbow tables are used for cracking passwords.  They are a collection of precomputed hashes, so the software can look up a password hash in the table rather than try to brute force or dictionary attack it.  The downside is that the tables can get quite large depending on the character set and size of passwords used to generate it.

One tool that can use rainbow tables is ophcrack.  There are some tables available for free, such as xp free and vista free.  These are just based on a dictionary.  So instead of computing the hash for each entry in the dictionary and comparing it to the password hash (dictionary attack), the table allows for near instant lookup of passwords.

There are also online rainbow tables where you can submit a hash.  If the hash is in one of their tables, the password is cracked.  Onlinehashcrack.com is an online tool.  Another is freerainbowtables.com.  The nice thing about freerainbowtables is that they are constantly generating tables, and you can help by downloading the client.  Then the tables are available for download.  They also sell them if you don't want to download 5.7TB (as of 8/10/12).

There are two types of rainbow tables there - the older format and the newer hybrid tables.  The tool on the site (rcracki_mt) works with both types.  Other tools, like Cain, only work with the older format.  There is another tool to convert the hybrid tables back to the older format for use in other crackers.

Intro

I've been meaning to start a blog for quite a while.  Like most people, I'll stick to what interests me, so I'll have a typical technology/computer security/gaming/car/flying/cooking blog.  Actually, other than the cooking, I guess that would be pretty standard for a teenager.

The primary reason for starting it today is that I just started my flight training today.  I want to document it while it was still fresh in my mind.  Hopefully this will help someone else, like other people's writings have helped me in the past.  However, I don't really expect anyone to read this.

Let me explain the topics.  First, technology and computer security.  I've always liked technology and have an engineering degree.  I enjoy building my own computers, playing with networks, and hacking anything that I can.  I'm an Offensive Security Certified Professional and just took my CISSP exam.  I'll try to document new technology, tablet, vulnerabilities, and other security topics.  I especially want to document exploits that I have researched.

Gaming.  When I have free time, I like gaming on many different platforms.  That changed when our kids were born.  Now that they are a little older, I can play some games with them, such a Skylanders.  Now that I'm in flight training, gaming time will probably be limited to X-Plane.

Cars.  My wife and I are looking for cars, so I've been doing a lot of research and will try to document my findings.  She's interested in a Mazda 5, and I'm interested in a Subaru BRZ with 50 more horsepower.  I've got my fingers crossed that 2014 will have an STI version.

Flying.  As I mentioned above, I just started flight training.  I've wanted to do this for at least 10 years.  The first flight was a little overwhelming.  By writing it down, I think I'll reinforce what I learned.  This will be kept in a different blog: jbisflying.blogspot.com.

Cooking.  Like I tell my wife, I don't like cooking.  I like eating.  Early on, I realized that meant I would have to cook food for myself if I wanted to eat well.  I can't/won't eat out every day!  Every once in a while, I run across a good recipe.  I want to make sure I keep track of them.