LAVA 5.0 Remote Tool

I added the remote tool to the new build of LAVA I am going to upload.

Now users of LAVA can use my desktop remote tool I posted earlier upon install or via livecd. Once ran, they can select a live session to a technician. The technician can then remotely login to the desktop to help out.

The remote service is a paid service I am developing here at my company Ansotech.

The remote tool I built and is installable on Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSuse.

I am planning on bundling the remote service backend and front end so internal ITs or corporations have a easy remote solution for their linux clients.

The server backend piece runs on XP, 2000, 2003, Vista, Windows 7, MAC and of course Linux. This piece is the software that runs on a technicians pc.

Let me know if anyone out there would like information on this product as it is a new product we are going to offer and obviously are looking for feedback as well as users willing to try out the initial offerings of the product.

Thanks

LAVA PLus 5.0 released

Finished the DVD multimedia edition of my lava.

Added thunderbird and extensions such as zindus, google imap, google calendar, signature, etc.

Added alot of custom context sensitivie menu keys for 'convert to mp3', 'convert to avi' , 'add subititles' , 'convert to wmv' , 'convert flv to avi' , 'fix avi index' , etc.

also added a huge list of apps for media encoding and authoring as well as audcaious, exaile, streamtuner, tvtime, etc.

added alot of games as well and emulators.

Let me know what you think.

[ Download Here ]

LAVA 5.0 CD Version

I finished version 5 of LAVA based on 9.10.

Here is the CD version

I will upload the PLUS and DEV edition in the next day or so.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks

New LAVA

New Version of LAVA CD Version will be uploaded today based on Ubuntu 9.10

Features:
* Custom sysctl.conf for increased bandwidth and security as well as filesystem and memory tweaks
* Enabled hdparm.conf for dms, hard disk cache, etc
* Installed , configured preload
* a suite load of addtional software to make it easier to use: gnochm, ntfs-config, eggscups, etc.
* removed usual gnome menu and replaced with gnome-main menu
* added custom templates like NEW Excel Spreadsheet, New Word Docuemnt, New Python Script into right click -> New
* added a bunch of nauitlus context menus - convert ot BMP, convert to PSD, convert to GIF, merge images into a PDF, extract images from PDF, burn Xbox game
* added firefox addons - text to link, dns cache, adblock, etc. and reconfigured firefox for safer browsing.
* added network utils like traceroute, aircrack
* added cd converting utils like nrg2iso, binchunck
* added mediubuntu repos to software lists so you can download media codecs or apps
* changed all media to play thru smplayer - avi, mpg, mpeg, mov, wmv, wma, mp4, flv, etc

etc, etc , etc.

Let me know what you think.

should have it uploaded by this afternoon.

Not Ubuntu related

But it is open source related.

I built a backup utility for our datacenter based on rsync. It used rsync in the background but gives our non unix technicians the ability to backup shares, folders with rsync on windows without needing us unix gurus to setup the backups.

It has all the rsync features, plus scheduler and can build the UI options into a script so you can have a nice icon to just double click on to do the backups whenever and/or throw them into your own schedules uses the scheduler for windows.

here's a video of it I posted on youtube.

Ubuntu 9.10

Yeah! Been pretty busy the last two months with work, web development, drupal, server management - I have not had time to jump on and blog about the cool things I have been doing. But since the new release of ubuntu is out in the wild, I decided to download it and begin working with it in a VM and start retooling it for a new LAVA and LAVALite release.

Lately I have been working on some projects for clients with RAILO, drupal and cakephp. All web based applications but it's been amazing to build some apps that look and run just like desktop apps all built on opensource software. I have been using LAVA based on Ubuntu 8.04 with apache, tomcat, cakephp, drupal and RAILO depending on the project. I have grown to really enjoy coding this way. I started about 8 years ago as a COLDFUSION programmer and started to write smaller apps with RAILO when it became opensource. Now with a UBUNTU stack and I throw in either RAILO, drupal or cakephp and volia instant backend for some really robust apps. Having ubuntu as a solid test environment really makes development so much faster cause I can make a custom cd for the client which has all the software and runtimes necessary to completely install a new instance of the application within their environment without the need for an apache guru or a mysql guru, etc.

Throw in some Yahoo UI, EXTJS or Jquery and your apps look awesome.

I am really excited about this new version of ubuntu - supposed to be alot faster. I played with the betas but now to see the true release.

Will post something once I have tested out a couple builds.

Microsoft datacenter woes

Looks like Microsoft datacenter had a huge loss this week. Actually all the mobile sidekick data for all the USA.

This just in time for Microsoft's unveiling of their new Azure online cloud service and Microsoft's bid to get people to use Microsoft Office online.

I know it's not ubuntu news but it's interesting to see with everything going to the cloud. The new version of Ubuntu allows cloud service integration with Amazon. And although I think everyone who has been using cloud services have come accustomed to some lose of service whether that is disconnects to their data or some downtime, this is the first time I have ever heard of complete data loss.

having lost data on local hds, I understand hardware fails but come on. When someone like a Microsoft loses data - it's unforgivable and a real testament to their growing lack of technical skill. Reading the article, they do point out that Microsoft inherited it's sidekick infrastructure a year ago, but that does not help their case - if anything it makes it worse. They had a whole year to put in place a backup strategy. For me being a person who likes the idea of cloud computing and even uses Google Apps cloud service it puts the fear in me that Microsoft could be so complacent. Let them be an example to all in the cloud business - make backups.

Read the article here:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/11/microsofts_danger_sidekick_data_loss_casts_dark_on_cloud_computing.html