So I decided to let the dust settle a little bit after last weeks VMware Hybrid Cloud Service announcement before I posted something this week.  I wanted to coordinate this post with the upcoming VMUG’s I am presenting at specifically on the Hybrid Cloud topic.  I was not intending to talk specifically about the VMware Hybrid Cloud Service, my sessions are dealing more with helping you out there understand ways to consume the Hybrid Cloud regardless if it is the VMware service or a vCloud Provider you already know and love.  My goal in these sessions is not to get bogged down in the details of the VMware service but expand into a live discussion about how we all as IT Professionals can leverage and consume the Hybrid and think about how to design for it.

Think About Your Use Cases for Hybrid Cloud

In my sessions in the coming weeks I will be talking about a few possible options for use cases to leverage the Infrastructure as a Service aspect of this new Hybrid option.  Mainly the advent and implementation of the vCloud Networking and Security 5.1 Edge Gateway really facilitates a lot of the new design options.  You can read more about this in some of my previous posts about Designing Your Hybrid Cloud.  However, as an ex-customer and IT administrator I see a few uses cases right off the top of my head where you can leverage these provider managed compute resources.

The post What Does The VMware Hybrid Cloud Service Mean to You? appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

If you are a consultant, small business, home based business, or even a medium-sized business you want to check out this Virtual PBX phone service.  I’ve been using it for a few months now and it’s really very awesome to help you with really presenting yourself in a professional way.  I know a lot of you out there are huge technology fans so this service should be right up your ally for sure.  below is some of the highlights of the service so you can peek into it.  I think they even have a free trial to use the service and the cost is very inexpensive.  Like anything I do, “Virtual” solutions are something I am a big fan of for sure.

Phone.com Phone Number Flexibility

Phone.com Call Routing Menus

Phone.com Custom Greetings

Phone.com Extension Types

• Virtual
• Soft Phone (Communicator Application)
• Mobile
• IP Phone or Adapter

Phone.com Call Routing Options

Phone.com Resonable Pricing

It starts at $9.88/month and you can add features and other things like unlimited extensions.  Sign Up for a Free Trial and see for yourself.  Click the image below to get started for a free month.

The post Phone.com Virtual PBX For Small Business appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

Although I cannot talk about the specifics VMware posted a press release yesterday regarding the new vCloud Hybrid Service.  If you want to learn more about it you can register for the web-cast online which will be happening on May 21st at 10:00am PDT.

VMware vCloud Hybrid Service Launch Details

To register, please go to:
http://www.vmware.com/go/vmwarehybrid

Get signed up and see what the news will be all about.  I myself just registered as well so I can hear some of the real time information along with everyone else.  I am curious to hear what other’s thoughts are as well.  Please comment below to start a discussion on the topic!  Due to the nature of the official announcement I will reply to comments but I cannot give specifics on anything.  I hope you will join the web-cast!

Building your hybrid cloud is also the topic for my upcoming VMUG sessions as well as the VMworld Submission.  Although I am not talking specifically about this offering, the concepts apply to extending any physical datacenter to the public cloud in order to build a vCloud Hybrid.  I have of course blogged a lot about this a few months ago, so take a look at those articles.

The post VMware vCloud Hybrid Service Launch appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

In the ast few months I have been experimenting and playing with a number of Cloud Storage Vendors.  In fact I have become quite the fan of some of them for the ease of use for file sharing, streaming, podcasting, image and content distribution  and just offsite storage backups.  As I have been experimenting I also was looking for something to manage all these various storage islands and even quickly move data from one to the other.  Well, I am pleased to say I have had enough stick time with one vendor that I wanted to let everyone know about it.

Cloud Storage Vendors By Purpose

Let me start by saying I am using various Cloud Storage Vendors based on the different specific purposes I need them for and below is a quick list of what I am using and the use case.

• Google Drive: Personal offsite files, videos, shared business files
• Amazon S3: Blog Backups, Podcasts, Images, Secure File Downloads, secure video content
• Amazon CloudFront: Content Delivery Network for Podcasts, Images
• DropBox: Shared documents

Currently I am still using the free DropBox level, but I have been using a lot of Google Drive Space and I do pay for that.   The upside is it’s $9.99/month for 200GB so it’s rather cheap.  I am paying for S3 and CloudFront, but it’s also under $5/month right now.  As you can see there is very little crossover for the different purposes I use the various providers for.  CloudFront as a CDN does just that function   Although it is using in some cases Amazon S3 Buckets for the back-end in the base of the Podcasts, but for the WordPress websites it does a direct pull of all the images from the web server and the W3 Total Cache Plugin handles the redirections.

Google Drive so far has been the easiest for me to share personal files with other family members and backup files that were in my house.  Because of the YouTube integration I have recently learned that you can also video videos directly online from your Google Drive and even embed them without the need for a YouTube Channel.  In some ways this seems to me that you are no longer bound by the YouTube restrictions of file size uploads and other things.  There is also no suggested videos or YouTube based links in the video embedding, so you can privately share video links with people.  The integration with Google Docs also makes simple documents and spreadsheets easy to manage with others.

Cloud Storage Vendor Management

Now here comes the best part of all this.  With all these Cloud Storage Vendors I quickly saw the need to shift content around from one to the other.  I also wanted to make some backup copies in other vendors for important data.  The traditional way of dealing with this was to:

1. Download content from the first vendor
2. Upload to the other vendor

In my case my internet connection is BEYOND slow for download and worse for upload.  I needed a solution that used faster bandwidth and I found it!  The solution is called Storage Made Easy.  What these folks do is not only unify your Cloud Storage Providers, but they give you the ability to drag and drop files from one to the other.  You can even copy files using an Import/Export feature.  The best part, is the bandwidth is all theirs!  You do need to pay for the service, but there is a Personal Lifetime option for a one-time $59.99 charge.  I can tell you in the times I have already used the ‘Single Pane of Glass’ the $60 paid for itself.  There is no recurring fee and you get unlimited bandwidth to move your files around.  You can connect up to 30 Cloud Storage Providers and go to town from day one provided you already have multiple accounts.  You can see the File Manager below and there is also desktop based tools for Windows, Linux, and OSX.

Save The Cloud Storage Management Hassle

Try Storage Made Easy for yourself and see just how easy it is to move files between the various Cloud Storage Providers.  I bet you will be like me and decide that $59.99 is a short investment when you have some large chunks of data you need to move.  Of course it does not solve my initial uploads to the provider of my choice, but it does make moving files around a LOT less painful.

Please leave comments if you have tried the service or you decide to try it and let me know what your feelings are!

The post How To Manage Multiple Cloud Storage Vendors appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

I don’t care who you are or where you come from, we all have one thing in common, and that is the Will to prevail and the determination to get where we want to go.  I say this because I have traveled a long road on my journey to get back in shape.  Long ago when I was a 135lb high school wrestler I thought I’d never be unhealthy.  I was invincible, and I was going to take the world by the balls and win every time.  That being said, I also got my ass kicked more than once on the mat so I was also pretty realistic about things.  However, what kills me is that people still think that making a life changing decision is something you just do for a couple of months when January 1st rolls around and you need a lame excuse for a new resolution.  I was getting tired of staring at PowerPoint so I needed a short break and this was on my mind.

My Personal Determination?

Personally, mine is through the roof.  The reason why is pretty simple I just look at the pictures of the OLD me and say to myself, how the hell did things EVER get that bad?!  I wonder to myself how far would that have gone and the best part is I THOUGHT I was the shit.  I really in my own head woke up every day and said , “Damn I look pretty good”.

 I decided a few years ago that enough was enough and I wanted more.  I figured out when I was 30 years old that you get one life to life so you damn well better make the most of it.  I set my mind to it and I stopped A LOT of things just a few of them being:

• I quit smoking
• I quit drinking as much as I was
• I started eating better
• I began my P90X Journey

All of this I did with the flip of a switch that I call determination and will.  I didn’t use things to get me off the bad things, I just decided I needed to change, and I turn that into the determination to change.  I don’t expect many people to follow my lead, in fact a lot of people simply have no interest, and that’s fine with me.  I started doing this for MYSELF, and that turned into the will to want to help others see the same success.  I can tell you my determination level continues to grow to be better, faster, and beat the last set of numbers on that tracking sheet.

Do The Determination It Takes?

I think everyone does, but here is the place for a little tough love people.  I don’t deal with excuses, they are crap.  Everyone has a lot going on in their life, that’s a piss poor excuse.  Most of us cannot afford to NOT find the time to think about our own health.  Half the reason we all pay such high insurance costs is because we are a nation of people who LACK determination and will to just “get it done”.  Instead we want a pill, or some other quick fix we sprinkle on our food to curb your appetite   The food industry is locked in the economics of the sickness industry for better or worse.  We need to all be part of the Wellness Revolution.

Too many people I talk to love to complain about the cost of medications, insurance, yet they don’t even bat an eye spending money on crappy food and other empty calories   They refuse to even think about working out because it’s too much work, or they are too busy.  I respect those that have found the will and determination to make themselves better and become part of the wellness solution instead of the sickness problem in this country.

Am I passionate about this topic?  Hell yes, because I have found the path that I know is right no matter what people think.  I love helping people as a Team Beachbody Coach and I will continue to try to invite people to my monthly challenge groups.  There will always be one more person I can touch, and help get back on their own path to health.  I believe it is one of my new life’s missions and I love it.

So how about it?  Are you ready to find the will and determination to change?  I’m going back to writing PowerPoint decks now.  I just needed a change of scenery for a few minutes.  Please comment as you see fit, but know I am always available to help those who want the help.

The post Determination And Will To Prevail Is Everything appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

Well kids here we are again ready for the VMworld 2013 Call For Papers Voting.  This is going to be a short post but as always you can easily filter by the name of the presenter you want to find to make things easier.  Below you can see the filter results for my sessions.  I’ve also listed a few others that I think you should also look at since the presenters are always great.  I’d suggest anything by these folks to keep it simple these are the usual suspects, some are just obvious so I am not bothering to list them all out,  and some new comers:

• Kris Boyd
• David Hill
• Kamau Wanguhu
• Rawlinson Rivera
• Mike Foley
• Cormac Hogan
• Jeremy Sage
• Thomas Ralph

The post VMworld 2013 Call For Papers Voting Is Open appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

#1 Do you know the application inter-dependencies?

More often than not this is the biggest problem to understand.  How many times have you upgraded an application, changed an IP address, or anything else for that matter and the help desk phone started ringing?  That’s generally because we simply do not know what things have become dependent on that application over time.  Not only external applications that have started using the one in question, but also the application interdependencies itself.  Things to consider in this area might be:

• Is this a Multi-tier Application and do we know all the components?
• Does if have Active Directory Requirements?
• What external applications have started leveraging this application?

#2 What are the network dependencies?

In many cases you will need to change IP addresses of your application when you move it to the cloud.  This will become easier over time as Network Virtualization becomes more mainstream, we won’t have this problem as much.  However, today how is your application connected to the network?  You must not only know the application interdependencies but the network ones as well.  A few things to consider here might be:

• Does the application have firewall rules?
• How are users accessing the application?
• Does this application need to connect to other systems?

#3 How is the application administered?

Interestingly enough, this is a forgotten step when thinking about how to move the application to the cloud.  Today if the application is on your standard infrastructure you may be using one of three methods to administer the application in question.

• Admin Web Interface
• Secure Shell Access (Linux)
• Terminal Server (Windows)

The thing to understand here is once that application is moved to the cloud, will these same means be directly accessible or will you need to “jump” to them.  The answer will depend on how you decide to connect to your cloud, but certainly in some cases these interfaces may not be made “Publically” accessible so you need to think about how you are going to get to the system itself.

#4 Does the application require specific resources?

This is a very valid question to ask when looking at the current application   Recently, more people are starting to leverage the true power of VMware vSphere by using the resource options better and with more intelligence.  This may mean that you now have an application with per virtual machine settings to provide specific resources to it.  You need to determine if you can provide this same level of service in the cloud you have chosen.  Of course with some vCloud Director allocation models you can certainly do so.  Before you move the application check not only for existing settings on the following in your local datacenter, and determine if you can provide the same.

• CPU Reservations or Limits
• Memory Reservations or Limits

You may need to figure out a way to translate some of these settings into the cloud either by getting multiple Virtual Datacenters with different capabilities, or deciding if these settings are truly a requirement.

#5 What kind of storage is the application using?

Sometimes this may be a factor for performance, or capacity.  When you think about moving the application to the cloud, you need to absolutely consider the current storage requirements of the application.  There are a few factors to consider, specific to this that you may want to think about including:

• Current Storage Capacity and Utilization of the application?
• Storage performance requirements of the application?
• Are there multiple virtual disks?

You could have the option of creating storage tiers in your cloud to support each of these requirements, but before you move the application it’s good to identify these areas to avoid potential problems.

Is Your Application Cloud-Ready?

You need to ultimately decide the answer to this question, but it’s not something you can do without at least asking the five questions above.  Make sure you do some investigation with tools or on your own to get the answers to these questions.  Then and only then can you decide if your application is cloud ready.  Once you do that, go ahead and start planning your move to your new Virtual Datacenter and begin leveraging the power of the Cloud.

Please comment if you have other things to add in this area, I’m sure there are more than five, but I wanted to hit what I thought might be the most important ones.

The post 5 Questions to Ask – Is Your Application Cloud-Ready? appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

One of the sites I was looking at was not great.  The content was okay, but the number of comments was off the charts.  What was really odd is that on some pages that had little to no comment, just links there were HUNDREDS of comments.  I started to ask myself if the comments were even real or if they were fabricated somehow to help drive up the readership.

Lastly the site did not even rank in google what I did searches for the content that it had posted, so I really started to get confused.  I consider myself a pretty smart person, but looking into some of this has gotten me asking more questions than answers.  What could possibly be driving all those comments on a low ranked google site with very little decent content?  If anyone has any idea, I’d love to hear them just for giggle because something just didn’t seem right to me.  Anyhow I was just thinking I’d ask what might be going on if anyone had any ideas.

The post A Question For All The Web Experts appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

1. I wanted to restrict access to certain pages only to site members
2. I needed to protect media content links from being shared
3. Disable Plugins on a per page basis
4. Limit Login attempts

These seemed like two pretty big things to try to accomplish with just WordPress Plugins, but I actually found two that fit the bill AND they were not very expensive at all.  So to keep it simple here are the two I landed on and I will give a brief overview of each.

• Restrict Content Pro
• S3 Media Maestro
• Plugin Organizer
• Limit Login Attempts

WordPress Plugins #1 - Restrict Content Pro

This plugin is just simply fantastic!  For a long time I have run a WordPress network install and one of the biggest headaches is the user registration.  This plugin not only solves THAT problem, but it also as fully membership capabilities.  You can see my example here on the new Virtual Fitness Registration Page.  It’s 100% connected to PayPal, and is so easy to use it’s awesome.  personally I also went ahead and added SSL on the pages where the registration and the other login pages were.  That led to another problem where I needed to disable plugins that were not allowing SSL only, I will get into that later.

This just works, and has the flexibility to restrict by page or specific content on the page.  It even manages the subscription expiration and other items you may need for your Members Only area of your WordPress site.  At only $42 it’s well worth the money and the developer’s support is top-notch!

WordPress Plugins #2 - S3 Media Maestro

This is a pretty new plugin and currently is still being added to by the guys at Fly Plugins.  However, it does exactly what it says it will do and it issues content downloads in the form of media like Audio or Video to an HTML5 player with expiration on the media.  It is all using Amazon S3 to do so, and this means you don’t need to open your S3 Bucket to the world.  Therefore the backend links are not useable after the page has loaded.  It does have the ability to also do non S3 media, but it’s not going to be “protected”.  Being a technical guy I have requested a few additions and again the developers are great.  Some things I asked for were:

• CloudFront Distribution Protection with an S3 Bucket
• SSL intelligence on the S3 URL when a page is loaded in SSL
• Non-S3 protection

So far they have been very responsive to the ideas and personally I think more plugin developers need to listen to their users.  They are even nice enough to provide some support to me in a multi-site network even though technically they have not tested it.  So far it’s working great and the HTML5 player works perfectly on the iOS devices so KUDOS to the fly guys at Fly Plugins.  You also cannot beat the price at $27.

UPDATE  4/20/2013:  Something I learned today is that Amazon S3 does not have a content type to automatically associate the video file types when you add them to your bucket.  This does not matter for all browsers EXCEPT the evil internet explorer.  So if you upload files to S3 that are MP4, M4V or other type you need to edit the context as shown below to the proper file type of video/mp4 or other proper file type depending on the one you are using.

I actually wen and downloaded 3Hub as that allows you to add custom file types for association on upload and I will be testing it to make sure it works on my next file upload.

WordPress Plugins #3 - Plugin Organizer

Okay seriously, I wish I found this one MONTHS ago, and the best part…it’s FREE.  This this has a LOT of power for you to not only disable plugins per page, but even sort the order in which they LOAD on your WordPress site.  At the end of the day I found on my SSL pages three plugins were not using HTTP even with the WordPress HTTPS plugin running.  I needed to simply just disable than and frankly the plugins I disabled were not a big deal on a login form, or registration form.  This little gem solved the problem right quick.

If you have a need to do something similar do install this one and give it a try

WordPress Plugins #4 - Limit Login Attempts

There has been a lot of buzz about recent WordPress Brute Force Attacks, and I went digging and found this plugin.  It does exactly what it says it does and sets up a limit on the login attempts to the site.  You can setup lockouts, and even notify the administrator of a lockout situation.  I have not tried to lock myself out yet, but overall this is just a good idea of a plugin.  I may look for one that forces a password change as well for my subscribers.  I’m not sure about that yet, but take a look at this one just to be safe.

UPDATED:  Okay so you know, this thing WORKS and it works well, check out the information below from the logs today.

16 failed login attempts (2 lockout(s)) from IP: 94.242.237.115

Last user attempted: admin

IP was blocked for 20 minutes

The post New WordPress Plugins I Have Come To Love appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

So I finally got around to getting my VMworld 2013 session submitted based on my work a few weeks ago with the Hybrid Cloud setup I was working on between multiple public clouds.  I know voting is not opened yet, but I am hoping many of you will earmark this session for your list.  The details are below so you can read about it before the catalog goes live.

VMworld 2013 Session Title:  

How To Build Your Hybrid Cloud and Consume the Public Cloud

VMworld 2013 Session Type:  

Breakout Session

VMworld 2013 Session Abstract:

Are you a VMware vSphere Customer today that is on the verge of deciding to expand your current deployment or start considering vCloud Providers? Are you a start-up trying to decide how to consume the vCloud Provider public clouds as your Infrastructure as a Service, (Iaas)?  These are two very common use cases for customers looking to move to a Hybrid Cloud solution with VMware vCloud Providers.

This session will discuss the concepts for design of your Hybrid Cloud fully integrated into your existing vSphere and/or physical only infrastructure, or even your own private cloud. We will examine and explain some ideas in how you can better consume and expand your current datacenter capacity into one or more public cloud providers running VMware vCloud Director. You will leave the session with a better understanding of how to go out and start consuming the vCloud providers to best suit your needs to grow your capacity and connect them to your existing infrastructure. This session is ultimately about understanding how to consume the vCloud public cloud providers not building your own private cloud.

What will make this session unique is it will leverage live white boarding for the majority of the session instead of just PowerPoint slides.

VMworld 2013 Session Outline:

VMworld 2013 Key Takeaway 1

VMworld 2013 Key Takeaway 2 

VMworld 2013 Key Takeaway 3 

The post VMworld 2013 Session Submission Complete appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

Recently Veeam gave away some passes to Microsoft TechED, and now they are doing the same for VMworld.  You can actually enter into their drawing to win a free pass to the VMworld 2013 conference.  You might as well do it you never know, you could win and make it to VMworld on Veeam!  You just need to register and you are done.  Here is a few reasons why you want to get there!

VMworld Breakout Sessions

Breakout Sessions provide product, industry, and solution-specific presentations to the most current and prevailing issues. Every Session can be locked into your schedule during pre-registration, giving you the peace of mind that you will have a spot to learn about topics that matter most to you and your business. Most sessions are repeated at least once and additional sessions are added leading up to VMworld.

VMworld Knowledge Experts

Connect with subject-matter authorities through our Knowledge Experts program. These members of the VMware community conduct and participate in Breakout Sessions and Group Discussions throughout the conference.

VMworld Group Discussions

Led by Knowledge Experts, these informative and interactive discussion groups are a great opportunity for you to gain insight from like-minded colleagues in similar industries.

VMworld Hands-on Labs

Hands-on Labs (HOLs) provide a unique interactive learning environment designed around typical customer use-case and business scenarios. Conference attendees are literally “hands-on” with the technology, exercising workflows that relate to real-world issues.

The post VMworld 2013 FREE PASS appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

Town of Lyndeborough Annual Meeting

This past weekend we had the annual Lyndeborough Town Meeting where two specific warrant articles were of great debate.  One was about the Vetting Process to select a new Police Chief.  The other was about whether we would allow the town’s Board of Selectman to appoint a new Police Chief.  Many of those that know me, have heard me say I am not into politics, but in these two cases I had a very outspoken day at the microphone.

The first one did not bother me so much.  There was originally money tied to it that we amended to remove, which meant it became simply an advisory action.  The selectman could choose to follow the items or not.  Had the money remained attached, they would have had to follow it to the letter.  So I was fine with the article either way personally.

The other article is the one I really am addressing the rest of this blog post to the townspeople I share The Town of Lyndeborough with.  First of all I have been a resident of the town for 9 years now and frankly one thing that grinds my gears is when those that have lived there for 20 or more feel the need to tell me “You don’t know the history”.  Let’s get something straight; I have as much right to speak my opinion even if I lived in town for a month or 20 years.  Okay now that we have dispensed with that let me explain why having a Chief of Police is such an issue.

The State of New Hampshire has on file RSA105 that basically states that you cannot fire any Chief of Police.  This applies to ANY city or town not just ours.  In the past we have had issues in my town with past folks in that position.  However, the Chief of Police reports to the board of selectman, and the underlying problem was essentially there was no paper trail of proof to show any performance problems.

We should not be afraid of the position we should expect that the managers, in this case the board of selectman, do their job with yearly or even bi-yearly performance reviews of that position.  This is no different from any high paying corporate position, and I would submit any and every issue simply must be documented and inserted into this person’s personnel file.  The State of New Hampshire RSA105 is not the issue; the process by which the position is properly managed is the issue.

Town of Lyndeborough Officer In Charge

Secondly, what many people just do not seem to realize is that without a Chief of Police, the Board of Selectmen runs the police department?  We currently have an “Officer in Charge”, which I might add has done an outstanding job in the role.  However, what is being missed by the townspeople is that the OIC, has some information he cannot or should not be telling his current managers.  Our Board of Selectmen does not have Police expertise, with the exception of the newly elected Fred Douglas, former Police Chief of Milford, NH.  What people need to realize is even Mr. Douglas is now a civilian like the rest of the board and cannot be made privy to many aspects of certain cases.   So where is the current OIC supposed to go for real help that a Chief of Police should be there to provide?

The townspeople need to get past their fear of RSA105, and realize that without a chief we could in some cases be worse off having a three-man board of selectman running the law enforcement in our town.  It is their job to hire and manage that role, but it is not their place to be the head of any police department.  What I can tell you is the final warrant article passed 45 to 43.  I will also tell you Julie and I almost did not make the meeting.  So to those that think my vote after 9 years in town does not count…. guess again.

The final thought I will provide everyone in my town that I hope read this, is that the first article about vetting a new Chief, need not apply or it could apply to a promotion from within.  I’m my humble opinion; any current member of our police department including the current OIC if deemed qualified can and should be promoted without the previously mentioned vetting process.  There is nothing in the process that we voted in specifically stated it needed to apply to a promotion.  So if you think promoting from within is “Circumventing the process” as it was stated in the meeting, think again.  We voted for a process to interview and hire a new chief; we did not say that HAD to apply to an internal promotion.

Generally speaking, in any organization it is assumed that an internal promotion the person has already been vetted and PROVEN themselves for consideration of the promotion.  So if the current board of selectman decides to appoint a new Chief of Police, I for one would support it as well as an internal promotion without any additional vetting process.  That process should for sure be used to hire any NEW outside candidate to ensure the proper qualifications.  You can chose to disagree with me, but the fact is just because we voted a vetting process, does not mean it has to be used at all, or for an integral promotion.

The Town of Lyndeborough Got It Right

To those other 44 townspeople that voted to have a Lyndeborough Chief of Police, I commend you for seeing that this is in fact the right thing to do.  I would hope those same people are as clear as I am in the understanding of why it was needed.  They may or may not agree on the promotion component, but it still needed to be said and people need to get out of the past and move forward.  I will say I was already asked by a few people to run for selectman as a “breath of fresh air”, I am still undecided on that.  I invite people reading from the town or other areas to comment on this little situation we may finally have a resolution on.

The post Town Of Lyndeborough Great Chief Of Police Debate appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

VMware Horizon View iOS 2.0 Changes

Now since I updated to the new version, I am not sure why I tried, but it seems the lock out on app allowing un-trusted certificates has been removed so this will now appears to work again for your own Certificate Authority as well as the self signed certificates as it is in my case.  You can see below the old options are back to connect.  Now it is still always recommended to use real certificates of course but this solves my connection problem to my View Server inside vCloud Director from my iPad

You can also see the certificate is allowed to be accepted

Key VMware Horizon View iOS Client 2.0 Highlights

• Unity Touch
  • Requires a VMware Horizon View 5.2 or later virtual desktop
  • Navigate All Programs easily and quickly from the Unity Touch sidebar
  • Access files in your Users folder easily from the Unity Touch sidebar
  • Easily search for apps and files on your virtual desktop
  • Switch between running applications and open windows
  • Close windows and quit apps with a left swipe and click Close
  • Create list of your favorite apps and files and use across your devices
• Unity Touch
  • Improved client side caching in View 5.2 is ideal for mobile devices
  • Admins use 90 MB & get the equivalent of 250 MB from earlier releases

The post VMware Horizon View iOS Client 2.0 Un-trusted Certificates Work appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

Time for a quick update on this site I think about some cool things going on in my fitness world in March.  The start of 2013 has been awesome and with the addition of Les Mills Combat I have seen a great number of folks start into a new fitness journey using this program.  Almost everyone including Rick Vanover and Chris Halstead to name a few are absolutely loving the program.  In fact many new VMware and technical community members are starting up this program with me tomorrow!  Personally I am in starting week 5 tomorrow with Rick and Chris and it is my new favorite.  So what else is there to share and how do YOU decide to get up and start moving?

Start Your Own Personal Challenge!

That’s right, spring is coming and like folks just this week have told me, they are not getting younger and they just “feel like crap”.  It’s time for all of us to realize we’ve got one life to make the most of it no matter how you choose.  I don’t care if you want to try P90X, P90X2, Insanity, or even Les Mills Combat, but pick something!  Let Julie and I both help you with the support you need and the Challenge Pack will provide the program AND some of the nutrition.

I plan on continuing the monthly challenge groups all year-long and all I need are people interested in getting fit, and what programs they want to do so I can continue to organize and run them monthly.  I also have other folks on the team that are coaches and also VERY active and now fit themselves so you can even reach out to them if you want!

• Joe Suma
• Vic Camacho
• Kris Boyd
• Randy Carson
• Keith Howells
• Jeff Szastak

March Madness Deals

This month there is a few promotions I wanted to mention as well that are incredible deals on TWO popular challenge Packs.  Each one is currently discounted from $205 to $180!  That’s one of the best deals you will ever see on these programs:

• P90X
• P90X2

Also this month Julie and I have our own first ever Virtual Fitness Sweepstakes for a free copy of Shaun T’s Hip Hop Abs.  Maybe you want it for yourself, maybe you want it for your significant other.  Either way, this is a great deal we are giving away along with a free sample of Shakeology.  Register and tell others about it as well!

Ripping Beachbody DVD’s

FInally I waned to mention that I have struggled with a few free programs to get my purchased DVD’s onto my laptop and my iPad.  We all travel a lot and I for one like to have my copies digital.  Well I landed on a program that finally seemed to work very well for the new DVD’s from Beachbody.  You can read about the application and the process in this short article.  Please remember it goes without saying do this for your own personal use and don’t post them online.

Let’s be honest about this since people who do that don’t get the full benefits of the programs.  I know first hand because long ago that’s how I got some of them and I did not see the right results until I bought a copy myself.  Folks that copy them or download them don’t get the nutrition guides, workout schedules  or more importantly are not going to get the support from a Coach to help them be successful. Do what I do and rip them for your own personal use.

The post Ripping Beachbody DVD’s, March Promotions, and Sweepstakes appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.

I was talking to Rick Vanover a couple of weeks ago on Twitter and the topic of Veeam and vCloud Director came up.  Incidentally Rick is a member of one of my challenge groups for Les Mills Combat and is doing AWESOME and down about 20 pounds last time we talked.  So give him a WOOT on that next time you see him.  I’m hoping I can get him to write a little blog post on his site about his progress.

Anyway, I was asking him what I always ask him about Veeam and vCloud Director Support.  This was just before PEX and I did mean to post something during PEX but I was busy with my little Hybrid Cloud Project.

Long story short, Veeam V7 will be coming out soon with vCloud Director support.  If you want to be in the “Know”, then head on over and get signed up to hear about the updates.  I will of course be trying to get some early access to it so I can provide feedback to the Veeam Team on the usability and integration when it has a public BETA.  Most people know I have a vested interested not only in Cloud DR, but in the basic Backup and Recovery aspects and what the different vendors will be able to provide.

As the Software Defined Datacenter gets more mainstream, and people move to Hybrid Cloud as I talked about last week, this will be come as important as moving the workloads around.  I for one am very interested in seeing how these vCloud Director integrated backup solutions come together.  Click below to learn more about this new version!

The post Countdown To Veeam V7 With vCloud Director Support appeared first on Chris Colotti's Blog.