For the record, I only set this device up because I got stuck with 50 of them for one of my schools, and for anyone who doesn’t want headaches, I would recommend they go with XPe (no, not WinCE), I’m pretty sure, the additional premium you will pay for the device itself will be saved in time trying to configure/troubleshoot, and update it. This recommendation is based on my usage with VMWare View (formerly VDI), and where USB Redirection is absolutely needed. For any other purposes (ie: terminal services, ICA, RDP, etc..) , I cannot vouch for it, but I would suspect it would work just fine if you’re on a lower budget.

ok, so now that the complaining about it is over, lets move on to some instructions on how to set this up.

These instructions do assume that you know how to create a VMWare View Desktop Pool, and have an appropriately created template that contains the View Agent in it, etc…  If not, there are some documents out there that describe this process, and you can see my post about Sysprep and VMWare View: the solution as well.

There are a few components that need to be setup correctly for this to work:

1- The HP RDP Multimedia and USB Enhancements (Server Side)

Now, this part, I’m not 100% sure on, but I think it’s only required when using an XPe client. In the case of Linux clients, the redirection is happening somehow within a Samba mount or something similar. If you find the need to install that, you can head over to HP Support site, and download the following file: http://bit.ly/bFKXS

Install this on your View Manager Connection Server, and reboot the server. no further action is required there.

2- Firmware and HP RDP Multimedia and USB Enhancements (Client Side)

This step was by far the most cumbersome, because I had to figure out HP’s way of installing their .hpk files, which are, I believe, essentially a modified .deb (Debian) package. so for this reason – being modified – the dpkg –install  does work on that package.
This is where the confusion starts. If you are running any firmware older than M5ST0019 rev 1 (Oct 6 2008), you will have a command called hpkg to install packages. On that firmware you would need 2 packages to install for the complete View experience.

Unfortunately, all these package are not all available on the “downloads” page of the T5545. (don’t ask me why!). after researching, I ended up finding the new version of the View Client which had the Sound and USB Redirection built into it. Since I can’t seem to find it anymore, I’m making it available through my DropBox. Download it HERE. (this file may disappear at any time, but for now, it’s here) The other file is available on HP’s site, and that is the counterpart of the HP RDP Multimedia USB Enhancements… this time, it’s for the client. you can get it HERE

Even though, if you really want to follow my ideal way, this will not be necessary (see below). but if you really don’t want to flash the firmware of the device, you may be able to get things to work by installing both of the above files.

To install an hpk on the old firmware, you create a new XTerm connection, within the connection manager. On the old firmware you have to create a Custom… connection, then type xterm for the command, and now you should have access to the shell.

change the user to root: su -  (the default password is “root”)
unlock the filesystem: fsunlock
install the package: hpkg –i <filename.hpk>
lock the filesystem: fslock

(In order to get the files to the thin client, you can do it in multiple ways, but I used the FTP method, because it was the simplest). if you know your way around the shell, you can always stick a USB thumb drive and copy the stuff from it. hint: it’ll get mounted on /media

ok, so now that I ranted on the old way, let me point you to the new way, and seemed to have been much less cumbersome. There are 3 ways you can do this, on a CD (you would have to connect an external optical drive to the thin client), a USB thumb drive (that’s how I did it), and for deployment … (haven’t figured out how to use this one, but I’m pretty sure, it’s meant to work with Altiris deployment packages.

What we’re going to do here is flash the firmware to the latest version. Don’t be fooled, as of this writing, HP did not have the latest firmware on their website, so I had to fish for it with Dr. Google’s assistance. I finally found it HERE. When you download this, you will need a flash drive that’s bigger than 512Mb (1Gb should be ideal). just run the file, and choose the “USB” option when it pops up. note: you will lose all data on your flash drive when you do this. The drive will be loaded with the new firmware. once this is done, stick the USB thumb drive in your thin client, and reboot. You don’t have to change boot order, as USB is already enabled as the first boot device.  It’ll ask you if you really want to flash it, Answer “Y” , and wait about 5 minutes, the Thin Client will reboot and comes back up with the new firmware.

Now, your VDM client will be named View client, and will have more options on it. When you create a session, under “Options” there will be an additional setting called “ Sound Redirection” , and another one called “ Device Mapping”, which allows for mapping the USB Storage, Serial port and Printer mapping. for USB Storage, you can also select what drive you want the USB storage to map to. Enable whichever ones you want.

Prior to this firmware, the USB redirection hpk would’ve done what this one does natively. Though I never got the first solution to work fully, it looked to me like the HP RDP Multimedia USB Enhancements had way more options than the new View client. But I had no need for the other ones, and I couldn’t figure out how to install an hpk package on the new firmware, since the hpkg command no longer existed in the new firmware. Anyone that may have any insight on this, please share in the commends.

3- Your Virtual Machine template.

You may be thinking.. duh ! that’s simple. Well, that was one of the components that threw off for a loop, at least in regards to USB Redirection. You see, for USB redirection to function correctly, you need to have an actual virtual USB controller connected to the VM. you can install all plugins and add-ons all over the place, but without the controller, nothing will work.

When all is well with the USB controller, your VM should be showing all the items in the blue in addition to the items in the red box. Without the USB controller, and provided you had installed all the required add-ons on your thin client, you will see only the items in the red box.

4- Your Group Policies in Active Directory

This was a tricky one, and mostly due to the fact that USB Redirection on the Linux Thin Client does not work in the same as you would expect any USB redirect (at least I don’t think so) . What the redirect is doing, is really mounting the USB device to the Linux OS, and then the mechanism of the firmware (when USB redirection is enabled) somehow shares that drive as an SMB share, and makes it available to the connected View client. So this is where the drive letter comes into play. Of course, not knowing this, I had GPOs in AD that locked down printer redirection, COM ports, LPT ports, and most importantly for my purposes drive redirection. this was a no no, and was causing the whole system not work. So, what have we learned here? make sure you either choose NOT CONFIGURED or DISABLED on that option if you would like to stay sane.

When you have all this enabled, don’t expect a whole lot with USB redirection. For very novice users, it’s still going to be very confusing. The drive will get mapped by the volume name of the USB drive, or sometime by the Linux path, and does not get deleted when you remove the drive, though the user can actually delete the “ghost” folder, it’s still very confusing.

Also, it’s not instantaneous, when you plug in a USB device, especially if it’s a large capacity device with some data on it, the Linux OS has to scan it, mount it, and share it out, before the Windows OS can even figure out that it’s there. Bottom line, Windows does not see the USB device as a USB device, but rather, a SAMBA share.

I have not tested how that type of redirection will be affected by disabled USB access from VDI manager policies. That is something that is still up for testing. If I find something interesting there, I’ll make sure to post that.

Well there you have it, T5545 Thin Client USB Redirection, finally working. 

Since I got rid of my cable, I setup an iMac to take care of all my media. It was a nice setup, except I didn’t have full access to the computer, unless I had my laptop, and connected to it via LogMeIn or TeamViewer, or, for much less control, using the native Boxee remote for the iPhone, or even the Rowmote free application.

These were all fine and dandy, but I really wanted full access to the machine without having my laptop or another computer around. Before finding out about Rowmote Pro, or even before it ever existed, and I went and bought the Adesso Wirelsss Slimtyouch Mini-Mac, which I paid $80 for, and turned out to be a total waste of money, in short, very short range, and battery life lasts 2 days at best.

Enter Rowmote world. If you have an iPhone, you’re going to be blown away by what this app does! It’s only $4.99 – well, $4.99 + $199 or $299 at best if you don’t have an iPhone yet You may be familiar with the regular interface of Rowmote which looks something like this:

However, you may not know this interface:  

Yup .. you’re getting a sweet interface to control your mouse and keyboard straight from the Rowmote application. In its original interface, Rowmote now supports over 17 applications, and obviously, anything you can do on the PC outside of the native Rowmote controls. 

Check out the video below for a live demonstration of Rowmote Pro. It’s definitely worth the $4.99.

Rowmote Pro Demonstration

Google searches failed me left and right, everywhere I looked. People said that the T5540 can only be used in a remote desktop environment, which, of course, will lose out on the capability of VDI, dynamic provisioning, multiple desktop availability, Multimedia, and USB. Essentially, all the advantages of VDI would’ve gone down the drain. so that was not an option for me.

Some mentioned JRE version for Win CE, on which the VDI client will run. I had 2 problems with this one:

1. I couldn’t easily find a free JRE client for WinCE
2. For the life of me, I could not figure out how to get VDI Manager to use JRE.

So, I went ahead with my research, until I stumbled upon something called the VDI Broker Add-On for Microsoft Windows CE.  That can be found here: http://bit.ly/16M38p

If you look closely at the description of this download, however, you will find that it says this:

"This is an Altiris package that contains the VDM Broker Agent for the supported thin client models running a supported operating system.”

Hmm.. I thought I’d try it anyway. Downloading the file wasn’t a problem. Running the file, however, was. It just plain wouldn’t run from the T5540.

So poking around some more, I finally got the solution. Unzip the EXE that is supposedly designed for Altiris, and you will find a little file (145Kb)  called VDMClient.cab, which will do the trick. Now, copy this to your T5540, and run it, and you shall have your VDI client available.

This took me about an hour of research to figure out, since there is absolutely no documentation I could find about it anywhere!. 

Hopefully this will help someone that may be having the same problem.

This trick simply uses Notepad that is built into windows.
Usually, in order to create a text file from the command prompt, or the run command, you type:

notepad myfile.txt

You would now have a normal text file. But if you want to hide some text within that text file, you can actually create a (hidden) file, within the visible file. How? you ask .. well, comin’ right up.

Simple open up a command prompt, by going to start / run… and type cmd.
Then type the following:

notepad visiblefile.txt:hiddenfile.txt

This will open up the file that is hidden within visiblefile.txt. hiddenfile.txt will not show up if you browse to the directory, or look at it in explorer, it’s embedded within the visible file.

So now if you want to edit visiblefile.txt, you simple double click on it within explorer, and if you want to edit the hidden file you created, you just type the same command line above to open it.

Note, that if you delete the visiblefile.txt file, your hiddenfile.txt will also be deleted with it.

Following, you will find a few sites and software that assist to accomplisht he above, and the best part is that they are all free:

Remote Control and Remote Assistance:

1. PC/Mac: LogMeIn (http://www.logmein.com)
   This is one of my personal favorites. It has a clean interface, and works flawlessly. It runs as a windows service, which means that usually, when all else fails, it’s still possible to connect to the computer and reboot it, or power cycle it. The free version of it only allows remote control, but that is usually enough for remote control and basic support. For additional functionality, you can always look at the other products from LogMeIn, (Pro, IT Reach, and Rescue, which come at a significantly higher price point, though depending on your purpose, it may be worth it for you.
2. PC/Mac: Teamviewer (http://www.teamviewer.com)
   I was introduced to TeamViewer when I was on a support call with Microsoft, and their Easy Assist server was not available, so that was their fallback method, little did I know that I would really love that solution. Unlike LogMeIn which requires quite a few steps to install the agent, TeamViewer is a painless installer, it’s as simple as downloading a small plugin, and following the instructions to give remote access to your IT person.
   It also has functionality of File Transfer, Presentation mode, and VPN all bundled in. It also has the option to install an agent that will allow conecting to it without having the user download and run the plugin everytime. I find this one to be very slick!
3. PC/(Mac) : Remote Desktop deserves an honorable mention because it remains one of the IT professionals’ main tools to access remote computers. It’s free with the Windows OS, but of course, it not as easy to set, especially if the target computer i behind a firewall. The 2 pregious solutions do not require any modifications on the firewall to function correctly.
4. VNC (http://realvnc.com)
   This one has been around forever, and within a LAN environment, it’s fairly easy to setup, but to support people outside of your own LAN, it has the same caveats as RDP, where you would need to open up ports on your firewall, and not as easy to instruct someone to install it.

File Sharing / Syncing / Backup
There a lot of products out there that do the job, but here are my favorites, mostly because they’re mostly very cheap or free

1. PC Only: GoodSync (http://www.goodsync.com)
   This is one of the first products that I had ever started using for syncing files. Given that I do a lot of scripting, even 10 minutes can make a difference in what I have backed up. Good sync is quite robust in the way it does syncing, and is very user friendly. You can use it as a backup also, by not allowing it to delete files that you delete on your source, but I rely on other software to do backups, this way I have synced data, AND backed up data to revert to previous dates. GoodSync, will run you $29.95, and the 2nd license, only $9.95, in my opinion, well worth the money.
2. PC Only: Cobian Backup (http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm)
   I know, the site for this seems kind of obscure, I have gone through quite a few backup products, and Cobian seems to do the job best. it’s very regularly updated, and best of all is 100% free! I use it at my work, because we’re lacking an enterprise solution. Moreover, I recommend it to all my clients who don’t have a budget to purchase a bigger product. It supports notifications, all the basic functionality of backups (Full, Differentials, Incrementals) , and central management! (this only showed up on in the last few versions)
3. PC/Mac: Foldershare (http://www.foldershare.com)
   This is part of the live package from Microsoft. it actually works really well… Once it’s setup! However, if the folder is renamed and foldershare doesn’t know about it, then you have to go through the setup again, which requires multiple steps. All in all though, it’s a very good product, I actually use it with my girlfriend and my dad (who is in another country), to share files.
4. PC/Mac/Linux: DropBox (http://getdropbox.com)
   This one, I discovered only a couple of days ago. It’s also free, and multiplatform. you have the ability to share files with people who don’t have dropbox, however, the beauty of this is for use when you need to have some files synchronized at all times. In 3 words…. it just works! In my opinion, this one is more geared to sync your own files, rather than collaborate: The sharing is based on one email address login. So unless you create one common address between you and your collaborators, it’s probably not a very handy solution for that.
5. Box.net (http://www.box.net)
   Box.net, on the other hand seems to allow collaboration. I personally have not really used it yet, so I’m not sure what features it has, but it looks promising, I may check it out sometime soon.
6. GBridge (http://www.gbridge.com)
   This one is more of a VPN/Filesharing product. it’s made by google, and is actually very seamless as well. It has an IM interface, and it extends the GTalk service to provide VPN connectivity. Obviously, you need to have a google account in order to use this. But give it a shot. So far this is only for PC, but who knows maybe a Mac version is coming up.

VPN Connectivity

1. PC/Mac/Linux: Hamachi (http://hamachi.cc)
   A very user friendly VPN product, that is free for the basic version. It creates a secure tunnel, to your other networks, or clients, through which you can establish any number of connections. It is one of my personal favorites. The basic version has worked for me for years without the need to subscribe to the premium version. you would only need the premium version for these reasons:
• you have a large number of computers (more than 16) to connect to the hamachi network.
• you need Hamachi to run as a service, so that you can connect to even if the user logs off
• you have a mission critical operation that needs priority in logging in, in case the service goes down.
2. TeamViewer (http://www.teamviewer.com)
   This one, mentioned above, also allows for the establishing of a VPN tunnel. it works very nicely, though, the VPN functionality only works when connecting to a PC. The multiplatfrom bit only works for the remote control and file transfer. but not VPN
3. GBridge (http://www.gbridge.com)
   Also mentioned above, provides VPN connectivity.

File / Picture Sharing on the go

1. Web: Dropio (http://drop.io)
   A great filesharing website that allows you to share a big (or small) file with people. It quite robust actually, and allows faxing from there, and for a small fee, you can even receive faxes. The best part is that you can assign drops for each individual and give certain permissions to each of the boxes. I would check it out if you are looking for a convenient way to share files.
2. Web: FileShaker (http://www.fileshaker.com)
   Seems to be a new kid on the block, but allows up to 10Gb file uploads, so it makes things very convenient.
3. Web: YouSendIt – DropLoad (http://yousendit.com , http://dropload.com)
   These ones started as being good free products, but as soon as they got popular, they became payware, and since I always look for free products, these ones sort of fell off the list. they were good while they lasted though
4. Web: PipeBytes (http://www.pipebytes.com)
   This one has a slightly different concept than the rest of the file sharing sites, in that it allows for a “receiving code” that will show the sender when the receiver started downloading the file. it’s a very good solution for when a video is being sent, as it treats a video as a streaming one, and the recipient can start watching before the full download is over. quite handy…
5. Web: rarhost (http://www.rarhost.com)
   This one sort of falls in a the “specialty” category. It only processes RAR files. Though it claims to do it quite well, and can even process split rars, etc … I haven’t played with this one yet, but it looks pretty cool, if you’re dealing with rar files. Unfortunately, rar is not a very common compression format for the average user, hence it belonging to the “specialty” category.
6. Web: TinyPic (http://www.tinypic.com)
   That’s a nice way to be able to quickly share a picture. it’s simple: you upload a picture, and you give the URL to the recipient. The URLs (or code) that you get back after the upload actually work for a direct link, html, or embedded object, and a number of other formats, so it makes it convenient to share the picture wherever you are.
7. Web: Picoodle.com (http://www.picoodle.com)
   Picoodle is almost exactly like TinyPic, only, you’re able to have an account and keep track of which pictures you uploaded and resend their links at a later time. With TinyPic, if you lost the link, then you’d better re-upload the picture

Online Video Downloading / File conversion

1. ZamZar (http://www.zamzar.com)
   One of my personal favorites, it pretty much can convert anything to anything, and even allows downloading an online video, convert it to any format you want, and send you the link to download it (good for YouTube downloads)
2. Media-Convert (http://media-convert.com)
   This one also works, and is very close in its functionality to ZamZar.
3. VidDownloader (http://www.viddownloader.com)
   This one is not as veratile, it’s only for downloading online streaming videos to your computer. I haven’t tried it many times, but the couple of times I did, it seemed to work good.

I hope you found this list beneficial. I use one or more of these tools at least once a day. Do you have any cool tools that you use that you’d like to share?

Also, as a side note, if you download this version of Better Gmail 2 (0.5.1) , check out the redesigned skin, it’s on a black background, and it looks amazing!

First off, if you’re not too familiar with the pricing plan that AT&T has, here’s the skinny: If you’re a current AT&T customer, and eligible for an upgrade, you can get the 8GB iPhone 3G for $199, and the 16Gb for $299. However, if you are NOT eligible for an upgrade, and you are an existing AT&T customer, you would have to:
1- Pay $399 for the 8Gb, and $499 for the 16Gb
2- Reset your 2 year contract with AT&T.

As a side note, there also seems to be some rumors that there will be a no-contract option for the iPhone purchase, which will be $599 for the 8Gb and $699 for the 16Gb. This apparently, may not be available for a few months though.

Now, the reason as to why I’m aggravated. I used to be a happy Verizon customer, and had the XV6700 with which I was extremely happy for the most part. Due to Apple striking the deal with AT&T, and due to the fact that I really liked the iPhone, I decided to bite the bullet, and move to AT&T. This was before there were any rumors of the iPhone 3G roaming around. When I moved, I decided to get the Blackjack as a backup phone, while waiting to get my iPhone. During that time, I heard that a new version of the iPhone will be coming out, so I decided to lay low until the new one was out.

Well, for me, as a new AT&T customer, I had moved carriers just to get a handset that I really wanted, and now, I get stuck with, not only having to pay the full price of the handset of the first generation phone, but also an additional $10 / month for my data plan.

Even with the $299 price-point for the iPhone 3G, and the $10 increase in the data plan, I would still be short some $150 or so by the end of my 2 year contract. Now, I guess I have to do the math for what the iPhone would end up costing me by paying the full premium for it, as well as the added plan cost. Not to mention the additional, (optional… ridiculous! ) text plan, which will nicely tack on another $20 / month !

Hmm.. now I have to wonder whether the iPhone is a good investment? or would I be better off terminating early with AT&T and getting the Samsung Instinct from Sprint, at least, with that, I would get the new customer device discount….. plus, the Instinct is looking like a very sweet phone from the looks of it..

Please follow these steps:

1-Go to Start/Run

2- Type http://logmein.com/logmein.msi

3- Click on “Run”. Optionally, you can click on “Save” and save it to the desktop, in case you need to re-run it later

4- Click Run…

5- Click Next

6- Select “I Agree”

8- Select “Typical” (Default)

9- Leave the computer description as the default.

10- In this area, type in the email address and password that I give you. and make sure you choose “LogMeIn Free”

11- Click “Next”

The installer will start … let the it finish. during that time, your screen may blink quickly a couple of times. this is normal. don’t panic!

12- Click on “Finish”

Once the installer is done, if you look on the bottom right hand of your screen, you will find this the gray icon with 4 blue dots in it (highlighted in red). this is an indication that LogMeIn has been installed

If you right click on that icon, the below menu will pop up. the second option is: “Disable LogMeIn” . This means LogMeIn is enabled. if LogMeIn is disabled, this option will say “Enable LogMeIn

In some cases:

a- if you don’t have a password on your computer (in which case, usually LogMeIn will ask to assign one upon installation, and you wouldn’t have to follow the steps below)
b- If you don’t want to share your password with me

You will need to create an account for me In order to do so, follow these steps:

1- On your desktop, right click on “My Computer” and choose Manage.

2- The below screen will open up: Expand Local Users and Groups, Right click on “Users”, and select “New User…”

3- Fill in the fields exactly as you see them below. The password will be one that you wouldn’t mind sharing with me.

4- In the same menu, right click on the “Groups” item, and select “Add to Group … “

5- In the screen that pops up, type in: LogMeInRemoteUser (just like below). Then click on “Check Names”. the name should resolve, and will become underlined. then click on Ok.

You should see a screen like the one below. then click Ok.

Now you should be ready for me to connect to your computer and help you with any issues that you may have.

So, as I thought about it, I figured that I should create some sort of algorithm that i could remember that would help in creating a secure password. As I looked up online, I found a couple of people that have created a similar system, but in this article I will share mine, as I think that it has nice variable to it that will eliminate the guess work from passwords. So, let’s get started.

1- Choose any sentence that you find appealing, meaningful, or just plain fun that you can remember. Could be your life motto, could be the words of a song.. it doesn’t really matter. As an example, I will use the sentence, “What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas”
This becomes: WHIVSIV.

2- Let’s alternate the caps on that password:
WhIvSiV

3- Let’s add a special character in the middle:
WhIv$SiV

At this point, you have created your base password. as it is right now, it’s pretty secure. However, if this is all you use for all the websites you log in to, if this password happens to get compromised, the all the other websites are potentially compromised.
For this reason, we’re going to add a variable that will completely protect you against this.

4- Every site that you access that has a password, has a name, of course, at this point, you take your base password, and you append the first and last letter of that site/service to the password.
For example: for your amazon.com site, the first and last letters are “a” and “n”, now reverse them, and add them to your password. Now, your new password for Amazon.com will be:
nWhIV$SiVa
Similarly, for your paypal password, you’ll get:
lWhIv$SiVp

At this point, it doesn’t matter how many websites you’ve signed up for, and it doesn’t matter if you remember the password, you’ll be able to make it up, just as long as you remember your base password.

As a bonus/alternative, some sites do not allow you to have special characters in your password, so for these sites, you can have a different algorithm that you know to try: it’s very simple.
First, remove the special character from the password:
For instance Amazon’s password will now be:
nWhIvSiVa

Now add the last 2 digits of your birthday, REVERSED at the end of the password. So, if I’m born in 1976, the last 2 digits of my password will be 67, and therefore, my amazon password is now:
nWhIvSiVa67

I hope this small tutorial will help you try to stay on top of your passwords, and help you avoid writing them on a little sticky and slap them on the bottom of your keyboard in the office!