To say I am looking forward to Snow Leopard is an understatement – the prospect of getting rid of Microsoft Entourage is making me giddy, my only worry is that it won’t live up to the dream. So when at 6pm today here in Shanghai I get an email saying it is in the post I jumped for joy (literally and in a lift which freaked some people out). How do I get my copy of OS X – well first it is shipped to my address in England and from there we FedEx it to China – mad but seeing as they are not releasing it in China on the same day its the only way I can get my hands on a copy right now, well three or four days behind the rest of you but oh well.

It seems some people might already have an early release as the articles are starting to come out including this from Engadget but more interestingly is the fact that I think this next one also from Engadget is spot on, they talk about how the Exchange support will have people moving over in flocks. Perhaps not flocks but if they really have got it right and it all works as you expect Apple products to work then all that is left is for people to realise that iWork is a great product or OpenOffice gets their load time down to something under 30 seconds with some better web 2.0 style graphics then the whole world can tell Microsoft to stuff it.

Photo by FransBadger

So if you are like me using Mosso and cant edit the php.ini file then if you want to increase the default upload size you need to edit your .htaccess file and add the following (adjust as needed):

php_value post_max_size 16M
php_value upload_max_filesize 16M
php_value max_execution_time 600

If you are wondering how you update your guest RHEL5 systems see this KB from RedHat

So today I started the companies migration to Linux – Redhat EL 5 Linux to be exact from our entirely Microsoft based systems into a 99% Linux run IT system.

Heres the plan:

1. Servers all Redhat
2. Desktops 99% Ubuntu – Accounting needs Windows for internet banking
3. All networking Cisco

Why RHEL5 – well because it offers commercial support of virtualization and great support of HP server hardware out the box. Basically it just needs to work & work properly. I feel that I can get the best of all these with Redhat.

For the desktops Ubuntu simply because its a quick install, minimal software in-fact its almost perfect for a company desktop PC.

So where to start – well first I need to setup one of the Redhat servers with virtualization.

After reading the Fedora wiki and then the first thing to do is copy the install media to the hard drive and share via NFS – I dont like NFS so install I opt for the HTTP installed option and copy everything (excluding CD6) on to my MacBook Pro and setup a web server.

After everything is copied over then time to run the install wizard

on the RedHat machine run the command

virt-install

This starts a very simple and easy to follow wizard that will baby you through the whole installation process.

Reading:

• NFS Howto
• Fedora Wiki about Xen

So I downloaded something with this strange new extension. Never heard of it before and nothing by default plays it (its a movie).

I have Quicktime, Real Player, DivX and a copy of Windows media player installed on my Mac – so I did what everyone does these days, stuck it into Google.

The first page that comes up that seems to make sense refers me to DivX – well it dont work and I have version 6.

What does work is VLC – not too well mind you as if you want to jump time the picutre breaks up but hey least I can watch it.

Well I did it and took the plunge – I bought an Apple MacBook Pro. Lets just say that I read nearly every review under the sun about it, and I waited my time for the dual core to be release by Intel assuming that Apple would make the switch.

I bought it in the UK with a three year warrantee and only the 2GB of RAM, I am going on the assumption that by the time I need the third gig that RAM prices will have dropped below what Apple were charging for it on their website.

I got my boss to bring it back to China with him after Christmas all I could think when I got it out was wow! I am addicted to OS X, its crazy good.

I Love it!

I know why Jobs made the switch to Intel – its to tempt people like me to buy an Apple without the worry that we can never use Windows XP, yer I know Microsoft but at the end of the day Microsoft products are the ones that I have to use all day long to run the companies servers and desktops.

Just starting to download Bootcamp – and with Vista and Office 2007 release just round the corner I think this is the perfect test platform.

Pics to follow!