James Cochran’s Blog - Latest Comments

Re: Need a NAS? FreeNAS!

terra_guest — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:31:08 -0000

This is an excellent tutorial. Thank you.

Re: hhgregg Warranty Service Sucks

Name — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:06:37 -0000

James,

Scott Parry in his comment is totally wrong. NEW will blow you off because you bought your TV BEFORE May 2008. NEW will only help customer out of mfg warranty who bought one of their policies (sold only after May 2008). Before that, all the policies were GE. Scott Parry, you mean well, but are not suited to give this customer advice.

I'm sorry you had such a problem. It originated when your exchange was typed and the cashier must not have included the warranty. The point of sale (POS) system used to require this be done manually...it is smarter now that we have proven ourselves dumb. It should not have taken sooooooo long to repair the record of your warranty. I see this weekly...and get warranties "reestablished" in 2 business days.

I have been and hhgregg manager in Cleveland for 7+ years. You were victimized by store managers not knowing about the evolution of the systems and their shortcomings along the way (i.e., lack of experience), thus not knowing the quick fix.

Now, GE Warranty is another story. For what it's worth, we have switched to a different warranty company and they are better. Please remember that an extended warranty is nothing more than insurance...they write the check to the repair man...that's about it. The quality and timliness of repair are solely in the hands of the person making the repair. If you car gets in an accident, State Farm can't make the body shop perform better or worse...they just write the check. Same situation.

Thankfully your TV was eventually repaired and I hope despite that you will stick with us.

Larry

Re: Angi’s take on the Ultrasound

pregnancy_ultrasound — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:24:48 -0000

The ultra sound technology has evolved a great deal. I have heard that images are more clear in ultra sound then before.

Re: Facebook and RSS Feeds

csroberson — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:20:06 -0000

If you only have one Facebook Page that you want to update or you don't mind being able to update only one Facebook Page, you can use Ping.fm's integration feature. It works but can be challenging to get it integrated with Facebook properly and if you're like me have multiple feeds that you want to go to multiple FB pages, selectively, this solution won't work.

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

MeJustMe — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:25:15 -0000

I asked in the VirtualBox forum and it looks like it's possible.
At chapter 9.10 of the VirtualBox manual it's explained hot to use "a raw host hard disk from a guest".

It looks like it's a little bit risky as if not carefully setup it could corrupt the existing data.

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

MeJustMe — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:29:24 -0000

The link is without the ")" so:
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&...

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

MeJustMe — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:31:09 -0000

Thank you very much for your reply! I feared that it couldn't be done in virtualbox.

That's a pity, because if ad example I install Win7 with virtualbox, I can add in the Win7 resources existing hard drives (as if it was a shared network folder--->http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8669#p33945), so it can access with no problem hard disks outside the virtualbox environment.

Anyway, thanks again! :)

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

JamesCochran — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:20:29 -0000

Not if you installed via the VM as outlined here. FreeNAS can only see the disks that are available to it as set up in VirtualBox. If you had an install on a dedicated pc it would be able to use any disk you attached to it as soon as you set it's mount point and shared the disk.

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

MeJustMe — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:29:55 -0000

I followed the instructions of your post and everything is working (thanks!), but I was wondering if now I can add existing disks (with different partitions in NTFS file format) to make them accessible in the LAN.

Re: hhgregg Warranty Service Sucks

scott parry — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:37:05 -0000

HH Gregg doesn't sell extended warranties, they have a Protective service plan that we sell and it's offered protection buy a company called NEW, they are who you should have called and would have resolved this much quicker. Once you leave the store HH Gregg has nothing to do with the service plan, it's all NEW, which has 24/7 support, so good luck and I hope in the future this isn't an issue. Also make sure the Service plan is still valid after your repairs, call NEW to check it out as it's only at their discretion if they decide to renew you plan and for how long. Take care

Re: CIT 499 Presentation

Thomas Cochran — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:23:29 -0000

I would like every one to know what they are trying to do to the cochrane castel. For info please email cmsi27ga@bellsouth.net

Re: Twitter Tips for Job Seekers

Aaron — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:28:15 -0000

Oh and don't forget standard rules apply when using Twitter, if you are going to attach your name to your twitter profile you better make sure you keep your twitter account clean and sparkly just like a future employer would like to see

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

JamesCochran — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:29:18 -0000

If you would just like the disk to be available for both the Host and FreeNAS then mount it in freenas and then share it. Then connect to the share in the host. Again though, if you are going to use FreeNAS for any serious work you should just find some old computer parts and throw a box together. The hardware requirements aren't that much and I'm guessing you could actually find someone that wants to get rid of an old dell or something.

Re: Google Profiles

Aaron — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:42:02 -0000

problably same thing as probably? im assuming unless there is some cool club im not included in. Seriously though thanks for the information, hope you are guided into a new world with the profiles.

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

mike — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:59:23 -0000

@James
good article. I want to follow up on one of the questions being asked earlier. How do I access an hard disk already on the host? Ideally I would like the ability to access that disk from the guest and host at the same time. so I thought about using the "shared drive" feature, but I was stopped by the fact that I can't really install the necessary virtualbox addons. seems that the freenas is missing too many basic commend. Next I thought of using smbclient to mount a share from the windows host, but no, smbclient is not part of the freenas. I also tried to access the host drive via usb, since it's happen to be a usb drive, but that would make it disappear from the host. Any suggestions?

Re: IUPUI CIT Facebook Page

drthomasho — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:01:23 -0000

I'd really like to know what you plan on doing with the CIT@IUPUI.edu Facebook page.

I'm also counting on YOU to make some contribution to formulating a social media STRATEGY for CIT.

Weren't you going to ask @BrandonDiCicco to share his ideas with us?

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

Lorenzo — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:25:58 -0000

Hi James,
I'd really like to read someting about installing FreeNAS on vmware Server, if it's possible.

I also have a question about using FreeNAS software RAID 5 running on vmware server with Windows as host OS. I'm a bit confused about filesystem.
What I have understood is:
I have to format disks I would like to add in the NAS by the host OS.
Then I have to create a virtual disk from the vm software and add it to make it visible to FreeNAS.
So I can format them in FreeNAS using one of the available filesystem.
After I have to mount the disk and make a software RAID.
Is this correct? Is this the best way to follow?

The last question is about hardware. If I run FreeNAS over a VM, I would not have (quite) any hardware compatibility issues, right? If my vm software can serve the right virtual device for FreeNAS I'm free to use whatever I like...or not?

Thanks a lot for your help,
Lorenzo

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

tony — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:27:12 -0000

"We need to browse to the path of the share so lick the 3 dots by Path"

I did that but nothing happens. lol.

P.S. many thanks for the article, very useful.

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

JamesCochran — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:44:58 -0000

Peter: Unfortunately I'm not seeing anything about quotas nor is anything in a quick search turning up any positive results. If I were you I would ask your question over in the FreeNAS Forums and someone there would be able to give you a better answer.

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

Peter Guan — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:14:12 -0000

James,

How to set disk quotas for individual user??

I am very newbie to FreeNAS, but I also could not find any result from google.

thanks in advance

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

Peter Guan — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:55:17 -0000

Thanks so much, James

You have cleared all my concerns about using FreeNAS on XP, so that I could have both XP and FreeNAs possible..

thanks very very much....

Peter Guan

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

JamesCochran — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:49:22 -0000

Yes, you will get full function. Whenever you use VirtualBox to virtualize any operating system it's as if you've installed it fresh on a new hard drive. You will need to start virtual box everytime you would like to run your FreeNAS VM (Virtual Machine) but you could use VMWare server that will start and suspend the machine everytime the host computer boots up and shuts down. If you'd like I'll write up a detailed post on how to get that going.

Once you get VirtualBox going you'll see your VM in the list and all you have to do is highlight it and then click the big green arrow labeled start. The machine will boot up as if you were booting up another computer. You'll have full access to your host computer as well as your FreeNAS VM.

As far as the disk goes you'll be using a virtual disk. It basically creates a file on the host os that tells the VM that this is the space allocated to it. The VM then controls that file as if it is it's own partition and it will need to be formatted and everything like normal.

If you need extra space you can create another virtual disk and add it to the machine. Then within Freenas you will need to add the disk, format it, and then create a mount point.

Hopefully this answers your questions!

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

Peter Guan — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:03:38 -0000

So this FreeNAS on virtualbox has full function like installed from the scratch?

if so, does it mean I have to run virtualbox before I run FreeNAS after I reboot the OS (e.g. WinXP)?

How do I run FreeNAS after started virtualbox?

If FreeNAS is fully functioning, does it manage (save, delete e.g.) files on the physical disks/space like in the normal installation?

If so, How do I allocate disk space for FreeNAS usage, since I am still having OS (winxp)

Thanks

Peter Guan

Re: Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Woes

Enzoaeneas — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:28:08 -0000

Aha! Finally I found your blog.

Re: FreeNAS - Installation

JamesCochran — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:16:38 -0000

Make sure you are using bridged networking and not host only. I've had that problem before where it wasn't getting a standard IP from my router.