How to get your VPN working with your Sierra device in Windows 7.

http://sierrawireless.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/711/related/1

Basically Windows 7 has issues setting up a proper VPN if you are using a WWAN device instead of an ethernet style WWAN adapter.

Vodafone - Mis-information at every turn.

Thank you Vodafone for wasting my time. It's good to know that Vodafone are NOT willing to remain competitive to even try and keep your existing customers. 

The link i'm referring to at the start on the conversation is 

Virgin Mobile 49 fair go plan with 3 months free access 

Vs 

Vodafone 49$ + 5$ plan 

Both plans have a minimum cost of $1296  except that virgin give you 3 moths access free during the plan saving you 147$ off that total bill. 

Update: I called Vodafone on the weekend and was told that because I am an existing customer I do not qualify for the those Voadafone plans advertised on the Vodafone website. What a ripoff. Nice way to try and rip off your existing customer base Vodafone. 

I was even asked why do I want to drop down plans when the plan I'm on "represents great value" uhh.. no it doesn't compared to others in the market. I recall Vodafone years ago pledging to always to tell their customers that they would tell us when we could save money. No not these days. 

My last several encounters with Vodafone have been met with Mis-information, no callbacks as advised, different information every time and generally not a very good understanding of there own products. 

How to prestage Windows 7 Thin PC in SCCM R3

Chaohao Xu over on Technet has posted a quick article on how to create pre-staged media for windows 7.1  using SCCM 2007 R3. The post is more of a here's a quick how to. I'm sure there are better more in depth articles to be found elsewhere. 




Check the link for the article

How to create Prestaged Media for WES 7.1, PosReady7 and ThinPC in ConfigMgr 2007 R3

InstallSheild Error -3 - Missing Setup.iss

I've seen this a few times when you try and run a Setup.exe in silent mode and all  you get is error -3 at  the end of it.

What install shield is errors on -3 it's trying to tell you it doesn't know how to install silently because it doesn't have the instructions to do so.

You will need to do 2 pieces of work to resolve this.

First - Record a new setup.iss file:
We will need to record a new setup.iss file in order to be able to tell the installer what the silent install instructions are.

1. Create a shortcut to the setup.exe 
2. Modify the  properties of the shortcut 
3. Append to the end of the target line  i.e setup.exe /r /f2"c:\setup.iss"
4. Then install the software by launching the shortcut this will create the setup.iss file in c:\windows (if you leave off  the /f2 option the setup.iss file will be created in c:\windows\temp\setup.iss
5. Copy the setup.iss file to the same directory as the setup.exe

Now we need to tell setup.exe to install silently and also tell it to use the newly created setup.iss file

1. Create a new shortcut to the setup.exe (rename it to Install_silent or something)
2. Modify the  properties of the shortcut
3. Append to the end of the target line  i.e setup.exe /S /f1"setup.iss"
4. Execute the installer and this should work fine.

Notes: 

Installsheild doco indicates that you can just place the setup.iss in the same directory as the setup.exe and then when you launch the setup.exe it will just find the setup.iss if it exists. I've found this to be true for some packages and not true for other so naming the setup.iss directly seems to work for me most times. 

Links:
Silent install command line for installsheild installers

Internode realeases National Broadband Network plans

Internode seems to be the first out of the gate with Australia's National Broadband plans. Exetel quickly hit back with much better plans.

Check the links for the plans.
Internode Plans
Exetel NBN Plans

i.e
Exetel best value plan looks to be
79$ for 100mbit DL / 40Mbit UP this gives you 100GB of downloads.
Then if you compare this to my current Naked ADSL2+ is currently 59$ for 120GB.

The question for most people will be "Does the speed increase beat the extra cost?"

More Comments:
http://delimiter.com.au/2011/07/25/undercutting-internode-exetel-reveals-nbn-prices/

File System Redirection - How to target the real system32 directory

"32-bit applications can access the native system directory by substituting %windir%\Sysnative for %windir%\System32. WOW64 recognizes Sysnative as a special alias used to indicate that the file system should not redirect the access. This mechanism is flexible and easy to use, therefore, it is the recommended mechanism to bypass file system redirection. Note that 64-bit applications cannot use the Sysnative alias as it is a virtual directory not a real one."

The above is correct.. in your scripts just make sure your target "%windir%\Sysnative" and your file will go where you intended it to go. 

File System Redirection - How to target the real system32 directory

"32-bit applications can access the native system directory by substituting %windir%\Sysnative for %windir%\System32. WOW64 recognizes Sysnative as a special alias used to indicate that the file system should not redirect the access. This mechanism is flexible and easy to use, therefore, it is the recommended mechanism to bypass file system redirection. Note that 64-bit applications cannot use the Sysnative alias as it is a virtual directory not a real one."

The above is correct.. in your scripts just make sure your target "%windir%\Sysnative" and your file will go where you intended it to go.