VMWorld alumni "gift" HA!

I give over 3k to attend VMWorld for multiple years and what is my
"thank you" gift? A pair of $0.50 headphones. How about a VIP bump in
new sessions, you losers. I'm unsure what VMWare wants for this:
http://twitpic.com/2jriaf but I don't think I'm interested.

vSphere performance overview charts working and printing

I was getting the IE "Navigation to the webpage was canceled" message for the performance overview window after upgrading to vSphere.
Fix was to verify (and change) the URL to a universally resolvable DNS
record in the file:
C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VirtualCenter
Server\extensions\com.vmware.vim.stats.report\extension.xml
(thanks to: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/233471).

Next was to see that no, there was no print button. BUT! You can use IE's print function that happens to be available in a few small whitespace areas. Here's one:

The second chart down is Memory (MBps). Right click in the empty whitespace between this graph and the left side of the frame. One of your IE options is print, another is print preview. There may be a spot on the first graph or other areas of the page, but this is a sure spot. Total hack, brought to you by me without google's help.

vmware vMA 4

It would be nice if vMA would work with virtualcenter 2.5. I was sad
to get an error message today. Looks like direct ESX 3.5 targets (even
if they are managed by a 2.5 virtual center) works.

VMWare Rap

The obvious winner in a contest (that's still running):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBQgfWdrUCs

The vid reminded a co-worker of this one (save yourself and click 7 minutes in):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4915875929930836239

VCP4 beta

Possible time 4hrs, 15 minutes. Time taken: 3hrs 25 minutes with no
review. 270qs
Things I didn't think would be covered in great detail: NFS, SANboot,
DataRec, maximums
Things that were missing: vZones, other add-ins coming soon (chargeback,etc)

Surprisingly few really stupid questions "On such-an-such screen, what
is your configured ability for xyz? 1/2/4/8?"

Doh! I can't delete my datastore!

This is for ESX 3.5, not sure if it will work for ESX4.

run on one host:
ls -l /vmfs/volumes
find the datastore ID (by simlink name)
Run on all hosts:
vmware-cmd -l | grep datastoreID

In my case, it was a template that still had reference to the datastore.

There may be a more elegant solution using RCLI so you don't need to
run the command on all your hosts, but this was quick and dirty.

Old Dell hardware fluke

raises it's ugly head. Updating the PERC controller on a 2850 makes
the local vmfs volume inaccessible, even on 3.5 u3. Luckily the
commands for the workaround from 3.0 are still valid. KB Article
1001577 : http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1001577

Now I thought I updated to the latest PERC firmware..back to the
software update repos...