Knowledge Base for IT Professionals, Teachers and Astronauts
When you select Shut down on a Windows 10 computer, your machine is really not shut down. When you turn the computer on again it executes a fast start, so you cannot open the BIOS menu.
| Manufacturer | Keyboard button |
| ASUS mother boards | Del |
Windows 10 does not really shut down the computer when you select Shut down. This enables the operating system to start quickly, but if you want to cold start your computer to enter the BIOS menu you need to turn off your computer. To really shut down your Windows 10 computer:
The motherboard BIOS update can cause problems, it is possible that after the update the computer does not boot anymore.
The ASUS motherboards come with the USB BIOS Flashback feature to load the BIOS even if the computer does not boot anymore.
The process below is for the ASUS P8Z77-V PRO/THUNDERBOLT motherboard, but all modern ASUS motherboards provide the same functionality.
Before BIOS update make sure you load the optimized BIOS configuration, otherwise after the BIOS update the computer may not boot anymore
To fix a corrupted BIOS, you need access to a working computer that is connected to the Internet and a USB stick (pen drive) that is formatted with the FAT file system. Older motherboards cannot read the NTFS file system during the BIOS Flashback process.
The USB BIOS Flashback searches for a specific file on the USB device that you insert into the BIOS FlashBack USB port (marked with green border). The Bios Renamer for USB BIOS Flashback utility will rename the downloaded BIOS file to the correct name for your mother board
The BIOS file names
| Motherboard model | BIOS file name |
| P8Z77-V PRO/THUNDERBOLT | Z77VPTB.CAP |
Load the optimized BIOS configuration as described at the top of this post.
On more occasions Microsoft released Windows 10 updates that disabled the network connection, the webcam or caused other inconveniences. Windows 10 automatically downloads and installs the updates without asking for permission from the owner of the computer. In Windows professional you can delay the installation of updates, so your work is not interrupted with frequent recommended updates, and Microsoft can fix the update before your computer installs it. The important security updates are still installed when those are released.
To defer Windows 10 updates
Click the Windows icon in the lower left corner and select the gear (Settings)
On the main Settings page select Update & security
Under Update settings select Advanced options
On the Advanced options page select Defer feature updates
Most of the DevOps tools are still in beta versions, many times the new version is not compatible with your existing scripts or have an error that stops your scripts working. To be able to keep multiple versions of the applications and easily switch between them, create symbolic links and point to the version you want to execute.
Create a folder for your optional applications.
mkdir /opt
Set you as the owner of the “opt” directory and its children.
YOUR_GROUP should be on:
sudo chown -R YOUR_USER_NAME:YOUR_GROUP /opt
Set the security of the folder.
sudo chmod 755 /opt
We will create a directory structure to place each version of the application into its own folder. This example uses Packer.
Create a symbolic link to point to the application in the appropriate version folder. These are the examples for Packer, Terraform, and Vagrant. Notice, that the Vagrant application is in the “bin” directory, so the symbolic link has to point there.
If there is an existing symbolic link that points to the latest version of the application, rename it to be able to quickly return to the prior version of the application. This can come handy when we need to destroy instances created with the prior version of Terraform.
cd /opt/terraform mv terraform terraform_v_0.9.11
cd /opt/packer mv packer packer_v_1.0.4
Create a new symbolic link that points to the latest version of the application.
# For Packer cd /opt/packer ln -s /opt/packer/packer_1.2.0/packer packer # For Terraform cd /opt/terraform ln -s /opt/terraform/terraform_0.10.0/terraform terraform # For Vagrant cd /opt/vagrant ln -s /opt/vagrant/vagrant_1.9.5/bin/vagrant vagrant #The vagrant application is in the bin folder
Add the main application folder to the path in the config file of your terminal
PATH=/opt/packer:$PATH PATH=/opt/terraform:$PATH PATH=/opt/vagrant:$PATH
For Vagrant installation see Vagrant
cd /opt/packer rm packer
Starting with Terraform version 0.7.3 you can only define a variable once within a directory or a module. Before that release you could copy variable definition files from other modules and did not throw an error if you had the same variable defined in multiple files within the module.
In the new version of Terraform if you define the same variable name multiple times within the module you will get the following error message,
Variable '...': duplicate found. Variable names must be unique.
Make sure a variable is only defined once in the module or directory.
I am not sure who uses the Caps Lock button anymore. It was important in the age of typewriters to be able to type all uppercase titles without holding the shift key, but these days I don’t remember the last time I needed it. In fact I frequently press it accidentally and prevents me to log into my computer.
To disable the Caps Lock key on Sierra
Most Linux distributions are free, and do not require product keys to launch them.
The steps below are based on the great article at http://kitchen.ci/blog/test-kitchen-windows-test-flight-with-vagrant/
I have summarized the steps below to create a free Virtual Box Windows Server 2012R2 image on your workstation, so Test Kitchen can use Vagrant and Virtual Box to launch Windows instances and test cookbooks locally fast and free.
vagrant plugin install vagrant-winrm
Create the Windows image with BoxCutter. This process will take 30 minutes or more to fully configure the Windows image. The download step may time out on slower VPN connections. In that case disconnect the VPN connection and try it again without it. In case of any error, just execute the last command again and if it can, the process will continue from the point of error.
cd ~/ mkdir boxcutter cd boxcutter git clone https://github.com/boxcutter/windows.git cd windows
Change the ~/boxcutter/windows/eval-win2012r2-standard.json file to avoid the error message:
virtualbox-iso: Removing floppy drive…
==> virtualbox-iso: Error removing floppy controller: VBoxManage error: VBoxManage: error: The machine ‘eval-win2012r2-standard’ is already locked for a session (or being unlocked)
==> virtualbox-iso: VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_INVALID_OBJECT_STATE (0x80bb0007), component MachineWrap, interface IMachine, callee nsISupports
==> virtualbox-iso: VBoxManage: error: Context: “LockMachine(a->session, LockType_Write)” at line 1038 of file VBoxManageStorageController.cpp
"shutdown_timeout": "60m", "post_shutdown_delay": "120s",
"shutdown_timeout": "{{ user `shutdown_timeout` }}",
"post_shutdown_delay": "{{ user `post_shutdown_delay` }}",
make virtualbox/eval-win2012r2-standard
vagrant box add windows-2012r2 ./box/virtualbox/eval-win2012r2-standard-nocm-1.0.4.box
Your .kitchen.yml file should look like this
--- driver: name: vagrant provisioner: name: chef_zero platforms: - name: windows-2012r2 suites: - name: MY_SUITE_NAME run_list: - recipe[MY_COOKBOOK::MY_RECIPE]
You may need to execute the kitchen converge commands as sudo to be able to launch the Windows instance.
If you want to move Git repositories to your new workstation
git reset --hard
If the Terraform scripts reference modules, terraform creates symbolic links to those modules in the .terraform/modules directories. When you try to copy those symbolic links on a Windows machine the copy process stops. To copy the Terraform scripts
If you migrate between Windows and Macintosh you need to update a few paths, because the two operating systems store user specific files at different places.
The ssh_key location in the .kitchen.yml file should start with
To be able the right-click on the mouse
If you never write emails with all capital letters, and many times a day accidentally press the caps lock key, you can disable it.
If you don’t use Siri on your Mac, there is no reason for Siri to occupy space on the control strip above the keyboard.
To be able to lock the screen from the menu bar:
To lock your screen
To jump to a folder shown in the path bar just double click it.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
Before Monterey ( macOS 12 )
In Monterey or later
If you don’t have an Apple Id, create one. To obtain one without a credit card, you need to create the account in an older version of iTunes. In version 12.7 Apple removed the access to the App Store.
To prevent Outlook to send the email when you accidentally press Command-Enter, associate the Send action with a zero length character:
defaults write com.microsoft.Outlook NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add "Send" "\U200B"
Spotlight helps to search for files by indexing drives. To speed up the Time Machine operations prevent Spotlight indexing the Time Machine drive.
Homebrew is a package manager, it can install packages on your Macintosh that apple does not provide, like a few utilities below.
Installation instructions are at http://brew.sh/
brew outdatedbrew upgradeTo uninstall Homebrew if you don’t need it later execute
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/uninstall.sh)"To prolong the life of the battery of your Macintosh, you can install a utility to stop battery charging at 80%.
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/var/homebrewsudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Homebrew/brew tap zackelia/formulaebrew install bclmsudo bclm write 77sudo bclm persistbclm read
The system software update usually resets the upper charging limit to 100%. After system update execute in a terminal
sudo bclm write 77
sudo bclm persist
bclm readxBar is a plugin manager that can display plugins in the menu bar. One of them is World Clock that can display multiple clocks in a drop down of the menu.
ZONES="US/Pacific UTC Europe/London Europe/Berlin Asia/Kolkata Asia/Tokyo Australia/Sydney"
date -u +'%H:%M UTC'
To add the day of the week and date to the clocks in the World Clock drop down
add
echo "$(TZ=$zone date +'%H:%M - %a, %Y %b %d %z') $zone"
This utility displays the graphical representation of file sizes and helps to find the biggest files.
Stats is a free open source software to display system information in the menu bar including
To install it, navigate to https://github.com/exelban/stats
to the Tutorials page