Multiple Remote Desktop Sessions

I (Yan Huang) observed that Crockett was able to logon to the Windows Server 2003 at Cataserv using Remote Desktop under the Administrative user, while I was on RDP under my account. I asked how was this possible and he said it was thanks to multiple or concurrent remote desktop sessions. Crockett said Windows XP has it enabled by default so I tried at home but it did not work. Perhaps Microsoft have patched my version (XP SP2)? Probably. So I went on some websites and started researching. It is actually pretty easy to configure your Windows XP to enable concurrent Remote Desktop sessions.

Download termsrv.dll

1. Right click on My Computer -> Properties -> Remote Tab -> Uncheck both boxes
2. Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services -> Terminal Services -> Disable it
3. Copy termsrv.dll to C:\WINDOWS\System32 and C:\WINDOWS\System32\dllcache and overwrite existing files.
4. Start run regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Licensing Core
5. Add a DWORD Key named EnableConcurrentSessions and give it a value of 1
6. Start run gpedit.msc and Go to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Terminal Services and double click Limit number of connections and change to 100
7. Restart
8. Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services -> Terminal Services -> Start and set to Manual
9. Right click on My Computer -> Properties -> Remote Tab -> Check remote desktop box

Good luck for anyone who wants to enable concurrent sessions - Yan Huang (me)

Toshiba Satellite Sucks with Windows XP

Reagan asked me to format her new Toshiba Satellite laptop which came pre-packaged with Windows Vista. The objective was to reformat and install Windows XP on it due to some incapatibilities with certain software. The formatting went relatively smoothly but aftewards, I had to then install the drivers...the key drivers that I needed were the LAN, wifi, sound and display drivers. I went Toshiba Support website and selected Toshiba -> Satellite -> A135-S4499 and realized they had NO XP SUPPORT or whatsoever! I was a bit shocked since Windows XP is still very much the dominant Windows platform at this time. It was a peculiar instance (I've never had this issue before with any other computer) so I was a bit frustrated. But also, I didn't want to end up telling Reagan and Rod that there's no internet, no sound, and crappy video, obviously. What ended up happening was I had to download all the Windows Vista drivers from Toshiba, extract it using WinRAR and go through the driver and readme files to find out the manufacturer and model of the hardware components. Then, I went on a hunt to find the Windows XP version of those drivers. Success!! And to save everyone else who has a Toshiba Satellite A135-S4499 and needs Windows XP drivers time, I posted the download links from which I downloaded the drivers from.

Toshiba Ethernet Drivers
Toshiba Satellite A135-S4499 Realtek GbE & FE Ethernet PCI-E NIC Driver [download]

Toshiba Wifi Drivers
Toshiba Satellite A135-S4499 Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG LAN Adapters [download]

Toshiba Sound Drivers
Toshiba Satellite A135-S4499 Realtek HD Audio Drivers [download]

Toshiba Display Drivers
Toshiba Satellite A135-S4499 Intel Graphics Media Accelerator [download]

Cha Cha Guide

You have probably heard of the craze for Cha Cha invites and to become a Cha Cha guide. Cha Cha is a human powered search engine, meaning you search for something and there will be a customer support Guide at the other end that does the searching for you. I recieved and invite and made $40 in six days to consider the first two days were unpaid because I had to do Trainee sessions. Cha Cha is still in beta stage, however, it is a very solid search service and the payment is really well. From my understanding, a person can make up to $20 per hour once he or she becomes an Elite. The levels are Apprentice, Pro, Master and then Elite. The only flaw I see is that the ChaCha search console is written in J2SE SDK 5 and will not run in J2SE JRE 6.0.

Myspace is Part of My Space

I was made aware of the success of proxy websites through Jason Thompson's proxy-sock.com, which he has suspended due to the massive amount of CPU that proxy websites use. Since I have a job, I rented a VPS and purchased some domains. I used PHProxy and Surrogafier as the PHP web proxy softwares. PHProxy is better than Surrogafier in the sense that it uses up less resources, however, it does not allow login onto Myspace nor Hotmail. I created a bunch of .info websites (since they are cheap) and advertised them as "Myspace Proxies." The amount of Google Adsense is roughly a bit more than $1 a day from these Myspace proxies, which is probably a bit more than $30/month. This may not seem like a lot but proxies will definitely grow and $30/hr pays off the VPS fees and domains is a win, win situation--only thing lost is time but the experience I gain in understanding how Servers work and in Marketting is definitely worth it.

Frontend Consultant for Weston Mason

I got a job that lasted four days as a frontend web developer for Weston Mason-- Colins Lam hired me. The company took the whole fourth floor of 3130 Wilshire Blvd so it was of decent size. My task was to code a website with only Divs and CSS-- and everything had to be perfect. Everything had to be placed correctly, look the same as the PSD, etc. The other condition of the job was that it has to look correct in Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. The hardest parts of the whole ordeal was working on the navigation and making it look good in Internet Explorer after it looked good in Safari and Firefox. The website was called Village of Columbus so if you ever see that around, you know who coded the frontend. What I saw there were expensive Wacom tablets--those that you see priced at $300 dollars. I liked them--very cool. I went out and purchased my own but of course, I don't want to pour $300 so I got a $100 Wacom Graphire. Pretty good. I drew a picture, in Photoshop with my Wacom Graphire, of a face that everyone will recognize-- GOP President George W. Bush.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Hollidays ~ Merry Christmas everyone! Christmas would not be Christmas without the snow so I traveled, with my family, to the closest mountain with snow-- Wrightwood Mountain. Surprisingly, it is colder inside my house than over there in the mountains. True, the snow was cold but the air there felt warmer than the air in Los Angeles. My speculation is that the air in Los Angeles is from the ocean so it feels colder. That's me on the right with a snowman I built.

CalPop & One Wilshire Datacenters

Jason Thompson from Interactive Concepts needed to install APC Reboot Switches, as well as reorgnize the cabinet at the datacenter. We went at 12:00AM over to the CalPop datacenter facility and started getting the cabinet reorganized-- untangling and then putting new labels on the cat5 cables, screwing on the switches, etc. I took some pictures of the datacenter, seeing that a large sum of people doesn't know what a datacenter is, and an even larger sum never seen one before--I posted a few of those pictures below. After that, Jason showed me the datacenter on the 19th floor of One Wilshire--he said it is one of the best datacenters possibly in the world. When I went there, my reaction was like "whoa"--the environment was better than some top notch hotels (and it had a set of those clear glass spinning doors). If you think the building is fancy--the technology at One Wilshire will blow your mind away. I saw these giant routers by Cisco (Jason said one of them were $65,000...a ROUTER!). One Wilshire is definitely top notch--the security in there is extremely tight so I didn't take any pictures.


Thats me in front of our cabinet in my nVidia shirt!


Look how neat the cables from the switch is!


The box with the APC remote reboot switches that we installed.


Sideways picture of Interactive Concept's cabinet.


A grip of ethernet cables from the datacenter to the cabinets.


Someone else's cabinet--just thought it'd look cool.


Aisle of cabinets full of servers.


Cat5 cables from the datacenter to the individual cabinets.