Wednesday, February 26, 2014

VSS Writers and their Corresponding Services

When backup operations fail due to failed writer "vssadmin list writers" can be utilized to check the current status of the writers.  However, it can be difficult to determine which service needs restarted to correct the writer.  The following list was obtained from a blog at http://www.planetcobalt.net/sdb/vss_writers.shtml.

VSS Writer Service Name Service Display Name
ASR Writer VSS Volume Shadow Copy
BITS Writer BITS Background Intelligent Transfer Service
COM+ REGDB Writer VSS Volume Shadow Copy
DFS Replication service writer DFSR DFS Replication
DHCP Jet Writer DHCPServer DHCP Server
FRS Writer NtFrs File Replication
FSRM writer srmsvc File Server Resource Manager
IIS Config Writer AppHostSvc Application Host Helper Service
IIS Metabase Writer IISADMIN IIS Admin Service
Microsoft Exchange Writer MSExchangeIS Microsoft Exchange Information Store
Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer vmms Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management
NTDS NTDS Active Directory Domain Services
OSearch VSS Writer OSearch Office SharePoint Server Search
OSearch14 VSS Writer OSearch14 SharePoint Server Search 14
Registry Writer VSS Volume Shadow Copy
Shadow Copy Optimization Writer VSS Volume Shadow Copy
SPSearch VSS Writer SPSearch Windows SharePoint Services Search
SPSearch4 VSS Writer SPSearch4 SharePoint Foundation Search V4
SqlServerWriter SQLWriter SQL Server VSS Writer
System Writer CryptSvc Cryptographic Services
TermServLicensing TermServLicensing Remote Desktop Licensing
WMI Writer Winmgmt Windows Management Instrumentation

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Creating 3d Models with 123d Catch and Makerbot Replicator 2x


In episode 388 of Mac Break Weekly (http://twit.tv/show/macbreak-weekly/388) Andy Ihnatko discusses using 123d Catch to produce 3D models for printing.  Freshman Aaron Dixon under the direction of Robert and Steve Ellison took this process and brought it to life with the campus mascot.  Below you can see some of the series of photos he took around the panther. 



The photos were then run through 123d Catch and uploaded to their  platform which analyzes the images to produce a 3d model.  




The 3d Model can then be downloaded in a format compatible with the Makerbot Replicator 2x.  Below is the model opened in the Makerware application.


 And the resulting 3d print




This technique could be used to create quick 3d models of almost any object.