FIXED: VMware Workstation Shared Folders don't work

The current release of VMware Tools fails to compile its Shared Folders (HGFS) module on Ubuntu 14.04 guest VMs.

It seems that VMware has failed to keep their code up-to-date with routine updates to the Linux kernel for some months.

Solution:
1. Take a snapshot of your VM guest in case step 2 goes wrong...
2. Patch the VMware Tools source code in your VM guest...

Installing & Recovering Ubuntu Server 14.04 using BTRFS

Our new servers are all running Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS.  This was chosen because it's free, it's fairly mainstream, and it's supported for security updates for 5 years between major releases (after which you can update in-place to a new major release).

An unexpected benefit of this system is that it supports BTRFS.  This was something new to me, but it turns out to offer a simple way to recover a system in the event of a disastrous update, and to recover lost files in the event of the user deleting them by mistake. 

FIX: Ubuntu 14.04 Software Updater hangs with message "Querying Software Sources"

Had this problem today. Fixed after some head scratching ....