Mesh

I’m a big fan of Windows Live Mesh and use it extensively for keeping copies of books (mainly PDF) synchronised between home and work machines, however it’s clearly not a backup solution.

Here is a quick overview of what it does (or at least how I use it), although you’d probably be better off going to the web site to see the official description.

Mesh is owned and operated by Microsoft, uses a passport login (so if you’ve got a hotmail or live account, for example, then you can just sign in and start using it) and provides 5Gb of free online file storage space which you can pretty much do with what you want.

From within your browser there’s a web interface that provides a Windows style desktop on which you can create individual folders, then from within these folders you can drag and drop files to upload, and later download to another machine.

Nothing new there I hear you say. Indeed, but the clever bit (and I know there are solutions from other providers that will do the same) is the Mesh Operating Environment service which sits in your Windows tool tray and allows you to download and keep synchronized the folders you created above onto the local machine. Additionally you can select a local folder and choose to have this synchronised to the online space, where it will also appear on the web desktop for access via the browser on machines without MOE installed.

Client machines with MOE installed can choose which folders to synchronise and where they should be located locally (and even allow you to rename the local name), so your own folder structure locally doesn’t need to mirror the remote structure or other instances (although nested folders will have their contents synchronised as part of the parent folder, as you’d expect).

The real power of this is that multiple machines can connect to your Mesh account, so for example, if I add a file to my work PC, by the time I get home it will be copied to my home PC automatically. Want to work on that work office document from home? Don’t worry about copying it to a USB key (or other device), if you set up correctly then it will be at home before you are!

This is all very cool, but needs to be used with some care, and explains why Mesh can’t be used as a backup solution; if one file gets corrupted/deleted/changed then this propagates to all instances of that file located remotely too. I’ve lost a lot of work by making silly mistakes like this, what Mesh needs is an archive or history feature to allow files to be restored to an earlier time, more on one of these mistakes in a later post.

The mesh framework also bizarrely allows for remote PC connection in the style of VNC or Remote Desktop, although not quite as slick.

Folders/files can also be shared with other users allowing for some collaboration (although Office Live does a better job of this, more on that another time), and at some point in time they may actually get around to releasing the promised mobile client.

As it stands Mesh is a useful tool and one I make use of on a regular basis, but do ensure you keep backups away from it, otherwise you may get stung. If they ever bring in an archive then Mesh will be of far more use and could become a must have for anyone working on more than one PC in multiple locations.

Smart Phones

I recently upgraded my phone to an HTC Touch Pro2 which runs Windows Phone (supplied with 6.1 but now running the free 6.5 ROM update), and it’s a purchase I’m extremely pleased with, despite having to send it back to get the space bar on the keyboard and the speakerphone microphone fixed. The true test of how good I think it is is the answer to the question “Would I buy another?”, which would have to be an almost definite “Yes!”. The almost part being that I’d possibly got for the new HTC HD2, which has better hardware (although no physical keyboard, but still runs Windows Phone OS.

But here’s the thing: I never recommend phones running Windows to anyone other than other developers.

Why?

Well, I chose a phone running this OS as I actually like it. It’s not the fact that, despite there only being a few apps on the Windows Marketplace there are actually more Window CE applications than for any other device (yes, including the iPhone and possibly even Symbian devices).

I don’t mind that many of the applications are designed with a stylus in mind, I had an iPaq back in 2004 and have used that ever since, so it’s actually an input method I am comfortable with. Actually, I think having a device entirely finger driven is not something I’m looking for, having the phone functionality covered by fingers is fine for me, and HTCs Sense interface they overlay on their phones (including their impressive range of Android phones) goes further than I need in achieving this.

I also have a few paid for apps from my iPaq which still run without problems.

The camera isn’t all that good, but I knew that before I bought the device, and is hardly a consequence of the OS.

One of the main reasons for getting a Windows Phone is that I can write software for it using C#, a language I’m using in the workplace. I’ve already knocked up a couple of small applications and found it remarkably easy.

But the point is most people don’t want to use the phone in the same way I do, hence why I will usually recommend either an Android base smart phone, or an iPhone.

I’d never touch an iPhone myself, but that’s because it doesn’t offer me the things I want from a phone, and I think the way apple treats their customers and developers stinks. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter at the moment. What I will say is that the virus known as iTunes does a good job of managing the purchase of Apples chosen applications, and is simple enough for my less technical friends to use. And I suppose I should mention there’s a lot of good games for it.

Shame the phone functionality itself is a little…. sub-optimal.

My favourite alternative at the moment is many of the Android based phones. I really think this is the OS to watch, and if they can break the Apple love fest (which is a very difficult nut to crack) then this is the phone with the best prospects.

Then, of course, there’s Symbian, who ship more licences than any of the others (possibly combined). I had a Nokia N95 and was generally happy with it, but it was a bit buggy. Through talking to a friend who worked at Symbian he convinced me that this was probably down to what Nokia had ‘added’ to the OS, but the net result is the same.

So please don’t tell my your iPhone is better than my Windows Phone as I won’t listen. Yes, it’s probably a better phone for you, but not for me. Enjoy playing with your iBeer, and leave me alone, I’ll be busy writing OneNote documents and Excel spreadsheets on a device that’s donig what I want it to, and a lot more besides.

(BTW: I deleted the Windows Phone version of iBeer, it was OK, but what’s the point.)

ECommerce Done Bad.

I was recently sent an email from Nokia telling me they’d created an account for me at their Nokia Music site and credited it with £4, which works out at about 5 free tracks at the 79 pence each they charge. So I promptly flagged it for looking at later and forgot all about it.

It’s now a couple of weeks later and I decided to log into this account I never asked for to see what gems I could find, my ultimate goal being to find an old classic album and download the lot for my free £4.

After installing their odd software (which I wouldn’t normally do, but since I will be re-installing the operating system on this machine shortly I’m not too bothered), I managed to browse around their store, but to my disappointment no albums could be found for less than £7.99, and no individual tracks for less than 79 pence.

So basically, CDs which I could got into HMV and buy for £3 will cost me over twice as much, without the physical expense of a tangible product which I could (arguably) format shift onto MP3 anyway.

So I’ve decided to spend my £4, then never return unless they ever decide to give me more free credit, at which point I may repeat the process if I can be bothered. The design of the site itself is not intuitive and it took me just under 5 minutes to work out how to download the tracks I’d selected. If I’m confused, what’s Mr. Average Joe going to do.

Sorry Nokia, but your store deserves to fail on both price and design.

And that brings me onto the second part of my rant – the greed of the music companies.

I used to have some sympathy for the record labels, after all they often spend large amounts of money promoting new groups, and don’t always get it back. But their business model for electronic delivery is just crazy.

When CDs came out we were told how they would be cheaper than Vinyl or cassette as the breakage rate would fall and they would become super cheap to manufacture. This did eventually happen, but only after the percentage ‘reserved’ by the publishers for these breakages was doubled from the previous formats, and only in recent times since imports via the web, and the demand for music has dropped has price followed suit.

Why has demand dropped? I’d guess that there’s just too much choice for other ways to spend our cash now, be that DVDs, video games, or any number of fancy gadgets that simply didn’t exist ten years ago.

I’m wrong of course, it’s actually down to all the pirates out there illegally downloading music for free from drug dealing gangs to make more money. Silly me.

I’d imagine any gang dealing in drugs that makes more money through distributing torrents for free is probably not that big a risk for the DEA. Of course, I understand there needs to be methods for money laundering used by these imaginary gangs, but I always assumed the point of these was using a legitimate business as a front, not another ‘criminal’ activity, after all, what would be gained? How silly I am…

So instead I’ll pay £7.99 for an electronic copy of an album I could get cheaper on CD anywhere else, or pay 79 pence for a single of one track, when I could have four or more tracks on a CD single for £2.

Except I won’t, I’m not that silly after all.

WHS Update

Further to my (la/fir)st posting yesterday, I now have Windows Home server installed on the old PC, but it looks like it may fail on one of my main aims - a centralised Windows Media Center base unit. I should probably list what are (currently) my main goals:

1. Backup of the various Windows machines I have running at home, especially things like Photos, etc. I currently use SyncToy, which is very good, but I’ve never managed to automate it satisfactorily.
2. A centralised back-up store of media files, with...
3. The ability to stream music from home over the internets, as was being provided by Jinzora on my old Ubuntu machine.
4. Stream media to the XBox 360... going forward possibly multiple Media Center Extender devices...
5. …which means it needs to run media center for extenders to connect to, along with other PCs, possibly with support for TV tuners (see comment on Windows Media Connect, below).
6. Still be able to host my own website... well if the hardware is on it's a waste not to.
7. Run a torrent client, although since this is mainly really being used to download Linux type stuff now, that's not so important.
8. Cut down on my enormous electricity bill.

So far, what I've looked at with Windows Home Server seems to be pretty impressive, although a few hours over one weekend is not quite enough time to part with serious cash yet.

I should add the caveat that I also haven’t actually run any backups yet, what with the box only running with 320Gb of total storage, spaced over two drives. I set up the laptop to backup, which to be honest was a pain in the arse – but to be fair this was only because, with such limited storage on the server, I had to go in excluding most of the hard disc (for example the “Program Files” directory).

I also like the fact you can do “Wake On Lan” to start the PCs when it’s time to backup, although I’m not sure if this is only available via wired connections, or I just need to set it in the BIOS, I suspect the former. There are also a range of functional add-ins, one of which allows you to shut down PCs, which I actually think could be remarkably useful.

WHS offers remote access, which will be nice, and remote desktop, so if I can manage to get a Cat6 cable through my wall, will allow me to stow it away in the garage, just like I used to do via HomePlug (anybody want to buy 4 200Mbs Homeplug devices off me?). Of course the network card in the machine is only 100Mbs, but it will save trouble on future upgrades.

So the only sticking point, so far, is the fact that WHS doesn’t run Media Center.

Then, this morning, I had a thought: How about running Vista or Windows 7 as a Virtual machine on within WHS as the host? Looking on the VMWare site a couple of people had tried and failed to do this, but I also see one guy had pretty much achieved it albeit with a few issues.

The thing is, to really get going I’ll need to get at least one new 1Tb hard drive (although frankly I think WHS should run on at least 2 drives to take advantage of duplication), then there’s the cost of the OS itself (66), and the fact the hardware is an old shuttle mini box, so limited expansion potential and I’ve not yet measured power consumption. Plus to get VMWare player running I’d need more than 1Gb of memory, and I’ll need to use one of my Windows 7 licenses to run in the VM. Plus the USB TV Tuners.

So I’m now wondering if it’s all going to be worth it. For most of the time the functionality provided by Windows Media Connect, which WHS does support will probably be fine, and those occasions I do want MCE functionality I can turn on the desktop machine upstairs. It’s not like I’ve got a stack of cash to throw around anymore.

The strange thing is, I’m now warming to the idea of getting an HP Homeserver machine and throwing another 1Tb HDD in there… but that would need to wait.

I may be uninstalling my 30 day Windows Home server trial and replacing it with a 120 day trial while I save up the cash for the HP box and do further testing, as I don’t think a month is going to be long enough.

As for Ubuntu… the chances are I’ll mount the drives on my desktop machine to copy off the contents, then put them back into the test WHS box (as it has a 500Gb and 250Gb drive) and see if I can squeeze an extra SATA drive in there too by removing the dead DVD drive and using my USB DVD drive instead. Then, if I can squeeze in some super cheap extra memory from eBay, I may just install Ubuntu as a Virtual Machine. We’ll see.

Now, I wonder what those power draw figures will be.

Welcome

“Ah” I hear you say, another new blog for me not to update, and you’re probably right, so let me attempt to explain:

Until recently I’ve been running (but not maintaining) my website on a Linux box sat at home under my TV which was working very nicely. Recently however, I upgraded it from Ubuntu 9.4 to 9.10, at which point it decided to not recognise my second HDD, effectively rendering the box useless without, possibly, rolling back. I then read that they estimate only 10% of users upgraded in-place without issue.

At the same time Windows 7 arrived on the scene, of which I had pre-ordered 3 copies. One of copy of Windows 7 was to update my old machine based around an Nvidia GeForce 2 chipset, which I now know isn’t supported by the new OS (or it seems, Vista before this). The result of this is that I now have the choice of either rolling back to Windows XP Media Center Edition, or buying new hardware.

I’ve been running XP MCE for years, at it streams nicely to the Xbox 360, hence why I had this in addition to the Linux box (yes, I had installed various media streaming solutions to the Ubuntu box, but none of these had the tight integration MCE offers.

Then, yesterday, I had a thought. Doing a little research it seems that Windows Home Server will also play nicely with the hardware, plus this will allow me to backup from my various boxes very easily. I had been looking at an HP solution for about £400, but I just don’t have that kind of money anymore, but if it works on the old hardware…

So I’ve downloaded the 30 day trial (and I now see there’s a 120 day trial available), installed it on the old XP MCE machine without too much trouble, and I’m now testing this.

The upshot of all of this is that, if it goes well, they’ll be a reduced need for the Ubuntu server, especially since running 2 machines 24-7 is going to use more electricity (which isn’t cheap nowadays) so I’ve decided to move my tech blog that was based on that machine to here, at least for the time being, we’ll see how it goes.

I’ll update all the URLs when there’s a few more entries on here, then just fix the old Ubuntu box when I get time, and use this as a test machine.

I hope that makes sense.

Stu.