Back from the dead?

This morning I was reading the post Your Words Are Wasted on the excellent blog area of Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen site, and I realised that I've not posted anything to this blog in over a year, and this is probably something I should sort out.

It's not the first time one of my many sites have been in this position, and I doubt it will be the last, but let's have another crack at keeping it going this time (as in having regular updates).

I have actually written several posts since the last time I updated here, however due to various reasons they never made it to the site. Perhaps a couple of them could be salvaged.

Either way, I'll try (once again) to keep this site ticking over. Apologies if you find the content pointless, please don't flame me, just don't waste your time here if that is the case, however if you do see something of interest, that I've mis-understood or got wrong, or have any other constructive comment, please feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks,

Stu.

WHS 2011: So How Did It Go?

Further to my previous post, I took receipt of four 2 terabyte drives and two 2 gigabyte memory sticks on Thursday 28th July, then the server arrived on Friday 29th. Needless to say I rushed home and started to put the new machine together.

First things first, I unpacked the server, plugged in the relevant leads and powered up to ensure everything was working correctly (or at least appeared to be), and took a note of the BIOS revision number. I then went onto the HP web site, downloaded the latest BIOS, run the executable to create the update files on a USB stick, and proceeded to update the server BIOS. All good.

Next step was to replace the memory and hard drives with my larger capacity components. All good. I jumped into the BIOS, changed the drive type to RAID, then entered the RAID set-up, and created two logical arrays of two striped drives. Splendid!

Now I was ready to install Windows Home Server 2011 itself. My USB stick with the files on refused to boot, so I grabbed my external USB DVD drive and fired things off... and the install went smoothly, recognising my two 4TB logical disks and installing to the first without issue.......... right up until the closing stages. Arses!

No matter what I tried the installer kept throwing a problem accessing the X: drive.

I used the Microsoft tool to create Windows 7 bootable USB key, but even attempting to install this way failed with the same error.

A search on the internet revealed people had found solutions to this issue blaming things such as broken hard drives, damaged media, and interestingly a timing issue using external drives. I hadn't even bothered installing an internal optical drive, I've got spares but they were all IDE, the new machine only supports SATA. Still, it was worth a punt so a trip to PC World resulted with me returning with a Blu-Ray writer (another £80, but at least it would be useful as I didn't already have one).

So with Blu-Ray drive attached I tried again.... with the same results. I know other people had got this running, but apparently not me (I subsequently wonder if the others that have done this were using stripes of 2 terabytes or less, an issue for WHS2011, apparently it can't handle partitons larger than this and mine were twice the maximum size).

That left only one thing to do, delete the RAID array and have the four drives visible individually (in my haste I forgot to consider having 2 drives mirrored, D'oh!) and use something like DriveBender of StableBit Disk Pool for duplication when they arrive. Not the end of the world.

So with the new drive configuration (and incidentally using the newly installed internal optical drive - well it was already in there) I started the install once again and... Success!!!!

I'm currently in the process of configuring, installing add-ins and copying over data, but so far I'm fairly impressed, especially with the remote access. One of my biggest issues is that the old WHS box takes so long to remote desktop into that by the time I attach it's shut itself down thinking it's the middle of the night and nobody is using it (a side effect of having Lights-Out running and incorrectly configured - unfortunately since I can't log in I don't get a chance to disable Lights-out!). I'll possibly just have to pull the drives out and attach them directly to the server to get to the data, awkward but hardly the end of the world.

The only other issue thus far is the fact that I removed the Blu-Ray drive... forgetting to eject the WHS 2011 install DVD. D'oh!

I'm yet to investigate how much juice the machine currently draws, and I expect with the drives not in use so powered down most of the time it's going to be an estimate anyway, however the drives are supposed to be "green" so I'm not expecting a terrible max power draw.

No doubt there will be another update soon.

Windows Home Server 2011

Well, it's about that time of year again to think about backups.

My initial posts on this blog were raving about Windows Home Server and detailing the creation and installation of my Windows Home Server version 1 machine. After a particularly painful experience with my previous server running Ubuntu, I was wowed with Windows Home Server and how it made so many things so much easier to achieve, at least in an environment where all my other machines were running Windows. As far as media serving duties and performing automated backups, it was like a breath of fresh air, at least initially.

I had plans to take it further moving the server hardware into the garage (there's no point keeping a back-up in the house if the house gets burgled or burns down in a fire!) and already have a hold drilled in the wall of the house that just needed to be widened to feed an RJ-45 cable through. Also by the power of the excellent Drive Extender technology in WHS v1 I planned on adding an obscene amount of extra storage over time and have the box work as a media hub too.

Then a change of job and finances put hold to these plans. The WHS box stopped playing nicely, essentially I would switch on the box and the hard drive activity would never subside, resulting in the box working but becoming incredibly slow. As a result of this I found I could back-up my laptop, but the desktop with its larger quantity of data would never complete a backup.

I tried for a while to solve this issue, but alas with no luck.

Then WHS 2011 was announced with better audio streaming, but shock horror without the awesome Drive Extender!

I, like many others, was unhappy about this (and I still am), but overall the update looked like one to get... when I had the money.

The upshot is that I lost interest in fixing my WHS v1, it literally seemed like more trouble than it was worth,  especially considering that in the meantime I started working in London again so had less time to tinker.

Worryingly as a result I've not had a complete backup of my primary desktop machine for some time now. Dangerous, and less than ideal.

Then I became single, so although I had fewer hours in the evenings to tinker after my commute home, I did have some free time... but still apparently not enough motivation to fix the WHS v1 box.

A few days ago I stumbled across a piece of news saying how the WHS 2011 software could now be had for a few pennies over £37. This seemed like a bargain too good to be true and re-kindled my interest in sorting out my backups, so I ordered myself a copy which has now duly arrived.

Now I needed to start thinking about hardware to run Windows Home Server 2011 on. My original WHS v1 box was an old shuttle micro ATX machine I had recyceld from desktop duties. I had to become quite creative with this form factor to get my hard drive array in, it's short on memory, the processor is old and only 32 bit (unsuitable for WHS 2011) and the network interface was only 100 base-t... Oh, and even by removing the redundant graphics card it still eats 90 watts of power.

Lo and behold I stumbled upon the HP ProLiant Micro Server is selling for £250... and until the end of the July 2011 has a £100 mail-in rebate!

The server only comes with 1 gigabyte of memory and a 250GB hard drive, so I'll be taking them out (The HDD may find its way into my desktop machine) and putting in 4 gigabytes of ram, and either 2 or (more likely) 4 two terabyte eco green drives,  hopefully in a 0+1 raid array (which will be just mirrored if the motherboard can't handle that).

I figure this configuration SHOULD be quite safe, so I'll then move all my media to the new server ready for DLNA access from the rest of the network (other windows machines, the XBox 360 and the TV itself) and remotely.

The server should draw less than 30 watts fully loaded and has a 1000 base-t network port, which should offer faster backups and general access.

After this machine is up and running it will be time for stage 2: my hifi has just stopped playing CDs so I'm planning on getting a dedicated surround system for the TV, along with some additional kit (possibly a Sonos system) for the kitchen, bedroom and lounge itself. That's a long way off just yet, but should be possible in the not too distant future, and now with WHS serving the local media.

The server box is ordered, I'll order the additional drives and memory later, and I'll update on how it goes in a later post.

Has the 3DS changed my behaviour?

I picked up, purely as an impulse buy, a Nintendo 3DS on launch day (Friday 25th March 2011 in the UK). Since then I've been acting a little differently, for 2 reasons.

1. I've been keeping the 3DS with me in my trouser pocket much of the time, and possibly walking a little more.

Why?

The 3DS has tilt switches and so, in addition to other uses, acts as a pedometer. Now I can compare how much walking I've done each day.

In addition to this, walking will also earn you "coins" which can be used in some games, up to a maximum of 10 coins per day. (Un)fortunately I can walk far enough to earn all my daily coins just by walking to the station first thing in the morning on the way to work. I can't help thinking it's a little too easy to get that booty.

2. I'm walking via different routes.

This is not only to rack up a few more steps, but also to pass as many people as possible. The 3DS has a feature called "Street Pass" which, if the console is sleeping rather than powered off, will exchange data with other 3DS users as you get near them. This data includes game functionality for supported games (for example Lap Times for Ridge Racer, Characters for Street Fighter) and adds their Mii to the Plaza on your console. This Mii can then be used to, for example, help you complete a 3D image, or help rescue your own Mii (which has been captured in one of the games).

All in all, providing these two motivations for keeping the 3DS with me at all times is clever marketing by Nintendo; it keeps the console at hand and makes it more likely to be used, and therefore more likely that I'll buy more games for it.

Until the novelty passes anyway...

Oh, and by the way, the 3D is yet to make me feel dizzy, which is a surprise since I can't play first person shooters without getting motion sickness.

Google quite possibly now owns my soul... [Part 2]

So now I'm running Android as my primary phone OS I'm leaning more heavily on the surrounding Google services, specifically:

• I've started making more use of my GMail account. This is actually coming in more useful for talking to job agencies as it's easier to specify the Gmail email address than having to explain constantly that imorital actually doesn't mean anything of significance.
• I'm making use of the Google calendar, especially getting this to sync with my various instances of Outlook. The calendar then automatically syncs to the phone without having to perform this step by plugging it into the PCs in question. Essentially a (more or less) up to date copy of my calendar is always accesible on the web and from their to my various devices with no manual intervention.
• Likewise The tasks. This synchronisation isn't as slick unfortunately, especially with regards to Outlook tasks. I live in hope this will improve over time (hey Google, I'll come and work for you to write the code if you want).
• I'm making use of Google reader to keep track of my RSS subscriptions. Again this is all kept in sync so I see what is unread between devices.
• My homepage of choice has been iGoogle for a while, it offers a decent "at a glance" view of what I want to see on the web, including the aforementioned Calendar, tasks and reader (probably email too if I could be bothered setting it up), along with stock prices, weather, train times, etc.
• I've even used the free Google navigation to guide us to/from our recent holiday.
• I'm currently playing with Latitude, although since (like most of the sane population of the world) I don't always want people knowing where I am, this will likely be a phase.
• I've started using Google Talk for chatting to a couple of friends from both the Google web pages and my phone.
• I'll probably start using Google Voice when it arrives properly in the UK.... assuming it offers similar features to the US version (i.e. free calls to landlines)

Also of note, during my many years of using Windows Mobile devices I probably never installed more than 15 applications, that's changed considerably with the advent of an Android device. So what have I installed?

Well in no particular order and loosely categorised:

Games

• Paper Toss by Backflip Solutions inc.
• Word Up! by Anthrological
• Jewels by MHGames
• Talking Santa Free by Outfit 7 Ltd.
• Talking Roby The Robot Free by Outfit 7 Ltd.
• Talking Tom Free by Outfit 7 Ltd.
• Finger Dance Lite by Blink Droid
• PAC-MAN Championship Edition (Demo) by Namco Networks
• Raging Thunder 2 Lite by polarbit
• Bubble Burst Free by Androgames
• WordSearch Unlimited Free by JiuzhangTech Ltd
• Star Wars light Saber by Eder Rueda Fernandes
• Andoku Sudoku by Markus Wiederkehr

System Stuff

• AppBrain App Market by Swiss Codemonkeys
• Quick Settings by Sergej Shafarenka
• Bluetooth File Transfer by Medieval Software*
• ASTRO File Manager by Metago
• ASTRO SMB Module by Metago
• ASTRO Bluetooth Module by Metago

Productivity Tools

• Yell.com by Yell.com Mobile
• Google Search by Google Inc.*
• WikiMobile by Bonfire Media Inc.
• Google Goggles by Google Inc.
• London Tube Status by Pete C
• RAC Traffic by Oakley integrated Business Solutions Ltd
• Barcode Scanner by ZXing Team
• GTasks by Dato
• Google Maps by Google Inc*
• Evernote by Evernote Corp.
• Gmail by Google inc*

Media, Leisure and Communication

• Audible for Android by Audible
• Just Pictures by Kounch
• Camera 360 by mAPPn, Inc
• SoundHorn by SoundHorn Inc.*
• Flash Player 10.1 by Adobe Systems*
• Endomondo Sports Tracker by  Endomondo
• Waitrose Christmas by Waitrose Ltd.
• YouTube by Google Inc.*
• Adobe Reader by Adobe Systems*
• Epicurious Recipe App by Conde Nast Digital
• Simple Last.fm Scrobbler by Adam Renberg
• Sykpe by Skype
• Facebook for Android by Facebook*
• Kindle for Android by Amazon Mobile
• Twitter by Twitter Inc*

Ecommerce Tools

• Google Shopper by Google Inc.
• Official eBay Android by eBay Mobile
• EZ Tip Calculator by Daniel Hong
• Amazon MP3 by Amazon.com*

Tech stuff

• Droid Forums by DroidNetwork.net
• XDA-Developers by XDA-Developers

Items marked with * are possibly part of the HTC stock rom, however since using App Brain updates to these components are found and installed, after which they appear on my list of downloaded marketplace applications.

I had, as you may well know, already had some experience of Android by running it on my old Windows Mobile 6.5 HTC Touch Pro2. This was running the basic Google UI, but even so taught me the basics of Android (even though some of them were a little more clunky than an HTC Sense Skinned device). The thing that struck me about Android on that phone, was how much cleaner most of the applications looked than WM itself, even though it wasn't the primary OS. That initial impression, even on the large screen of the Desire HD, has not been as great on the new phone, which I put down to knowing exactly what to expect this time. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty that makes me smile, and the implementation of Android 2.2 is complete (the TP2 version was missing things like Flash and a decent battery meter).

The two things that stand our for me are being able to watch Flash in the browser (I have used this facility to run the BBC iPlayer and live streams extensively, both full screen and in page), and the fact that it's proved thus far to be very stable (it hasn't had a system crash once yet, although a few applications have force closed, but this has been isolated from everything else - interestingly the old Marketplace application proved least reliable).

So overall I'm loving the Android experience, I just need to start coding up some of my own apps now, and even that looks relatively simple. Watch this space!

Google quite possibly now owns my soul... [Part 1]

So, I've had my new phone, an Android based Desire HD for a couple of weeks now, and it's remarkable how quickly I have got used to it just being there.

In this time I've not carried my laptop to work, instead just using the phone to provide my media consumption (video, audio - both music and books, email checking, surfing, etc.) It's not that the phone does any of these things particularly better than a laptop, it doesn't, the larger screen and keyboard still rate supreme, however for convienience it's a lot easier to transport and use on a crowded train or tube.

Primarily however, it is a consumption device, much like an iPad or other tablet. As a result I fully expect the laptop to be making a welcome return on occasion as I try to actually create content. It's not that either a smart phone or tablet cannot do that, indeed for some applications they may be preferable, however their usefulness when, for example, using Eclipse to code up a small Java application or test, is obviously limited, crippled if you will.

The small need I felt to get a tablet has almost entirely vanished now, if it ever existed, now such a device would be merely a curiosity or just another toy to sit and gather dust within months. That, at the moment is equally applicable to both iOS and Android tablet devices.

The phone is in no way a tablet, but it is, for me at least, filling the exact same uses I would see a tablet covering.

Now if only the price of 32Gb Micro SD cards could half, I could upgrade the 8Gb card that currently lives in my phone and carry around a decent library of music.

So that's decided then.

Well, with regards to my choice of next phone, my hand was forced when my existing Touch Pro2 finally gave up the ghost. I'd finally had enough of powering on the phone to find it didn't respond to my jabbing of the screen, so after an age trying to get it to work well enough to allow me to input, I managed to restore it to factory settings.

So, with a clean phone i powered on, but still I was usually getting nothing. This was with the SD card removed and nothing installed, essentially it was the stock rom.

So it appears the root of many of my problems with the phone have been down to the slow death of the touch functionality of the screen. it's almost certainly a hardware issue.

Fortunately this happened about a week before I was eligible to upgrade to a new phone and tariff, so I loaded myself up with my trusty old N95, and played the waiting game until the magic date arrived. Last Monday, armed with the deal I wanted I called up T-Mobile customer service. I told them what phone I wanted, we analysed my usage patterns, and they offered me a deal better than I had found myself, so I've accepted it.

So now I'm waiting for them to get stock in of my new phone.... I finally went for the HTC Desire HD, although it was a close run thing with the Galaxy S until the last minute (if T-Mobile had stocked the 16Gb version instead of the 8Gb version then I may have gone for that instead).

Although I arranged this over the phone they did tell me if I found a T-Mobile store with stock I should get the unit from there, and Surrey Quays expect some in tomorrow, so I could have two new toys to play with over the weekend - the new phone and hopefully the Kinect will on Friday.

Is it Christmas already?