Personal

Replacing a Windows Home Server

Mark Treadwell — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:30:12 GMT

There comes a time when computers die. So it was with our HP MediaSmart Home Server. At the age of 4, I was not expecting it to die. Oops.

It has never really been an easy life before the death of that machine. It’s anemic 512MB of memory got upgraded to 2GB. The 500MB primary drive got expanded with two 1TB drives. The power supply fan started sounding like my lawn mower, so it had to be replaced. Things seemed stable until the primary drive croaked – and me unable to locate the recovery disk – bad, bad.

So I went on a search for a replacement. I wanted a true RAID this time and something that was a already-built solution, an appliance if you will. To make the long story short, I purchased a Synology DiskStation DS1511+, stuffed it with five Western Digital 2TB Caviar Green SATA II drives (WD20EARS), set it up as a RAID5, and then copied all the files from the MediaSmart’s data drives to the new SAN box. We will see how those consumer-grade drives work in the RAID.

The copy operation took awhile. I used this storage enclosure for 3.5-Inch SATA HDD's via its USB 2.0 port to connect to my laptop. I would have used the eSATA port, but I did not have a cable. The enclosure ships with USB and FireWire cables.

The Home Server is great for automated backups and making its drives seamlessly available. That Drive Extender technology was one of the big selling points for me. Microsoft has subsequently removed that capability in the most recent version Windows Home Server 2011. The stated reason was that they could not maintain compatibility when they moved to using Server 2008 R2 as its core. Whatever. Drive Extender is dead. That was a primary reason for my buying it, so I am not buying another.

I found a podcast (Hanselminutes #285) with a great explanation of why two techies replaced their Home Server with a SAN appliance, or at least augmented it. One of the participants in the podcast, Travis Illig, has an excellent post with pictures on how to set up the DiskStation. I will be writing another post about my setting up the DiskStation from the perspective of a Windows guy working with a Linux system. Let’s just say that adventure ensued.

The new setup is supporting video and music throughout the house now, as well as centralized file storage. I will be expanding the use of several features of the Synology DiskStation in the coming weeks.

My post on configuring the DS1511+ is here.

Kindle 3 Review

Mark Treadwell — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 03:56:17 GMT

I recently upgraded from the second to the third Kindle version. It was not by choice. (Note: A Kindle cover is useless when you drop a reader on one of its corners. No really … it was an accident and I did not say any bad words, though I certainly was thinking them.) So, now I have a new Kindle with all my old content onboard. I thought I would post a few impressions, in no particular order, after two weeks of use and after reading some teardown reviews.

See the updates on the unlighted cover issues below.

PROs

Smaller and lighter, though it is at the smallest comfortable size for my adult hands to hold.
More memory for more books.
Page turns and menu operations are faster.
The screen is sharper (better contrast), which is the most appreciated change.
The back is a rubbery feel plastic rather than metal.
Lower prices.
Excellent battery life (so far).
While very slightly thinner than the Kindle 2, the more rounded back edges give a better illusion of the unit being even thinner than it is. This was done by moving the various controls to a “thicker” bottom region. The bottom edge is not actually thicker than the rest of the unit, it is just full thickness all the way to the edge, hence it loses the tapered thinness illusion. You can prove it by holding a Kindle 3 sideways.
The power slide switch operates much better now. On the Kindle 2, it had a stronger spring, was a slippery metal, and did not protrude from the bezel very far. These issues are fixed on the Kindle 3.
The power slide switch is backlit, glowing green when you have moved it far enough. The switch backlight doubles as a power charge indicator, going from orange to green.
The Amazon lighted cover draws it power from the reader via the attachment points. This saves the weight and expense of external batteries at the cost of decreased run time from the system battery. (See the CONS section below, though)
The cover attachment points inside the reader received special reinforcement. After a round of bad press about broken front bezel plastic on the Kindle 2, Amazon added a special plastic fixture inside the Kindle 3. On the Kindle 2, Amazon relied on the metal back cover for strength. That left the weak front plastic as the failure point. In reinforcing the internal attachment points, they then had a good spot for providing power to the lighted cover. The reinforced attachment points firmly connect the removable cover to the front bezel and the internal support structure.
The forward and back buttons on the left and right sides are quieter.
The forward and back buttons on the left and right sides are harder to accidentally hit when picking up the reader.
The Home button moved from a big right side button to a extra width keypad button. Good choice.
The Menu and Back buttons have moved from the right side near the five-way controller to the keypad as extra width buttons.
The five-way controller shifted from a stubby joystick to a square keypad, making all keypad operations a press. Good design.
Native PDF reading, though zooming and panning could be easier.
Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G cellular connections.

Neutrals

The side controls have all moved to the bottom of the device: The power slide switch moved from the top to the bottom right, the headphone jack moved from the top to the bottom middle, and the volume rocker switch moved from the upper right side to the bottom left. The microphone and USB connector stayed on the bottom middle.
The keypad buttons are spaced closer together horizontally but not vertically.
The keypad space bar is slightly wider – five vice four buttons wide – even with the closer button spacing.
The Amazon covers come with an elastic band to hold it closed. I never had a need for such a device on the Amazon Kindle 1 or 2 covers, though it may be related to the stiffer cover hinge area.
The Amazon cover loses its identifying “Amazon Kindle” metal tag, replacing it with an embossed leather tab on the elastic band.
The “screen saver” images are unchanged.
Screen size in unchanged.
You get to choose from two bezel colors: white and dark grey (graphite).
The speakers moved from the rear bottom to the rear top to make room for the external controls which are now on the bottom.
Comes with wall power adapter and micro USB cable.
Packaging is recyclable paper except for the screen protector.
The 3G cellular module "operates globally on tri-band UMTS 850/1900/2100 wireless networks as well as quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 networks" per the manufacturer. There is a SIM card preinstalled.
The cellular antenna is at the top of the reader between the speakers and is huge compared to the miniscule Kindle 2 antenna.
The speaker grills are shaped the way they are because of internal arrangement constraints. Looking at the back of the reader, the battery is on the upper left side, just below the speaker which is oriented horizontally. The multi-frequency antenna between the speakers is a fixed width that required the right speaker to be rotated 90 degrees to fit, so it is oriented vertically. You can see the silver speaker cones through the grills.
The Wi-Fi antennas are mounted in the front bezel at the lower right corner looking at the front of the reader.
The Kindle 1 has a reset switch hole under the removable rear cover. The Kindle 2 has none. The Kindle 3 restores the reset switch (it is near the the power switch, facing the back) but does not provide a hole in the back cover to access it. Should it be required, you need to remove the back cover to use it. I had to use the reset button on my Kindle 1, but have not needed it one either of the two replacements.
The previous two back panel certification logos now have grown to fourteen with the addition of the worldwide GSM cell module. Other data on the back panel is the model number (D00901 for mine), FCC ID, IC ID, input voltage and assembly country. Good luck reading the black printing on a dark grey panel.
The reader serial number previously printed on the back panel is now only accessible via the directory menu in the Device Info area. You can also get the network MAC address there. This will certainly cut manufacturing costs.

CONs

The smaller size caused the deletion of the row of number keys from the top of the keyboard. This is a real PITA if you want to jump to a numbered location in a book. It also greatly irritated my three-year-old son who enjoyed pressing the number buttons while I was reading.
To get to the numbers, you now must push the “Sym” (Symbol) button and then use the five-way controller to cursor around the virtual list and select them one by one. Bad Design.
The slash (“/”) keypad button is gone. It is now accessed via the symbol list.
The removable cover attachment slots are spaced about 1 cm wider apart, making all Kindle 2 covers unusable. Unappreciated. This is likely due to the new reinforced attachment points and the lighted cover power supply feature. The Kindle 3 cover metal attachments are a longer design. The unlighted cover metal attachments have a nonconductive paint on them to prevent short circuits, while the lighted cover attachments look to be gold plated. The Kindle 2 cover attachments are conductive black metal and would be prone to short circuits which could drain the battery or even cause a fire if used with a Kindle 3. This element of the design certainly called for deleting the metal rear cover.
Update: The Amazon unlighted cover can cause the Kindle 3 reader to freeze or reboot. I only use the cover when I travel, and I had to manually reset it twice. One time it froze when I tried to wake the unit to read. It was an obvious freeze since the green LED behind the power slide switch stayed on when it is usually illuminated for a second or two. The units also forget to save the last read position. Both of our Kindle 3 units exhibit this behavior in their covers. They work fine without the covers. From the teardown photo galleries (my favorite is here), it appears that the power connection is via the lower cover connector. There are four system board contacts which are connected to sliding contacts in the lower connector attachment point, which is the one you pivot around to install the cover. My guess is that the power contacts are shorting leading to a “power bad” signal to the unit which prevents it from operating. Update to the Update: I called the Amazon Kindle Customer Service number (877-453-4512) and described our problems. They credited my account $70 for the two unlighted covers and applied a $50 special offer to my account that made purchasing two new lighted covers a no-cost fix. They did not want the old covers back.
The Amazon Kindle 3 cover is stiffer and not as easy to fold back for one-handed reading as the Kindle 2 cover is.
The Amazon covers are still an extra cost item.
The Amazon lighted cover is too expensive compared to the device. At $60, it is 43% of the cost of the $139 device, and 32% of the cost of the $189 device. Ouch.
Even the Amazon unlighted cover is pricey compared to the device. At $35, it is 25% of the cost of the $139 device, and 19% of the cost of the $189 device.
The Amazon cover does nothing to protect the reader if dropped – as I have proven. This is because the E-Ink display panel is glued to the front bezel plastic, so any impact shock to the plastic is transferred directly to the display panel. What you see on the front of the reader is the actual E-Ink display panel.
Moving the power slide switch to the bottom makes it more awkward to operate with your thumb.
Update: With use, the power slide switch is getting stiffer to operate and returns to its neutral position slower.
Moving the headphone jack to the bottom makes it uncomfortable to use headphones while reading on your back.
The forward and back buttons on the left and right sides are harder to intentionally hit when using the device.
The five-way controller Up button is uncomfortably close (for an adult finger) to the Menu button, which I have inadvertently hit.
The five-way controller Down button is uncomfortably close (for an adult finger) to the Back button, which I have inadvertently hit.
The size of the five-way controller is based on the visual alignment to the top and bottom of the adjacent rows of buttons rather than for ergonomic considerations.
The battery is replaceable only if you want to remove the back cover of the device (which can be done) but is not designed to be done easily.
The reader has an RFID tag inside the back cover of the device if you are concerned about such things.

Overall I like the device compared to its two predecessors. Would I upgrade just for the new features? No - unless I had a good resale of the old reader lined up.

Blocking the "Green Meanie" Popup Ads

Mark Treadwell — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:32:49 GMT

I am not sure why it took me so long to implement, but I finally had it with the Vibrant Media IntelliTXT in-line text advertising and their intrusive pop-ups. You have probably seen them yourself. They are the highlighted green words with a double underscore present in many news and blog pages. While they generate money for those sites, they are as irritating as hell, so I decided to remove them.

I opened a web page which I knew would display the Vibrant advertising. A few seconds after the page displayed, the green meanies appeared. That indicated a remote Java script. Viewing the page source HTML, down at the bottom was a pretty clear text comment: "start Vibrant Media IntelliTXT script section". Target found. Well, that was easy.

The script source link was to the IntelliTXT web site, so it was clear that blocking that web site would stop the green meanies. I use IE8, so I went to the Internet Options, Security tab, Restricted sites zone icon, Sites button. I added the following to the restricted sites list: *.us.intellitxt.com. While I was at it, I also included *.tacoda.net to block their behavioral tracking.

Do it yourself for free.

Note: I know there are many add-ins which will do this for you. I try to run the computers in our house with a minimum of software which needs regular updates.

Update: I also added *.kontera.com to block their "blue meanie" popup ads.

Upgrading to a Kindle 2

Mark Treadwell — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:31:11 GMT

As I wrote a couple of days ago, my wife and I got a pair of Kindle 2 book readers. While she started fresh, I had a little work to move my book content over to the new unit.

When I ordered the two new Kindles, they showed up under my Amazon account as my 2nd and 3rd Kindles. Once the units arrived, we enjoyed our out-of-box experience, which was on par with the excellent Zune packaging. The Kindle took recycling to a new high since essentially everything but the cling wrap, the protective cover instructions, and the quick summary card was paper-based. I ended up disposing of all the Amazon packaging in our paper recycling bin.

I prepared for the transfer of my content with a backup of all the Kindle document content to my computer hard drive. I copied everything to a My Documents folder. When you hook up a Kindle via USB, it shows up as a standard USB drive. The Kindle documents directory holds all your content.

After copying my books to the computer, I deleted them from my Kindle 1 in preparation for selling it. To clean up before copying everything to the Kindle 2, I deleted the blog files since new versions would be downloaded when I synched up. I also deleted the My Clips files, since they were an experiment on my part that contained nothing of interest. One lesson learned here was that the Kindle 1 Mobipocket eBook Auxiliary Files (the ones with a .mbp file extension) seem to be different from those on the Kindle 2. When I copied them, none of the associated documents would open. Once deleted and the unit restarted, everything worked fine.

I like keeping a backup of all my Kindle content on my main computer, since my Windows Home Server will make an image backup as well. That way, a restore will be easy.

Swapping the Kindles around with the Amazon management interface was straightforward. The only issue with my wife's Kindle was reading the tiny serial number (miniscule gray text on a brushed aluminum back) and typing it into the text box. For this, I can only blame aging eyes, .

After the first day of use, the results are positive for both of us. My wife likes the convenience. We bought four books she wanted and downloaded them wirelessly without a hitch. She like reading it one-handed and its thinness is a big plus for her when compared with some of the weighty paper books she has toted around for years.

I like the Kindle 2 for all its improvements over the first version -- size, weight, layout, etc. I really like that they shifted to a micro USB port so I can use the same charger as my cell phone. That is one fewer thing I need to take on trips. I miss the switch to turn off the cellular modem. While the menu interface is OK, it is not as convenient when I am in an airplane. The four-way controller is a big improvement over the previous scroll wheel. It took a bit of adjustment to shift from the two-key sleep activate/deactivate to remembering to use the slide switch. I wish they had made the switch a little easier to move. That switch is the only means to control power -- a brief slide will shift it in and out of sleep mode, holding it 5-10 seconds will power the unit off, holding it for more than 15 seconds will reset the unit. That reset function is your only way out of a freeze-up, since they removed the reset button, the keyboard reset and the ability to access the battery.

As we use the new readers, I will post our longer term impressions.

Update: I thought my backups were along the lines of a good standard computing practice, but this and this concerns me. I read the Amazon terms of service and do not see where they say they will do remote deletions, so I agree that Amazon appears to have violated their own terms of service since the books were purchased in good faith. This is not a Kindle deal breaker, but I will continue with my computing precautions for all my electronic content.

Kindle 2

Mark Treadwell — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:31:32 GMT

As a happy owner of an original Kindle, my wife was always asking me about its convenience. I take the reader on business and personal travel and find it much easier to read it one-handed when compared with any book. Everywhere I would read a book, I have no problem reading the Kindle. I find it convenient on airplanes, though having it off during takeoff and landing is bothersome. I have quite a bit of free content, or I had it converted for free by Amazon.

The Kindle 2 is out now and she wants one. She wants one so bad, she wants two so we can both have one. I demurred for a time because of the cost. Amazon has now done what I wanted them to do when they introduced the Kindle DX -- they dropped the price of the Kindle 2 by $60!

At $299, I can weakly rationalize away an upgrade I do not exactly need as a mandatory requirement to keep up with my wife technologically. After all, I can use my reader as a remote example to help her with hers should the need arise.

Recommended.

I Was CompuServe 73700,3344

Mark Treadwell — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:28:18 GMT

My first remote computer access outside my home was via CompuServe in 1985. I sat at my original IBM PC and connected via a Hayes Smartmodem 1200 to the service. I spent lots of geeky time sucking text through that modem and its replacements. I used CompuServe from all over the country as I traveled, and even internationally a few times. It worked great and kept down the long distance phone bills.

Remember those? Back in the day, we had to call long distance to a company's bulletin board service (BBS) to get info on hardware and software updates. Mind you, you could not buy things that way, just read about them and maybe get a patch.

That octal user ID was a function of the PDP-10 architecture of the original system. That worked great as long as things moved through slower modems. I recall things getting clogged up as the cable modems arrived.

I even tried Prodigy, God help me, and found it slow and clunky. I heard too many AOL horror stories to ever try the service -- though I got lots of CDs from them. Both CompuServe and Prodigy worked well as long as you stayed within their sandbox. Go outside the box, and things got harder. I ignored the CompuServe 2000 stuff entirely and stayed with what became known as CompuServe Classic. I canceled my service in early 2004. I recall that it was not easy, and required several phone calls. You could not cancel online. My last email from that account was from an old Fawcette newsletter telling me how to "Build a Longhorn App."

CompuServe really had no way to compete with the wilder and wider web. The fact that it has hung on this long says that the miniscule support was still covered by the few people who still paid real money to use it -- probably because it was familiar. No more. Goodbye. It was fun.

LCD Screen Drawings

Mark Treadwell — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:59:35 GMT

My children's artwork adorns the walls of my house in several locations. It is regularly replaced with the most recent efforts, since the preschools seem to excel at a multitude of different craft projects. At home, we favor crayons and washable markers, but we keep close control of them.

This evening my three-year-old decided to climb up Daddy's chair and get onto my desk. A ball point pen beckoned from a pen holder placed far from a child-accessible edge. The canvas -- two 19-inch LCD screens. She seemed pleased with her art work when I came in, but I certainly was not.

I tried several cleaners unsuccessfully, but then had great success using full-strength isopropyl rubbing alcohol. I have been meaning to clean them for awhile. I just did not want to get around to it for this particular reason.

Technorati Tags: LCD, cleaning

Our First Zune

Mark Treadwell — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:29:02 GMT

My wife and I were talking by phone while I was at a store when she mentioned that she wanted an MP3 player for use around the house. Easy in-car use was also a requirement. I went to the music player display case to see what was offered. A full 80% of the boxes were various flavors of iPods. The rest were Zunes with a couple of Samsung units.

Since I have a bad opinion of Apple DRM and iTunes lock-in, I bought her a 4GB pink Zune and brought it home. My wife loved opening the box and playing with all the bits. We both agreed that the out-of-the-box experience was great. She went off to do some grocery shopping while I handled the task of installing the software and getting the thing running.

The great hardware happiness died an ugly death during the software installation. The process was agonizingly slow. The software prepared the computer for installation three times. The Zune software appeared to get installed three or four times, although I knew those were small support programs, then ... reboot! What? What does a simple music player need to restart the entire computer for? While writing this blog post, the software also automatically ran Microsoft Update without my permission and contrary to my Microsoft Update system settings. Very rude!

The total length of the install seemed like I was installing Microsoft Office and Visual Studio at the same time. It took nearly a half an hour on a computer with nothing else running and no other load on the broadband modem. I can only assume the 33MB of dedicated files are supported by numerous other changes -- and all this on a fully updated Windows XP system. I actually ended up with multiple restarts for multiple updates. I was disappointed the install process was so miserable, but grateful it went forward with no errors.

Happily, my wife saw none of this and was soon listening to a few of our CDs I had ripped previously. She dutifully listened to the music that came with the player, then spent some time learning the Zune software deleting it all. She judged it all to be crap. The only artist she recognized of the bunch was Bare Naked Ladies and that was only because they sang a song for Disney's movie Chicken Little.

She loves the size, feel, and interface of the Zune. That part of the experience was great. The car kit just worked with no problems. She is happy, and that was a primary goal of the purchase.

Technorati Tags: Zune

Merry Christmas

Mark Treadwell — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 15:02:17 GMT

... to everyone at GeeksWithBlogs and those elsewhere reading. Enjoy the season with your own traditions and religion, whether you celebrate the birth of Christ or not. Enjoy!

Our Christmas Toy Experience

Mark Treadwell — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 04:40:51 GMT

Technorati Tags: Christmas

As I noted previously, I have now retired from military active duty. I am taking the Christmas season off to relax before going back to work for my new career out there in the Real World©®. That means I have gotten the opportunity to spend much more time with the wife and kids.

Thursday morning, while the girls were in school and the little one was napping, my wife and I took the time to open and assemble all the kids toys for Christmas. We did this early to avoid a late night on Christmas Eve, or the crisis rush on Christmas morning. It took us much longer than we anticipated due to the nature of this year's toy packaging adventures.

We intentionally avoided the infamous clamshell death plastic this year. The closest we came were with a pair of nicely packaged GE headsets for use with our cordless phone system. They had a paperboard back that was easy to cut open -- no plastic cutting required. The toy boxes took much longer than anticipated to open since the manufacturers seem to have substituted complex folded cardboard secured with miles of cellophane tape to replace the hated plastic clamshells.

The full-view packaging designers win the raspberry award this year for their use of wire twist ties suitable for towing. These things were so thick that our Fiskars scissors, normally a match for any consumer packaging, failed miserably. I had to resort to my Craftsman wire cutters, though I wondered if I might need something bigger. The stiff, machine-tightened wires were impossible to undo by hand even when we had full access to them behind their nefariously complex packaging. Be ready with your own heavy-duty implements of destruction in the coming days.

We have been buying stuff over the last 6-8 months, as items became available. We have found many of the things we chose are now not available, or available on Amazon or EBay at astronomical markups over what we paid just months ago (a $40 toy was selling for $175).

Our son emerged from his nap and demanded to do some preliminary play testing of things his sisters would be getting. He gave a double thumbs up to a few items, but his clear favorite was Pat Pat Rocket. Since he is just on the verge of walking, we feel he will not spill the beans before Tuesday.

Post-Christmas Update

The Pat Pat Rocket was a hit with all the kids, but we found that little hands could not pry open the top to play with the figures inside. I remedied that with a sticky tape tab they could grip, but a better design would be appreciated by parents. It also falls into the category of toys which are too loud.

GeoTrax Rail and Road System Grand Central Station by Fisher-Price: Recommended; another big hit. We left this one in the box and assembled it on a bedroom floor while the girls were busy elsewhere. It is a big hit on available floor space, so we had to be careful where we put it. The assembly was pretty easy, but I see the engine will be chewing through lots of AAA batteries.

vtech ABC Food Fun: Not recommended. It is too loud, comes on randomly even after it is supposedly powered off automatically, the door is hard to open, it is too easy to accidentally hit a mode button, and the magnet pieces are hard for kids to align correctly to make it work. Other than that, it briefly held the attention of a three-year-old.