Windows “7″ goodness…

I’m beta testing Windows 7 because I just can’t help myself. I have my MSDN membership so I get the heads up on this stuff a little earlier than most but it’s not like I’m in the inner circle at #1 Microsoft Way.

I have to say that I’m very impressed with “7″ at this point. Now, I’m running this on old hardware… very old. I have an old Inspiron laptop with a 1.6 Ghz Dothan proc, 2 gig of ram and a fairly poor Intel 915 integrated graphics chip. Windows 7 runs okay… not spectacular but very okay (actually, more than just useable). I’ve been using this as my main system of choice for daily web, email, blogging etc… and I’m becoming addicted to the new interface. It’s very polished.

I’m trying to justify a new netbook purchase and Dell just announced a 10″ so I’m eyeing that one for an install of “7″. I’ll let you all know how it works… I’m expecting very good things.

I’ve been away too long…

… and the more time that passes the harder it is to get back into writing. That’s enough whinging… poor little old me.

So, to jump right back into tech I’ve been taking the last couple of weeks to back up to the “cloud”. For those uninitiated… “the cloud” is considered any online storage or service that can be reached from any connected location and synced or stored, checked or updated from any computer you can log in with.

I had an extended (and very deserved vacation) and upon getting home and back to reality had a scare with my 1 tera-byte server in my basement. For some reason one of the drives wouldn’t mount and I was very afraid that it was a physical hard drive failure. I did manage to recover the server after doing a complete update/re-install of FreeNAS but it made me realize that all the family pictures were stored on that server and I sure didn’t want to loose them. Enter Sky Drive!

Microsoft has a little advertised service called Sky Drive that comes completely free with your “Live” account. It’s a remote storage service that gives each user 25 Gig. of online storage (and it’s been rumoured that that number is just a guideline and even if you reach that limit MS will bump your storage at no charge). The only caveat that I can find on the service is that there is an individual file size limit of 10mb. I think most people can live with that.

So, how do you find this amazing service? Go to skydrive.live.com and login using your windows live id… if you don’t have one yet they are free to sign up for as well. Now, the downside is that Microsoft offers no tools that I know of to automate backing up to your sky drive storage. Don’t loose hope though… for my second tip this post (making up for the long absence I guess) use an amazing ( free at www.gladinet.com ) tool called “Gladinet Cloud Desktop”. It mounts your Sky Drive (among other cloud services) as a virtual drive on your desktop and allows “drag and drop” file transfers to that storage. An invaluable tool I can’t recommend higher.

Sorry for the long absence… I hope to be more diligent in my tech postings in the coming year… not a resolution, just a guideline of sorts.

Media servers made even easier…

I’ve mentioned before about using the Playstation3 as a front end for a media server to a home theatre system. I’ve even taken the time in a previous post to list steps on how to get Windows Media Player (WMP) to show up in the XMB menu of the PS3 as a media server. Well, it’s now even easier than that…

A few days ago my wife was asking me if “that computer in the corner of the basement has to be running all the time?”. I explained that the computer was our backup system/media server that she takes for granted each day and yes, it has to be running all the time. The fact was I had set up that server 2 years ago as an experiment of sorts. I had heard about “FreeNAS” and wanted to see if it was worthwhile or not. I had an old computer kicking around that I was going to strip for parts so before cannibalizing it I decided to give FreeNAS a try.

The project worked so well that I had pretty much forgotten about the system. I had put 2 320gig drives and a 500 gig drive into an old antec case with an up to date power supply to try and diminish the electrical foot print of the device. I had gone to the trouble of tracking down a compact flash (CF) ide drive adapter because FreeNAS fits onto a 32mb CF card and I happened to have one of those laying around from the days when Canon cameras used the CF memory format and the card supplied with the camera was of the fairly useless (up until now) 32mb variety. By installing to the CF card you free up all of the hard drive space for storage and backup purposes.

My system had worked perfectly for at least a couple of years and still was but it was bugging me that I had the server running and a windows system as well for serving media to the PS3. FreeNAS is linux based (freebsd) and I’d yet to find a way to get the PS3 to “see”  the FreeNAS server. My wife’s question got me thinking that I should check into the latest version of “FreeNAS” to update the system and see what functionality they’ve added in the last couple of years. This is more a testament to how well the FreeNAS software works… I’ve not had to even think about the system in the last two years and I’m a firm believer in the old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

Upon checking the FreeNAS site ( http://www.freenas.org/ ) I found the latest stable build was dated May 23, 2008 and when it comes to a backup server “stable” is a good word to look for. I was happy to see that they have indeed added media server functions to FreeNAS that makes it very ( and I can’t stress “very” enough ) easy to stream media content from your FreeNAS server to a PS3. I won’t get into the specifics of setting up the FreeNAS software because there are several very good tutorials already out there and I’d just be repeating them ( probably not as effectively as well ).

Once the FreeNAS software is installed login to the system admin page and in the “System” section enable “UPnP”. Then select the location of the media files you wish to share with the PS3 (seperate entries for video, pictures, and music each). Next under “Profile” select Playstation3 (there’s selections for Xbox 360 as well… leave all port settings at their default value) and then click save and restart the system.

Now in your PS3 XMB menu under video (also under pictures and music) you’ll see the “MT” media server icon. MT stands for MediaTomb which is linux based media server software that FreeNAS is using to stream your shared folders on the server to your PS3. Once you’ve navigated in the XMB menu through the MediaTomb file structure to the shared folder you can choose to either play your media from that location or copy any media there to your PS3 using the “triangle” button on the PS3 controller and then selecting “copy”. This is especially handy for HD content that could bog down a non-gigabit network. You have upgraded the hard drive on your PS3… right?

Another topic for another day.

Zune… look out apple.

I have to get this out in the open right away because this is starting to look like I’m a Microsoft fanboy and that’s just not the case. As I stated before… my household is technologically agnostic. I have Linux, Windows, Apple in the computer world… Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer in the home theatre world. My point being… I make every effort to make decisions on gear based on best performance per dollar spent. This is especially true when purchasing any hardware. The operating system war is not really my concern… I have all of the major systems in my house because I need to know how to work on all the systems and I want my children to be comfortable with using any computer at their disposal.

The ipod is about as ubiquitous as any piece of hardware can be in a given market. Apple has done an extremely good job of capturing a market and holding onto it. They have the indisputable market share in the mp3 player spectrum and the ipod has the third party equipment eco-system to back it up.

Enter Microsoft. In typical Microsoft fashion they entered the mp3 player market quietly and the 1.0 version was less than appealing (especially compared to the ipod).  Then Microsoft rolled out version 2.0 a year later that was very similar in hardware but had software updates that made it much better. Still not able to compete with the ipod but it was definately a mp3 player that you just couldn’t dismiss as easily as the 1.0 version.

Microsoft has finally rolled out version 3.0 of the Zune and it’s pretty cool. The software just plain works very well. In my opinion this is the achilles heel of the ipod. Without trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist I think apple actually works at making iTunes a bad experience on Windows. This is the dark side of the Apple switch campaign. I think that Apple makes iTunes as flaky as it can on Windows to drive people to the Apple operating system where iTunes works very well indeed.

One of the top reasons to buy the Zune that Apple can’t touch (no pun intended)… price. Microsoft has a big enough war chest to take a loss on a product for years to gain market share. Let’s face it… it’s not hard to beat Apple on price. Apple has always been expensive because they have a customer base that is willing to pay extra just to own the Apple logo. It’s a perceived value that Apple has cultivated over the years and anyone who drinks the Apple kool-aid seems to okay paying it.

The Zune also has a built in FM radio (when listening to FM radio and you like a song you can choose to purchase that song when connected to the internet wirelessly), wireless connectivity for syncing your Zune without tethering it to the computer, wireless sharing of music one zune to another, wireless purchasing of music from internet hotspots (especially handy in airports for audiobooks for long flights), and the Zunepass.

Zunepass is the most compelling reason to go with a Zune. A zunepass is $14.95 per month and it gives you unlimited access to the entire Zune marketplace catalogue. This is a great way to ween your children off of limewire and other file sharing sites and get them used to paying for music. The artists should be paid for their work and at $15 per month (like buying one cd per month) you have access to a lot of great music. This allows the Zune owner to try music without the fear of not liking it and after having spent good money on an album they’ll never listen to twice. If you don’t like it… delete it and try something else. As long as your monthly Zunepass is paid up your music collection will work just fine.

Finally, Zune has what Microsoft calls the “Social”. By taking part in the social aspect of the Zune 3.0 software everyone using the zune software that opts in can share their listening habits with other zune owners in a very web-2.0-social-networking-site kind of way. By sharing with other Zune owners the software makes listening recommendations based on what you’ve listened to and what others that share your musical interests have listened to. Apple does have a similar feature called the “Genius” but it only recommends songs from the iTunes catalogue that you can purchase. Zune’s software will recommend anything… available from the Zune marketplace or not. I love that it’s not all about selling you something and more about broadening your musical taste.

The best part about Zune as I’ve outlined above is the social (mostly wireless aspect) so that the more people use these devices the better the Zune becomes. We have one in our house right now but Christmas is coming and I think it’s time for another… Look out Apple!

UPDATE: Microsoft has since updated it’s Zune software with several enhancements but the most notable is that now the Zunepass is even more attractive. Now with the Zunepass subscription you get to keep 10 songs per month that will never expire even if you let your subscription to the Zunepass lapse. There is some self-management involved in that it’s up to the subscription holder to take advantage of the 10 songs per month… MS is not going to remind you. Bottom line… the Zunepass now effectively costs $5.05 per month once you take into account $9.90 worth of song downloads. Now that’s a great deal!

Chrome for Vista…

One of the best things to happen for Vista in the last couple of days is Chrome. For those not in the know… the good people at Google have released yet another free product. I’m a big fan of Google’s give-aways… Picasa being a great example (I’ll talk in length about Picasa in a later post). Chrome is an open source web browser. It’s an alternative to the bundled Internet Explorer (IE 7 included with Vista and available as a much recommended upgrade to XP) or Firefox.

I’ve been a big proponent of Firefox ever since it was in beta pre-1.0 days and I still use it a lot. I have to admit that I was skepticle that Chrome could dislodge Firefox from the top of my favoured browser list but it’s slowly doing just that. First of all, like many of Google’s products it’s listed as “beta” meaning not quite ready for primetime. This is a bit of an inside joke for a lot of Google stuff because Gmail has been around for years and it’s still listed as beta. (Gmail is yet another great Google offering.).

Here’s what Chrome gets right and why it’s so right for Vista. Memory management. This was the achilles heel of Firefox 2.0 and something that the developers of Firefox worked very hard at fixing when they rolled out 3.0 (that’s the current version of Firefox and if you haven’t upgraded to it yet you should). There’s an excellent review at Anandtech ( http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3398 ) that has an indepth test of the memory used compared to other browsers but the big surprise is that when multiple tabs are closed leaving one page viewed Chrome gave back almost all the system ram used by the other tabs… IE, Firefox, and Safari did not behave as well. Any program that gives memory back to Vista is going to result in a better perfoming and more stable Vista.

It’s not just memory management though… some of the best reasons to use Chrome are the features. The home page is a tiled list of the most frequently visited pages… so you aren’t stuck with just one home page as a starting point. The tabs are at the top of the window and there is no menu bar… this makes a much cleaner workspace and simplifies the look and use of the program. There are a couple of buttons to the right of the URL bar that access all setup and customization features leaving the back, forward and reload buttons where they should be to the left of the URL bar (unlike the overly funky IE 7 which seems to be trying too hard to be cool). Add to all this the ability to search not only the page you are on but also your history which allows you to quickly find something you were looking at a couple of days ago but forgot to bookmark and it’s a timesaver too. This could have saved me some headaches last week… Chrome, where were you when I needed you.

When installing Chrome it asks to import your passwords, cookies, and settings from Firefox (or IE if that’s what you use) and it does so flawlessly. One of the only wants I have with Chrome is that it lacks the customization of Firefox via add-ons. This is what keeps Firefox at the precarious top of my list for now. Add-ons allow a user to customize Firefox to their liking… if you’d like a feature or customization chances are someone has developed one already. Most Firefox users have a list of  must-have add-ons that they automatically install when doing a clean install of windows/firefox. Adblock should be on everyone’s list and it’s at the top of my wishlist for Chrome.

Even though this program was released just days ago I’ve had zero problems with it and I recommend it highly. Try it out and let me know what you think…

More about media…

I touched on using a Playstation 3 as a media centre for a home theatre and I stand by that assertion. Now, here’s a Vista tip to segue us back towards computers without leaving the home theatre topic too quickly. Here’s a few simple steps to use your Vista machine (this’ll work with XP as well as long as you have upgraded windows media player to version 11) as a media server accessed by the PS3.

Make sure that “Media Server Connection” is enabled under the “Settings” menu of the XMB (X = cross media bar) on your PS3. Then launch Windows Media Player (WMP) and hit the “Alt” key to unhide the menu bar. Select “Tools” and then “Options”. This will open the options dialogue window and then click on the “Library” tab. Click on the “Sharing Media” button and then check the box beside “Share My Media to:”. After clicking the share media button the window will refresh and there will be a “Settings” button… click it and name your shares. Select “Okay”.

Now click on the “Monitor Folders” button and select the folders that you would like to share between the PS3 and WMP. WMP will build a library of these files… close this window and by this time media sharing will have found your PS3 as an unknown device (assuming you have your PS3 turned on and and connected to your network via a common router… using the same router your Vista machine is connected to ensures a common subnet mask which is fancy network jargon for “they’ll be able to see each other”). Click on the “Sharing Media” button and there should now be listed an “Unknown device”. Highlight the unknown device by left clicking it once and then click the “Allow” button to share media with this device. If you are using the built in windows firewall media player  will have made the alterations to the exceptions list to allow media streaming between the devices. If you are using a third party firewall like Norton’s internet security or McAfee or some other then you may have to go into the settings of these firewalls and manually add WMP to allow media to stream via your network.

Now click “Okay” out of all the WMP options windows and trot back to your PS3. There should now be a windows logo icon under the video, music, and pictures menus in the PS3’s XMB. Navigate through them using your PS3’s controller and enjoy.

Some home theatre stuff…

Enough about computers… for now. I thought I’d talk a bit about my new favourite piece of home theatre hardware. Playstation 3! I love this device. I originally bought it just for the Blu-Ray player but I was quickly blown away by everything else it can do. Without sounding too much like an infomercial (“it dices, it slices!”) I believe this is the best bang-for-the-buck media center available.

First, it’s a Blu-Ray player… okay, that one is obvious. But, let’s expand on that thought. It’s the best Blu-Ray player out there at this time. It is one of the only ones that has ethernet (it’s had this from the start as it’s required for the gaming part of the system when no other home player could say the same) and a hard drive… again required as part of the gaming system and an integral part of the PS3. These two key features allow this Blu-Ray player to be updated with the latest features and Blu-Ray specs as Sony rolls them out. It’s the ultimate future proof purchase. As long as Blu-Ray is around the PS3 will be relevant. On top of all that it upscales regular DVDs as well.

It easily streams media from a computer either wirelessly (built in… no add-on required) or via the ethernet port (gigabit, btw). Now, HD content will not stream flawlessly from a computer to the PS3 wirelessly but hook up an ethernet cable and it’s HD goodness in all it’s glory… especially if you’ve got a gigabit router. It plays just about any video file format you can throw at it as well… you torrenters will know what I’m talking about.

Finally, I recently purchased a Canon HF10 HD camcorder that records to SD flash cards. All I have to do is connect the HF10 to the PS3 via one of the available USB ports on the front of the PS3 and I can watch all my video shot in all it’s 1080p goodness. I don’t even need the tiny remote that comes with the camcorder because the PS3 controller controls the HF10 as far as fast forward, rewind, pause, play and stop are concerned. It doesn’t get better than that!

It has optical out for audio to your home theatre audio (I’ll discuss audio in more depth later) and it connects to your HD tv of choice via HDMI…  now if all the above wasn’t enough to convince you a Playstation 3 has to be part of your home entertainment nirvana then add to all of that a kick butt gaming system as well.

I love my PS3!

Vista tip of the week…

Hopefully I’ve convinced anyone paying any attention to my fledgling site that Vista is not be be feared but embraced. Okay, maybe embraced is a strong word but you get what I mean.

So, now that I’ve got you willing to try Vista let’s get you thinking about using the computer in a way that takes advantage of the best things about Vista. Remember that contextual filtering search box in the Start menu I was raving about in my last post? (Feel free to go back and read it first if not…) Try it out. Click on the icon that opens the new Vista start menu (what used to be the “Start” button is now a round icon with a green background and the ubiquitous windows flag logo in the middle. I prefer to open the start menu using the “Windows” key because I like to keep my hands on the keyboard. That may be why I love these features in Vista… I’m not a mouse-clicky-clicky guy (that’s a technical term, btw). As soon as the start menu pops up from the task bar the cursor is automatically in the search box. Try typing the word “notepad” without the quotes and you’ll find that the notepad application is at the top of a very short list. Not only that but it’s fast… faster than you can type. I bet on an average system by the time you get 3 or 4 letters into typing notepad and it’ll already be at the top of the list!

This is what the contextual part is about. All your applications and short cuts are still in the start menu they’ve just been filtered out to match the search criteria. I LOVE this!!! This is a power user feature and the more people use it the less they’ll be able to live without it.

Everyone that already uses Vista will know of this and thinks my tips are lame. Don’t worry… the tips will be more involved and deeper as my little venture progresses.

It’s time to leave XP behind…

Okay, I seem to be the lone voice in the wilderness but between the main stream press requrgitating rumors and the Apple/PC (blatantly false) advertising and finally word of mouth has led to an over-whelming perseption that “Vista SUCKS!”.

First let me start off by saying that I own and operate multiple operating systems. I have 2 Windows XP machines, 2 Linux machines, 1 Power PC based OS 9 machine and an Intel based Mac OS X system as well. On top of those I have a computer running Vista (SP1). Of all these I prefer the Vista system.

Linux is great… but most people don’t want the learning curve involved with a new operating system and most Linux distros still require a little knowledge when it comes to adding a scanner or a printer or such. I find Linux to be an excellent operating system but you have to almost go “full immersion” into using it so that you don’t have Windows on which to fall back.

Now, I’ve been using Apple computers for a long time but I’ve never understood this perception that they are “intuitive and easier” to use. If you’ve only used Windows you can expect to have to invest some time to learn your way around. Doing anything other than checking email or using the internet will require adapting to the Apple way of doing things and it isn’t always obvious how those tasks are accomplished. If anyone does decide to “switch”… get a two button mouse and ditch the Apple mouse… they SUCK!

So, that leaves us with Vista. Okay, XP is still there but really… it’s old. It’s has significant security problems that require constant attention via windows update and a handful of third party security apps. Vista requires none of this… especially 64 bit Vista. Yes, Vista still has to be updated regularly but it’s now accomplished automatically via an update applet and not the old Windows update site using IE… yuck!!! Vista doesn’t jump out and grab you… and this may be why Microsoft has had a hard time with the negative perception associated with Vista. The best parts of Vista are evident when using it for a while. The context search of the Start menu is worth going to Vista all by itself. In fact, this great little search box is in every explorer window in Vista which makes not having to have nested folders to sort untold amounts of data, pictures, and music a joy.

Vista has a very good user interface, is far more secure than XP, and doesn’t require a significant amount of  time and patience to learn to use. I can tell you this… try going back to XP after using Vista for a while and you’ll understand immediately why Vista is the best choice and not to be avoided. Add to this that some manufacturers are actually charging more to “down-grade” to XP and it’s an obvious choice in my opinion… get Vista and don’t look back.

Open for business!

I’m starting this out as a definate work-in-progress but hope it can become something much more. Anyone who has every gotten me to do any tech work for them will know about this site already and I’m hoping that it will attract others to my fledgling enterprise.

So, due to a lack of traffic and my seeming obscurity at the outset of my current adventure … here’s wishing me well…

Head Doc in residence,
Robin