Technology Ramblings

Anyone who has been involved with computing and digital storage recognizes the value of backup.  Even with much improved MTBF of traditional HDD and the advent of SSD - the reality is that drives, controllers, etc can fail and the potential loss of data can be devastating.  No one wants to loose all of their kids photos or their music and video collection. The challenge has always been - which is the best way to backup and what should I backup ? While there are all kinds of methods and software that can provide data protection and backup services.  I've taken the following route. I use a two drive approach to my primary storage.  First is an SSD acting as the OS drive.  In my case, I multi-boot that drive to Windows 7, 8.1 and Ubuntu Linux.   Second is my data drive where I keep all my relevant content. This includes all Documents, Photos, Music, Videos, etc.  It is very easy in Windows to point your profile to a different drive for the defa...

This year I made a conscious  choice to reduce my family's mobile costs.  So I decided to try two things. Transition to a non-contract plan for the entire family Transition to a inexpensive smartphone So first I transitioned from a traditional 2 year contract plan from TMO with unlimited everything to their Simple Choice Plan - with unlimited voice, text and 500 Mb of Data / line.  The effect was dramatic - from over $200 monthly average to around $90 for 3 lines.  And that included features like Visual Voicemail.    Second was to get a new phone.   Previously I was running an HTC Radar with WP 7.8. My use case for a Smartphone is pretty similar to most.. Corporate (Exchange) and Personal Email accounts Messaging and UC - so Text, IM and Lync Social Accounts - Twitter, LinkedIn, etc News, Sports, Weather and Finance Feeds Office capabilities - read, review Word, Excel and PowerPoint + some OneNote Media - Mostly Music, Som...

Microsoft Exchange Server can arguably rank as the most successful server product within Microsoft's portfolio.  It has helped drive adoption of Windows Server and Active Directory along with untold amounts of server and storage infrastructure.  It has also driven a whole group of 3rd party software from compliance and archiving to backup/recovery over its tenure.   Exchange has also evolved to be a key part of MS's Cloud initiative as a portion of the Office365 offerings as well as being supported by an increasing number of hosters and outsourcers. With the release of Exchange 2013 - Exchange is now in it's 8th major release cycle and the brand is 17 years old, starting from Exchange 4.0 being released back in April of 1996.  From that humble release competing against the likes of cc:Mail and Groupwise - through it's long running competition with Lotus Notes, Exchange has evolved from a small workgroup messaging solution to the highly consolidated, highly availabl...

Since 2001 - the holy grail for many of us build-your-own computer types was the Home Theatre PC (HTPC).  Our goal was to have 1 device that could allow us to manage and play all of our media content from Pictures and Music to Videos, Movies and Live/Recorded TV as well as have internet access.  We'd use extenders to distribute that content throughout our homes provide a rich experience to enjoy....   Whether you used Windows Media Center, XBMC or Plex, integrated with TV Cards from ATI, Hauppauge or Ceton and tried all sorts of form factors, fanless designs and special cases what have you - we have all been there in one way or another.   Throughout the previous decade, I really felt that the HTPC was going to be the cornerstone home entertainment systems and a key part of any whole home strategy.   Today after a very hard look at the state of the art - I'm saying the HTPC is dead. It's a shame in a way because I loved th...

Being a geek I am regularly updating my gear around the home - from servers to drives, networking, etc.   I'm also a bit of a pack rack - so I end up holding on to at least 1 generation back of a particular device - kind of as a backup. One of those backup devices was a Linksys WRT610N Wireless Router.  I had replaced it with a Cisco/Linksys E4200 a couple of years back when the 610 started acting a bit flaky and I really wasn't that satisfied with it's stability even though I had kept it current with the most recent firmware. The E4200 supports a number of wireless devices around the home from SmartPhones to iPads, to Laptops and Desktops in both the 2.4 and 5Ghz ranges.  Our home is relatively large at nearly 6,000 sq feet - so I've tried various techniques for expanding the wireless coverage via router location   range extenders - better antennas and/or wireless cards - the works.   The results were mixed at best. One of the d...

Just like so many folks, over the years I ended with quite a large collection of DVD and Blu-Ray based video.  The challenge was two fold - how to store and access all of this and how to avoid the media itself from getting destroyed from use - especially my grand-daughters movies that she would watch over and over again. I have tried several approaches to managing that content and trying to make it easily available for my family to browse and enjoy - but often those approaches were expensive or not very user friendly.   I know this - if it doesn't pass the wife test - so basically point and click - then the effort was unsuccessful. The following discussion is on what I use for the content I have purchased on physical media and how I created a library and ability to stream that to any TV in the house. I used the same approach to whole home video as I did with my whole home audio projects - I looked at three key criteria... Content - what did I want to be able t...

To me one of the nice features you can add to a home is a whole home audio system.   I've have built a couple of them and while the technology choices have expanded, there are some some basic concepts and approach you can follow to insure your ending up with a system that meets your needs. The big three criteria I use in design are Content - What do I want to be able to listen to  ?   Control - How do I want to turn a zone on or off, select the content, control volume, etc. ? Distribution - Where are my "sources" for Content and where do I want to listen to content  ?.   By sitting down and laying out these criteria first - You'll get a very clear picture of your system requirements, which will then help determine your product choices. Here are some things I have learned that will help you avoid some potential headaches. First a few definitions... Source - an analog stereo input to your audio system   You will probably end up with at leasr 4 ...

I've been an MS pro a long time - having installed every MS OS since DOS 2.0 - so yes - I'm an old guy. As many MS Pro's have done - I often installed early beta and "release candidate" builds - running them as my primary OS and then doing one final install at RTM and not look back.   That was true for Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7.  At home I run various desktop, laptop, touchscreen all-in-ones, etc. running Windows, MacOS, Ubuntu and Mint.  With any of those OS - I always myself two questions... 1.  Can I use this day to day 2.  Would I recommend this to others. Unfortunately with Windows 8 that answer came back no - the previews were horrible and the RTM was very disappointing.   So the first time in some 30 years - I did not follow that pattern. So here we are 9 months later with Windows 8.1.   Did things improve ? Marginally... The things I really like about W8 are.. Installation - very easy and found all of my devices easi...

I've always had an interest in Home Automation - and over the years I have installed and owned everything from X10 and UPB to Z-Wave, Crestron, HAI, DSC, Russound, Elan, etc.. One of areas I started looking at recently was controlling my irrigation system.   I was getting tired on my landscapers constantly changing the settings and I wanted to be able to have a little more control then just the traditional stand-alone system. So I started looking at what was possible. The traditional players - RainBird, RainDial, Orbit etc - all have commercial grade systems that you can control by computer and have weather stations, drip buckets, and use advanced models like  EvapoTranspiration (ET) to determine watering cycles.   While all very cool - they really are commercial grade and can start to get pricey.   So what if you want something simpler and more cost effective.   As I started doing some due diligence, I originally was thinking somewhat old school - so a ...

So on a recent summer trip - I spent some time with my friend's new Haswell based Macbook Air 13 and was very impressed.    While there is one part of me that does not necessarily like the lack of self-upgrade / maintenance options with the MBA form factor - the fact that it already supports the latest next generation form factor (NGFF) PCI-e hard drive and Haswell is pretty cool.    Overall the performance to me was average - partially due to low base clock speed of the Haswell ULT processor.  But what what really impressive was the battery life.   While I did not sit there and pound the device all day long, I did perform basic browsing, email and using the AirPort utility (more on that in a bit) the device ran several days without a charge when using the default power settings.   You could run for an hour - close the lid - let it sit around - come back open the lid and go.   So for some portable use cases like a day with multiple customer ...