This weekend I got myself some upgrades for my home network setup. No, I haven’t gotten my tax refund yet (in fact I am hardly getting any). But I just needed some more speed, some more space and some more energy to put it all together. Let me just list out the upgrades I got.

1. Airlink101 AGIGA32PCI Gigabit Network Adapter (3) - this is for the more speed part. My 100kbps network was not just cutting it. I am doing daily backups of both my systems, playing videos and music stored on my Home Server from my HTPC. I was getting lags playing videos and long time for backing up. Hence the upgrade.
2. D-Link DGS-2205 Gigabit Switch. Now since I was going to Gigabit speed, I had to upgrade from my 10/100 Mbps router as well. The router is still in place for wireless access but the systems are all connected at Gigabit speed.
3. Seagate Barracuda 500GB Internal Hard Drive (2) - I just needed this to handle my growing media. And now I am officially above the TB milestone.
4. Philips Senseo Coffee Maker - This is get me a better start for the mornings as compared to my current Givalia Generic (and Free) Coffee maker.

I will have everything installed this week and will post more about my experience soon. Stay tuned.

Posted by admin as Uncategorized at 6:10 AM MST

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A couple of posts ago, I posted about the new feature of Google Maps - My Location, which I think will be very useful to get directions while on the move. Microsoft’s acquired Tellme just launched an application for Blackberry where you can just say the word to find it. I just downloaded it to my Blackberry Pearl to give it a try. I have to admit - it is a neat application. The voice recognition system is not that accurate - about 50% accuracy for me (and I have a little foreign accent). The search is very good as well. For most of the results you get an option to call the place (if it is a business), map it, get directions to it, share it. Now if only they include something like My location in this, that will be perfect :-).

Posted by admin as mobile, software at 5:12 AM MST

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You see companies putting so much emphasis on Search technologies today. This is not just limited to Internet Search and corporate searches. Searching products are putting the same technology on your desktops, workstations, home networks. While this is very useful, but some have gone to the level of saying that with today’s search products, you don’t need to sort anymore. Search is all that you need.

Personally I have realized that Search should be a way of adding to the Sorting feature, not replacing it. If you are like me and have hundreds of gigabytes of data of all types (personal docs, pictures, movies, music, work related stuff) spread over 3 computers, you will find soon enough that if you have not sorted your data properly, it will take you much longer to find what you are looking for using just search.

It’s not that I haven’t given Search its fair chance. I tried a couple of popular Desktop Search Engines over a duration of couple of months to see if that will fit my purpose. Here are my observations.

• More often than I expected, I couldn’t remember the name of the file I was looking for. So I ended up doing multiple searched and then manually going though multiple docs.
• Search works best if there is valid metadata attached to the files.
• If the search is over the network, it will take more time and the support for that is not that good in the Desktop Search products.
• A lot of system resources are used in consistently maintaining the index for the data.

I have found the best solution that works for me is classifying and sorting the data and then if needed I can search through a certain folder to find exactly what I am looking for. Here is a few rules that I follow while organizing my data:

1. Keep all similar data together - For example - keep all music at the same place instead of having it scattered all over your network/Hard Disk Drive/Partitions. They might be on another system, but If they are all together, its easier to keep them organized.
2. Maintain a structure of directories - Start with some basic categories like music, video, documents, software, pictures etc. and then extend underneath them to be more specific like music > english > artist or software > performance tools > Anti-Spyware.
3. Do not have too much depth in directories - I try to keep the depth of the directory structure to a maximum of 4. for example - music > english > artist > metallica. The deeper you have to go to look for a file, the harder it is to organize. For me, it doesn’t matter in case of music as I look for music from my media player and it always easier their to sort based on artist/album etc.
4. Organize your documents by year - I always organize my personal documents (tax docs, purchase receipts, etc) based on year (not by month though). This way it is easier to locate them.
5. Have simple, easy to understand names - Sometimes when you download some files, they have some random characters in them. This is helpful on the server side to identify your file. However, I always change the file name to match the naming conventions that I follow.
6. Always use Metadata - In addition to you music (ID3 tags), have metadata associated with you other files as well. Almost all file types support some kind of metadata association. Having metadata doesn’t help you much in sorting but instead helps in searching through sorted files.

Of course there are other small things that I take care of while organizing. But the above mentioned are the main guidelines I stick by.

Posted by admin as Network, organize, software at 4:57 AM MST

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Earlier when I had to get direction from my current location to a destination, I would have to fill the current location. And when I was trying to get the directions while on the move, forget about it. That will take me stopping and feed the nearest location that I am aware of and then estimating the new directions that I get back.

Not anymore. All I have to do is use this new feature in Google Maps called My Location. At the press of a button I can get my current location (approximate) on my Blackberry Pearl. And then get the directions from there. No more trying to figure out where I am, if I am lost. No more stopping at gas stations in unknown locations to ask for directions. As long as I have cell phone signal, I am good. This is almost as good as having a portable GPS.

Google Maps approximates the current location based on the information provided by the service provider, about the “cell” of the Mobile tower that I am connected to. My brother told me about this way of tracking long about 4-5 years back, when he was working for a Cell Phone Service Provider. He even suggested the same use for future (maybe he should have patented the idea). Of course I can improve on this by adding a Bluetooth GPS for my exact location. But this is good enough for me.

Now, this is 1 more reason I can say to my wife - “I don’t need directions, I know where I am at”.

Posted by admin as Network, software at 8:56 AM MST

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I have owned only 2 Desktops so far that were bought from OEM manufacturers and not assembled by me. The first one was a used Dell Dimension desktop that I bought while I was in College and the other one was a new Compaq Presario That I bought with my first paycheck after college. Ever since I have always assembled my own desktops. People keep giving me the arguments that I won’t have to worry about individual part warranty/compatibility if I buy from a manufacturer. My counter arguments for not going that route are

• You get the best possible configuration (or Bang for your buck, if you may). That is, if you know what you are doing and do you research.
• You get the best warranty. Most hardware come with a warranty of their own which is one a generality longer than the standard warranty provided by the manufacturers like Dell, HP, Gateway. For example, Seagate refused to replace my dead hard drive from the Dell computer even after just 2 years since it was part of OEM sale. Their retail hard drives come with an excellent 5 year warranty.
• You don’t get stuck with proprietary hardware. In both the systems that I bought, I was stuck with proprietary hardware that would not let me upgrade the Power Supply (Dell) or the OS (HP no longer supported the drivers for the OEM Creative Audigy card, for Vista).
• You don’t get the plethora of adware/malware preinstalled.
• You get the satisfaction of building everything on your own. And you end up knowing much more about the workings of your computer which leads to better working and maintenance of the computer in general.

Now OEM Software is something I love. When you buy hardware you can get software which retails for much higher price, free or at comparatively lower prices. For example, you can get a OEM version of Vista (Ultimate Edition) for almost $100 cheaper than the retail version or you can get a scale down version of Nero (DVD/CD burning Software) or Power DVD (Media player software) for free with DVD burners. This software is more than sufficient for most users. And in case you need the full, retail version. Upgrades are much cheaper that buying the retail version in the first place.
I get a lot of spam about websites selling OEM software for really cheap prices. Now, that is illegal. OEM software is supposed to be sold/given with purchase of hardware. I am in no way encouraging that.

Update - Was pointed out as soon as this post went online, that Dell is ditching proprietary parts, starting with their XPS series (Link via MaximumPC) . Now that is a good step. HP did not use proprietary parts in their Blackbird 002 system (which I think is a work of art). One can argue though that, Blackbird was designed by newly acquired Voodoo and not HP.

Posted by admin as system at 3:31 AM MST

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I was looking for do a cleanup of my registry and I came across the free Beta version of OneCare Safety scanner. Let me talk about the OneCare client that I already own. Some of the reasons I purchased this products are -

• It comes with a 3 PC license (perfect for me). I have noticed that some of the other popular suites have started following the same norm of selling license for 3 PCs.
• The background process it fairly light-weight as compared to the other products I have used.
• The subscription based as compared to product based. What I mean by that is - if you purchase a 2007 version of the product, you will get the updates for that only. If the company releases a 2008 version within the 1 year of your subscription, you don’t get it for free. However if Microsoft releases a version 2.5 or even 3 while I have the subscription, I will get it for free. So basically, I bought subscription and not product.
• It has fairly good 64-bit support for my Vista Ultimate 64-bit. (Thought you will have to download the latest installer and use that instead of the DVD).
• There is a very well made backup and restore feature that can be used to backup the PC to an external drive or another PC. (I was using this up until I built my Windows Home Server. Read more about that in previous posts.)

Now, coming back to the online version of OneCare Safety scanner (beta for vista). IT comes with a comprehensive (which you can customize to run only selected scans) and quick scan options. The scans included are -

• Virus scan
• Spyware scan
• Disk Fragmentation scan
• Disk Cleanup scan
• Registry cleaner scan
• Open ports scan

The complete scan took about 2 hours for me and was pretty thorough. I understand that you can have all these done using some of the utilities included with Windows and some free 3rd-party utilities. That is what I had been doing in the past as well, but it is nice to have a one-stop place for all your needs. Microsoft recommends to run this once a month, however the way I install/uninstall software for trying software, games and the amount of data I move around, I think once a fortnight will be more helpful.

Posted by admin as system, windows at 8:07 AM MST

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