You’ve been brainwashed. Brainwashed by clever marketing and the classic underpromise-and-overdeliver strategy employed by Microsoft to fix the mistakes they made with Vista.

I know, I know, everyone told you Vista was bad. You maybe even used Vista pre-SP1, on a “Vista Capable” machine way back when it launched and concluded that it was horrible. Or, maybe you heard all the bad press and skipped on it altogether? Stuck with XP, then switched straight to 7. Is that what you did?

Well, regardless, I am convinced that Vista is the superior operating system. So vastly superior, that I am going out of my way to ensure that it replaces all the systems that I have been tricked into installing Windows 7 on. At work, at home, and for my clients. I am going to make an argument in this article as to why I believe that Vista remains superior.

I challenge someone to list 7 reasons why Windows 7 is better than Windows Vista. Actual reasons. “Features” like Aero Snap, Jump Lists, and the new taskbar do not necessitate an entirely new operating system, so they don’t really count. Those could easily be implemented into Vista, if it were not abandoned in the wake of Windows 7 by the new CEO, Steve Ballmer. So, we begin with a mini history lesson:

Windows Vista was a major disaster. Microsoft suffered from heavily over promising on features (remember WinFS?) and failing to live up to their own hype; and they really hyped it up. Naturally, normal people don’t care or know when a new Microsoft operating system is launched, but the tech community does. So, to over-promise and under deliver, and miss your self-imposed deadlines again and again, the disappointment becomes palpable.

At the time, 64-bit processors were becoming more ubiquitous, and Windows XP 64-bit Edition had a plethora of issues with drivers and was not widely adopted — so they were under immense pressure to release the OS.

Vista Beta 2 came out in 2006, and it was an absolute disaster. If you looked at it funny, or moved the mouse too quickly, it would crash. It was completely unusable, but Microsoft insisted that it was intentional, and that they were planning to fix all of the bugs at once, at the end, prior to RTM. They did, although there was still the issues of heavy disk I/O in the final RTM as well as a large number of driver issues in the final versions.

Much of the problems with Vista stemmed from an overzealous Search Indexer, incomplete drivers from third party manufacturers, UAC, and underpowered systems. RAM was still moderately expensive at the time, and Vista did not work very well with only 1GB, which was common on low-end systems.

After Beta 2, Microsoft shipped release candidate versions and finally the RTM. They continued to fix all of the issues rapidly, releasing patch after patch. All the while, Vista was hammered in the press, blogs and forums repeatedly for problems stemming from the aforementioned.

This negative press was not without merit. Vista was truly very slow, and despite the improvements, they felt minor in the face of a computer that was so severely hampered. Especially when the computer was branded as: Vista Capable.

Finally, with Vista Service Pack 1 (2/2008), the operating system became relatively stable, and performance was drastically improved. However, plagued by the hasty launch, not enough enticing features over XP, and an insipid ad campaign (“the wow starts now“), there were very few who gave it a second review.

Microsoft later attempted to “prove” that they had fixed Vista with the Mojave Experiment, in which they secretly video taped people who had heard that Vista was bad, and had them interact with a supposed “new” operating system codenamed “Mojave.” Evidently, over 90% of the participants thought it was great and an improvement over XP and/or Vista, and expressed shock/surprise when informed that they were actually using regular ‘ol Windows Vista. Of course, bias is to be expected.

After the release of Service Pack 2 (4/2008) and subsequent updates, performance continued to improve and was on par, or superior to that of Windows 7. None of this ever made it to the press because Windows 7 was under-hyped, under-promised and over-delivered by releasing early, since Microsoft learned their lessons with Vista. Moreover, Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” ad-campaign for 7 was well executed.

So, what’s wrong with Windows 7? Why have I become so negative about it? Here’s 7 reasons why I think Windows 7 is a downgrade from Windows Vista (asterisks denote a subjective comment):

1. Windows 7 removes features

What’s missing? Well, where’d the QuickLaunch go? Oh, right, it got consumed into the massive start menu. Where’d the Show Desktop icon go? Moved, to the right hand side (this drives a lot of people batty, believe it or not). Windows Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, DreamScene, just to name a few, no longer come with the OS, they have to be downloaded manually with “Windows Live Essentials” (except for DreamScene, which is totally gone…why?!) — this is not an improvement by any means, just gives the illusion of “less bloat.” But don’t worry, you can put the QuickLaunch and Show Desktop button back — it’s just not exactly all that easy to do.

2. All system tray icons are hidden by default

Is this a problem? I think it is. Microsoft’s attempt to unclutter the taskbar by hiding all third party systemtray icons is a nuisance. How many times have you had to try to explain to someone to “click the little arrow to the left” over the phone to a client, family member, or friend? Hiding all systemtray icons does little in the way of solving the “problem” of the systemtray. As a result, I often find myself just showing all icons on the systems I administer and repair.

3. Libraries

After much annoyance, I finally get libraries. I understand why they exist. I even think it’s a semi-cool idea … but it doesn’t work. Try and copy the path of a file you’re looking at within a Windows 7 Library into another Explorer dialog box. Go ahead. I’ll wait. What’s that? You can’t?

Well that’s aggravating because everytime you click a shortcut like Music on your start menu, it takes you to the music Library, even if you just have one Music folder! Can you replace the shortcut on the Start menu to go directly to your Music folder? No. You cannot. I won’t add a separate section, but HomeGroups annoy me in a similar fashion. I’m sure they’re great for some people — but in general, I just get a lot of “what’s homegroup?!” from people trying to do very basic filesharing across their networks.

4. Windows Media Player 12

Have you used Windows Media Player 11? It’s pretty simple to use. Yes, the defaults are still annoying, but the interface is vastly superior. Try it yourself. Use WMP 11 and then switch over to v.12 which comes with 7 and see which makes more sense to you. The illogical layout of the software is mind boggling to me. This isn’t exactly a Windows 7 issue per se, but since Microsoft made a specific decision to remove WMP 11, I find it worth mentioning. Also, it looks like you can fix it here.

5. Search

This, for me, is the real trouble with Windows 7. In Windows XP, you can download the optional search indexer from Windows Update. Its heyday was really with the search add-on version 2.0, which was an extremely precise search indexer that you could control with a decent amount of precision. In Vista, Microsoft took it to the next level by deeply integrating the indexer and the UI throughout the operating system. Vista’s search solution, once the Indexer was optimized with SP1+, is very powerful and incredibly easy to fine tune. Observe the control you can exert over your search in Vista:

Now, let’s juxtapose this with Windows 7′s search “improvements”:

So, here is what I can’t do with Windows 7′s search:

- Force a search in a non-indexed, or partially indexed location. So, let’s say you just added a folder and want to do a quick search in Windows 7… you can’t, because the indexer hasn’t caught up, and you cannot force the indexer to start on command. So you’re screwed. This is a constant problem that I run into all the damn time.

- Change the search path without first performing a search, and then scrolling to the very bottom of the search results. Who was the genius who designed this?

- Perform complex filters quickly. In 7, I have to use that awkward drop-down menu to manually select each filter, and then scroll back to the left to change my search parameters. This is incredibly cumbersome and unintuitive. Totally fails the grandma test. In Vista, if I want to find a song, I just type one word of the song and then click the “Music” button and bam — it appears immediately.

- Inconsistent search-related glitches (see also Bugs, #6, below) which for whatever reason cause known search results not to materialize. Video evidence of this that I documented is here, on a fully patched, legally licensed, MSDN version of Windows 7 Ultimate. I’m not the only one complaining, either. This is a real problem that simply didn’t exist before 7.

- Oh, and see how the text becomes blue in the search box once I type the word “in”? Well that’s because Windows 7 thinks that I am using a search “operator,” and thus it is not returning any results. If I type the exact same search query into Vista’s search box, it would return results. In order for me to make 7 search for the word “in” I have to put it in quotes in order to “tell” 7 to search it, and not to use it as an operator. Do you think your clients are going to figure that out? I doubt it.

6. Bugs that never get fixed

Microsoft has the capability to fix problems. They proved that with Vista. In my years with Vista, I observed Microsoft fix the operating system relatively quickly. Each problem slowly disappeared, and by the time SP2 hit, nearly everything that was a concern vanished. Yet somehow, that isn’t happening with Windows 7. My biggest #1 problem with Windows 7 is the Explorer refreshing bug.

Have a look at that link. You’ll find that this is a bug that has persisted throughout every single version of Windows 7, and despite innumerable complaints, it isn’t fixed. Windows 7 launched in 2009, and it is now 2012 — it remains unfixed, and inconsistent. I have lost track of how many times I have had to explain to clients that the reason why the file that they saved to the desktop/folder isn’t appearing is because it sometimes won’t refresh automatically and that they have to right click and hit refresh or press F5. Of course, F5 won’t work on Microsoft keyboards because you have to first press F-Lock to enable standard keyboard behavior. This is aggravating, and Microsoft appears unable or unwilling to fix bugs of this magnitude, despite their brilliant engineers on staff.

Other bugs are equally frustrating. For example, after installing a completely legal MSDN version of Windows 7 Ultimate, with keys from Microsoft, activated and operating for a few months, Microsoft released an optional hotfix to determine if your specific instance of Windows had been illegally activated. Since mine were not, I installed the patch on a couple systems that I had running at the time. After restarting, they were flagged as counterfeit copies. After calling, Microsoft double checked the keys and could not determine why they were being flagged as counterfeit. So, I had to manually remove the hotfix to get my legal copies of Windows 7 working normally again. Moreover, I then had to set all the computers to not automatically download updates because with Windows 7, you are forced to install downloaded updates when shutting down. You cannot bypass it as you could in Vista. This “problem” resulted in my having to unplug the systems that had downloaded the updates so that they wouldn’t install the broken hotfix.

There are of course many more, but those two are what come to mind.

7. Taskbar & Explorer changes

The Windows 7 taskbar is subjective. Some people like it just fine, and some detest it. I fall in the middle. I find the auto-grouping to look nice, but irritating as it slows me down. I find the missing quicklaunch, and the auto-hidden systemtray icons problematic, but we’ve already discussed that.

The “Lock” button on the start menu is missing in 7. It is now located under the “>” arrow to the right of Shut down. There’s no particular reason for this change that I can see. The “change view” button is unintuitively* located on the right side of the Explorer window, rather than on the left as in Vista. No reason I can think of as to why this was changed, and there’s no ability to customize it.

The Windows Calendar is gone from Windows 7. It came with Vista, but they removed it — but you can go out of your way and download it with Windows Live Essentials.

AeroShake. Arguably, AeroPeek and AeroSnap are useful, but AeroShake simply hides all background windows when you “shake” a foreground window. This often happens to me by mistake, and I find it irritating. It can be disabled, but it’s too technical for your average user. Moreover, why are these features OS specific? They could easily be appended to Vista, but Microsoft chooses to make them 7-only, as if they are a reason to “upgrade” your operating system (kinda like Siri on the 4S).

More importantly, sortable column headings only appear in Details view, now. There is no way to change this back.

The bottom line is: where’s the upgrade? All I am seeing here are minor changes, missing features, screwed up search, bugs that never get fixed, and other annoyances. Why on earth is this operating system still being priased so much over Vista?

I’d like to see 7 reasons why Windows 7 is an improvement over Vista (SP2).

admin@variableghz.com

I’ve used a lot of different software in a tireless effort to brute force a password out of a single PDF. So far, Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery certainly helps to speed up the process dramatically, but is it enough to reasonably crack a standard 8 character password in a reasonable amount of time?

As it turns out, that depends on what type of file you are trying to recover the password on. For example, PDF files are unable to take advantage of GPU acceleration (such as NVIDIA’s CUDA), while WPA/WPA2 (.cap/.wph files) are supported. Either way, be prepared to wait a long time, or drop a lot of money on a lot of CPU/GPU power because once you get up to just a measily 8 characters, it can take years.

Brute forcing passwords is awful. It takes a really long time, even for the simplest of passwords. I started off using Elcomsoft’s Advanced PDF Password Recovery. Tried their dictionary attack, when that failed I then tried their brute force attack which averaged ~17,000 passwords per second on my old work system, an Athlon X2 4600+ (circa 2006). Of course, using “all printable” characters including spaces and special symbols, upper and lowercase letters and numbers promptly gave me an ETA of “more than one year” after it reached six characters. That’s when I began trying the distributed recovery.

Using normal household CPUs, it’s pretty hopeless. See for yourself, in the photo below, I’ve got 11 systems (23 CPU cores total) at 161,018 passwords/sec.

On the “Recovery” tab (shown below), you’ll notice a few things. The “average speed” is how the remaining time is calculated. In this case, 43,962 passwords/sec, and at that rate it would take 732 days to complete a full brute-force using only lowercase letters and numbers. Since the current rate is 161,018 passwords/sec. it’d be completed about 3 times earlier, but that’s still a really long time!

Another thing you may have noticed on the Recovery tab is that it only really supports two methods of recovery. Brute, and key. Key decryption naturally only works for 40-bit keys since it will essentially try every possible key for that space and guarantee a recovery. I would imagine that you are very unlikely to encounter an outdated encryption method such as this. As for brute, well, there’s very little control. You can only choose between so many options, and there’s no ability to load in a custom dictionary or perform a hybrid dictionary/brute attack. The “mask” feature is only useful if you know a part of the password, and let’s face it, you don’t.

So, you’re stuck with a very crude set of brute force “options” and without a huge number of PCs in your swarm (hundreds? thousands?), it’s going to take centuries. That brings me to another thing, this software is seriously expensive. The smallest package is $599 for 20 clients. And, as I’ve demonstrated, that’s definitely not going to be enough. The next tier up is $1,199 for 100 clients, which would seem more likely to actually recover a password in a more reasonable amount of time, I suppose…

ESDPR will work with a clusters of Tableau TAC1441s, but, as you’ll see, that’s gonna cost you quite a bit of money to get any serious performance out of your recovery.

In order to get any real performance or results from this product, I’ve concluded you need far too much money to be worth the effort. In addition, there’s several features missing from software this expensive. For example, what if I want to have 10 computers working on a PDF while I reserve the other 10 computers (that possibly have GPUs) to perform an attack on a different filetype such as an Excel 2007 file? You can’t. You have to wait until one file has finished before the next will begin. So, mark your calendar for 2039.

The calculations take a really long time, so, what if you need to change the hostname on your distributed agents remotely? You can’t. You have to go to each agent computer manually and change it, and if you have hundreds of systems…

Other issues are an ongoing concern as well, as an example, sometimes pushing “disable” on an agent won’t stop the calculations. The agent will keep running the math even with the “disable” button set for a long time. I’ve found that setting an agent’s “limitations” to “off hours” to be more reliable to stop the calculations than to attempt to use the “disabled” button. Of course, these kinds of issues can be fixed with updates, but nevertheless I still don’t really have a clue as to how good of a job the server is doing at managing which agent is handling what passwords attempts.

If this software had some advanced custom & hybrid brute/dictionary attack methods, it would carry far greater value. Unfortunately, as it presently stands, it’s just too limited and far too expensive to be of any use to anyone.

admin@variableghz.com

I’ve got a lot of data. For me, storage is critical. As I mentioned in my previous article on how to archive large files on SkyDrive, sometimes I want to move files to the cloud for an extended duration of time or permanent archive.  It’s good practice to keep a copy of critical data off-site to prevent against theft, fire, earthquakes, human error, and whatever other paranoia you can come up with.

So, since you’re being cheap and searched for free online storage reviews, here are the current best 5 free five online storage services:

1. ADrive.com – 50GB, 2GB upload limit per file

The most surprising thing about ADrive is that they’re still around. I cannot count on one hand how many times I’ve seen gigantic free online storage services disappear within months after making their debut. ADrive has been around since 2007 and hasn’t disappeared yet. You get 50GB with the basic plan, but the real icing is the astonishing 2GB per file limit. SkyDrive gives you a measly 50MB in comparison.

On my server, (yes, the one I had the awkward Windows Home Server experience with) I decided to keep a small, heavily compressed backup Acronis True Image .TIB archive on a spare 4GB SD card set to run once per week in addition to the master backup image which runs nightly. I did this mostly for fun, but also just in case someone deleted or overwrote a file by mistake from the server during the week, I’d be able to recover it using this little extra backup measure. Because of ADrive’s incredibly generous 2GB file limit, I was able to upload the entire compressed .TIB file to their servers, but even if it gets too big, I could simply split the archive.

One final thing: ADrive allows two ways to upload files. You can use their simple Java uploader, or, if you prefer, their “basic uploader” which requires nothing but the browser. I elected to use the basic uploader so that I could keep my server free of potential exploits in Java or Flash.

2. Windows Live SkyDrive – 25GB, 50MB upload limit per file

Ever since Microsoft unveiled this service back in 2007 (then called Windows Live Folders), it underwent several changes while Microsoft experimented with their ongoing cloud strategy. Initially offering just 5GB, they dramatically boosted the storage in late 2008. It should come as no surprise that that is when I became interested in the service.

SkyDrive makes #2 because they, like ADrive, have thus far withstood the test of time and it’s being run by Microsoft, so if they decide to close the service you will likely receive a grace period to remove your files before they are purged forever. Unfortunately, SkyDrive only allows for 50MB per file, which is understandable considering the impressive sharing tools they provide and the fact that they are hardly making any money with the service (there is no ability to “upgrade” or to pay to remove the ads). I work around this limitation by splitting large files with WinRAR, but it’s certainly not ideal.

3. iDrive – 2GB (up to 12GB), no filesize limitations

I use iDrive as a simple backup utility on many of my client’s systems. It is very easy to configure and quick to get up and running. Most importantly, it’s mostly silent. There’s very few prompts, and amazingly no nag screens (even when you exceed the free space). Evidently, you can also increase the 2GB free limitation to as high as 12GB by simply referring your friends to iDrive, they don’t even need to sign up. If you have a relatively small amount of data, look into iDrive first as a painless, simple, fast, reliable real-time backup solution.

4. Uploadingit – 20GB, 200MB upload limit per file

This is an interesting service for a few reasons. They currently only offer a free plan with no possibility to upgrade yet; their website says to check back soon. Secondly, they offer a very generous 20GB of storage, 200MB upload limit per file, advanced interface chock-full of features but there is one very real downside to Uploadingit — and that’s their expiration limit. Presently, if you do not keep your account “active” by logging in at least once every thirty days, they will flag your account as “inactive” and delete all of your files — all 20GB. Good news is they notify you via e-mail 5 days before doing so. This may change in the future as this service seems to be undergoing numerous changes.

5. 4shared – 10GB, 200MB upload limit per file

4shared is similar to Uploadingit: advanced feature rich web interface, large capacity, relatively large 200MB per-file upload limit. Unfortunately, the 30 day expiration is also similar to Uploadingit. All of your files will be deleted within thirty days if you do not log into your account. 4shared also has a desktop utility which you can use at your option for more advanced features such as suspending and resuming uploads/downloads.

They used to offer 15GB for free, but they since reduced it to 10GB. If the 30 day expiration limit hasn’t scared you away, then 4shared is as good a place for your files as Uploadingit.

Due to reseller programs offered by a myriad of large providers, there are dozens if not hundreds of services that are remarkably similar to one another. It’s important to read all of the fine print and terms of service for each service you intend to use, especially if you intend to trust it with sensitive data or else you may not notice something like the above mentioned expiration dates.

admin@variableghz.com

I was compelled to set up a file server because my clients maxed out their Dropbox. Originally, they were only sharing about 100MB worth of documents, so, I figured Dropbox was the ideal solution for them. Of course as they got real comfortable, they started sharing folders and moving enormous PDFs, .wav files and videos into the Dropbox. Needless to say, they maxed it out pretty quickly. I could upgrade their Dropbox, but then I’d have to upgrade everybody’s Dropbox and at this point there are at least ten different clients accessing the data at any given time. So, a dedicated file server seemed like the logical choice.

After reading Paul Thurrott’s review on the SuperSite a number of years ago, I had high hopes for Windows Home Server (WHS) but never had a reason to set one up until now. I was excited to try out a new Microsoft OS and have an always-on dedicated FTP file server to support the needs of my clients in a scalable way. So I did, I grabbed an old Compaq desktop PC that was given to me by a client who called it a “boat anchor” (a 2007 “vista capable” computer that came with Vista pre-SP1 installed on it) and told me to just get rid of it — obviously, I can’t do that — so now it is a file server.

I burned the MSDN ISO of WHS to a DVD/RW and began installing it. The installation screen had a strange mix of new and old; it has the same Windows XP installer look, but with some sleeker Windows Vista style informative tidbits. Half way through the installation it displays this oldschool looking DOS installer whereby it installs additional components, on the top of the screen it indicates Windows Server 2003, which WHS is based on. I’m told the stability is amazing.

WHS boots up and makes you do that Control-Alt-Delete thing to get in. I’m told that this is for security reasons, but I can’t exactly recall why. VNC lets you execute controls like C-A-D so I’m at a loss. Maybe it’s a dated security feature. Once you get to the desktop, you’re greeted with a local webpage indicating to you that you shouldn’t be using WHS directly, but rather via the Windows Home Console on another computer. Okay, fine, but I have to set all that up first. So, thanks for the premature warning I guess, Microsoft.

So, I close the awkward local html file warning page. Looking around, it looks like Windows XP, except a little off. The start menu is missing a bunch of stuff like on those heavily restricted public computers. All of the visual niceties have been disabled, so when you drag windows around there is that oldschool outline, Windows Classic theme, no fading/sliding on right-click, shadows, etc. It looks like Windows 98, XP and Vista all at the same time. And since it’s a server, that’s fine, however I thought that this OS was meant for somewhat novice home users to configure on their own? If that’s the case, then this whole thing definitely falls short in the ease of use/configuration category.

So, to begin, I click Windows Home Server Console and a wizard takes you through the steps of setting up the Console. It was simpler than I expected, considering the awkward and unfriendly UI experience it started with. Once it got to the remote access and Internet accessibility of the Console, however, things came to a halt. Cleverly, WHS tries to enable UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) in your router to make things easy. However, just like with ActiveX, UPnP was/is the cause of many security exploits and malware so by default, many routers have UPnP disabled — including the one I am using. So, I enabled UPnP on this Netgear router and then the wizard was able to proceed, however, it still briefly flashed  that orange exclamation mark icon before stating that everything was A-OK and later on down the line it would tell me periodically that remote access functionality wasn’t working. To fix it, I would click repair and it would show me a spinny wheel for a while, then, somehow, it would be fine… for a while. Fortunately, I don’t rely on gimmicky “remote access” hubs/add-ins, I use the real deal: UltraVNC.

So, having read a great deal about WHS, I know what it’s meant to do and I elected to use it because I’ve heard such great things about the stability of Server 2003/2008, and since WHS is based on Server 2003, I figure that’s as stable as it’s gonna get. Also, the Console has a terrific quasi-RAID feature called “Folder Duplication” which will automatically make extra copies of whatever folders you select to a second drive installed on the server. That’s pretty awesome, especially since the “server” I am using is just a plain Compaq desktop with no onboard RAID.

After trying to set up my FTP server using FileZilla, I decided I wanted anti-virus protection because I don’t necessarily trust that my clients are going to always be using updated anti-virus software themselves. So, I went to download Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) only to learn that Microsoft doesn’t support their own operating system, Windows Server 2003/Windows Home Server! So, I started looking around for other choices and was surprised to find a very limited selection. Still wary about WHS, I elected to go with a free a/v, ClamWin and see how that goes.

The Console has an “add-ins” section where you can extend the functionality of the Console with all sorts of third party extensions like audio-streamers, sync tools and anti-virus utilities. Installing ClamWin was, in a word, awkward. That’s fine, since it’s free and clearly stated as a work in progress by the author. Nevertheless, the fact that Microsoft doesn’t support their own MSE on their own operating system is very odd. WHS shares so many similarities to XP and I can’t imagine it would take much to make it work on there.

So I performed a virus scan with ClamWin. I didn’t have a very reassured feeling about the whole thing. In the terminal-like window it told me that my version was out of date, but not to panic (?). I went looking for a newer version and was unable to find it. Awkward.

Setting up FTP was difficult. I kept getting inconsistent results. It would connect fine on some connections and not others. VNC also presented an issue, it suddenly stopped working at one point providing me with a vague error message: “End of stream.” In six years of near-daily VNC use, on dozens of computers, I’ve never gotten that error message. I wasn’t using any of the Console features, anti-virus was awkward, FTP was inconsistent, VNC no longer functional — I reformatted & installed a standard Windows XP installation to see if it would better suit my needs.

Maybe not so surprisingly, after I disabled a bunch of unnecessary services, installed a hundred updates, and stripped everything down — my standard XP installation was more reliable and I was able to get everything (FTP, VNC, A/V) working and stable in about twenty minutes. To keep overhead as minimal as possible, I didn’t install any graphics drivers and disabled everything that wasn’t being used such as serial ports, audio drivers, etc. 800×600 resolution. Very easy to administer. Note the locked LAN IP “.45″ and custom port 8888 to make room for other systems on the same network to use VNC:

You cannot easily split an Ethernet jack the same way you can split a phone jack. So, I was at a loss for where to physically place the server. I decided to place it inside a box designed to house the modem/router and switch for the whole floor:

Problem is, since there’s no ventilation in the box, the server slowly started to bake. Not as hot as I was expecting, but when I saw the little flame icon on SpeedFan I decided it was time to move the server.

So, because each area of the floor only has one Ethernet jack, and they are all being used, I used a spare 16-slot rack-mounted switch & used that to split the Ethernet between the copier & server. The switch seems like overkill, but I didn’t have anything simpler or smaller to use. The temps are now stable at ~44°c.

So, WHS would be fine for other purposes I suppose. It’s designed to be this all-in-one hub for your LAN so that users can have auto-backups and easily accessible media. I can’t help but feel like it’s a stretch to expect the average user to set up something like this. I almost found it easier to set up the FTP server than to configure the WHS Console to be stable. Because it relies on UPnP as the default configuration method, it provides very little information on which ports to forward and doesn’t stress any importance on anti-virus protection. I’m betting that the UPnP will fail on 19/20 routers unless UPnP is explicitly enabled. Moreover, because everything is configured via the Console, why is the underlying OS Windows Server 2003? That Console application I’m sure could easily be ported to run on Windows XP, Vista or 7. It seems all seems very basic, yet overly complex for the average user — which it seems to be designed for. I think Microsoft can do better. I gotta wonder who is taking notes at their focus groups.

If you’re curious to try out Windows Home Server, and I know you are, Microsoft offers a 30-day trial of it.

Update: See our Top 5 Free Online Storage Reviews (11/1/2010) for more cloud storage goodness.

I’ve been in search of truly unlimited online storage for quite some time. I don’t mind paying, as long as it’s really unlimited. In my quest, I’ve come across a wide variety of services that fall short of their claims because they require the use of a proprietary client to facilitate the backups, thereby effectively making an online RAID 1 mirror. The catch is that if you delete something on your local machine, it will be deleted (typically within thirty days). So, they’re obviously not too worried about you using too much space since it is unlikely that you’ll have 100TB of data on your machines.

Nevertheless, Livedrive also offers a “briefcase” feature that essentially functions exactly the same as Dropbox, except with unlimited online capacity which is a very good deal if you were in the market for that. Aside from that, I’m going to dive right in and see if Livedrive can offer me with the kind of online storage that I require. I’d like to be able to upload a 250GB Acronis True Image .TIB file, for example… we’ll see if Livedrive can fill my needs.

Installing the Livedrive client is simple, though requires a reboot.

After the reboot, Livedrive starts up automatically and prompts you to login with the account you already registered online. There is no e-mail verification, though signing up for the free trial does require your address and phone number.

Thereafter you enter in your computer name, and then choose which folders to backup via a simple checkbox UI. The defaults are Documents, Pictures, Music, Desktop, Firefox Settings and “Favourites.” There is a button to “Add Folder” as well. A little window shows how to set Livedrive to backup new folders via right-click.

So far it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to upload a massive 250GB .TIB file and leave it there “backed up.”

I right clicked on a folder to add it to “monitoring” and sure enough it lets me know that it will auto-backup whatever changes I make. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way to make a one-way archive/backup or a single file without having it be a “monitored” or “mirrored” folder existing on both the local computer and the Livedrive servers.

Disappointed, I signed up for the Livedrive “briefcase” which enables an “L:” drive which is accessible via any PC you link up to it. During the initial pitch, it said that you could upload files directly from the web UI. I realized shortly thereafter that whatever you upload must also stay synced to whatever PC you have set to have an L: drive, so you cannot have the data reside only in the cloud. Moreover, there doesn’t even appear to be a way to upload files directly from the web UI in the Briefcase. I can make a new folder, but that’s about it.

What bothers me about this is that it isn’t a true “backup service” in the sense that I cannot take a full image of a massive PC and then keep it in the cloud. No, instead I have to use their provided client and keep the image in both places. I can appreciate the convenience, and I can see how this tool is useful for most people, but I wouldn’t recommend it for those who are technically inclined. We’ll need to look elsewhere. That’s too bad.

Sam
admin@variableghz.com

I have a lot of stuff on my hard drives. Not all of it is entirely necessary. I have dozens of old 3d studio max files and other projects that have long since been completed or abandoned over the years.

I like the idea of having an off-site backup of non-mission-critical data. When I heard that Microsoft increased their online storage capacity on SkyDrive to 25GB, I became very interested. They have a cap on the filesize, 50MB per file. To work around this, I elected to use my favorite archiver — WinRAR.

Why WinRAR? The incredible compression and ease of creating spanning archives. All I do is right click on the folder I want to archive and select “Add to Archive”; when WinRAR pops up, I check the following:

- Create solid archive
- Test archived files

Then we gotta set the “compression method” from Normal to Best (this makes an enormous difference depending on the type of files you’re archiving). Next, we set the “Split to volumes, bytes” to a custom size of 45,000k (45MB, comfortably below the 50MB limit; we obviously don’t need to do this if the entire folder is less than 50MB) so that each archive will upload to SkyDrive successfully.

Before, Microsoft had an ActiveX plugin that enabled you to click and drag files into the browser to upload using only IE; now, they’ve made it work using Silverlight so it can work on all browsers. Hopefully they’ll use some fancy HTML5 stuff in the future. Since you’re going to be uploading a lot of files, use their silverlight plugin. It makes the uploads much more reliable and lets you view the progress. Below, you can see my progress uploading a lot of photos complete with nifty progress bars.

The navigation “breadcrumb bar” for SkyDrive no longer makes sense as far as I can tell. When you first load up SkyDrive, it clear indicates that you are at the beginning by displaying Username > SkyDrive. However, once you navigate inside of a directory, it then displays Username > Office > Folder. If I try to go “back” to the root SkyDrive folder by clicking the new “Office” button, it takes me to this Office “recent documents” area and a “Messenger social” — I don’t understand the reason for this bizarre linking scheme, but it appears to be a way for Microsoft to expose users to more of their online offerings.

The only way I can see to get “back” to SkyDrive from here is to hover the mouse over “Windows Live” on the upper left, and then clicking SkyDrive to get back to the root. Extremely bizarre. If it wasn’t for the 25GB of free space, I wouldn’t be recommending it here as your first choice for archiving large files. There are dozens of other “free” online cloud drive offerings, however, anything with any serious size like SkyDrive come and go frequently. SkyDrive has been around for a relatively long time and since it is offered by Microsoft, they have the luxury of running it for years without ever turning a profit… kinda like MSN Search, I mean, Windows Live Search, errr, I mean… Bing!

Ouch.

Here is what a series of RARs looks like uploaded to SkyDrive successfully:

I’ve found SkyDrive to be the perfect solution for this, if you know of any other large, reliable cloud storage solutions please by all means let us know.

Sam
admin@variableghz.com

Well, there’s certainly quite a few Outlook sync competitors, but I chose Syncing.net due to price and the pitch. They have a nice little flash demo showing everything going perfectly. Now, Syncing.net doesn’t only sync Outlook PST’s between computers, they also have a Dropbox-like folder sharing capability which allows you to “invite” other people to your shared folder(s). I did not use this functionality.

Syncing.net, in theory, is pretty easy to set up. According to tech support, you simply install Syncing.net on the host/master computer, then “invite” your other computers as necessary.

Syncing.net manages its syncing capabilities by using a secure P2P (peer to peer) connection as well as a “store and forward” feature which allows Syncing.net to use its own servers to temporarily store up to 250MB of data temporarily if one of the computers is off — thereby preventing the possibility of a P2P connection from taking place.

I tested Syncing.net on a pretty zippy dual-core Athlon based system running Vista Ultimate x64. At all times I had plenty of available memory and since I built the system there was no additional bloat from any other trialware or anything else. I used Office 2007 with Syncing.net.

The Syncing.net software is curious in that whenever it is running and has an Internet connection, it has a circle and a green checkmark in the system tray. Fine, but it’s really not clear as to what it’s doing because of this; the only way to tell if it’s transferring data is to open the software and look at the lower right corner and see that it is in fact transferring data at a certain KB/s rate. Additionally, you can view transfer status via a menu option to see additional options. But it won’t give you any indication of when it’ll be finished. No percentage or anything. They say this is because sync is inherently never “done.” Fair enough, but some kind of progress bar would be appreciated.

Upon the initial sync with the second computer, Syncing.net managed to make a mess out of it. There were duplicate folders and e-mails, calendar entries, folders within folders that had no business being there, etc. I had to instruct my client to essentially delete whatever was necessary to restore it to normal. Tech support was dumbfounded and told me to send them an error report using their built in error reporting tool — which failed (on every system I tried it on, by the way; I had plenty of opportunity to test it out). I asked them why it failed, they told me the usual, anti-virus, firewall, etc. However, I disabled my local firewall and set the router to use a DMZ (Demiltarized Zone) to ensure that there were no conflicts and disabled any anti-virus/anti-spyware to ensure that they had no excuses — still no dice. So I had to send it to them manually via a convoluted process of digging around in my hidden application folder for a huge ZIP file. Fine for someone like me, but what if I didn’t know what Windows Explorer was, or what a zip file was? Or how to browse around hidden folders?

Anyway, tech support is in Germany so they take a pretty long time to get back to you. When they got back to me in this instance, they just told me to do the sync again. Okay.

So this second time around, I deleted everything on the second machine so that it would gracefully accept the data from the master system without any hitches. An unnecessary yet recommended step according to tech support. I performed the sync again which took many hours (due to the large amount of data, primarily). When it was done I was shocked to see, again, that somehow Syncing.net had messed it up. I had practically the same duplicate folders such as “Inbox_1″ which would contain partial e-mails from Inbox, and it wasn’t clear why some were in those folders but not others.

To make matters worse, once I had my client “clean” everything up, Syncing.net would always seem to be one step behind and throwing up little prompts saying that I had made a change on a different system, asking which change I wished to keep. That’s odd because there’s only one person using any given Outlook at any particular time, so, how can these magic “simultaneous syncs” be happening? Tech support certainly had no idea.

My final qualm with the software is that it consumes an enormous amount of resources, mostly in disk activity, which is the worst kind of resource to be hoarding. It causes the computer to slow down enormously with intense I/O sometimes for nearly 20 minutes at a time, even when no changes to Outlook have been made. It really locks the system up — all 3 I tested it on, Vista and XP.

So, my issues with the software and service are as follows:

- No progress bar or any indicator of completeness (or even that it is doing anything, without manually clicking and checking or seeing the intense disk I/O);
- Poor resource management (hogs the entire hard drive without waiting for idle time);
- Incessant prompts which are difficult to permanently solve (“conflicts” resulting from supposed simultaneous changes);
- Difficult and generally unhelpful tech support;
- Extremely time consuming;
- Inconsistent (sometimes it syncs files perfectly, other times it skips several e-mails, even with the “store and forward” feature enabled).

If the software fixed the resource and inconsistency issues, it would be a passable solution. However, because of the compounding issues I cannot recommend this software, just as I cannot recommend Outlook as an e-mail solution. Sorry.

Look elsewhere for your e-mail needs and try to detach yourself from Outlook as soon as you can!

admin@variableghz.com

I’ve been running Microsoft’s free anti-virus solution for quite some time now. I’ve been a fan of Microsoft’s security attempts beginning with their buyout of Giant Anti-Spyware way back in 2004 (then imaginatively named Microsoft Anti-Spyware). Since then, service-started protection was necessary and thus Windows Defender was created to serve that purpose as well as provide the necessary x64 compatability as well. They essentially rewrote the entire program.

Since then, Microsoft has made the largest leap of all by providing free anti-virus to anyone running a “genuine” version of Windows (i.e., not pirated). For most users, nothing will change since most hardware vendors will not equip their machines with MSE since it will not subsidize the cost of the machines as do Symantec products.

This is unfortunate because MSE is a near-perfect solution for combating viruses. It is self updating and generally not annoying. It’s green when everything is OK, yellow or red when action is required. The thing is so silent that you’d never even know you had it installed if no viruses are ever detected.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I used to use a hex editor in a masochistic endeavor to determine viruses out of .exe files back in the mid-90′s. Since then, my first experiences with anti-virus programs were AVG Anti-Virus which I used and recommended for many years.¬† Right around version 8, however, AVG started to become a little too Norton-like for my tastes — bloated, slow to start, nag screens, etc. I then switched to Avast! anti-virus, which I then recommended highly because of its light memory footprint and unobtrusive nature. Unfortunately, Avast! requires an annual registration, even for the free version. This tends to confuse people who are not familiar with the product, “my avast is expiring? what do i do?!” Mandatory registration for a free product is relatively perplexing. MSE deals with all of these issues and is the perfect anti-virus solution. It even uses less memory than any other anti-virus program I have ever tested.

There is so little that needs to be managed or customized for the end user that there is not much left to say. This is a rare and positive feature to appear amidst a category of otherwise insipid yet necessary software. Download it now!

admin@variableghz.com

I’ll keep this short. These past couple days I’ve been experimenting with Google Wave, Google’s solution to e-mail “chat”, the back-and-forth asymmetrical use of e-mail as a means of realtime communication and collaboration between multiple recipients.

It’s a good idea, and it essentially mirrors the functionality of a forum, albeit a high tech forum with lots more capabilities.

Although Google Wave maintains the typical Google simplicity of its application here, I feel as though the people this might benefit most will be the least likely to use it.

For example, I am currently working on a federal case where a single attorney is constantly e-mailing everybody about issues pertaining to the case, often with many drafts and revisions between several people — sounds like a clear cut case for Google Wave, right? I have no doubt in my mind that Google Wave would dramatically improve collaboration and organization for this exact kind of situation. That is Google’s mission statement, isn’t it? Here’s where it falls short: the kind of person who uses e-mail as a substitute for a forum or instant messaging is probably not likely to seek out options such as Google Wave, let alone take the time to learn its most useful core features which would benefit them most.

And that’s too bad, because Google has a winner here; a platform which takes the most useful aspects of a forum, the realtime capabilities of instant messaging and the convenience of e-mail all into one single page which can be interacted by virtually limitless participants. It’s a real evolutionary step for communication and collaboration.

All that said, I think Google Wave is going to rely heavily on IT departments to increase awareness. For all we know, the final version of Google Wave could look quite a bit different than what i’ve shown here.

admin@variableghz.com

Physically, the TX2500 varies very little from the TX1000, where the major improvements lie are in the touchscreen and performance. My feeling about the TX1000 was that it was drastically underpowered and not up for the challenge of running Vista. The TX2500, however, feels powerful, balanced, and runs cool to boot.

The screen is very reflective, but no more so than the TX1000 which I got used to very quickly. It’s not a big deal after a little while. The touchscreen works quite well both with the wacom pen or direct touch. Here is a poorly made video demonstrating the TX2500 touchscreen:

(YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, Veoh, MSN Video, Blip.TV, DailyMotion)

Specs:
- Windows Vista Home Premium (Service Pack 1 (32-bit))
- AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-84 (2.3GHz)
- 12.1″ diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen (1280 x 800) w/Integrated Touch-screen display
- 3GB DDR2 System Memory
- ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3200 Graphics
- 250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
- Webcam + Fingerprint Reader with HP Imprint Finish (Echo)
- Wireless-N Card w/ Bluetooth
- DVD/CD drive, LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW DL
- 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

This neat little Flash intro plays after booting the computer up for the first time.

However, in typical low-end PC fashion, HP tries to force Norton on you and the fun stops there.

Bummer. I clicked Yes. If there was any company I’d like to see fail, even more than GM, it would be Symantec.

I timed the initial set up of the notebook just for fun, results were 26 minutes, 13 seconds until I had a working desktop and the hdd stopped thrashing.

Few more photos of the unit:

After the computer was up and running, I uninstalled the following:

Yahoo! Toolbar

Yeah. I’m sure.

Viewpoint Media Player
SlingPlayer
Slingbox Flash Tour
QuickPlay SlingPlayer 0.4.6
Cyberlink PowerDirector
Cyberlink Power2Go
Norton Internet Security
My HP Games (WildTangent, must uncheck every one individually)
muvee autoProducer 6.1
Microsoft Works
Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer 2007
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007
LiveUpdate
HP Update
HP Smart Web Printing
HP PhotoSmart Essential 2.5
HP Help and Support
HP Customer Experience Enhancements
CyberLink DVD Suite
Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office system
Adobe Reader 8.1.0
Activation Assistant for the 2007 Microsoft Office suites

Then…

Installed 37 Windows Updates
Restart. Received the following error message:

Oh no!

Error automagically solved itself.

Install 6 more Windows Updates.
Received this error message:

Then…

Set IE7 homepage from hp-laptop.aol.com to google.com
Set IE7 search default from Yahoo to Google. Remove ask.com and yahoo permanently.
Restart.
Install 3 more Windows Updates.
Restart.
Install 2 more Windows Updates.
Restart.
Disabled UAC, set DPI to 120, disable automatic Windows Defender scans.

I was a little troubled by the number of processes running by default:

83 seems a bit high.

Using Windows Defender’s Software Explorer feature, I disable the following from starting automatically:

bttray.exe
sm56hlpr.exe
qpservice.exe
MUIStartMenu.exe
HPHC_Scheduler.exe
HPWAMain.exe

Installed the following programs:

Avast! Anti-Virus
Firefox
CCleaner
Google Chrome

Microsoft Office Professional Plus

… and that’s about it. The system is stable, good to go. I won’t go into details about heat and speed because other reviewers have documented that already. What I hadn’t seen was many photos of the unit until now.

Technical details/more reviews are over here, and here.

admin@variableghz.com