Using Windows Home Server, part 4

~ rbonini ~ 2 Comments

So after testing everything else, I got around to testing the remote access functionality.

Since I was on holiday away down  in the south of England, I decided to set things up. Got registered on dyndns.org and set my Linksys router up to ping their servers every time my external IP address changed. This side of things worked pretty well for the next day or so, before the IP changed and the router didn’t update dyndns.org with the change. Which is strange in and of itself.

The WHS remote access website works very well indeed. The downloads went smoothly, even when downloading an entire folder. I intentionally forgot to copy some files to my laptop so I was forced to test this out one way or the other. I want that zip code that the website uses to send your files (all files get included in a zip archive), could prove to be useful. But I digress.

So far, I’m very impressed with it. I was unable to test the uploading functionality because by the time I got round to that my router was suffering IP paralysis.

As a tip, download the automatic update software from dyndns.org and run it on the server as a service to back up the router functionality (if its there). The really strange thing is that my Linksys Router DDNS needs to be setup anyway to work with dyndns.org .I  tried turning it off after I installed the update software, but it refused to work and showed the Router setup page and not the WHS website. I turned it back on and viola – it worked!

Must try the uploading features some time.

The WHS SDK is out am I’m salivating like Pavlov’s dogs for their bell over what I could do with it. I haven’t come up with anything yet, I’m afraid. At least not something that I could do. But it struck me that what ever antivirus software you have running, it should have a Home Connector Tab and a Remote Access Tab. In fact you could extend the same idea to the Dyndns.org update software I wrote about above. Since the idea is for a headless server, the Home Connector and Remote Access Website are now the developers primary  interface and means of interacting with the user.

For example. If I had a SQL server running on WHS ( which I don’t – there were issues last time I tried the install) I could programmatically check the SQL server status and display the data in the Home Connector – kind of like what SQL Management Studio Express and the DotNetPanel do. Hey, come to think of it…DNP is free for up to 10 websites… (consider this a note to self). Now, if I could get SQL Server working…

But I digress. Back to the issue to Anti Virus software. Nortons 2007 Internet Security refused point blank to install. Which leads me ask what plans the WHS team have in this area. Is there going to be a OneCare license included with the release of WHS (this would be great from the point of view of Home Connector and Remote Access integration)? Is Microsoft going to do a deal with Nortons and McAffee over their Server Editions (possible but very unlikely in the light of Microsoft entering their market with OneCare). Or is WHS magically going to be security hole free ( possible, if the WHS team decide to port to OSX 🙂 ). Now I’m justifiably nervous with out AV software covering my back. I suppose I’ll just have to trust the windows firewall….

The Mobile Web (and Google)

~ rbonini

I don’t use the Mobile web much. In fact, I only use it to check my Google Mail and Reader and started that this weekend. Why only Google Reader and Mail? Because Google offers straight text for its mobile websites. Text is cheaper and faster to download over WAP than pictures.

The mobile websites for both Google services are fantastic, save a few things. Reader doesn’t allow you to share an item (which meant I had to star items I wanted to share and share them later), and its really irritating. The ability to add a post to your Google Notebook is also missing (this arguably should be one of the first things included on both the main and mobile sites). I add posts to my notebook all the time. The Google Reader log in page is the “normal” version and you need to scroll right to get to the log in box.

I did take a look at my own blog from my mobile and came away disappointed. It didn’t look very good. The header scaled down to fit the screen, but the background was all messed up.

For the rest of the websites I visited: GET A MOBILE WEBSITE NOW!

Normal websites viewed on a mobile browser become lists of links that are in the header and the “other interesting articles” sections which not only take time to download, but a heck of a lot of time to scroll down to the content you want to read. Again, irritating.

Now bear in mind, I’m not into doing scientific samples to determine wether this is a widespread problem or not and I’m going from my (limited) weekend browsing.

It wouldn’t take a lot to change. Most sites have CSS styles for printing articles that happen to be mostly text and no pictures and perfect for mobiles. Nokia and the rest probably have some culpability in this. They need to ensure that their browsers work properly and can handle “normal” websites better.

As far as I’m concerned, mobile websites for my websites have been added to the ToDo list for the summer.

Should I try Google Calender on my mobile now?

Rich Internet Application: Defined

~ rbonini

Part of the appeal of Rich Internet Applications is that they are about delivering the next generation of software. They’re about supporting the convergence of the web and the desktop and giving developers the freedom to choose the best platform for their needs. In some cases, having access to the desktop will be the requirement. In other cases, browser based applications will be perfect. RIAs span both categories. In the end, it’s about the experience, the richness, and the power of building real software. RIAs provide a way to do that that hasn’t existed before, and that’s why they’re so exiting. They change the game in so many ways.

from The Universal Desktop by Ryan Stewart

I agree. At first we were desktop-oriented. Then Web 2.0 came along and moved all our data to Google Servers. Now we move into the world in between these two extremes.

This move will prove to be very interesting. The Google of this next generation Web will be the company that get the best data synchrony between platforms. The technical details will prove to be even more interesting. Not everyone has a local SQL or MySQL server to use as a temporary data store. What are you going to use? Xml? In other words, the data storage solution will have to work across multiple scenarios and Operating Systems. In fact, come to think of it, how do you solve the browser sandbox problem without affecting security (while still providing ease-of-use: I.e no local software to install to run outwidth the browser sandbox).

I’m writing this using Windows Live Writer (no plugins installed yet), which I prefer to the WordPress write page. This can be described as a hybrid application. Although its installed locally, its working with Web data at its core. It downloads the blog theme, the Categories, the Recent Posts and also publishes the posts. Although its not Flash, AJAX, Flex or goodness knows what other platform out there or running in a browser, it is a Rich Internet Application. In other words, I’m suggesting that the definition of a RIA be extended beyond a Platform-Centric definition to a Functionality-Centric definition.

So  and RIA should be defined as an Application that functionally brings together the Web and the Desktop.

April Fools (Updated)

~ rbonini ~ 1 Comment

To all MSDN Subscribers. The Microsoft Penguin Adoption Program 2007 is now open to new members. Further details are here.

In other news, Google has gone public with their Pigeon Rank System (via the Radar – thanks guys).

Update: I found new stuff….

Scoble has some….

The Register has some good stuff…

Google has two, here and here…

GottabeMobile has a few…

By this point, my tea is all over the floor 🙂

Update 2: Just found this (via Codeing4Fun):

Clint Rutkas decided it was a good idea to drop 1000 super bouncy balls onto his CTO. 

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IflN4daL8w]

Using Windows Home Server, part 3

~ rbonini

I’ve been using WHS for three weeks or so now. The really surprising thing is that it simply melts into the background. Until you need to do a manual backup or Remote desktop in, it effectively drops from your radar.

I’ve been transferring more and more of my work files to the WHS and working with them directly from there ( things go slightly slower, but, hey 🙂 ). It allows me to work from any PC in the house with out first having to copy the files between machines. It really is great. The whole idea really works well.

WHS backup runs once a day over lunch and I never have to worry about it. I might just throw away my Norton Ghost disk…

Now as far a wish list goes…

  1. WHS screams like mad if the laptop is not backed up two days running ( some days its not used and kept off). It would be useful to tell WHS to cool off for while.
  2. WHS should keep an eye on what’s going on client PC’s and back them up if needed (I.e. when you install new software) and label the backups accordingly ( I.e. if its a program install it should be “[program name] Install”)
  3. The Health Monitoring tool could be greatly expanded up to drill, down to the status of each PC in real time. I’m probably wishing a bit to much to say that integration with Norton Internet Security to show status would be cool.
  4. It would be really good to schedule a startup/shutdown period. Putting the fact that servers a meant to be kept on 24/7 aside for a moment, people may actually want to switch them off after their nightly backups to save on electricity ( and thus feel even better about the environment). Currently I shutdown mine via the Console ( really cool feature 🙂 ).
  5. Not sure about how many people use Outlook, but being able to have a Shared Outlook Calendar would be really good ( Similar to Rick’s point 4 below).

The rest comes from Rick Hallihan over at the One Man Shouting blog:

  • Family Sharing – Basically, I’d like to select certain folders on the server, and designate them to be replicated to my extended family.  Hopefully they’ll all have Home Server machines as well, and now if I drop some home movies or photos into that bucket, they’d be automatically synced.  Likewise they could add stuff as well.  This can be set up today with Foldershare, but it needs to be simple and available through the WHS console.
  • Security Monitoring and Automation – This is one that I think will probably get addressed at least a couple different ways.  If I’m away from the house, I’d love to be able to remotely access my security system.  Maybe flip a couple lights on/off. Remotely access security cameras.  Turn the thermostat back up so the house isn’t too cold when I return.
  • Offsite backup – I’d like to see this addressed two different ways.  One would be a web-based service where I could pay for a certain amount of space on a monthly basis.  Another way that I think would be awesome is if I could designate a remote WHS machine (maybe at my brother’s house) as my remote backup point.  I could just buy a 500GB USB hard drive, he could plug it in to his machine and designate it for remote backups, or perhaps he could just have an easy way to set a quota for my remote backups, and it would make use of the storage pool that WHS manages.
  • Amazon UnBox or similar clients – Let me browse and buy from the server, either from the remote web interface or the console, and then let me watch the content on any media extenders in my home.  I could schedule the download remotely early in the day, and then it would be ready to watch on whatever TV was free in the evening (assuming it had a media extender attached.)
  • Family Schedule – This is getting into the email/pim realm a bit, and I know that story isn’t fully addressed, but a centralized shared calendar view would be cool.  Let me sync any type of calendar to the Home Server, Live Hotmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, whatever.  Somehow make the calendar viewable on media extenders, or on home PCs in an easy, quick way.

Also according to Rick, the SDK is coming out this month sometime.

I have tried the Remote Access functionality a bit ( albeit from this PC rather than a really remote one) and found it lacking in extra stuff. I’m away for the weekend, so might try it out  for real then.

Rick asks an interesting question: Do you actually need that Remote Access?

The “Access all your files from anywhere” model is pretty cool.  Right now I’ve got it set up using DynDNS (pretty easy but not very consumer friendly), but it looks like by release time there’s going to be some sort of integration with Live Domains, so that this will be a simple set up.  Even this functionality can fade into the background though.  Honestly, since I set this up, I used it a couple of times, just to play around with it, but I haven’t actually needed that remote access.

Given that a) there is an SDK and that b) Microsoft is releasing the Website as part of the SDK ( so people can add pages and functionality to it),  the Remote Access site really will turn into something more useful over and above what it can already do.

Using Windows Home Server, part 2

~ rbonini

I did say the last time that I’d download and install a Virtual Server image of  Exchange 2007. I did. And it was way too slow for comfort. So I went ahead and downloaded the normal install package for Evaluation (Microsoft give you amonth to try out the package) . I’m installing it now. By the way, Virtual Server works flawlessly on WHS, even with an image mounted and running – its just that my server didn’t have the Gigaherz to do the job.

WHS took an age and a half to get round to running the install. And is presently unzipping the files.

On to other stuff. I think that WHS really needs something akin to a scheduler for backups – even as an option. I say this because the times that it takes a back up are totally random. Sometimes its at the very beginning of the backup window on one pc, but it waits and backups the the pc 3 hours later. It can be totally erratic. It might be the fact that my backup window is 12 hours long.  I’m going to try cutting that to 3 hours over lunch ( I prefer all my to turn all my PCs off at night, including the server) and see if it makes any difference.

I think that the major gripe, if you could call it that, is that WHS spends most of its time doing nothing. And I’m talking about the time it dosn’t spend serving files and music. A stripped down version of Exchange in order to keep users emails in one central store is one idea. Someone suggested a central upgrade server for windows update on the forums. 

But all of the above are Microsoft add-ons.The big thing is that WHS will have an SDK. Imagine that. Need somthing? Build it. The question is how wide ranging the SDK will be in the first place.  The limits that are placed on using the server programatically will dictate in a big way how we can levegae the SDK in development ( i.e will we be able to access the backup engine? The Folder Duplication engine? will we be able to remote into client PC’s and perform tasks?). I can think of a few things I’d like the Server to do in its down time – like programatically checking that the server has actually backed up a client PC, or generating a XML representation of the Music Library and making sure all libraries are on the same page. Lots you can do.

As far as my Exchange 2007 Standard Evaluation install went, it didin’t go anywhere.  It resulted in a ton of errors when it carried out a bunch of tests and I’d ratehr deal with them when iIm not so busy. In any case at $699 a license, I’d rather spend the money on hard drives.

I was just poking around Outlook and came across Data File Management under the Files menu. It allows you to change the location of your .pst files. I’m wondering if I could copy them to WHS? That is, into a file the user has permissions to.And acess them from there. That means that, in theory, whatever changes you make are instantly replicated to your Outlook install that are configured to use that pst file. This raises all sorts of deconfliction and versioning issues – essentially hell. Or, there’s a Outlook add-on i downloaded some time ago ( don’t ask from where, please, but I think it was Microsoft) that backs up the files to a location that you choose. Thats another option.  

My adventures with WHS continue….