I’m not a fan of consumer laptops from Dell or HP, but I do like their business lines. They are heavy duty laptops which can take a beating while performing flawlessly. Now they have came out with the Latitude 13, which is part of the business line but had some of the design cues from the Dell Adamo which looked good but wasn’t successful. In this case this machine is thin and perfect size but packs a punch.

Specs:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 1.3 GHz
• Windows 7 Pro 32 Bit or XP Professional Downgrade
• 13.3″ Widescreen HD LCD with anti-glare (1366×768)
• Camera 1.3MP
• 4GB DDR3 1066
• SSD or HD
• External Optical Drive
• Intel WiFi Link 5100 a/g/n
• Blue Tooth

Link: Dell

I have been using this Sync tool for over two years now, Sync Toy is a tool developed by Microsoft just for fun. Its not really supported by them but they have made decent improvements with it. Been using it since version 1.4, to 2.0, and now 2.1 which is a huge leap forward in comparison. A lot of features have been added and bugs have been fixed. The best tool I have found to sync drives or folders with lots of files and subfolders inside of it with little issue and lots of customization is Sync Toy. I needed it to Sync the different folders between the WHS Hazmat Server and the WHS Hazard Server. One will balance the other in file storage which won’t require any need for file duplication. It now supports 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems, works locally on a machine and across networks.

The first folder I needed to Sync was my Anime folder which is 2.49 TeraBytes of media, this is to be done across the network. Testing the file transfer it would transfer between 78 MB/s to 86 MB/s between both the machines so I start the transfer earlier in the evening for it end the next afternoon. Overall its the perfect free tool from Microsoft for all Syncing purposes, two-way sync, or one-way sync and lots of other combinations available.

Link: Microsoft Download

There are a lot of access points out on the market, and I have tried quite a few, been through 2 Netgear, 2 Linksys, 1 Belkin, and 3 D-Link. Out of all them I would avoid Belkin, probably the worst out of all the products, was horrible out of the box, worse support and I would avoid all their products period. Linksys are good but not what it used to be, I still prefer the older models then the new consumer models. Netgear is nice when its working but after a while it would hang, I would have to plug it and unplug it, and one of them just stopped working. Overall the best solid products with little nonsense and high features are D-Link products.

Models

• D-Link DAP 1160
• D-Link 2100 AP
• D-Link 7100 AP

What I like out of them is full security features, MAC Filter, DHCP control, simple setup, and reasonably priced.

This is one of the most complex Windows Home Server systems that we have built yet, and it drove us nuts. We started this project out in June of 2009 and didn’t finish it until March of 2010. We have reinstalled this system probably 4 times to have a clean install, its sensitive to install any Windows Home Server Ad-Ins once its working. We wanted the ultimate WHS Storage with the large capacity all in one unit, it would take a certain hardware setup to achieve this and thats what we aimed for. We suffered set backs, my system at one point just had a black screen, we switched out the motherboard, and nothing, we switched graphics cards, still nothing, changed the ram, and at the end it turned out to be a faulty power supply. Luckily my friend and myself were building the same system together so we just kept on testing as we went along, we got busy towards the end of 2009 but this was one difficult machine to get fully stable. I slowly kept gathering more and more 2 TB Hard Drives, we started off with 10 x 2 TB Drives and I just kept ordering a few when I saw a deal for them. Now that the system is operational it fantastic, we are doing some stress testing, its looking good with transfer speeds of 78 to 90 MB/s over the network which is the fast I have seen.

HW Configuration:

• Norco 4220 Case
• ASUS P3S WS
• Intel Quad Core Q8200 2.33 Ghz
• OCZ Vertex 120 GB SSD (Main HD)
• G Skill 4 GB
• 2 x Sata SAS Controllers (To Control 20 HDs)
• ATI Radeon 7500

With the Sata SAS controllers we could use the extremely effecient and powerful SF8087 connectors to connect to each one of those back planes. Each back plane held 5 drives with 4 back planes for a total of 20 drives. Overall I installed 17 out of the 20 drives with e Western Digital 2 TB Drives to get it up to 30 + TB, and I have a little bit more room to go, I think I can get it to 36 TB with the last few drives. Going overboard with the storage is understatement in my case, but it has been a long and arduous trip with this machine but with a clean install and the right setup its very solid.

Now with Windows Home Server running on Windows Server 2003 it has taken a lot of steps forward Power Pack 3 and all the patches. Now I have two WHS servers running, one is extremely solid and this new one, planning on running one as back up to the other so I have two complete back solutions for the other. Now I’m just waiting for Windows to release Vail which Windows Home Server built on Windows Server 2008 which is a huge step forward. When that is out I’m going to just format and reinstall one of the systems and test it out.

To fix this issue we had t reinstall Windows Home Server from scratch and check which hard drives had issues. So we did a clean install which takes a little under an hour, then installing all the updates on the WHS Server as including Power Pack 2 and Power Pack 3. The whole process took about 2 hours and then another hour to test the hard drives using one Add-In called SMART which shoes you which hard drive might have bad sectors and might be failing. If a hard drive has more then 10 bad sectors, send it in to be RMAed and luckily Western Digital has a very good RMA process for all their hard drives. Out of a large number of drives only two were need to be sent back to be replaced. I have learned from numerous installs and hardware configurations that having a clean updated install without any Add-Ins will have the smoothest operating Windows Home Server, any of the faults that I have received after a clean install was always due to an Add-In, so I did without it and it was the solution as the P80 install is what caused many of the issues.

Side Note:
Windows 7 is fantastic, lots of preloaded drivers for lots of items, and I have installed some odd hard ware which works perfectly. The whole install of a machine took no more then 7 minutes to get everything working smoothly with a complex machine, and Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit was up and running.

As of recently my WHS Server has gone through a major Hardware failure, and luckily WHS seems to be handling it to a degree, but there is only so much it can take. My setup is one Back Plane inside the Lian Li case with two Sans Digital Tower Raids each holding up to 8 Hard Drives each connected through eSata with a PCI-e interface.

This setup works perfectly except that the Sans Digital Tower Raid failed before and once I replaced it, it all worked perfectly again. Its rare that two hard drives fail at the same time, and its very rare that three hard drives fail at the same time but in this case its 5 hard drives which are becoming inaccessible meaning its hardware failure at the interface level and not the hard drives again. I’m looking for an alternative solution because this has gotten ridiculous.

Results of inaccessible Hard Drives:

• Usually I get 40 to 70 MB/s on my network when streaming shows or transfering files but due to the system unable to find files or trying to search for them it drops down to 0.58 to 4 MB/s and sometimes stopping to think. It finishes the job but you get stopped sometimes
• Files go missing due to the missing hard drives which makes it difficult to continue watch any episodes, you have file duplication running but because of this mass Hard Drive failure so files are not accessible so you can watch a few episodes and can’t see the rest of the show

This is an interesting yet simple concept, a website that has your four most important destinations as its main page. Cookies have to be enabled for this work, you can customize the list of websites from available and you can suggest a popular website to them but I’m not sure how long that would take to get done. Overall I really like how clean it is, surprisingly Bing & Google Search aren’t on the list but they plan on integrating it into the main page as searchable area, I think that would complete it.

Its a great start to the idea and cleanly implemented, the next step would be to let people customize their own links with their own logos, then at that point it wouldn’t just be cookie based, there would be users with their own load up page. The trick would to have full customization and still keep it that smooth.

Link: Fav4.Org

The simple way to explain Google Buzz is that its a feed of what your doing online, initially its all Google Related sites which is an automatic feature. Whats surprising is how Google launched this so silently with no buzz, contrary to its name. But it can be really interesting connecting all people on your list and friends list together, and following the activity of more people. Its getting a bit jumbled with Google Reader as its automatically following more people, and sometimes keeps adding them back in so Buzz is being integrated across all Google Platforms.

To Modify what your sharing go to the Buzz Page under your inbox in Gmail, right there click on view connected site to change which sites will show on your Google Buzz as well as how they are shared. You can even add individual websites so the website activity shows up on your Google Buzz. What you do want to do is stop other people who don’t know the people on your list from viewing them, its as if you are showing the world your contacts, that is a bad automated feature from Google. These steps are provided by Lifehacker but here is the simple breakdown:

Go to your Google Profile: Then click the link labeled “Edit Profile” and on that page just follow the steps below.

UnCheck: “Display the list of people I’m following and people following me”

What I Dont like:

• Automatically shows who is following you and who you are following
• Your Google Chat conversations are put up for all to see as well as other data automatically
• It isn’t intuitive in how to unshare certain features
• Slightly intrudes in your privacy if you don’t know how to control it

What I like:

• It sort of pools all your activity into one window for friends to see, from Google Reader, Flickr, Twitter, Individual Websites
• Friends can comment on your activity and your details are kept within the Buzz page
• For once Google introduced a new item which integrates across all their platform
• You can really customize the details that are presented but all these details aren’t on one page

You can click on individual people to remove them from following you or you following them, and in the grey notes just under that button it will say they won’t know that you did it. Or you can it turn off Buzz completely, its all about how comfortable you are sharing this kind of information. Google is pushing into the realm of Facebook and other types of social networking but not just communication, its based on your content and what your doing, people can see and comment as well as you can comment on what there doing.

Overall I like it because its connecting friends on a different level and I’m enjoying it.

After having some time aside I have taken to completing the WHS server, and as well as taking a few things apart I decided to continue the build on my Intel Extreme Dual Processor Motherboard. I decided to use the spare parts that I had from all the different machines, as well as a few parts that are laying around. I used the Thermaltake Kandalf case from my old WHS Server since its such an excellent case, fits the huge motherboard perfectly, and its a very solid case.

Parts List:

• Intel DX5400XS – Skulltrail (Dual Processor)
• 8 GB DDR2 800 Ram
• 80 GB SSD Drive
• DVD-Writer
• HIS ATI Radeon 4870
• Backplane (Space for 5 Drives)
• Corsair 1000W Power Supply

Putting this system together I decided to put Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit on the machine, and I’m assuming its going to run blazing fast with this specifications. This will be my honest try using Windows 7 this time around. Finishing projects and getting up and running is a very good feeling, now I just have to clean up all the electrical parts that are laying around all over the place.

There are quite a few players out there and the best being VLC, but sometimes you want a the right set of codecs to play the audio and video perfectly with your computer or home theater system. The problem being faced with some machines is that the hardware can’t playback 720p or 1080p, but that also has to do with the codecs and how they process the high definition video.

Usually the best for any PC is usually VLC since its free and works perfectly, and if I have any issues I then download the K-Lite Codec Pack which covers it perfectly. Then there is the introduction of the netbooks, they work perfectly except for video playback of high definition video being 720p or 1080p. Some mentioned they playback 720p but were still choppy, after going through so many forums and testing out all the different kinds of players and the best two are VLC & Media Player Classic (K-Lite Codec Pack), best the codec for any of these two players is Core AVC even with their own Codecs. After installing it on my HP 5101 it started to play 720p video perfectly, but you can’t really multitask with the netbook with 720p playback taking on. Even after trying it on different machines Core AVC seemed to be the only recurring solution across all forums and different machines, it works even better with Nvidia powered notebooks.

Codecs(Some Players Included):

• VLC Player
• K-Lite Codec Pack
• Core AVC

Best Codec:

• Core AVC