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Tonight, I turned my old MythTV box into a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device. Originally, I was going to go and buy a Linksys NAS200 but then figured there had to be a way I could reuse the MythTV box. I stopped using the MythTV box when Cablevision started removing more and more channels that didn’t require a set-top box. I would prefer to have something with a hardware RAID built-in (either RAID1 or RAID5/6), but for now I’m just testing it out. I googled for ‘free NAS’ and found I had three options: FreeNAS, OpenFiler, and Ubuntu Server Edition.
I chose FreeNAS because it was a smaller download, and seemed to be the NAS software of choice. It supports a software RAID (0, 1, or 5), which is OK but I’d rather have a hardware RAID, so I’d have to install a RAID card into the computer if I wanted to use a free software option. I like that it can monitor the hard drives and email me if it detects an issue. It’s based on a different operating system that I’m not too familiar with but it is close enough to Linux that I don’t have too much to learn.
If I wind up running into any issues, I’ll probably skip OpenFiler and just install Ubuntu Server Edition.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been running Windows 7 on my home PC. I tested out a beta copy of Vista, for work, when it was available and despised it. I didn’t like getting bothered every time I wanted to do something and get asked if I really wanted to do that something. I was hoping Windows 7 would fix that, and it has for the most part. I still get asked when I want to install programs I’ve download off of the web. Hopefully, when Windows 7 is the majority version of Windows used, there will be a way to verify that the program you downloaded and are trying to install is legit and it’ll only warn you if it’s not sure (similar to drivers are digitally signed).
I like Windows 7 compared to Vista and am slowing getting used to it. I figure it’ll take me a few months of using it before I’m as proficient as I am with Windows XP. I do like how they’ve reduced the buttons in the taskbar to just the icon and it changes to a stacked icon if you have more than one instance of that program running. I also like how I can minimize a video, while it’s running, and watch it by just mousing over the icon in the taskbar. I still don’t care for all my programs being listed in the start menu. I prefer the way it is in XP where it cascades into columns. Because of this, I’ve begun pinning some of the apps I use frequently in the task bar. I even pinned the command prompt so I don’t even have to do ‘Windows+r –> cmd’ in order to check or renew my IP address. Another neat “feature” is the 3D version of Alt-Tab called “Flip 3D”. It’s the same thing as Alt-Tab, except you see each window from an angle and they shuffle like playing cards.
I don’t see myself running back to XP anytime soon and Windows 7 seems to follow the “every other version” belief I have. Ever since I’ve been using a Windows machine (back when 3.11 was out), Microsoft has gotten every other version of their OS right. In my opinion, 95 was horrible (mostly because it was completely different than what I was used to. A transition to a start button and taskbar would’ve been better); 98 (especially 98SE) was good; Me never should’ve been sold, XP has been great; Vista could almost be considered as bad as Me was, if not worse.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about cloud computing, where most of the work is done on the Internet. One of the first uses of cloud computing has been web-based file storage services like Dropbox and FilesAnywhere. There are three main choices, that I know about right now, when it comes to online file storage (if you don’t count typical FTP/SFTP file servers, etc) – Box.net, Dropbox and FilesAnywhere.
Box.net offers 1GB of storage for free with a 25MB file size limit. For $10/month, you can upgrade to 5GB of storage, and a 1GB file size limit. You also have the ability to view the previous five versions of a file, with the paid membership. Right now, unfortunately, Box.net doesn’t have a utility to upload/sync files to their storage from a Windows, Mac or Linux computer, but they do have an iPhone app.
Dropbox offers 2GB of storage for free. Files uploaded to Dropbox via the desktop application have no file size limit. There is, however, a 300MB cap on files transferred via the website. For $10/month, you can upgrade to 50GB of storage; or for $20/month, you can upgrade to 100GB of storage. Dropbox keeps snapshots of every saved change in your Dropbox folder over the last 30 days. If you upgrade to one of their paid versions, they offer a service called Pack-Rat, which keeps an unlimited amount of previous versions and deleted files. Dropbox also offers an iPhone app.
FilesAnywhere offers 1GB of storage for free, and doesn’t appear to have a file size limit for uploading, but free accounts have download limits of 10MB per-file and 25 downloads/day.
I have an account with all three services, but if I had to choose only one, I would choose Dropbox. They even offer a way to get up to 3GB of storage for free by getting other people to sign up. They add an extra 250MB of storage to both my account and the person who signed up, when they use a referral link.

It has been one month since I purchased my iPhone 3GS. So far, the only thing I miss is having a flash for the camera, and I really don’t miss a flash that much. I have my Canon A590IS if I know ahead of time that I’ll be taking pictures in no/low light. I wish AT&T and Apple would get off their high horses and allow the Qik app in the App Store. I tried Qik out when I jailbroke my iPhone 3G and loved the idea of streaming video TO the Internet. I haven’t replaced my iPod with the iPhone yet. I figure as long as the iPod still works (even though I seem to have to charge it every other day instead of once a week like when it was brand new), I might as well keep using it.

Technorati Tags: 3GS, Apple, iPhone

11 months after purchasing my iPhone 3G, I purchased the new iPhone 3GS today at the Apple Store at Fifth Avenue. I reserved the phone through Apple’s website about 2 weeks ago when it was announced. I got a little concerned yesterday when I got an email from Apple reminding me about the reservation and I read the fine print – “Reservation does not guarantee iPhone availability at an Apple Retail Store. iPhone is sold on a first-come, first-served basis.” This made me think there was a possibility that I would have to wait even longer to get the new iPhone. I could either drive into the city with my Cobalt (not really something I wanted to do since the car is only 2 years old) or take the earliest train I could (4:45AM arriving in NYC at 6:15) and pray that the line wasn’t so long that I wouldn’t get a phone. I got to the store at 6:30AM and they had two separate lines, one for people who reserved a phone and one for people who decided to camp out. I walked into the store about 7:10 and by 7:30, I was walking out with my brand new 32GB black iPhone 3GS. I had to pay $499 instead of the $299 other people got to pay because I wasn’t completely eligible for an upgrade. To offset the extra $200, I sold my old iPhone 3G to a coworker.
I’ve played with it a bit today. It’s not much different than the iPhone I had, except for video recording, compass, and voice controls. I also wanted more storage so I don’t have to carry an iPod anymore.

Technorati Tags: 3GS, Apple, iPhone

After reading about the money management site Rudder in an article on Lifehacker, I thought I would check it out and see if I liked it more than Mint. I’ve been using Mint to track all of my finances for quite some time now. I tried Quicken Online when it became free but, at the time, it didn’t have all of my financial institutions listed. I recently logged in and they have added the places where I have accounts which had been missing when I first joined. Like Quicken Online, Rudder doesn’t have all of my financial institutions listed. It, however, is only missing one, whereas Quicken Online was missing two. Rudder also can’t track loans. It can only keep track of checking, savings, and credit card accounts right now. When I gave it the info for my American Express login, it only returned two of my three Amex cards. An unreleased feature, which I would like to see on Mint, is Goals. They don’t give much information about it but, if I had to guess, I would say you would provide how much money you want to save towards a goal (first home, car, emergency fund, etc.) and when you would like to reach that goal, and it would tell you how much money you have to save each month to reach that goal. Nowadays, with automatic scheduled transfers, anyone can do that if their bank offers it.

Technorati Tags: Mint, Mint.com, Quicken, Rudder

I bit the bullet today and jailbroke my iPhone 3G using QuickPwn. I’ve been thinking about it for a while so I could record video and stream video to the Internet using Qik. Qik is supposed to have an approved app for the iPhone but Apple as yet to approve it. Some other neat things I am now able to include:

• Themes
• Five icons in the dock
• Five columns in the springboard
• Tethering – so I can surf the Internet on a regular computer using the connection on my iPhone

If Apple ever does finally release a firmware for the iPhone that includes video recording and/or approves the Qik app, I might switch back to an unjailbroken iPhone.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, jailbreak, QuickPwn

About three months ago, I was using Twitterific as my default Twitter client on my iPhone. I liked it except it didn’t separate incoming tweets from @replies and direct messages. TwitterFon has separate areas for each of these and it also shows the latest tweets since the last time you ran the program. When Twitterific updates their program, I may give it another chance even though the free version is ad supported.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, TwitterFon, Twitterific

A few weeks ago I bought a Canon PowerShot A590IS digital camera from Newegg.com to replace my aging HP Photosmart 720. The HP was only 3MP, which was fine since I didn’t print many of the pictures I took. The Canon is an 8MP camera so I have the flexibility to print any photo I take. I wish the camera had GPS built-in so when I upload pics to Flickr, it would already be geotagged. I was thinking about getting the Eye-Fi Explore but I’m not too sure how accurate it would be only using WAPs. I wonder how long it will be before all cameras come with GPS built-in. If my iPhone can have GPS built-in, I don’t understand why camera manufacturers can’t find the room to put it into their models.

I downloaded the Windows 7 Beta on Monday after Microsoft fixed the bandwidth issues they were having when they originally attempted to release it on the 9th. When Microsoft released the Windows Vista Beta a couple of years ago, we downloaded it at work and installed it on one of machines to see how different it was than XP. Personally, I didn’t care for Vista when it came out. It looked nice but I didn’t care for having the ‘Programs’ menu from XP fill up the Start menu area in Vista. I also got a little tired of being asked if I wanted to allow something every time I went to try and do anything. I also had trouble finding all of common techy areas I knew how to get to in every other version of Windows since 95 (i.e. Show Hidden Files and Folders).
When I installed Win7, I was a little hesitant to using it. Supposedly, it boots faster than Vista but I don’t have any computers running Vista to compare it to. Microsoft fixed the UAC (User Access Control), which was the annoying little pop-up that would ask if you wanted to allow things to be done, in Vista SP1 but so it was nice to see it not show up every 5 seconds.
There was one change that I’ve noticed already in Windows 7 that I do like. Currently running programs, which in previous Windows would show up as buttons with both the program’s icon and some text, now show up as only the program’s associated icon. This neatens up the taskbar considerably. When you mouse over one of the buttons, it gives a preview of what is currently running in that program. One example would be Word. If you have MS Word running and minimized, you will see a preview of all of the Word documents currently open.
Windows 7 comes with Internet Explorer 8 Beta. This looks and acts just like IE7, except when you open links from one tab in a new tab. IE8 color codes that tab the same color so the user knows they’re connected. I haven’t poked around enough with it yet to see if this functionality can be turned off.
This beta is currently good through August of this year, so I have the next 7 months to play around with it and decide if I’ll give it a chance when it’s released or if I dump Windows all together and go to either Mac or Linux.

Technorati Tags: Windows, Windows 7, Windows Vista