A Networked Home

Archive for the ‘Networking’ Category

For a while now I have wanted to add a media center PC to my entertainment center rack in the living room.  As more and more content has become available online that desire has grown - Netflix on-demand, Hulu, etc.  Not to mention a few years ago I ripped all of our 600+ CD’s to an external hard drive and I really wanted to have that easy digital access with my Yamaha A/V Receiver and speakers.

Recently I made up my mind to finally take the plunge with an affordable DIY version of the Media Center.

I began by scanning Ebay for an existing, working box with the one criteria being the shape - a desktop instead of a tower.  This would make it much easier to fit into the rack since it has the basic stereo component shape.

I ended up bidding on, and winning, a Compaq Pentium 4 with a fresh install of XP Pro.  It has 512mb of RAM and a 40GB hard drive.  On-board sound and video round out this basic package.

Like I said, the important thing here was the form, so now the real work begins…

I have a new Dell laptop running Windows Vista and a desktop running XP Pro.  Everything was going well on my network until I tried to send a Word doc from the laptop to the printer which is hooked to the desktop.  No luck.

I figured I needed to “install” the printer on the laptop.  So, I ckicked on “Add a new printer” and chose the “wireless” option.  Silly me!  Imagine, trying to use logic in a Windows enviroment!

As it turns out you have to throw logic out the window on this one.

• Choose “Add a local printer”.
• Click “Create a new port”.
• The default is “Local port” and you need to stick with that one.
• Click “Next”.
• A box appears asking for the port name (printer address).  Type “\\computer name/printer name” (without the quotation marks - in my case \\Desktop-1\Stylus-C86)

And you are done.  This worked perfectly for me but a couple of other people did still have printer issues.

Having recently run some new ethernet cables in my home I got to thinking about what exactly the differences are between the Cat 5E I was running and the older Cat 5 standard and the latest Cat 6 standard.

To start:

• Cat 5 is rated to 100m (100MHz)
• Cat 5E is rated to 350m (100MHz)
• Cat 6 is rated to 550m or 1000m (Depending on you source) (200MHz)

Both Cat 5E and Cat 6 are backwards compatible.

For general home use any of the 3 would be fine, but if you want to “future-proof” your home, or if you are wiring an office then Cat 6 is the way to go.

If you would like to read some more in-depth analysis of these cables then here are a few good links:

• http://www.connectworld.net/syscon/support.htm
• http://www.broadbandutopia.com/caandcaco.html
• http://discountcablesusa.com/ethernet-cables100.html 

The standard wireless router comes with 4 wired ports on the back (plus the line-in).  For most people this is plenty.  But if you need more, or need more than one wired connection in a different part of the home, then you are a candidate for a Wired Network Switch.

This is a simple “dumb” box with multiple ethernet ports on the back.  Any, and all, of the ports can function as in or out.  You can run an ethernet cable out of your wireless router to the wired switch.  You can plug into any of the ports and all of the other ports will then become outs to wherever you need connectivity.

I recently installed one in my basement and ran a connection off of my wireless router  in the office down to it.  I then used the switch to run two new connections to my living room - one to a media center PC and one to the DirecTV DVR.

Personally, I used a D-Link DES-1105.  There was absolutely no setup of any kind needed.  I simply plugged in the ethernet cables and it all worked.  The best part was that it was $9.99 via TigerDirect!

Over on Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows, he’s reporting that an update to the Windows Home Server will be shipping in the first half of 2008.  I haven’t yet purchased one of these devices, but I was on the beta test and I like it a lot.

It looks like, among the features, are 2 very cool updates to the Server Data Backup and Remote Access.

I have an older Dell Inspiron 5100 notebook which I recently “fixed” by installing Linux Ubuntu 7.04 on. This laptop is primarily used by my wife. Our printer (Epson Stylus C86) is connected to the main desktop PC in the office. In order to share this printer wirelessly to the laptop a few steps had to be taken:

1: Click “Start”, “Printers and Faxes” and then right-click the printer you want share and choose “sharing”.

2: Click the “Share This Printer” radio button.

3: Now you need to move to the Linux PC and find the driver for your printer. You can try the web site for the printer manufacturer, but in most cases, they won’t have a Linux driver so you need to move to the open-source community. There are countless driver web sites out there. Here are 2 good ones:

Free Drivers Downloads

Driverscollection.com

4: On the Linux PC, choose “System”, “Administration” and “Printing”.

5: Choose “Windows Printer via SAMBA”.

6: Then browse your network for the printer (unless you changed it, your default network will be MSHOME - double click that and follow the trail to the printer)

This should be all you need to print wirelessly from your Linux box to a printer hooked to a Windows PC on your network!

I just read on Gizmodo of the upcoming release of the Ziova CS615 (press release). This sounds like something I have been looking for for sometime now. For a couple of years I have been looking at all the options for pulling the content off of the PC network and into the living room.

Recently I have been using a Y-cable plugged into the Yamaha RX-V661 A/V receiver (the other end plugged into either the laptop or the Zune) to access our music collection on the external hard drive in the office.

Our TV (Vizio 37″ LCD) has a PC monitor (VGA) input, but I have yet to hook the laptop to that to try video and pictures yet.

I had been planning to pick up a used PC on the cheap and add RAM, a large hard drive, TV tuner card, etc and run XP MCE, but perhaps Ziova will change my mind on that option.

I am hoping to get a test box to review and we will see from there if things live up to the hype.

I have been using the new Zune 4 GB Digital Media Player Black (2nd Generation) player now for about 3 weeks and I think it’s fair to give my review.

The Interface

I can’t say enough about the new user interface on the Zune. It’s clean and the menu is large and easy to read.

A big addition is the support for podcasts, which is the main source of my daily listening. In addition, it does pictures, video and, of course, music. The settings menu allows you to use one of your pictures as the wallpaper as well.

The “Squircle” (Microsoft’s word not mine) is actually quite easy to use and scrolls very nicely through long menus.

Video

The video produces a surprisingly clear picture for the screen size. I would have no trouble watching a show on it while on the road.

The nice part about this is that videos play in wide screen format and when you turn the Zune sideways for viewing the “Squircle” turns with it so you can still control volume, forward and rewind in the logical way.

Wireless Syncing

There is a misconception I have heard several times now, even from Leo Laport. It goes like this: “The wireless syncing can only be done when the device is plugged into its dock.”

This is absolutely NOT true. While wireless syncing happens automatically when you plug the Zune into its dock, it is not the only way. You can go into the Settings menu, choose Wireless and then choose Sync Now and it will sync wirelessly.

A word of caution though - wireless syncing is SLOW. I used it a couple of times just to see how it worked, but now I just plug into the PC.

The other wireless feature - sending a song or podcast to another Zune within WiFi range - is something I have not tested.

Zune Software

Nothing major to report here. The software is clean and easy to use. The podcast category is growing quickly. The only issue I have is that non-podcast video content (music videos, etc.) is hard to find.

Output to Another Device

I used a standard Y-cable to connect the Zune to our A/V receiver and played music through the stereo with no noticeable loss of sound quality, even at high volume.

The 4 and 8GB versions do not do video output so I will reserve comments on this for now. But maybe an 80GB player with video-out is in my future…

One Issue I Have

I have encountered one very strange issue. When I plug the Zune into my PC, my scanner (Canon Canoscan LiDE90) immediately calibrates. This is followed by a message from the system tray that an unrecognized USB device has been encountered and could not be installed. For lack of any other solution I now unplug the scanner first.

Wrap-Up

As you have probably gathered by now, I am very happy with this player. I have no problem recommending one to others. The only problem you may have is if you have invested money in music from other services. The DRM for Microsoft’s Play-For-Sure and Apple’s ITunes is not compatible.

(Click the above image for a full view) 

I wanted a simple backup plan that would prevent me from manually copying files to an external hard drive once a week, not to mention one that covered much more than once per week.

I had an old HP desktop in storage so I purchased a new 320GB internal hard drive and a KVM switch.

I removed the stock 40GB drive after running Boot and Nuke. Unfortunately, I was doing this right before we moved and I tossed that drive out to save space. Now I wished I had kept it for possible future use.

I installed the new drive, plugged the PC into the router and the KVM switch, which I also hooked to my current desktop PC, and booted up.

I installed a VERY scaled down version of XP. I used an extra copy of Media Center, but didn’t actually install any MC components. The only extra I allowed was installing Firefox (just in case).

The first program I tried using was Microsoft’s SyncToy, which I had heard good things about. It required me using Windows Task Scheduler, which I found required me to set a password for logon. I did this, although I have no need for one on the this desktop PC. Then I encountered further compatability problems and decided to go looking for something less intrusive.

I found GoodSync on a Download.com search. I have to say I was under the impression that it was totally free, but later found that only half true.

The program worked flawlessly though. It gave me the ability to sync 2 folders to match or to sync only left-right or right-left.

I chose left-right and began choosing the folders I wanted backed up - My Documents on the C drive and the My Pictures and My Videos which were housed on an external hard drive that plugged in via USB 2.0 (G Drive). All of these I put on the “left side” in GoodSync.

I created folders on the new “backup PC” with logical names - “documents Backup”, “pictures backup”, etc. These I placed on the “right side” of GoodSync. I chose a backup schedule of every 2 hours and I was done!

Now every 2 hours my desktop PC queries my backup PC to check the files and copies (and deletes) the files on the desktop to the files on the backup. I am protected from hard drive failure - but not from natural disaster. That will be answered by off-site storage, which is a topic for another day.

A few things to watch:

• I originally chose plain old “Sync” but soon realized that every time I deleted something that within 2 hours it would be back because this option makes sure each folder matches by syncing BOTH ways. Left-right may cause me to not get a previously deleted file back, but it is much less of a headache.
• The program is not totally free. It is totally free for 30 days and then resorts to a hobbled version which can be used free forever - providing you stick to the very limited limitations. However, the full version is only $19, which by today’s software standards is close enough to free.

FINAL ANALYSIS

I highly recommend GoodSync as an easy-to-use and very affordable backup solution that works for the technologically advanced as well as the casual user.

Well, this is the first in what will probably be a series of articles as I get into using the new Zune 4 GB Digital Media Player Black (2nd Generation).

The package arrived in fine shape and the unpacking was as dramatic as any product I’ve seen. The box was well-packaged and contained the player, headphones and USB plug.

I went to the Zune Site and installed the software (a fairly large 32MB file which downloaded VERY fast). The first time I ran it, it did hang up and I was forced to reboot, but I have had no problems since. Everything is very simple to use on both the player and PC software. My first concern was Podcasts and that was very easy to set up.

But, I did have a small issue with trying to stop it from downloading EVERY episode, which, of course, meant all of the ones I’d heard before. Fortunately, a right click on the file produces both the “Cancel Download” and “Mark as Played” options and clicking those fixed this. My next biggest concern was setting up wireless syncing, and here I will need to do more work. The setup was simple enough in the Zune software. The first connection failed, but a trip to my router’s dashboard to add the Zune to my list of allowed network devices was very simple - the Zune even provides it’s MAC address in case you need it. So far I’ve been able to connect to my network and get a message saying that sync has completed, but I have NOT seen the new files appear on the player.

I will continue to play around with this and will post more on it soon. In the meantime, I have seen that Toys ‘r’ Us has listed the Zune 30GB for $79.99 on Black Friday and my wife wants an MP3 player…and the 2nd gen software in available for upgrade to first gen machines…and I hope she doesn’t read this…