Amazon Cloud Drive Musings

April 2, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

After uploading all of my Amazon MP3 purchases to my Amazon Cloud Drive, I used almost all of the 5GB that Amazon provided. I felt a little cheated because I made these purchases through Amazon. Amazon is even making you offers of additional storage for new MP3 purchases. Since I can see the record of all of these “legacy” transactions on my Amazon account, why couldn’t Amazon honor these purchases?
And then it struck me: Amazon is killing many birds with a single stone.

If you purchase and leave your music on Amazon, then Amazon saves a lot of money. They can keep a single copy of the song in their storage farm. And then they just point your Cloud Drive pointer to this original content. If you have a really popular album, then they save multiple instances of storage. And these savings apply to transmission costs as well. Why download 100 or 1,00 or 10,000 copies of a song to thousands of customers? Cut out the storage costs and cut out the download costs. [Note: The transmission costs do occur on the back-end whenever you listen to the music. In fact, each time you listen to the music, you and Amazon are incurring that download.]
Amazon can layer any number of services back into this offering. They can include cover art, and all sorts of other metadata. And they can add things over time.
Amazon is storing the content – so they control it. This may not sound like much. But I suspect that this is a big deal to their content partners. For content that Amazon vends and stores, there is no real issue. But if a customer uploads content and it turns out that the content is obviously unlicensed, then Amazon has rights regarding content embargoes, content filtering and even content elimination. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon does content analysis on behalf of their content partners.

And none of these benefits accrue for older purchased content that would need to be reloaded back to Amazon.
But Amazon is risking very little by not addressing legacy purchases. They have a much bigger issue that they must address head-on: customer perception. Amazon is risking a lot based upon their belief that customers won’t mind having their content stored for them. I’m not certain if this is a good bet or not.
People get positively possessive about things that they have purchased. They want to use it in all sorts of ways. For example, I like to include song snippets in videos that I’ve bult for the kids and their sports teams. I would be upset if I had paid for content and couldn’t use it. In fact, I would consider that a violation of fair use. Not having access to this content in any way that I want (and at any time that I want) may result in some very dissatisfied customers.
For my part, I am still unsure about having “rights” to something without having anything substantial. Thus far, I only have two movies purchased via Amazon Video on Demand. [Note: I’ve also completed my first Amazon MP3 purchase that is stored exclusively on Amazon’s servers.] Yet I have dozens of digital movies on my media server. And I have hundreds of DVD and Blu-Ray discs in a cabinet. And I have thousands of digital music files on my media server. I could certainly buy more “rights” to other content that is stored off-site. But it just doesn’t seem the same to me. Proximity equals control and control equals confidence.
As I think about it, I like the Amazon Kindle model a little bit better. I do have the rights to books I’ve ordered. And I can view them anywhere – as long as I download them first. [Note: I do wonder why Amazon isn’t streaming book content as well as music content as it is less bandwidth intensive.] Either way, I feel very connected to the Kindle content – wherever it is. I think that this is because I have something to touch – i.e., the Kindle itself.
But I’m sure that Amazon customer studies have been through all of this. I am sure that they have recent data that suggests that younger customers are more comfortable with less concrete content. It’s just old farts like me that want to have something that is a little more tangible.
In a few years, all of this will be moot. Content will be stored in the cloud. And you won’t have direct and personal access to it – except via a technology broker (like Amazon). And that situation has the little “Lost in Space” robot (that is inside my head) screaming “Danger, Will Robinson.”
I am also reminded of the Doctor Who episode entitled “The Long Game.” In this episode, people have to pay for “access” to important information. The more you pay, the more “access” you receive. Surely this is not the future of computing. I certainly hope not.
-Roo

Liberty 2.0: Not Quite Gingerbread – But Very Sweet

April 2, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

The Android Gingerbread SDK has been out for many weeks. And we are just starting to see some custom ROM’s starting to show up. In fact, there was quite a bit of buzz about a “leak” of Verizon’s Droid 2 Gingerbread build. I was sorely tempted to dive right into this one.
But I chose to wait. I bypassed the fancy bauble that might have fascinated me for a moment. Instead, I decided to support @kejar and @jrummy by installing their latest build of the Liberty ROM. And I am so glad that I did. This new version of their ROM is wonderful. It is clean and fast. And it has all of the stability that you can expect from a Froyo-based build. And since it is based on the most common Android platform, all of the apps that I depend upon are fully supported on the build. Better still, I am comfortable because all of the newest apps are still within my reach – including the latest Amazon Cloud Drive player.
So what does Liberty 2.0 bring to the table? For me, the big ticket items are as follows:

Busybox 1.17.2
Sysctl enabled by default
Cron scheduler enabled
Some amazing updates to the Liberty Toolbox
Tons of themes, tons of fixes, and a couple key Blur features

Do these changes give me all that I want? Of course not. I want Gingerbread. Give me some of that sweetness. Of course, once I have that, I want some Honeycomb as well. But for now, I have Liberty – and I am thrilled. This version is more stable. This version looks sharper (mostly due to wider theme support). And this version runs everything I have. I can wait a little longer for Moto, Verizon and the Liberty team to give me Libertybread.
-Roo
P.S. As you may be able to tell, I’m using the EpicBlue Theme. It really rocks!
P.P.S. I went ahead and purchased the *Donate* version of the Liberty Toolbox (from the Amazon Market). You should too!

Does Amazon Have the Whole Enchilada?

April 2, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

For those who have read my musings for some time, you’ll know that I use a lot of Amazon services.

I have purchased music from Amazon for many years. Why would I use Amazon’s music service when iTunes owned the market? Because I really believe in competition. And I really believe in good prices. And I really believe in digital freedom. Consequently, I’ve bought many dozens of albums from Amazon’s music service. And recently, I’ve purchased from both my home computer and my Android phone.
I’ve also used Amazon’s Video service for a few years. Amazon decided that they would boldly venture into the same market that Netflix and Blockbuster had already captured. I originally chose Amazon because they weren’t Apple. But then I began to use their service more fully. And I realized that because they weren’t Apple, they were intrinsically better.
Yeah, that’s an exaggeration. But not by much. I bought a Panasonic Blu-Ray player. And it included streaming from Amazon VOD. Because both Amazon and Panasonic had an established history of leveraging open source technologies, it was a natural harmony. And as my Viera Cast capabilities grew, so have the Amazon VOD capabilities – especially with the Amazon prime membership that my wife has.
But while I’ve had Amazon VOD for about two years, I haven’t really exploited it much until I had the right wireless infrastructure at home. Now that I have that in place, it’s been wonderful using the Amazon service. I can get almost any video I want whenever I want it. And if I choose to buy it, then Amazon has provided a video locker to store the digital content in.
Since getting my Android phone last year, I have been waiting for Amazon to open up their own Android market. This week, they finally made it official and started vending apps using their retail purchasing engine. I haven’t bought a lot of apps from them yet. But if they provide the same application re-installs that the Google market does, then I may switch my purchases to Amazon. [Note: I really love automatic reinstallation of apps from the Android market. Every time that I switch ROM’s, I need to reload my system. So this is a sticking point for me.]

I’ve used a lot of “cloud-based” storage in the past. While at Microsoft, I tinkered with SkyDrive. BTW, this was a revolutionary concept that suffered from a horrible implementation. [Note: That is quite typical for many Microsoft technologies. They can always out-market you on technology that they acquire. And they can almost always build really cool new things. But they oftentimes have trouble building and marketing first-generation technology.]
But when SkyDrive didn’t seize the market, the most notable cloud-based storage tool in the market became DropBox. DropBox got a lot of the technology right. And they really captured a chunk of the geek market. Indeed, Cindy and I have used DropBox for several years. And it has been a wonderful success whenever she has needed a collaborative storage platform for her master’s degree classwork. But like SkyDrive, DropBox never made a big enough splash in the market to begin to seize the consumer marketplace.
And now it’s Amazon’s turn.
I REALLY love the cloud storage offering that Amazon released this week. If you’ve had your head in the clouds (or had your head stuck somewhere else), then I will tell you that the Amazon service is called the Amazon Cloud Drive. I love the name. It leverages the notion of the cloud (as popularized by Microsoft ads) and adds to it the simple and well-understood notion of the “drive” as storage. Hence, Cloud Drive may well be a marketing winner.
And the Cloud Drive offering is fairly complete. You can use it on your PC or Mac. And you can use it on your phone. And you can use it on a tablet. So far, it seems to really “sing” with music-based files. Of course, that makes sense as music files are the largest commodity that will be stored. It will be months (or maybe even years) before videos will become a ubiquitous on the service. So adroit mastery of music files hits the Amazon sweet spot.
And they have chosen a good niche for the amount of free storage. It is larger than either DropBox or SkyDrive. The current offering is 5GB for free. I suspect that Apple and Google may try and best this with a 25GB offering. But we’ll have to see. The folks at Forbes think that the first major reply will be to up the storage limits. If that happens, I would bet that Amazon will respond. That might be a fun price war to watch.
So far, I really like the first volley in the impending digital storage wars. Like the folks at Forbes, I see Apple and Google jumping in on this. And I think that Google may just buy DropBox. They don’t need the DropBox tech. But they may want the customers and the buzz. But I also think that you may see some other folks jumping in. I do believe that Microsoft may burnish and re-launch SkyDrive. If they do, this might be hella fun.
And I really think that storage vendors and media player vendors are going to want to get in on the action. While they may not be able to make a complete offering themselves, it will be nice to see how they are used as channel providers to the bigger players.
So what will it take to win? Winners (and survivors) will need the following:

They will need capital to purchase and implement the vast quantities of storage that may be required.
They will need established data center management skills to make the cloud-based storage initiative viable.
They will need marketing to get the message to customers
They will need partners for channel depth and diversity of correlated features/capabilities.
They will need digital content.
They will need a retail channel (with a strong purchasing and delivery engine).

Google has many of these. I do think that they lack diverse content – although YouTube does help. What they really need is some content partners – like Sony???
Apple has some of these. Nevertheless, they lack a robust and diverse partner ecosystem. Yes, they have lots of partners. But they re so closed that they are technologically inbred. And they don’t have a lot of online storage already in their pipeline. Yes, they sell content. But they don’t really store it for their customers. They move it to their customers’ devices.
Amazon has most of these (except for the brand identity across many markets). They do have all of the pieces in place. But no one knows that. They have content. They have storage. They have the retail channel. But they need critical mind-share in the consumer marketplace
I think that the market can bear all three of these big players – for now. And Amazon is first out of the gate. If they can capture enough early market, they may be the big winner.
I just wish that I could get “credit” for all of the Amazon MP3 purchases I’ve already made. I hate to move all my stuff right back to them – and then have to buy additional storage. It’s not fair! Wah! Wah! Wah!
-Roo

Milestones: Are They Worth Remembering?

March 27, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Um, yes! They are DEFINITELY worth noting. At least I think so. And since I’m writing this post, I think I’ll remember an important milestone for this year: For those who are reading this from my blog, you’ll notice that my Wigle counter has tipped over 10,000 discovered access points.
Is this a Christopher Columbus moment of discovery? Of course not. All it indicates is that I live in an affluent area where access points are very prevalent. Nevertheless, reaching this milestone is important to me. The number indicates that I’ve found over 10,000 access points during my recent bicycle commuting efforts. It is a symbol for lots of miles on my bike. And it implies prestige points in an otherwise invisible ego campaign! 😉
If you think about this mathematically, consider a circle with a radius of about twelve miles. Since my path is varied (i.e., not just a straight line), I must simplify and say that I ride within a given fraction of the circle. For further simplification, let’s assume that the slice is roughly an eighth of the circle’s area. That means that I’ve found 10K “new” access points in an area of approximately 56 1/2 square miles. That equates to 176+ access points per square mile.
That doesn’t sound like much. And it probably isn’t. But here are the probable reasons that the number is so low:
1) I have probably overestimated the size of my “slice” of the circle. In fact, I guarantee that I have because I ride on roads. If I were honest, I’d have to say that while I have ridden around an arc that is similar to 1/8 of the overall area, I’ve probably NOT covered that area very thoroughly. Indeed, the area that I have thorough coverage for may only be a sixty-fourth of the circle’s area. If I used that number, I’d see 1400+ access points per square mile!
2) There is a lot of unusable (and/or undeveloped) land between home and my office. So we have a very uneven distribution of houses and businesses. But we could simplify and assume that we have an evenly distributed population. If anything, I travel the more populous areas to ensure that I have ample visibility.
Of course, I’m not the only person who has pondered this subject. In fact, there is an awesome paper (written by Kipp Jones and Ling Liu of Georgia Tech) that talks about some of the issues associated with WiFi density in and around population centers.
And there is an even more impressive article by Luke Driskell (Lousiana State University). In his article, Mr. Driskell attempts to describe how WiFi density is a solid indicator of differences in the economic makeup of neighborhoods in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Of course, there are distinct implications (in Mr. Driskell’s paper) about how public WiFi may bridge some of the economic differences. But for purposes of my analysis, I just wanted to know whether 176+ access points per square mile is indicative of a lot of access points or simply a few.
So what have I determined? First, if I want to make conclusions from numbers, I need to be more rigorous. Second, I need to map my thesis to real demographic data (i.e., neighborhood economic data). I certainly observed that some of the poorer neighborhoods I ride through have fewer access points. But if I want to prove the hypothesis, I have to actually posit a real hypothesis – and then rigorously test it.
Since I don’t have time to do that, I’ll just make wild speculations from incomplete studies. That means I’m either a journalist, a politician or a weird hybrid being from both strains of homo americanus.
So here is the provable claim: I am excited that I have cataloged so many access points. Have I bested Mr. Dunker yet? No, I have not. At least, I haven’t YET. But I need to approach his numbers slowly – lest he react and overwhelm my meager findings with his larger antenna rig.
So yes, it is about size and it is about numbers!
-Roo

A Little Dab’ll Do Ya

February 21, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Sometimes, help comes from the oddest sources.

As you can probably tell by my last post, I really don’t like compromising on technical matters. But I had to compromise a little in order to achieve the download speeds that I wanted. Consequently, I chose to “relax” my desire to use DD-WRT.

But I couldn’t live with the compromise. So that’s where a little innovation (and some off-the-shelf “hair grease”) came into play.

The problem was simple: when I connected the new router to the new cable modem, I was seeing abysmal throughput. And the challenge only came when using DD-WRT. So it seemed fairly clear that there was a problem with DD-WRT and how it managed the WAN port connection to the cable modem. Since both the cable modem’s downstream link and the router’s upstream link were attempting a gigE connection, I suspected that the issue dealt with auto-negotiation of the WAN port.

What could I do to bypass the code problem? From the simplest viewpoint, all I needed to do was change the hardware between the two devices; I needed a little dab of low-cost grease that could shiny up the problem. So I bought a cheap tin of techno-Brylcreem: a Netgea GS105.

Brylcreem was a pomade used for your hair. Pomades were made from beeswax, petroleum jelly and a little wax. These off-the-shelf components would make your hair shiny – and practially immobile! 🙂 The GS105 was the “off-the-shelf” component that both the cable modem and the router would seamlessly connect to. Hopefully, this would be a classic work-around for the problem that DD-WRT was having with the Cisco DPC3010.

Did it work?

Absolutely! The GS105 was the little dab that made my network quite shiny. Once installed between the two devices, my bandwidth (as tested by Speedtest.net and Speakeasy.net) was back to my contracted expectations. W00t!

-Roo

A Little Dab'll Do Ya

February 21, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Sometimes, help comes from the oddest sources.
As you can probably tell by my last post, I really don’t like compromising on technical matters. But I had to compromise a little in order to achieve the download speeds that I wanted. Consequently, I chose to “relax” my desire to use DD-WRT.
But I couldn’t live with the compromise. So that’s where a little innovation (and some off-the-shelf “hair grease”) came into play.
The problem was simple: when I connected the new router to the new cable modem, I was seeing abysmal throughput. And the challenge only came when using DD-WRT. So it seemed fairly clear that there was a problem with DD-WRT and how it managed the WAN port connection to the cable modem. Since both the cable modem’s downstream link and the router’s upstream link were attempting a gigE connection, I suspected that the issue dealt with auto-negotiation of the WAN port.
What could I do to bypass the code problem? From the simplest viewpoint, all I needed to do was change the hardware between the two devices; I needed a little dab of low-cost grease that could shiny up the problem. So I bought a cheap tin of techno-Brylcreem: a Netgea GS105.
Brylcreem was a pomade used for your hair. Pomades were made from beeswax, petroleum jelly and a little wax. These off-the-shelf components would make your hair shiny – and practially immobile! 🙂 The GS105 was the “off-the-shelf” component that both the cable modem and the router would seamlessly connect to. Hopefully, this would be a classic work-around for the problem that DD-WRT was having with the Cisco DPC3010.
Did it work?
Absolutely! The GS105 was the little dab that made my network quite shiny. Once installed between the two devices, my bandwidth (as tested by Speedtest.net and Speakeasy.net) was back to my contracted expectations. W00t!
-Roo

Zombie "Kill of the Week"

February 19, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

There is a time and a place for everything. This week was the time to upgrade my infrastructure. I’ve had a wireless router since the beginning of the last decade. My first WiFi router was a 3Com device. It supported 802.11b. My next router(s) was a Linksys WRT54G that supported 802.11g. So now that the new wireless standard has finally been approved, it was time to upgrade to a device that supported802.11n – or whatever draft specification is currently under review/consideration/implementation.
I tend to be a thoughtful man when it comes to buying technology. So I considered the following:

A desire to stream video content
A multimedia infrastructure that used Ethernet connections to the TV, the Blu Ray player, and a game console
A room location that did not have Ethernet but needed a wireless Ethernet bridge
A need to link the high-speed infrastructure and a low-speed camera infrastructure (featuring an 802.11b access point)
My past experience with firmware (which included three years of using DD-WRT)
A desire to use open source components wherever possible
A need to upgrade my broadband bandwidth to support simultaneous streaming and web browsing
A desire to switch ISP’s in order to save some money

This was a daunting list. And I tried to meet every objective on the list. I think that I may have succeeded – but not without paying a price.
My first choice was to replace the wireless gear that I had. So I selected a Buffalo wireless router. In particular, I chose the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH as my new router. It uses the Atheros chipset for the radio. So I knew that it would provide the signal coverage that we need. It also ships from Amazon with DD-WRT. At the same time, I was tired of running a home-built wireless Ethernet bridge for the entertainment center. So I also purchased a Buffalo WLI-TX4-AG300N as a replacement bridge.
I installed that infrastructure last weekend. And it worked flawlessly with my Time Warner cable connection. But I still needed more bandwidth from my ISP – and I wanted to save a few bucks on my monthly cable expenses. So on Tuesday, I worked from home while my “cable guy” switched my infrastructure from Time Warner to SureWest. Why SureWest? Because we had used them many years ago when they were Everest. And now that I no longer needed any exclusive content from Time Warner, it was time to change.
The change was not as simple as I would have liked. First, SureWest needed to string new cable. OK, I could live with that. But then SureWest felt compelled to change the cable modem to a Cisco DPC-3010. This is a fine device. And I am sure that SureWest got quite a deal with Cisco. And I know that the Cisco gear is very manageable for the provider.
But the customer experience was awful.
I went from a 15-30mbs service to something quite a bit less. Yes, I had contracted for 25mbs. But my experience (as measured by Speedtest.net and Speakeasy.net) was only about 11-12mbs. I was horribly disappointed. Indeed, I felt like the corporate zombies had stolen a good thing and replaced it with something less appetizing.
The cable guy had me test a direct connection between my new cable modem and my PC. In that configuration, I could get ~25mbs. Shoot! That meant the issue was with the router when I put it between the cable modem and my PC. I expected some performance loss. But 50% is just plain unacceptable.
So I went off to the forums to seek information – and a little solace. Based upon recommendations from forum gurus, I updated the router firmware to the latest DD-WRT versions. I first tried build 16144. I then moved on to build 16214. But the results were always the same: I was seeing about a 50% bandwidth loss.
I thought the issue might be the cable modem. So I contacted both SureWest, their outsourced technical support staff and I even checked with Cisco. It seems that SureWest will not support any modem except their customized and re-branded Cisco.
Consequently, I had but one alternative: change the router. But I didn’t want to get rid of my shiny new router. And it had performed so well before the ISP change. Therefore, I decided to switch to the default Buffalo firmware before I just swapped the whole thing out. This meant that I would be abandoning one of my requirements: i.e., using DD-WRT. But I had to test this in order to really determine where the problem was.
After a few minutes of downloading code and a few minutes of uploading the firmware to the router, I had the new/old Buffalo firmware running on the device. And what was the result? I started to see performance approaching 25mbs. Conclusion: DD-WRT, the Buffalo router and the Cisco DPC-3010 don’t work well together. It could be any number of things. And I will still pursue a DD-WRT solution. But for now, I have met all of my customer requirements – while compromising on one requirement from the infrastructure team.
In order to get what you want, you may need to abandon a well-worn rule or two. For me, I decided to meet my family’s requirements – and defer my geek requirements.
And what was the first movie I streamed using the new infrastructure? You guessed it: Zombieland.
-Roo

Zombie “Kill of the Week”

February 19, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

I tend to be a thoughtful man when it comes to buying technology. So I considered the following:

A desire to stream video content
A multimedia infrastructure that used Ethernet connections to the TV, the Blu Ray player, and a game console
A room location that did not have Ethernet but needed a wireless Ethernet bridge
A need to link the high-speed infrastructure and a low-speed camera infrastructure (featuring an 802.11b access point)
My past experience with firmware (which included three years of using DD-WRT)
A desire to use open source components wherever possible
A need to upgrade my broadband bandwidth to support simultaneous streaming and web browsing
A desire to switch ISP’s in order to save some money

This was a daunting list. And I tried to meet every objective on the list. I think that I may have succeeded – but not without paying a price.

My first choice was to replace the wireless gear that I had. So I selected a Buffalo wireless router. In particular, I chose the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH as my new router. It uses the Atheros chipset for the radio. So I knew that it would provide the signal coverage that we need. It also ships from Amazon with DD-WRT. At the same time, I was tired of running a home-built wireless Ethernet bridge for the entertainment center. So I also purchased a Buffalo WLI-TX4-AG300N as a replacement bridge.

I installed that infrastructure last weekend. And it worked flawlessly with my Time Warner cable connection. But I still needed more bandwidth from my ISP – and I wanted to save a few bucks on my monthly cable expenses. So on Tuesday, I worked from home while my “cable guy” switched my infrastructure from Time Warner to SureWest. Why SureWest? Because we had used them many years ago when they were Everest. And now that I no longer needed any exclusive content from Time Warner, it was time to change.

The change was not as simple as I would have liked. First, SureWest needed to string new cable. OK, I could live with that. But then SureWest felt compelled to change the cable modem to a Cisco DPC-3010. This is a fine device. And I am sure that SureWest got quite a deal with Cisco. And I know that the Cisco gear is very manageable for the provider.

But the customer experience was awful.

I went from a 15-30mbs service to something quite a bit less. Yes, I had contracted for 25mbs. But my experience (as measured by Speedtest.net and Speakeasy.net) was only about 11-12mbs. I was horribly disappointed. Indeed, I felt like the corporate zombies had stolen a good thing and replaced it with something less appetizing.

The cable guy had me test a direct connection between my new cable modem and my PC. In that configuration, I could get ~25mbs. Shoot! That meant the issue was with the router when I put it between the cable modem and my PC. I expected some performance loss. But 50% is just plain unacceptable.

So I went off to the forums to seek information – and a little solace. Based upon recommendations from forum gurus, I updated the router firmware to the latest DD-WRT versions. I first tried build 16144. I then moved on to build 16214. But the results were always the same: I was seeing about a 50% bandwidth loss.

I thought the issue might be the cable modem. So I contacted both SureWest, their outsourced technical support staff and I even checked with Cisco. It seems that SureWest will not support any modem except their customized and re-branded Cisco.

Consequently, I had but one alternative: change the router. But I didn’t want to get rid of my shiny new router. And it had performed so well before the ISP change. Therefore, I decided to switch to the default Buffalo firmware before I just swapped the whole thing out. This meant that I would be abandoning one of my requirements: i.e., using DD-WRT. But I had to test this in order to really determine where the problem was.

After a few minutes of downloading code and a few minutes of uploading the firmware to the router, I had the new/old Buffalo firmware running on the device. And what was the result? I started to see performance approaching 25mbs. Conclusion: DD-WRT, the Buffalo router and the Cisco DPC-3010 don’t work well together. It could be any number of things. And I will still pursue a DD-WRT solution. But for now, I have met all of my customer requirements – while compromising on one requirement from the infrastructure team.

In order to get what you want, you may need to abandon a well-worn rule or two. For me, I decided to meet my family’s requirements – and defer my geek requirements.

And what was the first movie I streamed using the new infrastructure? You guessed it: Zombieland.

-Roo

Network Backups Are Now Available at Chez Roo

January 29, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

After replacing the old external drive with a shiny new network drive, the next step was obvious: network backups. I was excited. This was going to be a no-brainer. Windows 7 offers a backup tool. And that tool is quite good. Too bad it doesn’t work with Windows 7 Home Premium. Yes, you can backup your system to a USB-attached device. But if you want to use a network location, you’ll have to invest in Windows 7 Professional – or some other tool.
I chose the “some other tool” option. My requirements were simple.

I want to be able to take full backups.
I want to be able to take incremental (or differential) backups.
I have to be able to use my new network-attached storage device.
I don’t want to spend much (or any) money to make all of this happen.

To start, there are a lot of backup tools. Some come with the operating system. Others are available via purchase at a retail store. Some are bundled with network storage systems. And still others can be downloaded from the Internet. So my first chore was to sort the list down to two or three tools that would meet my requirements. After fiddling with Google search arguments, I finally ran a search that narrowed my choices down.
After checking out a few reviews, I read the review put together by Mark Muller (at BrightHub). Based upon that review, I downloaded and installed Comodo Backup. And I am genuinely thrilled with this product. It does all of the things that you expect a backup tool to do. And it does them on any kind of media (including network-attached storage).
And it does this for free. I’m still trying to figure out how this company makes money. They do offer a remote storage option (a la Mozy or Carbonite). Maybe they will make their money in this fashion. I sure hope that they do – because I really want to continue to use the product. Why do I want to use this product? Two words: it works!
-Roo

The Egyptian Crisis Proves the Need for Anonymity

January 29, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

I had a very interesting conversation at work yesterday. Someone I work with asked me about the “cool tools” that I really believe in. After thinking long and hard about the question, I told him that I believe in freedom of speech and I believe in anonymity as a bulwark to ensure both the freedom of speech and the freedom of thought. He nodded his head at the blandishment. Then I told him about TOR (the onion router). After a few minutes, he asked for a URL. So I gladly pointed him to http://www.torproject.org.
Most of the time, I am greeted with crickets when I talk about TOR. In fact, most people recite the old rubric that if you have done nothing wrong, then you should have nothing to hide. While I often agree with this sentiment, I always cringe when I hear it. Why? Because Americans have a fundamental right to think and speak whatever is in our hearts and minds. But in some places, the definitions of right and wrong are horribly twisted. During times of great crisis, freedoms are routinely challenged. And that is exactly what is happening in Egypt today.
I am not informed enough to know whether President Hosni Mubarak is or is not a tyrant. He is unelected. And he has been the unelected leader since the death of Anwar Sadat (over thirty years ago). And he has suppressed speech – especially the speech of the extreme minorities (like the Muslim Brotherhood). Do I want a stable regime that is peaceful towards Israel to be replaced by some unknown group that may be hostile to peace? Absolutely not. But I can’t read the future. So I won’t comment on what I would like to see. Again, I am not familiar enough to pick “right” and “wrong” in a complex multinational struggle.
But I do know this: when freedom is challenged, geeks turn to technology. And there are geeks in Egypt that are turning toward TOR. When President Mubarak shut down cell phones, messages came from alternate sources. And when folk feared that their browsing and their postings would be monitored, they turned to the tools of anonymity.
TOR usage has skyrocketed. There are now four times as many people using TOR to ensure their anonymity. And the number of relays supporting these users has also skyrocketed (see below).
This spike in relays is across the globe. And geeks everywhere are bombarding Twitter and they are deluging Facebook. And folks are starting to march in America. I am so glad to see that people are engaged and active. I am not certain what outcome I want to see. But I do want to see freedom of speech and freedom of thought flourish in times of turmoil. So count me in.
-Roo

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Category: Technology

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