As I work from home, employed in the computer field, my home network is slightly more complex than the standard home network. One of the things I do different is run my DHCP server on a Windows 2008 Server instead of the one supplied with the Bell Aliant FibreOp “modem” (as my Internet is a FibreOp connection).

This issue I was running into is when the FibreOp modem needed to get an IP address after powering on, it would get it from my internal DHCP server. By having one of my internal IPs the modem could not talk to the Bell Aliant IP TV network thus I could not get TV. When the Bell Aliant modem cannot get an IP or cannot connect to the IP TV network it continuously reboots every 30 seconds or so.

What I discover that Microsoft has a callout DLL for the DHCP server that when installed allows you to Allow and/or Deny DHCP access by MAC address. The nice thing about the Bell Aliant modem is when it boots it shows you the MAC Address so it is easy to find.

To install the callout dll for the DHCP server, the binaries and instructions can be found at http://blogs.technet.com/b/teamdhcp/archive/2007/10/03/dhcp-server-callout-dll-for-mac-address-based-filtering.aspx . There are both 32-bit and 64-bit installers.

One note, when you enter the MAC address you wish to filter in the MACList.txt file, the sample file has the MAC Address as XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX, you need to remove the dashes for it to work.

Previously, if the power went out (for example) I had to turn off my DHCP server, let the Bell Aliant’s boxes fully boot, then turn on my DHCP server. The big issue was if I was not home and the power went out the wife and kids had no TV until I got home.

Note: Windows 2008 Server R2 has the MAC filter built in.

The doorbell rang at 9:30 am and there on my doorstop stood two Bell Aliant installers ready to switch my Internet and TV to FiberOp. My kids yelled, “Are these guys going to fix the TV from freezing?”, were my five, seven, and nine year old kids more excited than I? It was almost like in 1998 getting Vibe all over again!

I did like Rogers TV but always felt the Rogers Internet was throttled and shaped to the point it limited my Internet usage flexibility (I work from home so I am not a standard home Internet user). I did not like the Rogers “modem” for their Ultimate service, the web interface was clunky and slow. Plus after Rogers locked us geeks out of the advanced tech features of the modem (even if you bought the modem) really ticked me off. The Bell Aliant web interface is simple and fast, maybe a little overly simple for me. The DHCP configuration does not have enough configuration features for my needs (so I run a different one) but for “normal” Internet user it is just fine.

Quick Notes: I found on Rogers if you were doing massive downloads that used many concurrent connections (hmm what would that be?) it would degrade Skype and other services that required a constant bit rate, but on FiberOp that does not happen.

Bottom Line
—————-

Bell Aliant TV, all I can say kids love it because it does not freeze and my wife likes an accurate PVR. I have not had a chance to watch enough TV or give the PVR a test, but I will report on that soon. But I did discover a new channel called Treasure HD, which is a real treat.

Bell Aliant Internet – Rogers fastest upload is 2 MBPS where as Bell Fibre OP is 10+ MBPS, you do the math. I enjoy the faster uploads on FiberOp as my new hobby is photography and sharing home videos, so uploading it important.

BTW: The installers where super nice and I was super nosey, but they put up with me!

Built a new PC targeting video editing as I found the video (even @ 720p) with the Canon Rebel Ti was killing my Q6600 based PC. So I build a new PC around a Nvidia GTX 470 because Adobe Premiere CS5 has a new Mercury Playback Engine that uses Nvidia CUDA technolgy. Basically Adobe Premiere CS5 can harness the Nvidia video card for computational matters. Well Adobe does not support the GTX 470 yet, the next round of drivers they should.

But to get around the issue a fellow at Studio1Productions has a very simple configureation tweak that will get many Nvidia video cards working with CS5 while you wait for Nvidia and Adobe to catch up.

Click here to read Adobe Premiere CS5 and Video Cards

It works great!

Introduction
I store all my photos on a shared network drive. This shared network drive is on Windows Home Server (WHS) because it keeps my all photos automatically on two hard discs. Also I backup WHS onto an external hard drive plus I also have 20 GIGs of space I use on Photoshop.com with to backup my best pictures.

Anyways….

The Problem
I have a folder in my photo folder called “FromWeb”, this is where I put pictures I find on the web I like to keep, mainly pictures of the family from Flickr, Facebook, etc. I wanted Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 to watch this folder so anytime I loaded Photoshop Elements it would tell if there was new pictures the folder that were not in the organizer.

First step was to add the folder “p:/FromWeb/”, which is a permanent mapped drive to a shared folder.  Photoshop Elements told me the path could not be found.

So instead of the mapped drive I used the full share path and entered ” \\TITAN\Photos\FromWeb\ ” and got a new error message saying the Adobe Service had received an accessed denied error.

Hmmm….
Solution
So I opened up my Services in the Control Panel and found a service called “Adobe Active File Monitor V8″. I noticed it was logging in as LocalSystem.

Well LocalSystem has no rights to the share on the network so maybe that is the root of the problem. So I changed the user account of the service to the user account I access the share with (the same account I use to log into my Windows desktop), restarted the service and presto, I could add network shares to my Watch Folders in Adobe Photoshop Elements 8. Now I still can’t add it as a mapped drive (i.e. “P:/”) but can use the full share path name (\\{server}\{sharename}\ i.e. \\TITAN\Photos\FromWeb\).

Summary
So if you use the Watch Folders feature in Photoshop Elements and want to watch a folder on a network share then make sure the Adobe Active File Monitor service has access to the share. You can use the account you use to access the share or some folks (the security guys) might make a separate read only account that only has access to Watch Folders list on the file server for the service.

Introduction

A few weeks ago I wiped my Windows XP 64-bit box and installed Windows Home Server (WHS) on it. I have been running Windows XP 64-bit as my home server for a year but the features in WHS made it a compelling upgrade. In the next few weeks I am going to post a detailed review of WHS Power Pack 3 and how it is the ultimate home server.

One of the best features of WHS is the backup. At home I have over a half a dozen computers keeping and keeping them all backed up can be a pain. I tried Windows OneCare, the built in Windows Backup, and Acronis but none of them never lived up to the “set and forget” I wanted.

Once you install WHS, you then install a tiny agent on each computer and then each day that computer will backup to WHS over the network. If any computer does not backup you get notifications that it did not backup. WHS will even wake up the computer at night and backup the computer then put the computer back to sleep.

The Crisis

So one morning I woke up and my main development computer would not boot. The PNPCLASS.SYS had become corrupt for whatever reason, which meant that the computer would not even boot in safe mode. So after troubleshooting and diagnosing for a bit, I decided to try the restore from WHS, which I had never done before.

The Solution 

On a separate laptop I made a WHS Recovery CD, which resides in the WHS Software folder as an ISO. This CD was used to boot the “dead” computer. When the CD booted the computer, it found the network card (got an IP via DHCP), located the WHS on the network, and determined the name of the “dead” computer. If WHS does not find your network card it gives you the option to load a network card driver. The Recovery software told me the last backup was at 12:47AM, and it was 8:40 AM, so the computer was backed and I would lose nothing if the restore worked. So I hit Restore, it whirled away for a bit, then the computer rebooted.

It actually rebooted and has been working for 2 weeks without a hiccup. What made PNPCLASS.SYS die? I don’t know but WHS made it super easy to get a machine back up and running quickly.

Note: WHS when backing up your computers it only appends the deltas each night, so after the initial backup, each night’s backup is very quick. As I keep all my files on the WHS anyways my machines backup quickly every night.

Stay tuned for more WHS updates.

I was excited to download VS 2010 Beta 2 and start playing with .NET 4.0, which is the real first new CLR since .NET 2.0. I discovered that VS 2010 finally supports dual monitors. It does not support dual monitors but multiple monitors! So like all geeks would do I installed a second ATI card and added a third 24″ monitor.

Now I can have my code edit window in my primary window, my toolbox and some video playing to the left and a design view or debug windows to the left.

If you are going to develop in VS 2010 I would add as many monitors as you can to your development machine budget.

<rant>
Some days I work hard and realize I did not get anything done. Emails, cell phone, twitter, blogs, IM, door bells, they are all one constant interruption. Our generation has gotten to much in the habit of the of “Now! - and get me someone while I am waiting!”.  I have people email me and if I did not respond in 1 hour they email me again and are “put out” because I did not answer already. Maybe I was taking a walk and decided to leave my iPhone at home to get some peace.

Days I decide to shut off email, IM, and the phone are days code flows from the brain to the fingers and into the computer. Those are the days I don’t have to look up as many examples of code because my brain is working the way it should when writing software. I think I am going to start two days a week only checking all the digital gizmos for request of contact/response once every two hours. This way I can do a “normal” week’s work in two days. Hey, who else is in!?!
</rant>

What prompted my rant was this article I read called “Why You Can’t Pay Attention“. It is worth the read.

Synergy is one of the best open source utilities I have used in a long time. It allows you to share a single keyboard and mouse with multiple computer, including between Windows, Mac and Linux.

What you do is set it up and a “master” computer with the keyboard and mouse then set it up on your other computers. I set it up on my Tablet PC, I placed my Tablet PC with the screen swiveled around so it looked like the Tablet PC was just another screen. See the pic below.

What I really like is I can put the Tablet PC to sleep and it does not effect the master computer and when it wakes up I don’t even have to reconnect, it just works. Oh yeah, it allows copy, copy and paste between computers!

Tablet PC Spun Around

It sounds like an old country song, but getting an easy backup strategy on a home network can be difficult. I find the backup software that comes with Vista and Windows 2008 server junk. My home network consists of Windows desktops, Windows servers, OS X and one Linux box. This weekend I messed up my main Vista computer and found the backup strategy I was using was flawed. What I was using is Windows Backup and making an image of the computer to an external hard drive. My backup routine consisted of taking the external hard drive from computer to computer and making backup images when the feeling hits me. As all the data from all the computers is saved to the network drive (which is also backed up), computer images only need to be made periodically.

What happened is I used the same external hard drive to backup my Vista machines and my Windows 2008 Server. When I went to restore my Vista machine, the restore software only could see that I had backuped the Windows 2008 Server and would not pickup my Vista computer backup, even though it was still there on the hard disk. Unlike the backup software in Windows XP, the Vista/Windows 2008 Server backup will not backup to a network share, so I decided to find an alternative solution. BTW: Tried the backup in Microsoft OneCare as well (which I use for AV and other features) but it does not make computer images but does allow to backup to a network share. If Microsoft would combine the features of Windows Backup and backup in OneCare it would be actually pretty good for home users.

What I found was Acronis TrueImage 11 Home. It is $49 per computer and well worth it. Even if you only have one computer at home I would pay the money. The installation is painless. After I installed Acronis I quickly made a full system backup to a network share. When Acronis backs up you can set the size of the backup files, so I selected 4.7 GIG so I could then burn a copy of the backup from the network drive to DVDs. After you make a full system backup you can then schedule incremental backups of the image, plus you can set it to backup just Application Setting and/or just data a few times a week. Acronis also makes a boot disk so if you computer dies and you need to re-install you boot from the CD/DVD and then feed it the backup discs.

I recommend after a fresh OS install and installing any programs purchased that needs activation (MS Office for example), make a base backup image. This way when you restore you don’t have to worry about Vista or Office needing to be activated as it already is already in the backup.

Having various computer at home backing up systems is very important. So no data on the desktops so I can re-image them quickly if I need to, all systems backup to a central spot on the network and I and offload the backups to DVD when I need to.

In summary, after anti-virus software I would recommend a good backup software, and for me that is Acronis, it will save your data and many hours of frustration.

[I do not work for or know anyone at Acronis, they just make good stuff.]