Goin’ Paperless! Enjoying the ScanSnap S1300i.

Preface

Now, before you start calling me a tree-hugging hippie, let me preface by saying that I’ve fought the paperless bandwagon for as long as I could! I constantly got annoyed by the requests by all my companies I do business with to go paperless, and I was extremely frustrated when it came to the point that I either converted to paperless, or faced a $5.00 a month additional charge by them to send me the statements in the mail. I wanted paper statements! I wanted something tangible that I could see, touch, and file. I wasn’t comfortable without a stack of cellphone bills in my filing cabinet (that I would probably never look at again, mind you). I felt that if it wasn’t there, then it wouldn’t be there in the future when I needed it. Never mind the fact that in the case of a house fire, all of my paper filing would be gone, and I would be without any sort of documents.

Fast forward a few years down the road, and my office quickly became a massive disaster. Boxes after boxes of papers lay around, waiting for me to properly sort, organize, and file into the filing cabinet. These papers dated back 3 or more years, doing nothing but cluttering up my office with their presence. Furthermore, after those boxes filled up with papers, the papers themselves continued to fill up the office, slowly making their way into random piles, strewn about here and there, covering my desk, the floor, the folding table, bookshelf, and other assorted areas. I tried various methods to stay on top of the massive, endless amount of papers, including purchasing color-coded filing labels, developing a storage system, reorganizing, etc. However, each various method felt like nothing more than another attempt to fail at the same thing. I just could not stay on top of the papers, and my office was quickly becoming nothing more than a collection of paper waste. There wasn’t even a spot for me to sit any longer!

Eventually, it came to the point that “enough was enough”, I needed to do something about the papers.

The Solution – The ScanSnap!

I did some research. I then did more research. I then thought about it, and did more research. All the while, the paperwork continued to pile, and the space continued to dwindle. Then one day, I hopped on Amazon, and said “that’s it!” I had had enough, and it was time to finally purchase a scanner, and begin to go completely paperless. After an extensive amount of research, I finally rested on this – a newly upgrade, ScanSnap S1300i scanner:

Once it arrived (yay, Amazon Prime!), I quickly set it to get it in place and get it going just as fast as I could. I was sick and tired of the paperwork, and it was time to be done with it.

The Setup

The first thing I noticed when I got the scanner in the mail was that the box was quite small. I opened it up, and noticed the following in the packaging:

The Scanner (duh)
A USB cable
A power adapter
Another USB cable, with a nifty power plug on one end
Various assorted instructions / warranty cards / installation CD

After popping in the CD, the software quickly installed, and I was on my way. It’s interesting to note at this point the secondary USB cable that came with the box. While the scanner obviously can run of the power adapter, the secondary USB cable can also serve to power the scanner through a secondary USB port on the connected computer. Nice! I probably won’t ever use this feature, as I don’t plan on taking the computer with me in a portable situation. However, it is a nice touch, and a nice additional feature if your environment will lend you that necessity to do so.

First Impressions

Once everything was set up, I was ready to scan! Every where I looked in my office, I saw paper after paper, pile after pile, and box after box, of various dead tree bits that needed to turn their lives into a digital format. I quickly grabbed one box, and began the scanning process.

I found a stack of papers that I felt belonged together, each of various sizes. After arranging them in an order from larger to smaller (full size documents in the front, smaller card-sized documents in the middle, and receipts in the back – to help with the scanning rollers), I stuck it in the scanner and hit the big glowing blue button. Immediately the scanner sprang to life, sucked all the paper through one page at a time, spit it out the other end, and finished the job before I knew it!

It’s important to point out why this scanner is so friggin’ awesome. Obviously for the most part, a scanner is a scanner. What makes it extremely powerful is the corresponding hardware that goes along with the scanner. In this case, it couldn’t be more true. Besides the scanner having dual scanning heads (so that it can scan both sides of the page at the same time), the corresponding software does the following, automatically:

Automatic duplex detection
Automatic color detection
Automatic page size detection
Automatic page rotation
Automatic keyword detection
Automatic highlighting tagging
Automatic OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

That’s right. No longer do you need to continuously mark the scanner for a specific size, type, orientation, or format of the paper you’re scanning it with. Instead, the scanner does everything fully automatic (if you’ve configured it to do so), and you no longer have to do that. Just grab a stack of papers, put it in the scanner, hit the button, and you’re off! Obviously, if the process takes too much extra unnecessary effort, I’m more likely to drop the process entirely, and regress back to a state of not doing anything with the papers, and quickly return to where I was before purchasing the scanner. So, the fact that the scanner can do everything in an extremely quick, efficient manner is important to me.

The Software

I’ve touched on the software a bit already, but there’s so much more to it than just the automatic scanning part of it itself. Depending on the package purchased, the ScanSnap might come with a slightly different list of software with it. The version I purchased, however, comes with the following:

ScanSnap Organizer
ScanSnap CardMinder
Abbey FineReader for ScanSnap
Others(?)

I haven’t payed too much attention to the software that came with mine, outside of those listed below. The most critical of all the software, in my opinion, is the ScanSnap Organizer, and the corresponding FineReader. The FineReader is the piece of software that will automatically perform the OCR on the files that are scanned with the ScanSnap. Note that it WILL NOT allow you to perform OCR on any PDFs that were not created with ScanSnap. While the normal FineReader software can do, the version that came with the scanner will not. I assume this has to do with a license restriction put in place in the software bundled with the scanner.

In my workflow, the coup de grâce, in my opinion, is the ScanSnap Organizer. There are a number of alternative software packages that do similar functionality as the Organizer. However, in my case I wasn’t looking to spend any additional money than what I spent after purchasing the scanner. So, ScanSnap Organizer it is!

At its core, ScanSnap Organizer is nothing more than a simple document managing system, that simply puts all the files in a folder, gives them preview icons that show what the document consists of, and calls it good. And that is exactly what I wanted! I didn’t trust various other software, such as the one coupled with the NeatDesk system, which kept all PDFs in a proprietary database, which required the user to access through the software. The great thing about ScanSnap Organizer, is that it simply references with Windows (or Mac) folder structure, and overlays it with a bit more detail, using a hidden “.organizer” folder. Don’t feel like going through the Organizer software? Simply navigate to the ScanSnap folder that you have configured, which contains all of your PDFs within it, and you’re good to go! Not being locked into a proprietary software design is huge to me. I don’t want to be locked out of all of my files a few years down the road.

In addition to being a document organizer for all the PDFs, ScanSnap Organizer also contains some various additional advanced PDF editing tools. These include deleting and reorganizing pages within a PDF, rotating / deskewing pages, cropping, etc. It can also organize by keyword, find highlighted keywords, and distribute by keyword.

Lastly, the Organizer / scanner allows scanning to numerous third-party programs, including, but not limited to:

Outlook
Microsoft Office (Powerpoint, Word, Excel)
Dropbox
Evernote
Google Docs
Salesforce
Mobile
Any other program you can configure!

The ScanSnap scanner, and the associated software, allow you to do pretty much anything you want to with your digital documents. In my case, I primarily wanted the ability to convert all my physical documents into digital, and organize them into a folder structure similar to how they would have been in my filing cabinet. But the options and possibilities to do more advanced things with the documents expand far beyond my simple requirements.

The Results

After spending an hour or two a night for the past few weeks, I have managed to scan, file, and organize over 2,000 pages worth of documents. They are all now contained within a single master folder (or cabinet), with various associated folders underneath of it. I’m far from complete in scanning all of the remaining documents that still reside inside of my file cabinet. However, all of the boxed and loose paperwork lying around my office is now gone, and in its place is nothing but space, and room for me to actually enjoy my office once again. With barely 100MB or so of converted files on my PC, I have plenty of room to scan, and destroy thousands, if not millions more documents, with little concern about space any longer. In my case, one Banker’s Box worth of documents used close to 100MB worth of storage space. Assuming the minute size of a 32GB micro-SD card, I could effectively take 320 Banker’s Boxes, and consolidate it down into a size smaller than a penny. How awesome is that!

Conclusion

As far as I’ve come in the past few weeks, I still have an incredibly long way to go, before I can fully consider myself paperless. I still must fully develop, and stick to, a workflow plan that will effectively take any paper documents I receive, and convert them into an organized digital counterpart, and still be able to access the documents as quickly and efficiently as I need, without allowing the papers to once again pile up and overrun the office space. Furthermore, I also need to go through many of my physical mailing statements that I receive, and see about converting them to digital, and going with a paperless distribution with them instead. Unfortunately, many times the paperless format isn’t actually distributed, but rather put online for access, and only for a limited time. So, rather than being able to be lazy for a year and let documents accumulate, I need to be proactive in making sure to regularly download and archive all my digital statements. Otherwise, if I don’t stay on top of it, I could easily lose those digital documents into the abyss of dev/null, never to be seen or archived.

Oh, and there’s the obvious statement of “backup, backup, backup!”. In the case of physical documents, one only really needs to be aware of fire and theft – both of which are fairly uncommon. But in the digital world, one needs to be must more aware of harddrive and other equipment failure, and protect against such failures with duplication, redundancy, and versioning, to make sure that the documents don’t get accidentally lost or deleted. But that’s a completely different topic for another time!

ScanSnap S1300i Scanner
Simplicity
The scanner is as simple as it can get. Fairly easy install, plus extremely easy usage makes it a great printer.

Hardware
The hardware on the printer is great! Very little jamming, collapses into a very small footprint, and expands to easily hold a stack of legal-sized documents.

Software
The included software is impressive. Can easily do almost everything you want it to. I have to knock off a star though for the OCR not working on non-ScanSnap documents.

Durability
Solid little device. Includes ability to replace consumables (pick roller, pad) for minimal cost.

Price
A bit pricey. You get a ton for your money. But it is a bit harder to drop almost $300.00 on a scanner.

Overall
Overall, this is a great scanner. Numerous features, combined with incredibly easy to use interface, makes it a very versatile, powerful device.

– admin

Citrix and the Battle of Print Sharing!

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Have you ever had one of those problems that, once you find the solution, makes you want to want to facepalm whoever caused the problem so very, very hard? I ran into something like that the other day, which drove me absolutely crazy! And the worst part about it, is that the final solution that was discovered made absolutely no sense…

The Problem

The problem began when I had a user approach me one day, telling me that she was having a hard time printing. Her computer had been connected to a third party company’s Windows Server, using Citrix for remote connectivity. Her printers were shared through Citrix, which allowed her to print to any of her local printers from the Windows Server. When we set up her printers, we renamed one of her printers, prepending her name to the beginning of the printer name, so that we could easily find it when attempting to print, and having to select the right printer to print to.

What was happening was that when the user opened Adobe Reader through the remote OS, and attempted to print a document, Adobe Reader completely locked up, preventing any further action. I eventually had to open up the Task Manager and kill Adobe Reader.

After some extensive testing, I landed in the Event Viewer. I noticed that every time a document successfully printed, there was an Event #10 posted in the Event Viewer, stating that the document successfully printed. I also noticed the document appear in the print queue on both the Citrix remote Windows Server, and on her local computer. However, whenever Adobe Reader failed to print and locked up, and Event #13 appeared in the event log, which stated that the document was deleted. Also, nothing ever appeared in either of the two print queues. Odd…

Now, I suppose it’s worth pointing out at this point that I am not very familiar with Citrix. I can make it work, and it works fine, but I have much more experience with Remote Desktop, and TeamViewer. So, troubleshooting was a bit of work, especially because the Citrix setup was done by a third party company, and they were going down the wrong path in trying to solve the problem. Consequently, it was completely up to me to try to determine what the heck was wrong, and what to do to fix it.

The Process

I wasn’t sure where to start with figuring out the problem, so I just decided to jump in head first, and test everything I could find.

I started back in Citrix, seeing what was wrong. I noticed that I could open up notepad, type up something, hit Print, and it would print just fine to the printer. I also noticed that if I opened up Adobe Reader and hit print, it would print fine as well! BUT, if I changed a single setting in Adobe Reader (“Choose paper source by PDF size”), and hit print, the entire thing locked up!

To make things even more complicated, we had another user who was sharing the same network printer, also logging into Citrix, and also printing using that flag, and it worked just fine. So, something was fishy. Why would attempting to print on one computer, using that flag, lock up, where as on another computer, or not even using that flag at all, printed just fine? Frustrating!

I then brought a third computer into the mix. I logged into this computer, logged into Citrix, printed with the flag to the printer, and it worked. Thinking that it maybe had something to do with the fact that this other user was not an administrative user, I decided to log into her computer myself and try it. I logged in, set up connectivity to the same network printer, logged into Citrix, tried to print, and it worked… I then logged back in as the other user, tried it again, and everything still locked up again.

At this point, the last thing I could think of was that her profile was corrupt on the computer she was on, and so somewhere along the line it was corrupting network traffic, and causing things to lock up. So, I completely blew away her profile, and let it recreate when she logged in again. And again, after logging in and trying to print – the damn thing locked up.

Fark

At this point, I’m completely confused. Nothing makes sense, and it should all be working. I give up, throw in the towel, and decide to go for broke, and completely wipe the Windows OS, and completely reformat and reinstall Windows. After doing so, I reconnect the computer to the domain, have the user log in again, connect to the network printer, rename it so we can find it, connect to Citrix, try to print, and……..it locks up again!

At this point I’m pissed. What could be more clean that a freshly reformatted computer? Everything should have worked fine! So, I begin to wonder if it’s an issue with the Citrix server, wondering if it tracks MAC addresses that communicates with, throwing some configuration parameter somewhere now that it recognized her computer / username, etc. Or, I’m wondering if our Active Directory is messing something up in the process, keeping it from working, intercepting network traffic, etc. I’m absolutely confused, and am ready to just purchase a brand new computer for her and get rid of this one and call it a day!

The Solution(!!!)

It is at this point that I decide to give it one last hurrah, and have the user log into the other user’s computer who has not been having this problem at all. I have her log into the computer, verify that the network printer is configured, log into Citrix, try to print, and select the printer, and BAM! It works!

Now I’m completely, and utterly confused. Why would it not work on her own computer, even after a complete reformat / reinstall, whereas it would work when I logged into her computer, and yet it would work for her on someone else’s computer? Then suddenly, it all became clear to me…

It was the name of the printer!!!

Yes, that’s right, the blasted name of the printer…

Here’s what happened: every time I attempted to print from her user account on her computer, I was using the printer that I had renamed in order to find it easily on the Citrix server. What I simply did was to append her first name (let’s call her Peggy) to the start of the printer name. In this way, when she went to print through Citrix, she merely had to look for “Peggy LaserJet 1234” printer, and select it. This differed from when I did it by logging into my own account, because I didn’t rename the printer. I had merely left it as-is when doing my troubleshooting.

This problem of the renamed printer also carried over into her profile. When I blew away her profile and recreated it, it somehow pulled in “Peggie LaserJet 1234” from the previous profile, or somehow that printer got configured in the default profile, so that it was pulled in every time a new profile was created. Note that this didn’t affect my profile when I logged in, since I had previously logged in before that printer had been configured in the default profile.

This problem also didn’t affect the other user, because the third party company incorrectly told her that she needed to have that printer set as her default printer, if she wanted to be able to print to it through Citrix. In the case of my problematic user, however, she would be printing to that printer very infrequently, and would be printing to a different printer much more often. In that case, I thought it was asinine and unnecessary for her to set this specific printer as her default printer, just for those occasional uses where she needed to print to the printer through Citrix. So, the better solution was to simply rename the printer to add her name to the front of it, so that she could easily find it at a later time when she wanted to print!

Conclusion

To recap – there’s apparently a bug in place somewhere, either through Citrix, or Windows Server 2003, or Adobe Reader 7 (yes, the Citrix remote computer is still using Adobe Reader 7), that is causing this issue to be apparent. Furthermore, the issue only affects users if they are trying to print by using the “Choose paper source by PDF page size” flag, and their printer name is over a certain length.

What is that length, you ask me? Well, I could spend hours figuring out the exact details of this issue, and give specific answers, but I’ve spent enough of my time dealing with this problem! All I can give you is that the following name worked:

HP LaserJet 1234 PCL6

Furthermore, attempting to prepend the name of the printer with her initial also worked:

P HP LaserJet 1234 PCL6

But by attempting to put her entire name at the beginning of the printer name did not work:

Peggie HP LaserJet 1234 PCL6

So, it appears that somewhere between 23 and 28 characters is what caused the printer to lock up. However, note that I believe Citrix expands onto the name of the printer, with something like:

Peggie HP LaserJet 1234 PCL6 Auto Created on wl_abcdefgabcdefg

Where it “Auto creates” any printers through the Citrix interface, and adds a session ID onto the end of it as well. So, the overall string that works or doesn’t work in someone else’s situation may be dependent on what name the Citrix client eventually gives to the printer itself.

As I mentioned when I started this post, the solution to the problem we experienced makes absolutely no sense. While I would understand if the printer didn’t work AT ALL, because it was too long of a name for the Citrix client / Windows Server / Adobe Reader, what doesn’t make sense is the fact that it only doesn’t work if the name is too long, AND if that one print configuration flag is checked when printing. Everything else outside of that situation works just fine.

My apologies for the long-winded post today. However, I felt it was worth adding all that information, so that anyone searching the Googles for a similar problem will be better able to determine if this problem is the same as theirs or not. If the time spent typing up this blog post can save someone else at least an hour’s worth of time who’s running into the same problem, then it’s completely worth it!

Until next time!

– Admin

A Geek and His Toys

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I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Holy crap! Two consecutive posts in two consecutive days!” Well, actually I managed to do two consecutive posts in the same day! (It’s just after midnight here, so it appears as though it’s the next day. I have yet to go to sleep, so I still consider it the same day!)

Ok, I know that’s not what you’re thinking. Heck, you probably didn’t even notice the post date on here. It’s OK, all is forgiven, as long as I’m forgiven for my multi-month gaps between other posts!

Anyway, rather than going to bed like most normal, sane humans would do, I decided that it was a beautiful night outside (after our massive heat wave that we just went through). And, I had a beer in the fridge. And, I had a laptop. What does a beautiful night outside, plus a laptop, plus a beer, plus an insomniac equal? Why, another random post! So, here it is.

I really don’t have a whole lot to post tonight, other than a simple snapshot of a new “toy”, that I just recently added to my office. The toy? Sackboy!

Sackboy from Little Bit Planet 2

Sackboy has graced my desk with his presence, and has lightened up the mood during a long, stressful day of development, diagnostics, and maintenance. He now shares the limelight of the office with other great company, such as Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Kiba (Wolf’s Rain), and others.

Now, you may be wondering why I shared a picture of a stuffed Little Big Planet character in a post of mine. Wait, you’re not wondering that? Well, allow me to explain anyway. I’m sure it doesn’t apply only to those who are in the IT field, and who are geeks at heart, and that there are many different fields out there where one can decorate his or her on workplace environment, to give it a more personal touch. However, as a geek, I enjoy letting my geeky-ness shine through. And as a geek, I will more than willingly admit that I love video games, and other such “toys”. It’s who I am!

And despite being grown up and in a “real job”, it certainly can be said that allowing for a certain amount of “fun” in a job, can go a long ways in improving worker moral, and job performance. As a prime example, take a look at Google. They’re Android operating system is built on code names of various desserts! And, for each new release, a new Android is added to the campus, displaying this dessert for all to see. In addition, it can be assumed that most (all?) technical employees there also decorate their workspace in a way that makes them feel both comfortable and entertained.

At a previous job that I worked for, they had a bit of a stigma against allowing such “toys” in the workplace. As a software developer, we occasionally had the customer come in for various meetings and status updates. It was felt, by the higher-ups, that such toys detracted from the professionalism and characteristics of high quality developers. So, while they did allow us to have such things in limited quantities in our workspaces, they were requested (and forcibly) taken down at various times for various customers and clients.

Needless to say, such an environment proved to be excessively frustrating and a destroyer of workplace moral.

Allowing an environment of creativity and entertainment, not only would have helped to better provide for a more enjoyable atmosphere to work in, I feel it would have also improved productivity and overall quality of the deliverables.

In my new job, I don’t have nearly the direct contact with “customers” as I did in my previous job, and as such have a much more private workspace, in which to be able to configure and decorate as I see fit (within the appropriateness of the workplace standards, obviously). As such, I have decorated with various Office Space paraphernalia, Dilbert comics, stuffed Mario and company characters, a stuffed Kiba from Wolf’s Rain, and most recently, Sackboy from Little Big Planet.

Nowadays, as a grown adult, I no longer have “stuffed animals” with which to play with and animate, like I did as a child. Instead, I now have workplace decorations with which to bring out my inner geek for all to see, and to help create for myself an environment with which allows me to be an overall better employee, provide for better job efficiency and productivity, and an all-around better time.

While Mr. Sackboy doesn’t give me advice when the server crashes, nor does he help me to find that rogue CSS rule that’d destroying the entire layout of the page, nor does he any support calls, what he does do in his position in front of one of my Dell monitors makes the day go by that much better.

With that said, my beer is now gone, the weather has gotten a bit too chilly, and my brain is starting to get tired. So, I believe I am finally done for the night, and will begin anew tomorrow!

– admin

Antec Support Rocks!

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I’ll be brief in this post, because there’s not too much to say. But I wanted to make a point of calling out Antec, and their recent customer service experience that I had with them.

I normally have bad luck trying to deal with large companies, and their technical support necessary for their equipment that I may need serviced, replaced, etc. As an IT guy, I normally am able to fully diagnose the problem before I contact them for their support. Consequently, it quickly becomes frustrating when I need to rehash all of my diagnostic work with them, etc. However, in the case of Antec, it wasn’t as much of a technical support request, as it was a generic request.

See, I recently purchased an Antec Three Hundred Two computer case for my home server. I purchased the case specifically because of its toolless design, and perpendicular drive rails. It supports 6 total internal hard drives, and previously I had used 5 of them. Unfortunately, I happened to lose the last pair of drive rails that I needed to mount a sixth drive, which I had recently acquired.

So, I hopped on Antec’s website, filled out a request, and stated that I was wondering if it were possible to purchase replacement rails for the case, as I didn’t know where mine was, and didn’t want to buy a brand new case, just to get two plastic drive rails.

A day later I received a support ticket response back from Antec, stating that the Three Hundred case doesn’t use drive rails, but rather simply screw the drives into supplied mounting holes.” NO! I was frustrated. I had explicitly stated that I had the Three Hundred Two, and that it does, in fact, use drive rails! I was immediately annoyed, and vowed never to do future business with them again, if this was going to be the quality of their service if I had any questions.

I quickly responded back to them, reiterating the fact that I had a Three Hundred Two case, and that I did actually use drive rails, and needed to purchase a set of replacement rails. I hit send, and waited…

That was Tuesday. That very same afternoon I received yet another response back from Antec. I was scared to read it, because I didn’t know how much more fighting I would have to do to try to buy some stupid replacement rails. Much to my surprise, this was the response I received:

[…]I will be mailing just two rails free of charge since you need those two for one HDD. You should be getting them within 5-7 days from now.[…]

Wow! Talk about service! I didn’t even need to actually put in an order for two. They voluntarily sent me two, free of charge! I promptly responded back to the rep, thanking him for that, and that I would anxiously await the delivery of the rails.

Of course, that very night I happened to find the two missing rails that I needed, sitting in a pile of junk in my office! But, that’s beside the point…

Fast forward only two days ahead to Thursday. In the middle of the afternoon I received a text from my wife, stating that I had a package waiting for me at home, from Antec. Sure enough, there were my drive rails!

So, I went from an incredibly frustrating encounter with Antec’s support, to an extremely pleasing outcome. Antec went above and beyond to ship me free drive rails, including paying for the shipping as well, and I received them in just two days!

Now that’s customer service that will keep me around for a future purchase!

– Admin

Keeping Files in Sync in Windows 7

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For any of you who know, it’s incredibly frustrating to use Windows 7’s Offline File synchronization capabilities. While it does work, and it does keep files in sync, it does so in a weird, round-about way.

To start with, let’s look back at XP (I’m going to skip Vista, because I never used its file synchronization capabilities. With XP, you would enable offline files for a specific directory. You could then make changes to the files within that folder to your heart’s content. Once you were done, you would simply log off of the computer, or shut down. It was during this logoff process that the computer would then synchronize any changes from the remote folder to your computer, for offline viewing at a later time, if necessary. It worked well, and people usually didn’t have a problem with it.

Imagine the following workflow:

A user turns on his laptop, and connects to a network.
The user then makes modifications to his folder on a remote location (a shared drive on a server, for example).
At the end of the day, the user shuts down his laptop to go home for the night.
During the shutdown process, the system syncs any changed files from the server to the user’s laptop.
The user then takes the laptop home, and decides to do more work at home.
The user opens up the computer, makes the changes to the offline files, and then shuts down.
The next day the user comes back into the office, turns on the computer, and the files are automatically synchronized back to the server, once the computer detects that it’s connected back to that network.

Now, let’s look at Windows 7, and it’s unique, but critical difference to that of XP. In Windows 7, the files no longer synchronize when the computer is shut down. Rather, it synchronizes upon startup! While this seems OK when you take into consideration the fact that you no longer need to wait for the synchronization to finish when you decide to shut down for the evening, you run into a problem when you try to actually do so.

Follow this scenario:

A user turns on his computer and connects to the network.
All files from the network are synchronized with his laptop that have been configured for offline access.
The user then makes any changes to the files on the server.
At the end of the day the user shuts down his computer to go home.
The user takes the computer home, and decides to do some work in the evening.
The user turns on the laptop, opens up his offline files, and sees that all of his changes that he made during the day are not there. Crap!

You can quickly see that this is a problem. Relying on the operating system to keep the files in sync with the files on the server no longer work properly. Since it’s not synched except for on startup, you can no longer follow your traditional workflow. Rather, you need to manually run the file synchronization before shutdown, to make sure that the files are synched. This becomes a headache, because it requires user intervention every day.

And as we all are aware of, if it requires user intervention and manual process, it will never be done (at least it won’t be done during the instance that it needs to be done!).

So, what is the solution?

There are a number of various solutions that involve some complicated scripts, some scheduled tasks that you can create that would run at some arbitrary / triggered time, etc. However, I’ve stumbled across a great solution that works like a champ, and makes me wonder why Microsoft didn’t configure it that way to begin with!

The solution? A Group Policy Object!

This could be done as a setting on each specific computer you would like it changed on, individually (I think). However, in my case, I went ahead and did it through our primary Windows Server (we run Active Directory, and manage all of our computers that way).

To do so, perform the following steps on your computer / server:

Open up Group Policy Management (Start –> Administrative Tools –> Group Policy Management).
Select a Group Policy Object that you are enforcing, and right-click it and select Edit.
Navigate to the following location (Computer Configuration –> Policies –> Administrative Templates –> Network –> Offline Files).
From here, select the “Synchronize all offline files before logging off” Setting, and double-click it to edit it.
Select “Enabled”, and then OK to apply the setting.
Back on your other computer, you may either wait until the group policy settings are pushed out, or you can force them immediately by opening a command prompt and typing “gpedit /force”.

That’s it!

Now, where I get a bit confused is Window’s description of what that setting is supposed to do:

Determines whether offline files are fully synchronized when users log off. […] If you enable this setting, offline files are fully synchronized. […]

Tip: To change the synchronization method without changing a setting, in Windows Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Folder Options, click the Offline Files tab […].

Now, here’s why I’m confused. The setting itself is titled as though it has to do with logging off. That is, it sees that one needs to perform the “logoff” action, at which time the system will sync the files, before fully logging on. However, this does not seem to be the case. Instead, it appears that it always maintains synchronization between the computer’s offline files, and the files on the server.

In this case, one could essentially make whatever changes he or she wished to the files on the server, and then IMMEDIATELY disconnect the computer from the network. At this point, the files should already be in sync, and the user can already start working offline, since the files were synched.

This point seems to be reflected in the description of the setting, where it says that the files are “fully synchronized”. I assume that to mean that they are always synched, and you don’t need to log on / log off in order to make it work. However, the description also continues on to explain how to do it remotely, using Tools –> Folder Options –> Offline Files. However, for the life of me on Windows 7, I couldn’t find “Offline Files”. So, I’m not exactly sure what to believe in the description, and what not to believe!

As you can see, I don’t know why in the heck Microsoft didn’t decide to make this the default setting. It makes complete sense to me to always have offline files synched with their respective target, and not rely on logon / logoff to perform the sync. There are many use cases where a user may disconnect the computer from the network without performing either of those actions. Why you wouldn’t want it to be automatically synched is beyond me.

Anyway, give this setting a shot, and it will fix your problems (and your user’s problems!) with Windows 7’s synchronization process. No longer will you discover once you’re off the network, that you’re missing that critical file, or you don’t have the most recent changes on the file that you just worked on, that you need immediately. (Presentations, anyone?)

Enjoy!

– Admin

From Mac with Love!

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Also known as “My very first switch to Mac OSX from Windows!”

Introduction

For as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve used Windows, and strictly Windows. From a little kid, I grew up starting with Windows 2.0, and have progressed beyond that point to Windows 3.0, Windows 95, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, and the preview to Windows 8. I have developed in DOS, wrote programs in BASIC using DOS, remembered playing various DOS games, etc. From an extremely small, young child, I did nothing more than immerse myself into Windows, as I grew up in the computer industry. Outside of being forced to use Apple products in grade school, my primary experience was focused entirely on Windows. And I was happy!

I had no problem doing anything on Windows. I became extremely comfortable in the “ins and outs” of Windows, and could quickly and efficiently solve almost any problem that would crop up in Windows, and was able to build a successful IT support solution, which helped to put me through college during the summertimes. In college I had my variously branded laptops (Dell, HP, etc), and my custom-built desktops, all running various flavors of windows. Again, I was happy!

I grew tired of the Apple fanboy-isms, and equally as tired of the Windows fanboy-isms. Oh, sure, I got involved in the taunts with friends of mine who had iPhones, or iPads, or MacBooks, but it was all fun and games. Everyone had their own opinions and tastes, and each was entitled to their own.

After graduating college, I began a new job at a company, which was solely a Windows shop. Branded desktops abounded, all running various flavors of Windows (Windows 2K, XP, and Vista were the common ones). I had no problem with this, since as stated before, I was completely comfortable in doing anything with Windows, and could easily network, troubleshoot, connect, repair, upgrade, debug, and dig into anything that needed done with the computers. This satisfied me, and I had no problem doing my job. Fast forward a few years, and I got a new job at another company. Again, this was an all Windows shop. And again, no problem with me.

However, time moved forward, and I began to get that “itch”. That feeling of “What good is an IT guy, if he is only knowledgable of Windows, and has little to no experience with Macs? While much of the corporate world runs in Windows, that should be sufficient. But if he has no experience or skills with Macs and OSX, what good is he to support those others who want to go ‘against the grain’, and run their Macs instead of being ‘stuck’ with Windows?’

And so, at that time, I decided I needed to get a new laptop. And I made that all important decision. *GASP!* I went with a Mac!

First Impressions

It’s at this point that I suppose I should clarify a few things. As previously stated, I felt that I ~~needed~~ wanted to get a Mac, so that I would be able to provide better IT support, as I would have a better understanding of Macs and OSX, as well as see if I could possibly improve my workflow by being able to incorporate Macs into the mix as well, both for personal as well as work reasons.

With that said, I did a bit of quite a bit of research ahead of time regarding the Mac OS, and the corresponding hardware. I’d been a bit of an on-again, off-again Linux user (Ubuntu, primarily), so I had some familiarity with the underlying OS architecture as well. Lastly, I researched which MacBook I wanted to get (Air vs. Pro / Retina Pro). I knew I wanted the higher portability, as well as the “instant-on” capabilities of the Air with the SSD. So, from a hardware / purchasing standpoint, I knew what I wanted to get, and had an idea of what I was getting.

The Apple Store

Of course, any Mac purchase requires the use of the Apple Store. Well, that’s not entirely true (there’s the internet, Best Buy, etc). But, I wanted to get one from the Apple Store, just to make sure all my bases were covered, warranty was in place, etc. Since I was buying the laptop for work, I figured I’d go ahead and buy it from the Apple Store. I figured if I had questions, they’d be able to help me out.

So, off I went to the Apple Store, credit card in hand, ready to buy the laptop. Once I got in, I was surprised with just how busy the store was! People were all over the place, and tons of guys in blue were around. One guy stopped me and asked if he could help.

“I’m here to buy a MacBook Air. I’d like the 13″ with 8GB of RAM and the 256GB SSD,” I said.

“Ok,” he said, and he plunked something into his phone. “Someone will be right out with the laptop in a moment. But in the meantime, would you like anything else? Cases, an external DVD drive, etc.?”

I responded back that I didn’t need anything else (they didn’t have any cases there I wanted at the time). Before long someone came out with the laptop, the guy took my credit card, swiped it through his phone, took my email address, and said “Done!”.

Initially I was confused at the lack of a receipt. “Oh,” he responded, “we just email that to you. Would you like a paper copy?” Heck no! I loved having an email copy of my laptop receipt. One less thing to keep track of, one less thing to lose in the case of a warranty replacement. He then proceeded to ask if I needed help setting up my Mac. I politely declined, as an IT guy, I wanted to do it all myself (as I would learn better that way), and plus I wanted that enjoyment of opening up a brand new electronic gadget in my house!

Booting It Up

After getting home, I quickly tore off the plastic wrapping off the box like a little kid at Christmas time. Inside was a nicely packaged laptop, complete with power cord and instruction manual. I took a first look at the power cord, and was quickly confused. It was in two parts. The first contained the transformer / plug, and the MagSafe connector on the other end. The second was a simple cable that contained a 3-pin plug, and an adapter on the other side. But with my super-awesome (hah!) mind, I realized it was a simple extension cord that could be used to replace the plug on the transformer itself, in order to extend the range of the power adapter if need-be. And if I don’t need it, the power adapter simply plugs straight into the wall. Nice!

I grabbed the laptop, plugged (snapped!) the MagSafe connector into the laptop, sat down, lifted the lid, and turned the thing on, like a kid ready to play a brand new video game. (Can you tell that I felt like a kid with this?) I was presented with a gray screen, and the all-too-familiar bootup sound. Hello brand recognition! Even after not using a Mac for 15+ years, I immediately recognized that sound. I was quickly greeted with the bootup screen, followed by the welcome and walkthrough steps to finish installing the OS. I completed those steps, and was presented with a desktop, with absolutely nothing on it except for the dock at the bottom of the screen. Um, yay? Oh yeah, no Windows bloatware installed all over the desktop waiting for me to run it! So yes, yay!

Initial Impressions

So, at this point, I had no idea what to do. I didn’t have any software to install on the Mac, nor did I have any licenses for Office, Photoshop, etc. to try out. I simply had the base OSX in all of its glory to play with. But, where to begin?

I noticed the Apple in the top left corner. I remembered this from when I was a kid. I knew that it contained the ability to shut down the laptop. I figured there had to be more stuff to do in there. So I decided to take a look. And, of course, the first thing that caught my attention was the Software Update option. Yes! So I opened it up, and was immediately greeted with some updates that needed to be installed. Yay, just like Windows… I thought to myself. I went ahead and did the install, which prompted me to reboot. So, reboot I did.

Upon restart, I tried again, thinking that there might have been additional pending updates, which required other updates to be installed first. Sure enough, that was the case. I let it download and install the second round of updates, rebooted, checked one more time, and was greeted that OSX was completely up to date. Yay!

Now, finally, it was time to explore a bit more of the OS and to see what I could do. I began by hovering over an item in the menu bar and tapping (not clicking) the icon to open it. Nothing happened….. Maybe I missed the icon. Lemme try again. I tapped again, still nothing. I then clicked on the trackpad, and the item opened. I immediately was a bit frustrated. I used the tap-to-click capability on my Windows laptops all the time! I didn’t like to have to click if I didn’t need to. For one, it saved wear and tear on the laptop buttons. And for two (and this is more important), it was much quieter to tap it than to click it. This may not seem very important, but later at night, I don’t want to annoy my wife with constant “click, click, click” as I use the laptop. So, I decided to see if there was something I could do to change this. Back to System Preferences, I go!

So, once again, I made it back to the Apple icon. From there, System Preferences -> Trackpad. To my extreme pleasure, I see a checkbox that says “Tap to click”, with no checkbox in it. Check! Once I checked it and tested it out, it worked. Super yay! I then realized that there were a whole ton more gestures and touch capabilities that I could do with the trackpad. I had read that the MacBook trackpad was supposed to be one of the best ones on the market. Holy moley!

I closed out of the preferences, and opened up Safari, to try the trackpad gestures. Tap, double-finger tap, swipe up and down (OMG, instant awesome!), three-finger desktop switching, Mission Control launching, and application opening. Awesome! The entire touch experience was intuitive, responsive, and easy to grasp. I was hooked! Now, what about the keyboard?

To typingtest.com I went. Aesop’s Fable? Sure! I opened it up, and started typing. 60 seconds later, I was greeted with my results – 109 wpm, 7 errors, 102 adjust wpm. Wow! This was my first attempt at typing with the keyboard as well. Definitely in love with the keyboard!

I then closed out of Safari, to continue exploring the OS. Well, I thought I closed out of Safari…. Wait, what the heck? When I closed out of System Preferences, using the red “X” in the corner, it closed out System Preferences. But when I closed out of Safari by doing the same thing, Safari remained opened – just without any actual opened windows. Ok, so this will take a bit of getting used to before I fully understand what actually closes, and what doesn’t by simply closing the red “X”.

Moving on, I quickly decided to try some of the other applications: Calendar (iCal), Adress Book, Mail, Photo Booth, iPhoto, and the App Store. I don’t need to go into depth on them in this post. However, I was pleasantly surprised with all of them, and with the intuitive-looking interface of each of them. Address Book was surprisingly dull-looking in my opinion. However, overall the applications seemed to have a decent cohesive look to them. I really liked playing in the Photo Both app, testing out the various effects and modifications.

Overall Thoughts

It is now beyond 2,000 words in this post. I suppose at this point I should probably end it here and leave with some closing thoughts on the MacBook Air. To reiterate what I said at the beginning of the article – I am a longtime Windows user. I grew up on them, went through school and college with them, work with them, build them, and for the most part understand the full ins-and-outs of the OS. But, I would not consider myself a “fanboy” (I can’t stand that term!). In my opinion, it’s similar to a Ford v. Chevy debate, or even a Ford v. Porsche debate, depending on how you want to look at it. They each serve a similar purpose, and each go about it in their own way. Bashing on each other with references of “sheeple”, “fanboys”, etc. get old quick.

With that said, I love my Windows PCs. Yes, they have their quirks, and yes they have their problems. But I enjoy them, and enjoy working on them. At the same time, now with the new MacBook, I have started to love OSX as well, and love the corresponding hardware that came along with it. Compared to my previous laptop, this new one is a BEAST, and such a tiny one as well! The screen is gorgeous (though admittedly not as nice as some of the new ones – Asus Zenbook Prime, for example), the unibody is sleek, the keyboard is awesome, and the trackpad is amazing and intuitive. I love it! I have already started to transition all my mobile laptop needs to the new MacBook, and have began phasing out my previous primary Windows laptop. Previously, I had figured that I would throw on BootCamp onto the MacBook, so that I would still have the Windows functionality when I needed it. But after further thinking, I have decided that I am going to try with it being purely an OSX laptop to begin with. I think I was concerned about using Windows as a “crutch”, keeping it on the laptop if I needed it in a pinch. Of course, there will be the time when I need to use a piece of software that works only on Windows. At that time, I’ll have to look at either BootCamp or Parallels to run the Windows software. But in the meantime, I’m going to give this a shot as a pure OSX MacBook Air.

Despite my praises for the laptop, however, it’s not without flaws. To begin with, there was the obvious part about having to immediately install system updates when I first booted it up. A lot of people use that as a complaint against Windows (Patch Tuesday, anybody?). I wouldn’t necessarily call it a bad thing, so to speak. I understand it as a necessity of the ever-improving technology paradigm that we live in today. Things change, bugs get fixed, patches put out. But I felt it warranted at least stating that I had to do such an update, as it did immediately detract from my excitement about a brand new laptop, and a brand new OS.

Additionally, the problems I am running into this morning, in my attempt to download and install OSX Mountain Lion has been a bit of a pain. Since I purchased the laptop after the public preview of OSX ML, I am entitled to a free upgrade / download of ML. Unfortunately, Apple’s release of ML to people this morning has been met with large problems and complications. First off, it is taking people hours to receive their upgrade codes for the free downloads. Secondly, those who are actually receiving their codes, are being greeted with errors when they try to download, stating that their codes had already been redeemed. Consequently, I still don’t have Mountain Lion installed yet, and am still awaiting my code in my Inbox.

Despite any shortcomings and setbacks, I really do like the new MacBook Air, and am starting to become a fan. I still love my Windows PCs as well, and am also a fan of them. (Does this make me a bi-fan?) But, after owning this laptop for a week, I have already started to migrate over to the Mac for some of my daily duties. We’ll see how things continue to go in the future, and I’m excited to see if my relationship with my Mac is simply a fad, and will fizzle away when I need it most and it fails to be there for me, or if our relationship flourishes into new and unprecedented territories. I still need to get a Thunderbolt -> VGA adapter for it, as it isn’t very useful at the moment for presentations. But, I’m excited to try it out at my next upcoming presentation. I’m sure I’ll be back with more reviews and opinions on the new Mac!

Oh, and of course, I typed this entire blog post using nothing but the new MacBook Air! It worked like a champ.

Mid-2012 MacBook Air
Keyboard
Smooth, low profile keys make typing a breeze.

Trackpad
Extremely intuite touch-gestures. No typing artifacts.

Screen
Beautiful colors, bright screen. Shame it's still a TN screen with a lower resolution.

Battery Life
Long battery life! I can go all day at work, with intermittent breaks from it. The MagSafe adapter is awesome!

OS
After just starting using it, I'm already getting the hang of it! Some inconsistencies in functionality between stock applications.

Overall
I'm glad I made the purchase of a MacBook. I feel it will help expand my IT support position, and make me better able to do my job. It was definitely a worthwhile purchase!

– admin

The saga of the broken SSD and the temporary rescue of my HTPC

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The Problem
It happens to the best of us. The computer you’re working on dies. Kaput, no more usefulness. After some checks, you determine that the hard drive has died. Either the circuit board has fried, dust has gotten on the drive platters, or the read/write head has met its maker. Either way, the hard drive is toast, and along with it is all the data you’ve put on it. Unless, that is, you have a backup and recovery mechanism for dealing with it (which is a totally different article in and of itself!).

Enter me, and my situation. Similar to the above, I had a hard drive go bad on my HTPC. However, it wasn’t due to a bad platter, a busted read/write head, or a bad circuit board. No, this hard drive was a SSD. It was even a popular branded, highly rated SSD. But it gave up the ghost. Well, actually it did it very slowly. So slowly, in fact, that it would just lock up randomly when the computer was running, force a reboot, and then no longer be detected by the BIOS. So, at that point you would shut down the computer, wait a while, and turn it back on, and the drive would be back, almost as though nothing happened.

Fortunately, that happened a few month ago. I took down the HTPC, pulled the drive out, sent it in for replacement, got a brand new one in the mail as its replacement, popped it in, and recovered the OS (I use Windows Home Server, so I was able to recover it quite nicely). At that point, my encounter was over, and I was able to enjoy my HTPC again. Again, that was, until recently…

A few weeks ago the same thing began happening again. The computer would randomly lock up, randomly restart, and BIOS would fail to detect the hard drive. A careful scan of the SSD determined that it had died as well, and needed to be replaced. Repeat the process of getting an RMA, and send off the drive, and go without a HTPC again until a new one came in.

The Alternative
It was at this point that I became sad. Why should I have to go for a few weeks (AGAIN!) without a HTPC in my living room, and without a quick and easy way to watch TV in the livingroom while waiting for my replacement of the replacement of my SSD to come in the mail? After all, my HTPC was comprised of two HDDs – the SSD drive used as an OS drive, and a separate 500GB HDD used to record all the TV shows on. And then it hit me. I could partition the 500GB HDD to accommodate the OS that used to be on the SSD, and I could boot into the system and watch TV again while waiting for the SSD to come in the mail! Surely it wouldn’t be that difficult, would it? Oh how I wish it were easy!

For those of you who are not familiar with partitioning a drive, partitioning simply involves breaking up a HDD into more than one “logical device” known a a partition. In the Windows world, these can then be given drive letters, and appear to the user and the OS as individual disk drives. My goal was to replicate three main partitions:

Main OS Boot Partition
System Configuration
TV Recordings

I started out by thinking that I could simply use the Windows Home Server Recovery CD, boot into the recovery console, repartition the drive, and then restore the various partition data to their respective partitions. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that well. After bringing up the Windows partition manager, I attempted to shrink the volume on the HDD to make room for the two additional partitions that I wanted. And, in popular Windows fashion, I was treated with “An unknown error occurred. Please check your system logs to determine the cause of the error.” Good one, Windows. I don’t have a system log to check, since I don’t have a Windows install with which to check the system log!

GParted Live
Enter Plan B. After doing some digging online, I found various ideas as to the root cause of the problem. Most of them involved defragging the HDD, disabling System Restore, and deleting the pagefile.sys. Unfortunately none of them seemed relevant to my issue I was experiencing, since I wasn’t even able to shrink the partition a very small amount. So, tapping into my previous knowledge and experience with Knoppix, I came across GParted Live, a bootable CD that contains GParted and various other utilities. Bingo! I downloaded and burned the ISO and tried it out on my HTPC. To my excitement, it worked! The partition was shrunk, and I figured I was in business. Time to restart back to Windows Home Server Recovery and try again.

After waiting and getting back into the recovery console, I once again brought up Windows partitioning tool. I checked at the size requirements of the System partition and the OS boot partition, and created two new partitions of that size in the tool. I crossed my fingers, and they worked. I didn’t bother formatting them or giving them a drive letter. I figured I’d let Home Server do that busy work. I backed out to the recovery screen, selected the partitions and told the recovery console which ones to restore to, and clicked to proceed. I couldn’t actually see the sizes of my two newly created partitions since they were given random GUIDs that overtook the viewable space on the screen. I started the recovery process, and came back in a half hour.

Damn.

Apparently I attempted to recover the partitions backwards, since the recovery failed. So, I had to start all over again. This time, I formatted each partition (quick) and gave each a drive letter so that I could identify them during the recovery process. I then tried to recover again. After a short while I came back, and success! They had been recovered. Now, to reboot and enjoy my HTPC!

Damn again…

After rebooting, I was greeted with “BOOTMGR is not found” and a failed boot. Great, must have marked the wrong partition as the boot partition. So, at this point it was time to reload GParted, and mark the right partition as the boot partition. Once restarted, I noticed the wrong partition was in fact marked as the boot partition. Ok, simply need to change that to the right partition, and try again. Restart the computer, and?

You guessed it. Damn again. “BOOTMGR is not found.” What the heck now? Time to do some more Googlin’.

Windows Recovery
After some digging, I came to the realization that even though Windows Home Server recovered the right partitions as expected, it did not recreate a boot manager on that drive. However, the problem was that I had no way to recovery the boot manager, since I didn’t have a Windows 7 disc available to run. Enter some more Googin’.

Some more research led me to instructions on how to create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc. To do so, you needed Winodows 7 installed on another PC, and you were limited to the following restrictions:

A 32-bit repair disc could only be created on a 32-bit Windows 7 install.
A 64-bit repair disc could only be created on a 64-bit Windows 7 install.
A 32-bit repair disc could only be used to repair a 32-bit Windows 7 install.
A 64-bit repair disc could only be used to repair a 64-bit Windows 7 install.

Thankfully, my main desktop was running Windows 7, 64-bit, and my HTPC was as well. So I quickly burned a Windows 7 repair disc using the build in utility (by running recdisc.exe in the search box). I then plopped it in my HTPC and crossed my fingers, and booted it up.

The system repair booted up, and as it was searching for OS installs on the drive, immediately noticed that the drive was missing boot entries for the main OS that I had recovered. It asked if I would like it to add the record (yes!) and then was complete, and restarted. I kept my fingers crossed waiting for my last boot into Windows, and got…. “BOOTMGR not found!” Gar!

Ok, must have missed something. One more boot from the recovery CD, and I was presented with a few options. I selected “Startup Repair” and let it look for problems with the OS. It then came back to me and said that it was missing the boot manager, and that it properly built a new one for me (hurray!).

One more restart later, and…… Welcome to Windows 7! Finally!

At this point I clicked on Windows Media Center, crossed my fingers, and was happily presented with a Windows Media Center interface, complete with all of the recorded media from the recorded TV partition. It was almost as though I had my SSD!

It’s important to note at this point that even though the HTPC is working fine without the SSD, it is working much, MUCH slower than before. Obviously it’s slower due to running a traditional platter-based HDD, rather than the newer SSDs. However, the big difference overall is that it is trying to run the OS on the same drive as it is trying to record media to constantly. Furthermore, at times, it may be doing three things at once; running Windows 7, recording TV to the HDD, and reading previous recordings from the HDD for viewing purposes. Talk about head thrashing on the drive! So although it’s working now, I will be impatiently waiting for the day that my third replacement SSD comes in the mail to help get the HTPC back to peak running performance.

Summary
Whew! That was a long process. But if you’re at all involved in IT or computers, I’m sure you understand that even the most seemingly mundane tasks can quickly explode into much more complicated, time-consuming tasks at the drop of a hat. Hopefully this article will give someone an idea of what to do the next time their HDD goes kaput, and they need to repartition, or even just to repartition in general. Good luck, and make sure you have plenty of beer on hand!

– Admin

Testing Facebook Integration Plugin

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Unfortunately, this blog is of nothing important. I am simply trying to test out the facebook plugin. That is all.

-admin

Bad CSS, Bad!

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The following CSS rule:

1	cursor: hand;

Is not valid! Please do not use it. And yes, I am saying this out of frustration, after reviewing a significant number of instances of this in a few CSS files…

That is all.

– admin

Paper or Plastic? (also known as Physical vs. Digital)

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I’m not dead! I am alive, I promise! I made this blog with the intention of continuing to post, but unfortunately life, the universe, and everything has gotten in the way of my posts, and this has taken the back-burner. Unfortunately, I am also paying for the domain with which this blog is being hosted, so in essence I’m simply throwing money out the window for no good reason. But no more! Hopefully I can get myself reacquainted with my blog, and can get posts cranking out again. So, here we go! (And hopefully this will be the last post that needs a paragraph like this explaining that I’m not dead…)

Back to the point of this article at hand – “Paper, or plastic?” We’ve all heard this question many times when going through the checkout line (that is, if you’re of the age group when they still regularly used paper bags to bag things up with, and the store actually did the bagging). It’s a simple question: “Do you want your groceries in a paper bag, or in a plastic bag?” Of course, most of us don’t care. As long as we get our groceries, and we get what we want, and can take it home safely and use it, that’s all that matters to us. We take what the popular answer is and run with it. Nowadays, it’s plastic. But, what does all this have to do with the real point of this article – “Physical, vs digital?”

There’s a shift in media paradigm going around in our society today, dividing a strong rift in between people. When it comes to media-oriented purchases, such as movies, music, or video games, should one purchase a physical-media format, or instead opt for the digital-media format? The choice may not be as simple as it seems.

You may be wondering what spurred me on to make a post, comparing physical media to digital media. After all, I haven’t posted for months (at least half a year, I believe!), and then suddenly I post about this. Well, it all began for me with a little concept known as Steam. Yes, yes, let the flogging commence, but I just tried out Steam for the first time a few days ago. Why did I wait so long to try out Steam? Well, first of all, I’m not a huge PC gamer (though I love me my console games!). Secondly, for those PC games that I normally would buy, I usually get them from the big box stores locally, or online through Amazon. Although, that point is fairly irrelevant, since I believe the last physical PC game that I purchased was Prince of Persia, in early 2009. So, I’m pretty inexperienced with PC game purchases. So, this then leads to the question of why I bought a game through Steam. The answer? Price, and convenience.

After purchasing the game (Just Cause 2, for $5.00), I have become hooked. Not to PC games in general, but the ability to have all of your PC games together, under one gaming “umbrella”, and not have to keep track of the discs, or the activation keys of the games themselves. Rather, you simply log in with your Steam account, click the game that you would like to play, download it if it hasn’t yet been downloaded on your PC, and begin playing. Voila! Easy as pie. Sure, there are some minor details of whether you have to be connected to the internet to play, and other details, but I will keep those outside of the context of this blog post. So, right now, as it stands for me, simply being able to have all of my games, in all their full glory, right at my finger tips, is amazing, and definitely a plus in my book.

Now, the question is whether or not the same can be said of movies and music. And it is at this point where I have issues with digital versions, and side with the physical copy of the media. For starters, let’s look simply at music. The obvious physical form of music is the CD. One can walk into their favorite store and pick up a CD, for roughly $0.99 a song, pay it, go home, and listen to it. It’s wonderful. Or, a person can go online to Amazon’s music store, iTunes, etc, and buy the same list of music, again for roughly $0.99 a song, and have them store “in the cloud”, always accessible anywhere and everywhere. In looking at this context initially, it could easily be said that buying a digital copy of a CD is leaps and bounds better than buying a physical copy, both for convenience, safety, and cost (since you don’t need to buy every song if you want only a select few songs from the CD). However, for me, the kicker is the quality of the music downloaded, vs. the quality of the music on a CD.

While a CD may never be as good as being in a live recording session, it is still exponentially better than that of the simple MP3 that you can download off of your favorite online digital distributor. While a fully uncompressed track off of a CD may range in the size of roughly 30MB per song. However, you simple MP3 downloaded may only be roughly 3.5MB in size. Where did all of that extra data go? It was lost in a lossy compression format, never to be heard by your ears ever again. While this may not normally be a problem for some, for those of us who have built higher quality home theaters, and don’t like listen to highly compressed MP3s, the online digital formats don’t work for us.

The same concept can be extended further to that of the digital movie distributions. Obviously the first company that comes to someone’s mind when they think of online movie distribution is Netflix. Second to that is probably the “digital version” that comes alongside a number of Blu-Ray / DVD combo packs one can buy in the store. However, once again these qualities drastically pale in comparison to their Blu-Ray counterparts. Comparing Netflix-quality streaming to a Blu-Ray movie is like comparing cable TV to a Blu-Ray movie, in my opinion. Once again, many people may be satisfied with Netflix-quality movies, or the digital versions that come in the combo packs. Unfortunately for me, I am not.

So here I am, stuck in a quandary. Do I settle for lower quality digital versions of movies and music, and enjoy the ability to play them wherever, and whenever I want to, or do I opt for the physical copies, with better quality, but require the additional restrictions of needing the media every time I want to play / listen to them? The answer, for me, is a hybrid solution of the two.

Let’s go back to the music topic. For me, I would like the ability of the “buy once, play anywhere” concept, but with the high quality I’ve come to expect. My solution is to use a combination of Exact Audio Copy, and the FLAC open-source codec to create a CD-quality rip (of my own CDs, mind you – none of this illegal stuff), but with a compression level that keeps me from having to chew up all of my HDD space, just for my music. Then, by simply downloading a codec that supports FLAC, I can now listen to any of my rips I have made. Coupling that with my Windows Home Server and my HTPC, I can now listen to all of my music whenever, and wherever I want to, without the restriction of the physical media. And furthermore, I maintain full quality that I demand with my music.

As far as movies, I follow in a very similar pattern. Currently, I do not own a Blu-Ray drive, so I am stuck at the moment with requiring physical use of that media. However, with all of my DVDs, I have followed in a similar scheme to that of my music. Using a combination of a few pieces of software, I am able to rip all of my DVDs into a single full-quality rip (full loss-less format, fully burnable in the future if I lose my disc), and can stream them over my network at will, again through my Windows Home Server and my HTPC. Once again, I am able to keep my full quality I need, while still maintaining all of the advantages normally reserved only for the digital copies. Unfortunately, I do need to sacrifice some HDD space to support all of the DVD rips I have. However, in my opinion HDD space is cheap, and so this issue is pretty much non-existent to me.

Winding things down, I suppose I should give my ideal solution in the future that would make me incredibly happy. As stated above, I love the way Steam works, and love the ability to have the fully copy of all PC games I purchase digitally “stored” online, so that I can play them when I want to, without the need for the physical copy, and without the need for the activation key, since they’re all stored online. This route still gives me the ability to enjoy the entire game, without crippling it in any form or fashion (such as lowering the resolution so that it can be downloaded quicker). If the same could be done for movies and music, where I could purchase a movie or a CD / song online, and get the same, full quality that I would expect out of a physical copy, I would be in heaven. But until that point, I will have to be subjected to the requirement of ripping my own copies of stuff, an converting them to a digital format so that I can get the advantages of digital media as well.

Now I leave the floor open to you. What do you prefer? Paper (Physical), or Plastic (Digital)? And why? Do you have issues with lower quality media? What is your setup like to take advantage of your decision to go with physical or digital? I’d love to hear of your setups, your environments, and your situations. Let’s hear it!

– admin

Kenzietech Blog

A little bit of life, a lot of technology, one developer and countless muses!

Goin’ Paperless! Enjoying the ScanSnap S1300i.

Preface

The Solution – The ScanSnap!

The Setup

First Impressions

The Software

The Results

Conclusion

Citrix and the Battle of Print Sharing!

The Problem

The Process

The Solution(!!!)

Conclusion

A Geek and His Toys

Antec Support Rocks!

Keeping Files in Sync in Windows 7

From Mac with Love!

Introduction

First Impressions

The Apple Store

Booting It Up

Initial Impressions

Overall Thoughts

The saga of the broken SSD and the temporary rescue of my HTPC

Testing Facebook Integration Plugin

Bad CSS, Bad!

Paper or Plastic? (also known as Physical vs. Digital)