Category Archives: Reviews

Equipment and Gadget Reviews from Sysguy

Spend a little save big on long distance!

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Actually we have a really good long distance deal from our home telephone provider. For over two years now our home provider has been our cable company, Shaw Communications. For 55.00 CAN a month we get unlimited calling anywhere in North America any time of day, and 1000 minutes of International calling to select countries although we have never used it. In addition we get a bundle of phone services like voicemail , call display, three way calling and more included. All in all, I know that this bundle has saved us at least 25.00 a month (and probably a lot more) over Telus who was our previous phone provider and in addition we no longer worry what time it is before we make a long distance call.

For a business line, I use Vonage Canada that provides 500 minutes of outgoing voice calling anywhere in North America, and 250 minutes of outgoing fax calls on a separate fax line for 32.00 per month. This is also a good deal as voice quality has been good with Vonage and the reliability has been fine. One of my favorite Vonage features is the ability to have voicemail messages sent via email. Currently I have these attachments sent to my main email address and my Blackberry’s address, In addition you can listen to and manage your voicemail messages via the Vonage web site.

For some people though Vonage may not be an option. In order to use their service you require a high speed internet connection and if you are Telus DSL customer you will still need a telephone line as Telus does not offer a service called Naked DSL (a DSL connection that is not tied to a phone line). This eliminates the ability for some people to use the Vonage service or at least it makes no real sense to use the service.

Enter a third option, Skype. Skype started out as a PC to PC VOIP Service, but for some time now have also been offering PC to Phone calls. In fact from the summer of 2006 till January 1 2007 Skype was offering this service free. Now they no longer offer the free service but the service costs very little. In fact if you have a high speed internet connection and are willing to make phone calls with your PC you can save a bundle on long distance.

Skype offers a service called SKYPE unlimited where for 35.00 CAN (29.95 USD), you can call from within North America to any phone line with no limits on the time you talk or the time of day! I have recently signed up for this service and the first test call I made worked very well. My laptop was connected to my home wireless network and I used the connection to call my wife that was in Winnipeg. Using a good headset (Plantronics DSP 400), on my end, the call sounded crystal clear. On her end she indicated that the call sounded a little fuzzy but was not bad. There was no problem with delays.

So why, if I have a great long distance plan like I have, would I want a service like this? Well there are a couple of reasons. If I travel, I can take my connection with me. This means if I am staying in a Hotel that offers Internet Access I can use my laptop to make phone calls as opposed to using my cell or the hotel line (providing they don’t block the ports as some do). Or if I am a client site I can use this to call anywhere. If I am visiting friends I do not need their phone line to make calls I can just borrow their Internet connection and make calls that way. The main reason why I purchased this though is for my upcoming podcasts. With the equipment that I have I can easily record SKYPE calls so I can conduct telephone interviews and record them for use in podcasts later.

Skype also offers free PC to PC phone calls all across the globe as well.

So what do you need? All you need is the Skype Software (free download), a Skype Account, Speakers and a Microphone (although a chat headset works best). So for less than 60.00 CAN, you can have free phone calls to anywhere in North America for a year. If you have a web cam, you can make video calls to other Skype users across the net. In addition several manufactures sell cordless Skype phones that connect to your router and operate like a regular phone in your house for making calls. More information is available at http://www.skype.com.

Skype has been around for a while and there are owned by EBay, so you know they are financially sound. You can save yourself a lot on your long distance if use Skype unlimited for your outgoing calls. For more information visit Skype at:
http://www.skype.com/products/skypeout/

A caution though, Skype is not a home phone replacement! You cannot make emergency calls from Skype and if you just purchase the Skype unlimited service you do not get an incoming phone number. Incoming numbers (Skype In service) is available for a monthly cost.

If you decide to look into Skype and try it, make sure you contact us. Our Skype ID is sysguy!

Out of the Box Review – The Blackberry Curve (8300)

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About three weeks ago when all the hype was going on I did something a little crazy. Maybe it was all the hype about the iPhone and what it could do, but I ended up getting myself a new cell phone. I was very happy with my Blackberry Pearl (8100) that I got at the end of November, and was getting use to not having the full qwerty keyboard and just trusting the phone software. Deep down I still wished for a full keyboard. I looked at the Blackberry 8800 but it didn’t have the multimedia features or the camera that I wanted (not that I really cared about the camera though).

In May of 2007 RIM released a new device, the Blackberry Curve (8300). It has all the same features that the Pearl has (MultiMedia, Camera, Mail etc) but also features a full qwerty keyboard. It is a little larger than the Pearl but is still smaller than the older Blackberry devices. It does not have the GPS that the 8800 does but I have a Bluetooth GPS receiver that works fine with both Blackberry Maps and Google Maps.

When my wife’s Motorola finally gave up the ghost and stopped charging, I looked on EBay and found a Curve that was selling for the same price as an upgrade for my wife’s plan would cost. I purchased the phone and anxiously awaited the Canada Post delivery.

The new phone was here by the end of the week. I pulled my SIM card from the Pearl and put my wife’s in it. Put my SIM card in the Curve and charged it up. I also added a 2 GB Micro SD card which allows me to store data and multimedia to the card. One thing that is similar to the Pearl is that the Micro SD card slot is located under the battery, so if you have a need to change cards frequently it is a little bit of a pain.

While the phone was charging, I went into my Blackberry Enterprise Server on my SBS 2003 server and reset the enterprise activation password for my account. Once the phone was charged all I had to do was on the Curve, go to Enterprise activation, put in my email address and the activation password and let the phone sync up. In a few minutes all of the data from my profile and email was all synced up.

I also use the Blackberry Internet Service on this phone for a couple of other email accounts. This is a service that is free that polls a pop3 email account and forwards messages to the device. Yes you can use both services (BES and BIS) at the same time. I set up the new pin in the BIS service website and resent the service books, bang the mail was forwarding to the new device.

I have now used the phone for about three weeks and have been very happy with it! The screen is very bright and can be seen in all types of light. It even automatically adjusts based on the light you are looking at it on. I have downloaded a couple of podcasts to the phone (converted with the included Roxio Media Manager) and it performs very well for displaying video, although the screen is small.

Voice quality and reception has been good, although due to my back injury I have not had a chance to try this in lots of places. The phone has a built in speaker phone and another unique feature is that the phone will adjust volume based on the ambient noise that it picks up around you. It is kind of weird the first time as the volume will go up without touching the controls. Voice dialing as in the Pearl is very good, you can either say a name or say a phone number, the phone will confirm and dial for you. I really like this feature and is something I am using constantly with my Bluetooth headset. I can make calls while the phone is securely clipped to the case on my belt.

Another feature that has been finally added to this Blackberry is a spell check. Yes no more misspelled words in your emails! As for typing, while the keys for the keyboard are actually a little small even, with my large fingers I have no problems typing as they have enough space between the keys. Something like sending a long email on my Pearl was a little trying, it has been an absolute breeze with the Curve.

Battery life- I have had some pretty good battery life from this device. Typically with my usage which includes web surfing, email, phone use taking pictures and Bluetooth I get about two to three days of use.

Camera – The phone features a 2 Megapixel camera with flash. With a Micro SD card you can store all of your photos to the card. There is also a 5X digital zoom. While the camera is okay in bright light pictures using the flash or taken in low light without the flash tend to be a bit noisy. The camera is fine if you want to snap a quick photo but I would consider using it for taking vacation photos!

One thing that I wish this phone has is WiFi so that I could connect to the internet wirelessly at home and save on downloading files via the slower edge connection.

One of the nice things about the Blackberry platform is that there are a fair number of third party applications for the phone. I have 4 already loaded up on the phone that I use on a regular basis. I have loaded a program called Mforms from http://www.skysoftsystems.com which allows you to build your own databases for the phone. For example I have created my own mileage tracking application for the BB and I can fill out the form and send it to my main email address for import into an Excel spreadsheet. I have installed the new audible air player which allows me to play my audio books on the device and actually download parts of my books from audible for listening. Another application is Jaikuberry which allows me to open and post to my Jaiku Presence Feed http://sysguy.jaiku.com. But I think the application I am looking most forward to hasn’t been released yet. The makers of Documents to Go, Dataviz will soon be releasing a Blackberry version of their software. http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/blackberry/index.html This will allow you to edit attachments on the Blackberry and gives the device a whole new use! Of course pricing is to be determined and I hope it is not as expensive as the other Office Application for the Blackberry.

In the box, you get the phone, battery, a USB Sync Charge Cable, a travel charger, a stereo headset, manuals and software CD. Am I happy that I got this phone? Yes! If I had to do it all over again would I do it? Again I have to say yes!

Window Home Server Beta 2- 1 month later

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It has been about a month since I installed Windows home server beta two on an old PC I had kicking around. So far I’ve been very impressed with the software. While I only have a few machines connected to the server, at the server has done has impressed me so far.

As I stated in an earlier post, windows home server is a product that is in beta for Microsoft designed for Home Networks and is based on windows server 2003 technologies. You install the software on a machine, configure user accounts, and plug it in to your network. Once the server is up and running you can run it as a headless device meaning that it does not need a monitor or a keyboard and mouse connected to it. Access to the server after the monitor and keyboard are disconnected is done using Internet Explorer. Once the server is running, you then use the client CD, and install the client software on each PC that you wanted connect to the home server. The client software sets up a backup routine, adds a shortcut on the desktop to shared folders creates and network status icon in the taskbar. Once user accounts are created on the server it sets up folders for each user, as well as a set of folders that are shared between all users. The server can also be used as a media connect device, that allows you to stream multimedia files to other media connect devices such as in Xbox360 or another windows PC with Media connect installed.

The server utilizes new technology called single instance file backup. What this means is that if the same file is backed up twice from different computers only one actual copy will be saved to the drive and a pointer will be created for one of the PC’s. For example if you are backing up two computers to the server, each with XP home installed, the backup program will back up all files on the first PC, and then while backing up the second PC, it will check to see if the file already exists in another backup and will back up a pointer to that file only if it does exist. This technology saves space on the home server allowing you to get away with smaller storage drives.

The home server product allows you to add more storage space to your home server at any time. This can be internal hard drives or USB or firewire hard drives. A word of caution however, is that when a hard drive is added, the drive is formatted an existing contents are lost. Hard drives can be added a couple of different ways. The new storage space can be added to the server as a whole, and the server will just store files wherever it can. Or the new hard drive can mirror the existing hard drive as a debtor redundancy method. This way if one hard drive fails, files will not be lost.

The server software also comes with a recovery disk. If you have to restore the PC that has been backed up to the server, even if the hard drive has completely failed, you can restore the backup to a new drive. I have tested this using virtual machines and have been very successful with it. I backed up an XP home virtual machine to the server, then under virtual PC 2007 created a new virtual hard drive, captured to restore a ISO file and rebuilt the virtual machine using the backup. This worked flawlessly. It gave me to identical virtual machines each one started fine and worked with no problem. I get to test this on actual hardware, but I do have an older tablet PC that has been backed up and I will soon test this feature. My plan is to format the drive, boot off the recovery disk and attempt to restore the operating system to the formatted drive. If it works like the virtual machine, I should have the system back to where it was before the format.

The backup does work over Wireless Networks, however the restore requires that the PC be physically connected to the network which makes sense as not all wireless card drivers can be included in the boot up. I should add that once a full backup is done, on a client PC, the backup only backs up changed files. This reduces the amount of time and bandwidth that a backup takes.

Windows home server will also be able to share printers that are connected to it to all users. This way one printer can be used by all users of a Home Network without having to purchase print server devices.

Windows home server also features several additional tools. For example it allows you to connect back to your file shares across the Internet using a web browser so that you can share your files with friends and family or access them from another PC. If you are running windows XP Professional, Windows Vista business, Windows Vista enterprise or Windows Vista ultimate, you can remote control your PC on your Home Network across the Internet just using the web browser. I have made the suggestion to Microsoft, that if an end user purchases windows home server and is running Windows Vista home premium, that they may allow remote control to the platform as well. I have not as yet tested a connection to an XP pro machine, but I have a remote controlled to the server. This feature is found in windows small business server 2003 and works extremely well, so I’m assuming that it’ll work just as well under this server package.

Microsoft has just released a software developers kit for windows home server which will allow vendors to create additional applications to extend the functionality of the home server. With this SDK we should see some additional applications available close to the final release of the product.

In my earlier post I indicated that the hardware requirements are not very rigid. All you need to install a server is a 1 GHz processor, 512 MB of ram and they 80 GB hard drive. This will allow for virtually any PC sold in the last four years to be used as the home server without too many hardware upgrades. One word of caution though, older hardware is more likely to break down sooner, especially hard drives, so I would suggest that if are using an older PC you consider at least replacing the hard drive before installing the server. In this way you can also install a larger hard drive at a minimal upgrade cost and use the second one as a second drive and the server.

As we are in beta two, I would suspect that we would see at least two release candidates before the software is made available to the public. I would guess that the time frame for release it be in the summer or early fall of 2007. It is still unclear if it will be available as this offer only purchase, available at retail or an OEM product. I’m also sure that we will see hardware appliances sold by the major tier one manufacturers. Regardless of how it is being sold we are recommending this product to most of our end users even if they only have one computer laptop. Our experiences show that most home users don’t have an adequate backup plan to deal with important documents, downloaded music or digital pictures.

Update
Since the time I started writing this and before I published it, Windows Home Server has gone to Consumer Technology Preview (CTP). This means that if you want to get a head start on the WHS server you can apply to download it. Visit the Microsoft Home Server Website http://www.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver and follow the links. You will have to fill out a brief questionnaire at the site and log in using a Windows Live Account.

I have also been thinking about configuration for these Home servers going forward. I think that the configurations we will be offering at Sysguy Consulting will be based on clients risk strategy. If they are looking at using an old PC to run the WHS, we would advice adding a new hard drive and using file replication as a backup. If they are looking at getting a brand new box, an AMD Sempron or Intel Celeron Processor would be fine. Hard Drives and setup could be chosen based on if the client is looking at a large amount of storage space or if they want data protection.

I still feel that the Windows Home Server product is a real winner! It answers a small problem that is often neglected by home users until it is too late and that is backing up important files and documents. So far the product has been very stable and I would encourage people to look at this very seriously as soon as it is available later in 2007.

Stephen

DLink DIR-655 Extreme N Wireless Router – Three Strikes and yer out!

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I usually keep my eye out for bargains in this business. Often my competitors will have sales on items were their pricing is at or just above my wholesale cost, so it makes it worth my while to just purchase from them as opposed to buying through distribution. Last week there was just such an opportunity. Future Shop had the DLink Extreme N DIR-655 Router on for 60.00 off. This was not much more than what my wholesale price was, and because I was looking at getting a router that supported QoS for my home network this one looks like it had everything I wanted.

I was extremely happy with my previous router but it was starting to date itself. This was a Nexland 400 PRO ISB. Nexland routers were never very popular and they were purchased by Symantec several years ago as they were the manufacturer for Symantec’s own Raptor firewall appliances. This router had been very stable and fast, and I can’t even remember the last time I had to reset it! It didn’t offer the QoS features and with the increase in devices that I have added to my network this was becoming important. For wireless access I have been using a Netgear WG602 V2 Access Point that has also been very reliable. It is located in roughly the centre of our house and provides a pretty good signal everywhere.

Friday AM, I went to my local Future Shop and picked up one of these routers. My plan was to plug it in, configure it for my home network then move it over later in the day. The three main features I wanted to take advantage of on this router were the QoS, the gigabit Wan and LAN ports and the extended range offered by the Wireless N draft standard. Wireless N draft (the standard is not yet ratified) allows for higher data connection speeds than 802.11G and up to 6 times the range of Wireless G. QoS, stands for Quality of Service and gives network priority traffic to certain applications on your network, such as Multimedia and VOIP phone. In essence it sees network traffic for these types of devices and gives their data packets higher priority to the network. Ideally VoIP traffic and Video would get higher priority than email or web browsing. This is important in our house because I use Microsoft Media Center Extenders and my business phone line is with Vonage. I have several machines with Gigabit cards and use Gigabit Switches in the house so the 2000 Mbs per second would come in handy for large file transfers as well. The DLink DIR-655 has all of these features so I thought it would be a good fit.

The router itself looks very slick, almost like an Ipod. It is shiny white with three detachable antennas, and green LED lights on the front (Hardware Version A2 features blue LEDs). I also noticed that the router came with the latest firmware that was on the DLink Support site. Firmware is code that controls the router and allows the manufacture to fix things via firmware updates. The router has the standard WAN port for your Cable or DSL modem to plug into, a USB port for configuration and 4 LAN ports on the back to connect to computers and switches.

I immediately ignored the sticker on the back of the router covering the LAN ports telling me to install the software first. I have configured between 50 and 75 routers over the years and I prefer using the built in Web interface in the router than installing unnecessary software on my PCs. I plugged a network cable into a LAN port, connected the other end to my backup Dell D600 laptop running XP Home and checked the network address of the Ethernet card. I then used IE 6 to access the routers home page. By default this router was configured for 192.168.0.1 but my own network uses a different network segment. Because I have machines assigned with static IP addresses it is easier to change the router than it is to change all of the devices. I accessed the router and boom the LAN connection dropped and restarted. OK try it again. Same thing. I tried everything I could think of to stabilize the connection (setting duplex and card connection rates) all to no avail. I called DLink support and spent about an hour on the phone with them trying to get it working. Still couldn’t get it to stay connected long enough to do configurations. I was being transferred to DLink second level support when I got cut off and the phone went dead.

I packed the router up and went back to Future Shop to exchange this one thinking it might be a bad one. They replaced the router and I went back home with the new one. This time I tried to configure it and it was more stable. I removed my Nexland router, plugged in the DLink and then the fun started happening. It appeared that the connection to the Internet would reset itself every couple of minutes. It would only be for a couple of seconds but never the less it would reset. I called DLink support again, spoke to first level support and they couldn’t do a lot then (I also got cut off twice) they patched me through to second level. I was advised to turn off UPnP on the router which I did, which stabilized the connection somewhat. I actually got a connection to the Internet for about 14 hours (OK it was overnight). The next day I tried to connect via my Netgear Wireless G PCMCIA card and poof the router rebooted again. Not good.

By this point I had enough and tried to put my old reliable Nexland Pro router back. Connected everything plugged it in and uh-oh, the LAN light was flashing red. This means that the hardware diagnostics failed. I tried everything I could to get it running, attempting to reset to factory defaults didn’t work nor did anything else I tried so I guess it has finally given up.

Instead I installed a Linksys Business Class Wireless router that I had in stock. This router is the WRV 200 G router with Rangebooster. It is designed for small business and features QoS, VLAN, and multiple SSIDs for wireless. I have had some pretty good results in client sites with these as they seem to be fairly stable once upgraded to the latest firmware and I always try to keep one or two in stock. I had this router set up and configured in less than 5 minutes and it has been good so far.

AS for the DLink, I took it back to another Future Shop store and exchanged it for another one. I was really willing to get this one to work. Brought it home, tried connecting via my laptop and again, it would drop the LAN connection every minute. I thought I could backwards flash the Firmware to an older version, but unfortunately I can’t even keep it connected long enough to upload the firmware files. Also the unsecured wireless network appears and disappears on all the wireless cards I have tried connecting to it.

After three tries I am finally giving up on this router. This one is going back to Future Shop shortly. In fairness I have again reported issues to DLink Tech Support via email but I am not holding my breath waiting for a response. I am still waiting for a response to an inquiry I made last week regarding one of their DNS-323 NAS devices. I have read fairly good reviews of this router on line. It seems people who have them working, like them. I just can’t get one working.

In the end I would not advise Sysguy Client’s to get this router based on the experiences I have had, especially at the regular 199.99 price tag. This may be related to a bad batch of these routers that was manufactured and sent to the same distributer. If you are willing to try, ensure that you can take the router back to wherever you purchase it from for a refund if you run into the same problems.

I think I will stick with the few routers that I know work well, I have had good results with the following routers:

Linksys WRV-200 Business class not easily available in stores
Netgear WGT-624 (One I get the fewest calls about)
Belkin Super G (Stable and a nice feature set)

If I hear anything back from DLink I will post it here.

Stephen

Windows Home Server Beta 2 installed finally!

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I finally got Windows Home Server Beta 2 installed. On the machine I wanted to run it on it took several hours as it was hanging. Finally performing a Bios update on the machine got the software installed. This machine just meets the minimum specs so it will be interesting to see how it performs on it. I also installed it on Virtual PC 2007 while I was testing the downloaded images. It seems to work fine there and I will be reporting more after a few more tests. Now it is late and I am off to bed

 Stephen

Stephen

Getting out of Remote Control Hell, at a price!

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Like most home theatre owners we had a problem with remote controls. With our older TV we could get away with 2 remotes most times and needed a third at times. Our TV, DVD Player and Audio system were all controlled from one remote (all Sony Products) but our Motorola HD Digital Cable Box had it’s own remote as did our Linksys Media Center Extender.  There were also separate remotes for the TV, DVD Player and Pioneer DVD Recorder. But these were rarely used. I suppose I could have configured one of the other remotes to add some of the functionality of one of the other devices but it didn’t give us all the control we needed.

Then we upgrade the TV to one from a different manufacturer. This created more problems as now we had at least 3 and sometimes 4 or 5 remotes. As well, with a couple of young children, we were always looking for one or the other remotes as they were behind the couch, under blankets etc. Because I set everything up I knew what combination of inputs were required on the different devices in order to watch a certain device. Anyone visiting the house and trying to just turn on the TV would be lost!

Enter the Logitech Harmony remote series. These have been out for a few years and they are fairly expensive. There are several remotes in the line going from Touch Pad screens down to a standard remote type. The premise with these remotes is that they are truly universal. Why? Becuase you program them via the internet from your computer and then download the code into the remote via a USB cable. There are thousands of devices available to be programmed on their web database.

For our home I decided upon the Harmony 880 Remote (available for 209.00). This remote features a LCD screen, a rechargable Lithium Ion battery, charger, AC Adaptor, software and usb cable. The charger itself is a flat device that sits on the a table and holds the remote level while charging so you can use it if your batteries run down. The disadvantage is that you need a coffee table with a power outlet nearby so that you can recharge the battery without having to put it in a another room.

When the remote arrived I pulled it from it’s packaging and read the instructions (yes I actually did). You have to put in the battery and charge the remote prior to programming it. I installed the software on Windows XP without any hitches. Once the remote was charged I plugged it into the PC via usb and it was immediately recognized. You start the up software and set up an account with Logitech. Then a wizard walks you through the process of adding activities and devices.

The first step is setting up all the devices that you have. Before starting I would suggest that you jot down the model numbers and manufacturers for all of the components you want to add. You add all of the devices you want to control (you can add others later). Once this is done the software starts to set up your activities. For example to Watch my TV, it walks you through what input the TV has to be on, do you use the TV speakers or an Audio reciever, do you use a Digital or Satellite box etc. It also asks what inputs all the devices have to be on to accomplish the task. Once you have answered all of the questions and set up all of the activities you want to do, you download the programming into the remote and try it out. With our home theatre, now pushing the Watch my TV activity button, turns on the TV and set’s it to the proper input, turns on the Audio Receiver and sets it to the proper input and turns on the Digital Cable box. From the remote we can control most of the basic and some of the more advanced controls without having to push or switch the remote to a differnt device. Pressing the off button shuts off all of the devices as well. To change to another activity push the button for it, Watch my DVD, for example and the inputs are switched, the DVD player is turned on and away you go. After you hit the activity button a help window pops up and asks if everything was turned on properly, if you select yes it asks to hide the help function or if something didn’t work it asks you questions and help troubleshoot the problem. The remote has most of the common buttons programmed to use the most of the features you will need during the activity, but if you still need more control you can push the device button and, select a device and work with virtually any button for the selected device. Via the software these controls can be changed or more added, remapped or removed. In addition using the software if your device is not available in the database you can add it by using the two remotes and having the Harmony learn the controls.

I programmed my remote for the following activities. Watch my TV (Digital Cable Box) Watch my DVD, Watch my Media Center, Record TV on DVD Recorder. I downloaded the programming and went upstairs to test it out. I pushed the activity button and voila everything turned on properly. Then I pushed the watch my media center and the TV switched inputs as did the Audio Receiver and the Media Center Extender came on. It worked perfectly on every device I set up. The only beef I had was that it turned off unused devices when I switched activities, which was a pain because my Media Center Extender has to connect back through the network to the Media Center PC after it is powered off, which can take a couple of minutes. This was fixed easily using the settings online to leave devices on and re downloading the code into the remote. For some people this may not be a problem but for us we will often decide to record a program and have to switch to the MCE device to start the recording.

I was doing this late at night on a Friday, so I put the old remotes away and just left the Harmony out. The next morning my wife and kids were up before me and SWMBO figured out with no difficulties how to use the TV and she is not very technical.

One thing that can happen that the remote can come out of sync with your devices. For us it does not happen often as we only use the single remote now and just about everything we do is solely based on the activities. The remote remembers the status of a device (powered on or off) so if you happen to use another remote to power off the device and then go to the Harmony remote it will usually do the opposite of what you want. So if I power off the DVD player manually after watching a movie, then hit the off button it will turn everything off and then turn the DVD player back on. If this happens just shut everything down and use the Harmony remote to turn it back on or off again.

Battery life. We get about 4 to 5 days off of a single charge. Usually when we get the battery low indicator we put the remote on the charger as we head off to bed. So this has not been an issue.

Since flipping over to Vista I have installed the software and it seems to run fine (although it needs basic mode), I have not yet needed to reprogram the remote so I haven’t connected it back up yet but will be doing that soon to look for firmware.

In the month we have been using it has it been worth it? For us yes! Since we don’t get out much and DVDs and recorded TV are our usual weekend entertainment the Harmony 880 has made things much easier. Could we live with out it? Yes but then we would have the clutter of 3 to 4 remotes and the frustration of finding these when the kids knocked one behind the couch. Could this be accomplished with a regular Universal remote? Yes it probably could, but not to the same degree of control I have now, and adding a new device in the future is fairly easy. Another thing that is great is the fact that we can control the Set top Digital box, the audio receiver, and the TV without having to set the device type on the remote or flipping a switch as I have seen on some remotes.

There are several models of Harmony to choose from and they start at about 129.00 and go up to 500.00. Visit Logitechs website if you are interested at http://www.logitech.com and check out the different models. Some work with the Xbox 360 and other consoles as well. Let us know if you are interested and we can track down a price for you for any model.

Stephen

 

Moving to Vista

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Well after suggesting to clients that if their hardware supports it they should upgrade to Vista in the next little while… I actually made the move myself last night! I have been using Vista Ulitmate on my new Asus laptop now since the end of December and other than a few issues have been ok. I finally put together my new PC based on an Intel Core 2 Duo to use as my primary PC. When I built the machine the plan was to install XP Pro, install applications then move data. Eventually I was going to go to Vista. Last night I had a thought that this was going to require probably a second imaging of the machine so I decided to upgrade the fairly new XP to Vista Business. The new machine was spec’d with Vista in mind so I knew running it wouldn’t be a problem and the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor confirmed that for almost everything. One piece of bundled software was not supported and may cause a problem but that was about it.

The Upgrade Process
I popped in my Windows Vista Bsiness upgrade disk and indicated that I wanted to upgrade. After answering a few questions, it was ready so I let it go on. About an hour later Vista Business was installed. Hmmm after the first log in I noticed that I had no sound and that there was no sound card installed. This is a fairly new Intel motherboard with the 965 chipset so I knew it wasn’t old legacy hardware. I checked Intels site and there was a Vista Driver for my integrated sound card. Download it and install, no problems yet, reboot…. Still no sound device. Try Windows Update and nothing.

At about this time I also decided that I wanted to try the Vista anytime upgrade process. I was planning on putting Vista Ultimate on this PC anyway. This is a new feature with Vista. Since the OS upgrade is distributed on a DVD, every version is on the disk. Installation is controlled by your product key. I visited the web site from my other PC (http://windowsanytimeupgrade.com) selected my upgrade (Business to Ulitmate), input my credit card information and was sent to a link to download a file to my PC to start the upgrade. Since I had an anytime upgrade disk, I copied the file to my Vista PC and ran it. I got prompted to put my disk in and about an hour later, Vista Ultimate was now on my machine. But still I had no sound! BTW anytime upgrade is only available if you are running a version if Vista on your PC, you can not use it to upgrade XP to Vista.

After Googling my sound problems. I finally found a post that had a solution. It had to unistall my sound card from device manager, reinstall the Vista Drivers, reboot, then from device manager update the drivers and indicate to install them from my pc. I tried it and sound was back!

I still have some devices that will not work with Vista but not many. All of my printers (except my Canon CP220 photo printer) had Vista drivers available to some degree. HP has still not come up with netwrk drivers for my networked 7210 all in one so the scanning functionality only works via the web interface. My Quicken XG 2006 needed a couple of tweaks (run as admin and XP SP 2 compatibilty, shame on you Intuit Canada). I am disappointed with Microtek as they currently do not have drivers for my Scanmaker 4800 scanner and don’t plan support,  in fact they will not have drivers for their current products till June of 07. Not good! I haven’t yet tried hooking up some of these devices but I will and then try to figure out if there is some sort of workaround.

For applications that just don’t behave under Vista, I will be using MS Virtual PC 2007 (see my next post). I will be setting up an XP SP2 VM and installing those applications on there. There is limited hardware support but at least thiey will be able to run.

For the most part after a day I have been happy. I like the new Aero interface and wnat to go with the security features of Vista. Stay tuned as I will post more problems and solutions as I come upon them.

Stephen

 

KDS 7″ Widescreen Digital Media Frame Review

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In mid February, one of my sales reps at a distributor who knows I like cool gadgets, sent me a special on KDS 7″ Widescreen digital picture frames. I ordered a few for us and some family members and had a couple left over. I emailed some clients and offered a bundled special to sell the last two with a 1 GB Kingston SD card and the frame. Well the response was overwhelming and I ended up selling about 12 additional units. These are really great devices! Here is a quick review, and I still have one or two available from my last order.

KDS is a global LCD and Monitor companing and has been selling panels for years. These digital frames started to become a hot item around christmas time and were hard to come by. In a nutshell they are LCD panels mounted in a picture frame of sorts. They usually have digital media slots, internal memory or USB ports to plug media into. Once media (pictures) are loaded the frames can be set up to cycle through the pictures and display them on the screen. This solves the one complaint I have heard most often from Digital Camera owners that they never get to see their pictures.

These little KDS frames are great as they can display more than just pictures. They are a 7″ Wide Screen (16X9) display, much like on most portable DVD players. In the box you will find the frame, the AC Adaptor, a remote control, the stand and a video/audio out cable, Of course a basic (chinese written manual is included). The frame is self is about 8″ by 5″ with a clear lexan outer and a white bezel around the lcd about 1″ wide. There is a noticeable IR port for the remote on the bottom of the frame, but at least to me it is not a big deal. The frame has a slot for SD cards (MMC and Memory Stick also supported), a USB port, controls, the attachment for the stand and mounting holes to attach it to a wall.

Simply load in a card turn it on select pictures and they start to display on the screen. A couple of really nice things about the frame is that you can have it play music (stereo speakers built in) at the same time. The frame also supports several video formats so if your digital camera can take movies these can also be displayed! There are 13 different transition settings you can have between images (1 is random), as well you can pause your slideshow and zoom in and pan around the picture. The display is a matt finish to reduce reflections and is bright enough although brightness can be adjusted. You can have music from the card playing while viewing slides at the same time so you can create your own slideshows.

Want to see the pictures larger. The frame easily plugs in to a standard TV or VCR using the supplied video out cables so that you can show your photos off to guests.

The USB port is a great idea as you can install pictures on a flash drive and plug it in or transfer directly from your digital camera to the media card via the frame. Pretty slick and no need for a computer.

The day my first shipment arrived I quickly opened the package, loaded up an SD card with images from pour Hawaii trip in January, inserted it, plugged in the frame and started it. There they were scrolling through the all the pictures that I took. It was mesmorizing to everyone as all you end up doing is watching the first run of pictures.

After a couple of hours I finally got to paly with it a little more and adjusted the between picture transitions and played with the zoom and rotate features on the remote a little.

This leads me too a few of the minor little nitpicky things I don’t like about the frame:
1) While the screen is 7″ Widescreen, the problem is that pictures in a slideshow look better at 4:3 aspect ratio. Landscape pictures look fine when stretched but portrait pictures become distorted. If you only have portrait pictures or only landscape pictures this would be fine, bit most people will have a mixture of both.
2) Documentation. This is a chinese written manual and some of the translations are not perfect so it gets a little confusining to try and understand it at times. I had to read it a couple of times to figure out some of the features.
3) Remote functions… Basic functionality is simple, but this is a DVD player remote and learning what some of the controls do can take time. The manual does not go into great detail.
4) Probably my biggest beef. I really, really wish this had a random picture selection setting instead of being linear. Currently you select a folder and it plays those in order then moves on to the next folder, all the way through the card, then starts over. It means that if you want random photos, you wouyld have to rename them all (in the order you want) and stick in one folder.
5) No colour control, brightness and contrast only. No biggie the frame looks good as it is.

The frame can handle JPG files from cameras of 8MP or smaller. In the future this may be a problem as camera’s get larger and larger chips. Personally I resized all of my pictures before I put them on the memory card any ways. The best resolution for this frame is 1024 x 768. So why have a picture that is 3000X2200 on the card? This is just taking up space and will slow down the frame to. I use a batch photo resizer that I downloaded via the www.snapfiles.com freeware section and get my pictures down to 1000x (aspect locked resize). So instead of taking up 3 MB from my Rebel XT for each image, it takes les than 200K. I figure doing this on a 1 Gigabyte card I can load more than 10000 pictures! I use an external card reader on my PC for all media card work anyway.

Here is a link to the manufacturer’s web site http://www.kdsusa.com/MF-2007-1.asp

All in all I love this frame. Soon the prices will be down further and the 8 and 10″ frames will also come down in price (currently at about 300.00). At that point I wil surely get one of those.

If you are interested I have one or two left that I can sell and soon I will be able to get more. Current price for the frame with a 1 GB Kingston SD card is 160.00 + GST. Please email me at sysguy at sysguy dot com if you are interested.

 

Aloha – We are back!

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You may or may not be aware that we were away for two weeks of relaxation in early January to the island of Maui. Maui continues to be our favorite place to go and unwind and we are still looking at ways of expanding Sysguy to the Valley Island! If you have never been there, I highly recommend a minimum 10 day visit, as anything else is too short! Whales and Dolphins were jumping and the whole family had a great times and there were some tears as we boarded our Westjet flight to return home! If you are interested in more of the trip, I will soon be posting more on my personal blog (the link is on this page) in the very near future as well as pictures on my photo gallery.

While I didn’t do a lot of “work” while I was away, I had the opportunity to have an extended test of some peripherals that I use on a regular basis to see how they worked out.

The first was my Linksys Wireless G Travel Router. This device is slightly bigger than a deck of cards, comes in it’s own case and has in internal AC adaptor. This little dvice is always in my bag and really has come in handy. It allows me to do a couple of things. The router works as most home routers do offering firewall and shared wireless access, but this router does a couple of things that other travel routers do not.

Firstly, the AC adaptor for the unit is built right into it. There is a little slide on the top of the device to side out the two prongs and plug the router into a wall outlet or extension cord. This makes it a little lighter and less bulky to travel with.

Another feature that I find is a bonus with this router is that there is 2 RJ45 ports on it. One for a hardwired Cable or DSL modem connection the other for laptops or even desktops and other devices. Most travel routers have one port that you can either plug into a cable modem and use the device as a router, or plug into your hardwired ethernet card on a machine and use it as a wireless client but you can’t do both. With the Linksys one port can be plugged into a cable router and the other can be used for a other devices. For example I used my Linksys Vonage phone adaptor on this port (but more about this later).

Something else I have used from time to time is the routers ability to connect to a wireless network (unsecured only) as it’s primary ethernet (internet) connection. I have used this often in hotels to connect to their wireless internet services and then boost that signal into my room or unit. Another scenario where this can come in handy is if you have a group of people working together, they can connect to a secured wireless network (your own from the Linksys) and share data back and forth and yet still have Internet access on theier own PC’s . This gives you an additional firewall between the PC’s and the hotel or providors Internet Connection.

Continue reading →

New Cell Phone

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Normally I wouldn’t get really excited about a new cell phone. That was until yesterday. Over the past couple of months I have often wished I had email when I was in meetings or on client visits. I finally took the plunge yesterday and upgraded my phone to a new Blackberry Pearl!

I was hoping to get one of the Windows Mobile based devices so that I could sync the device with my SBS 2003 server, but the poor battery life of these devices available through Rogers kept me away. Enter the Pearl.

Rim released this phone in Sept 06, and it didn’t have the typical Blackberry look. It was sleek, didn’t have the standard keyboard and the track wheel was gone, replaced by a white trackball that lights up (the pearl)!. The form factor is like a chocolate bar. This phone is very light and the display on it is nice and bright. Reviews I read on the Internet all raved about the phone.

So I broke down yesterday, added the email plan and purchased the phone from Rogers (did you know you can now upgrade your Rogers hardware every 12 months). With the plans comes the Blackberry Internet Service which allows me to add up to 10 email accounts to the phone. One of the nice surprises is that I can add an exchange server account that has access to Outlook Web Access. I liked this because I can keep the email server from having to run as a pop3 mail server. Unfortunately without the BES (Blackbery Enterprise) server I cannot update contacts or calendar items using this method like Activesync does. Hower I can connect the phone to my PC and sync it.

Voice Dialing is a cool feature that I think I will use a lot as well. I can give the phone a command and then say a name or a number and the phone will dial.

IT also features a 1.3 MP camera with 5X zoom and Flash and the ability to play Mp3. There is a slot under the battery for a Micro SD card.

I still have to try to connect my laptop using the phone as a Bluetooth wireless device to the internet, but it should be possible.

So far after a day and a half of playing with it I have been impressed. If I find other thigs about it (good and bad) I will post them here.
Stephen