Windows Mobile 7 device specifications

Believe or not believe? I tend to believe, seeing that HTC HD2 is made to satisfy these specifications and that it was promised that HD2 will get upgrade to WM7. And just to put those specs into perspective, my Raon Everun UMPC ran Windows XP with just 6GB SSD and 600MHz CPU. Just asked Eldar if so high requirements may mean that Windows Mobile 7 is a some kind of light weight rehash of Windows XP, and he replied that it really looks so.

So will we get XP compatibility in new Windows Mobile 7 phones? Not 100% I think, but with some UI adjustments, recompiling existing XP code might be an option.

Intel SSD Gen.2, continued

So, I got 2 80GB units from cartft.com (via ebay). Price was fair (194 EUR/piece) and shipping was only 16 EUR for UPS ground (4 days) delivery. I have to say that these babies delivered on all the hype that surrounds them, and that’s why their price still exceeds MSRP without any signs of decline.

Boot time in laptop (Windows 7, Core 2 Duo, 2.1GHz) went down from 40 seconds to 15. Desktop (Core 2 Quad 4GHz) boots in mere 6 seconds (without motherboard POST time, which begins to look too long at 5 sec). Overall, system responsiveness is butter smooth. Level loading (MW2, L4D) are a breeze at around 4-5 seconds. I am satisfied. Very satisfied.

In search of the holy grail of home servers

ATM my home server runs Windows 7 Ultimate (trial mode till end of December) and I am researching free alternatives like freenas, openfiler, ubuntuserver, freebsd. Need this machine to support administration via web gui and provide following services for me

1. file sharing via SMB/Samba
2. torrenting with webgui
3. http web server
4. webdav
5. vpn
6. upnp/dlna media serving to multiple upnp/dlna players simultaneously
7. continuous data backup (windows live sync style, propagating changes between machines immediately, rather than overnight)
8. advanced disk/RAID management, described below.
9. seems that vitrtualisation is high on my list too.

Found this thread discussing freenas and drobo functionality, and thought that this post decsribes my needs too.

I'm also looking for the holy grail of RAID solutions and really hope someone can come up with or find something. I want the following features: REQUIRED: - Redundancy, allowing for at least 1 drive failure - Mix and match drive sizes WITHOUT being limited by the smallest drive (and thus wasting space) - Ability to add drives to increase capacity - Ability to replace drives and increase capacity - NAS functionality, accessible via a Windows share - Ability to create multiple partitions, with respective shares (or one large partition with multiple shares mapped to folders on the NAS? Who really cares about the "internal" file structure..) PREFERRED: - Performance that isn't terrible - In my case, fast enough to steam 1080P over ethernet - Minimal data capacity loss due to parity (< 50% - Else I'd just mirror.) - "NTFS" Volumes larger than 2TB (Not sure if this is possible via a share.. perhaps "Emulate" NTFS and actually store on a file system with larger volume capacities to achieve this? I could care less if Windows reports my remaining space correctly, as long as the NAS would.) - Software-based, so I can also use the box for other purposes.

I already run freenas in virtualbox on my server with bridged network interface on my server, and it appears as separate machine with web gui on my network. I already see some of the drawbacks of freenas, like no webdav, vpn, virtualisation (the kind that allows me to test freenas in VM like I do it now).

Downloading freebsd, openfiler and ubuntu server to install as VMs too and give ‘em a try this month.

Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade in Latvia

So, Windows 7 is here. Since trying W7 beta in the beginning of 2009, I knew that this was the first OS that I’ll upgrade my home computers to and will be willing to pay for it. I will need several copies for my home:

1. gaming/multimedia PC – currently runs W7 RC. It absolutely needs a Windows license, because I use it to for playing games, and Linux just can’t compete here. Will update it to Windows 7 Home Premium (which has all I need, including Windows Media Center).

2. home server- has Ubuntu and W7 trials at the moment. I can use it in this mode for another 100 days. It is now fully configured to provide the functionality I need – filesharing, utorrent, orb, wuala, https web server, webdav and vpn. In the upcoming 3 months I will try get same functionality (except orb) under Ubuntu. If that works, fine. Otherwise, will upgrade to W7 too. Home Premium does not support Remote Desktop server, but I can manage with VNC I think.

3. 2 laptops – running W7 trials atm, need to upgrade.

So, I am going to buy 3-4 upgrade licenses. Today, I checked pricing and availability of Windows 7 here in Riga, Latvia. Unfortunately, there is no Family Pack available (some people say it might appear after Oct, 31st, when Latvian language Windows is promised). But, price for Home Premium OEM upgrade is quite good ($70 or 50 EUR). Buying Family pack of 3 licenses at amazon UK, would cost the same after shipment. I think I will rather buy HP OEM upgrades here.

I do not have that many Vista or XP licenses (basically all my PC were self made, and laptops came with Linux), but will try to find some old/written-off licenses from sysadmin friends. I know that OEM will work only with one machine, but Retail copy is almost 4 times more expensive (180 EUR) and for that money, I can buy new OEM upgrades later if needed.

I checked to computer shops today and in both, was asked to prove that I have a copy of Windows to upgrade from. Windows label on the bottom of laptop is enough of the proof they said. Interesting, can I show the same laptop in various shops to buy 3-4 upgrade licenses? I think I can.

SSL, certificates, VPN and WebDAV under Windows 7

Under Windows 7 (and Vista too, I think) WebDAV and VPN fail if you use a self-signed (and therefore, untrusted) server certificate. Too bad that error messages are cryptic, and talk about failure to establish connection, or something like it, but never complains about SSL cert. Hmm. If you try to access such server with IE then (unlike Firefox) there is no way to turn off warnings. Also, if you try to play media from such website, IE and Firefox  will launch associated media player (WMP in my case), which will also fail to connect to net resource to play it. Long story, short, kids – use trusted certificate if you need to use SSL in Windows.

And the good news is that now there is a provider of free SSL certificates (really free, not a 30-day trial as some advertise), who is also included into default Windows Certificate storage as a Certified Root Authority. This is Free SSL service from Startcom. With their cert for my server, WebDAV and VPN began to work.

 

The only fly in the ointment – Windows 7 implementation of WebDAV is buggy and slow and compared to Ubuntu.