Setting up PCHelpware with No-IP

One of the things I really miss after converting to Verizon Fios was my fixed IP. I had been using PCHelpware to support clients remotely. The ability to fix things without having to travel all over the place is a real Godsend.

With Verizon, I no longer have my coveted Static IP address. I've started to check a couple of times on the cost to upgrade from dynamic to static but just never got around to it.

I decided today to get my laptop and desktop working as a PCHelpware viewer. I had previously purchased the extended service from NO-IP.com for a whopping eight bucks a year or so.

Here are a couple of notes on what it took to get things working

• Set up an account with a service such as NO-IP
• Choose 2 domain names such as yourname.no-ip.biz
• Set up the PCHelpware server with the information to connect. We used ourname.no-ip.biz and ourname.no-ip.net and set the PCHelpware server up for ports 5500 or 5525. That will provide 4 options for your clients. (Sometimes port 5500 won't work right as in some editions of Norton's Corporate AV)
• Copy the PCHelpware viewer to your machines. We did a couple of presets. The setup is pretty simple, either port 5500 ot 5525.
• make sure that you allow PCHelpware throught your firewall. With Norton 2008, we had to go into programs and allow pchelpware viewe and also set up a port rule to allow tcp/udp on 5500/5525 for ourname.no-ip.biz and ourname.no-ip.net. Keep in mind that even though port rules said IP, you could enter the domain names
• Run the No-IP Dynamic Update Client on the machine (DUC). MAKE SURE that the two hostnames you selected have checkmarks next to them. (or at least the hostname that you will be having your client use)
• Start the PCHelpware Viewer. Be sure to select START after you select the ports.
• Tell your clients which port/domain to select. In some cases, they may have to tell their firewall to allow the communications.

There you have it, that should work but it does take some fiddling around. We use an aircard with the laptop a lot which was handy for testing the connections (we had our local net and the laptop was outside our network).

Hope this helps someone

Vista Windows Explorer displaying disappearing thumbnails

I was working on my Vista Home Premium Machine tonight. I had moved a bunch of pics over to the Buffalo Linkstation NAS device.

When I tried working with some folders with Jpgs, the thumbnails would show and then promply disappear. This happened for any size: Extra Large, Large, Medium and small.

I did some searching and the concensus was to use disk cleanup to remove the thumbnail caches. OK. However, Disk Cleanup only showed local drives, not the Linkstation.

I then tried to delete the thumbnail caches manually. The system would not let me delete them either.

Well, as Agent 86 would say "Let's try the old reboot the system trick".. That did it. When I rebooted the thumbnails were working fine. I'm not sure how long that will last but it was an easy fix.

Buffalo 1 TB Linkstation Network Addressable Storage Device

Our main desktop was getting a bit long in the tooth. My biggest fear at this point would be a hard drive failure. I've transferred most of my day to day activity to my Vista Laptop. That has been working well since I can now work downstairs. I was running out of drive space on the desktop and had been moving files to USB hard drives.

I purchased a Buffalo Linkstation 1TB Network addressable storage device. The whole thing cost a little less than $300 with shipping. The unit is about the size of a large shoebox.

When you plug it in, it takes a couple of minutes to fully boot. Once it is booted, it will connect via DHCP to your network. I got into the web interface and set a fixed IP.

Once the fixed IP was set I took a closer look at the configuration. It is not set up for RAID as a default. If you want to use Raid1, be sure to configure Raid prior to moving any data to the drive. Setting up the Raid Array takes a little bit of patience. Once you have it set up, then you are ready to start moving data. Also, keep in mind that enabling RAID1 will halve your available storage which means that the 1TB device will provide 500GB of storage with Raid1 enabled.

The web interface provides the ability to set up shares. Since we in a low threat environment, (all family members) I didn't need to set up multiple shares with different permissions.

The device will work at GB speeds. Our network is running at 100mbs but with three users, that is acceptable. Once the drive is up and running, we simply mapped a drive on each of the local drives to the Linkstation

You can plug 2 more USB drives into the device. We haven't tried that yet.

The Raid1 configuration provides protection against a single hard drive failure. However, it does not provide protection against other threats such as a someone malicioiusly or accidentally deleting data or something like your accounting data getting scrambled. You should have some type of backup plan which would involve rotating external hard drives, tapes or DVDs for your most critical data. Another option would be to use an online backup system.

Overall we are very happy with this. The RAID is a much better solution than spreading the data over a bunch of USB Hard drives without RAID.

Summary - Overall this is a great solution. Storage requirements are increasing especially with newer cameras and digital video. When you need more storage, you can purchase another unit and plug it into your network.

MS Backup is NOT included in Vista Home Premium - Implications

I just installed a buffalo Linkstation Network addressable storage device. That is working really well and is giving me 500GB of Raid1 Storage. I was in the process of copying files from my ancient and wheezy HP desktop. What had happened was that I had previously moved a couple of gigabytes of files of lesser importance to an Iomega 250 GB hard drive.

By the time I got around to copying from the Iomega, I found that the drive had died. No problem, being a tech savvy computer guru type, I had a backup of the files on another drive that was created with MS Backup on my old XP machine. ... HOWEVER, Vista Home Premium does not include the backup utility. The machine cannot read the BKF files.

My immediate workaround is to simply use the old machine to restore the backup from the old bkf files. No problem there.

This could be a problem for home and small office users who depended on the MS Backup utility and find themselves without the ability to restore old BKF files.

There are a couple of possibilities.

• Keep an old XP machine around with MS Backup on it
• Purchase a third party app that will read MS Backup files
• Purchase MS Vista Business in a version that has the Backup/restore utility.

First install of a Buffalo Terastation Network addressable Storage Device

One of our clients had an old, wheezy Windows 2000 machine that was basically acting as a file server on a peer to peer network.

If we were to replace the machine with a new machine, I would want Raid on it. The problem is that by the time you start putting together a machine like that, you will quickly find yourself into the $2000 plus range. In addition, the costs for the setup will start to add up.

We found a Buffalo Terastation Network Addressable Storage Device. It is one tereabyte of storage that is split among 4 drives in a RAID 5 configuration. That means that if any one of the drives fails, your data will remain intact and you can swap out a replacement drive.

The beautiful part is that the Terastation retails for somewhere around $600 and requires a lot less effort to set up and configure compared to a full blown workstation with RAID. The software to set up the Terastation on the network was easy to use. We had to change from the default 192.168.1 scheme to the 10.1.10 scheme that Comcast uses. That was easy to do.

If you want reliability, you might want to consider purchasing a drive as a cold spare so you can instantly swap out a failed drive.

You can attach USB drives for backup purposes and you can also set up another Terastation for backup purposes.

In summary, we are thinking about using a Terastation solution instead of replacing our elderly XP machine with a workstation with RAID.

Beware the Google Chrome

End user licenses can be tricky little buggers. I just came across a site where they are discussing the EULA for Google Chrome. Apparently the folks at the 'plex are claiming the ability to use anything you blog or email using chrome.

11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

So, you would have to be complete stark raving crazy to use Chrome for any business emails or transactions. Theoretically, if I use Chrome to send an email to my treasurer with the yearly financials for my company, I have given Google a license to use that data however they want.

What I also don't understand is that Google is claiming rights to what you "display on or through, the Services".. huh?? this would seem to indicate that if you visit one of my websites using Chrome, then the folks at the 'plex are now claiming that they can use the contents of my website because you displayed it in their browser??

this is more than a little scary.....

For now, I would stay well clear of Chrome until this EULA gets changed significantly.


Here is the original post.

Damn, I hate lawyers.....