WHS Connectivity Problems

I have had some problems with my home server over the past couple of weeks. It all started when I tried to install the latest Power Pack (Power Pack 2) for Windows Home Server. In reality the problem had nothing to do with Power Pack, but the update process highlighted that my Internet connection for the home server was down. This was due to the issues with my Netgear router (see previous blog entry), but in trying to fixing it I thought it was a firewall issue. In trying to identify the problem, I set the firewall settings back to their defaults.

Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but I am using a Tranquil Harmony Home Server and you can only connect to it remotely (via a remote desktop connection). The firewall defaults are to deny file & print sharing AND remote desktop connections. Duh! I realised about 10 seconds after hitting the restore default button what I had done.

To fix this, you need to connect to the Tranquil server directly. Fortunately this is fairly straightforward. Remove the rear face plate (just three screws) and you will find a VGA, keyboard and mouse sockets (see photo above). This will allow you to logon to the machine directly without having to use a remote desktop. Just set the firewall settings back to normal (firewall set to "ON", but file & printing sharing and remote desktop selected on the "Exceptions" tab). And bingo, you are back in business.

Once you have the back plate off, the motherboard assembly just pulls out of the front of the unit. The motherboard and hard disk all come out as a single unit. There are a couple of screws on the top of the unit that allow you to remove the hard disk and access the memory. There is a single module - PC2-5300 DDR2 - I just happened to have a spare 1GB module, so I swapped it for the 512K already installed.

Bye bye Netgear DG834N

Well after just over 2 years of faithful service it looks like I have reached the end of the road with my Netgear router. It started to have problems a few weeks ago (denying Internet access and sporadically losing WiFi connectivity) - all of which could be resolved by rebooting it. It is amazing how reliant we have become on Internet access (the TV in the house is streamed over a WiFi connection adding an additional inconvenience!). Having to reboot the router daily was a major inconvenience. Originally, I thought it might have been issues with my ISP, but sadly not.

I have just replaced it with one of the new Belkin N+ Wireless Routers. It doesn't have the same aesthethic appeal as the Netgear router, but at least this one works. The documentation is not brilliant (more about this later), but it didn't take very long to install. Plus, much to my relief, all of the issues that I had been encountering seem to have disappeared. So it looks like it was the Netgear router that was faulty after all. I would have expected it to last longer than 2 years, but with the cost of a replacement being so low (around £70), I am not going to lose any sleep over it.

MSN predicts the future

I can never resist articles like this http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/lists/?article=FuturePredictions

The truth about innovation

This book provides some really useful reading. The book is organised into a series of 55 two to three page "truths" on the subject of innovation. Each of the entries has additional reading material listed in the back of the book which is really useful.

If you have read other innovation books, you may have encountered some of this material before. However, I suspect that it is exactly these readers that will get the most out of this book. It is packed with great tidbits and really thought provoking material. It almost reads as a set of blog entries. Because of the structure of the book, it is very easy to dip in and out of. If you are new to innovation, you might be better off with another book initially - just to provide a bit of context around the innovation process. Then come back to this book.

It is a well written and well structured book that I suspect that I will come back to time and time again. Recommended.

Getting the best from people

I like this series of books. They present information in easy to read bite pieces. Great reading for short tube journeys where you are constantly picking up and putting down the book. The material is well written and accessible. If you have read the "usual" management books, I suspect there will not be an awful lot of new material here. However, it is always useful to be reminded as all too often it is easy to get caught up in the day to day running of any business.

The main drawback (and probably it's biggest asset) is that the material is presented in no particular order. You don't need to start the book at the beginning and you can dip in and out. It does mean that it lacks a thread that develops throughout the book. However, I suspect this is an artefact of this book format. I enjoyed reading it and it provided me with some useful reminders.

The Drunkard's Walk

The is another one of those fascinating books that I would put into the category of "behavioural economics". To be fair, it probably has a much wider appeal than that and will be of interest to anyone interested in popular science.

The book provides fascinating insights into the way our brains are wired and the way that we process probability and randomness can lead us to misinterpret events. For example, if we take the three events below and ask people to rank them in order of their probability, they will often put C before A or B. Yet, statistically it is the least probable (based on both A and B have to happen so it is impossible for the probability to be less than A or B).

A. My company's profits will increase next year
B. The economic climate will improve next year
C. My company's profits will increase next year and the economic climate will improve next year

Why is this? As Mlodinow puts it "if the details we are given fit our mental picture of something then the more details in the scenario, the more real it seems and hence the more probable we consider it to be - even though any act of adding less than certain details to a conjecture makes the conjecture less probable".

Fascinating stuff! And this book is full of such examples based on our peculiarly human understanding of conditional probability and randomness. In fact, I got halfway through this book and found it amusing that I was finding conditional probability so interesting! Just goes to show how well written it is! Highly recommended.