HP EX487 Media Server

My new toy has 1.5 terabytes of disk storage! That's 1,500,000,000,000 bytes! I'm setting it up now, so I'll write more about my experience later.

So far I have installed the server software on my main computer and performed a full backup of the hard drive. I think. The HP software shows I did a backup, but I'm not able to access the backup drives directly with explorer.

I then installed the software on my MacBook Pro and am using Time Machine to do a full backup of it, which is taking a very long time.

Next I enabled remote access to the media server so I can access it from any computer on the Internet. I created my own web site name and was able to log in, but at this point there are no music or picture files to view. I enabled picture viewing and iTunes streaming, but I don't seem to have control over when the files on my computer get copied into the shared folders on the server. I guess I'll just have to wait and check online for help if it doesn't sync up soon.

I also wanted to backup my older PC, but it is running Windows 98 and I may not be able to install the HP server software on that computer. I believe all the files on it are also stored on my newer PC, but I wanted to make sure I had a backup of ALL my files I have collected since 1995 when I bought my first PC.

------- 03/30/2009

So I'm still learning how to use this box. Last night I made the mistake of leaving my computer in standby mode so it would wake up for the nightly backup, but I turned off the server. So at 3 AM I woke up to the sound of Windows starting up. Since the HP server was off, there was no backup and the computer never shut back down. Plus, I was not able to try to access the server from work. So I'll leave the server on tonight and just let it go into its sleep mode.

This evening I was able today to get the server to stream music to my computer. That was kind of neat, but since I was using the computer at home that was streaming the music, it wasn't anything more than a test. Also, I need to add more pictures and videos to my server, but I don't keep them in the place that the HP software looks for, so I need to figure out how to specify where my files are stored. All in good time.

------- 03/31/2009

Last night my computer woke up and the HP server completed its backup. However, the computer did not shut down. So I set the computer up to go into standby mode after two hour of inactivity. Let's see how this works.

I was able to access my HP server from work, including streaming my iTunes music!

------- 04/01/2009

Last night my computer woke up for the backup, but because I changed my password, it didn't log in, so the computer never shut down or went into standby. I have updated my password setting and will try again tonight.

Also, I still need to figure out how to get my Macbook Pro to backup regularly. It takes quite a few clicks to get the Mac connected to the server. However, I don't use my Apple every day, so once a week for backing it up is fine.

------- 04/02/2009

Last night my computer woke up and logged in, but did not shut down. Also, no backup was done and the media server was off this afternoon. When I turned on the HP media server it indicated that the software was just updated and I had to re-boot my computer. So maybe the software update interfered with the backup, but I don't know why my computer did not go into stand-by after two hours.

------- 04/10/2009

So far I'm VERY happy with this product. My only issues are with my PC and firewalls. I use ZoneAlarm, and for some reason it does not remember that I have allowed the HP software to access the Internet and act as a server, so when the PC wakes up at midnight, it sits waiting for me to click "OK" to allow the HP server to do its job. I went into ZoneAlarm today and manually set the programs to always allow the HP server full access. Also, my PC still does not shut down after two hours of inactivity after the midnight backup, so it stays on all day. I've read the Vista is better at this but you also have to carefully select all the options to prevent it from waking up unexpectedly. I also have given friends and family access to the server so they can upload and download files.

Me at the Top of Camelback Mountain

It was bad timing. The night before I left on my trip to Arizona, I got a bad soar throat. I ended up leaving work early the next day to go home and rest. As the weekend approached, my throat got worse and I developed a bad, dry cough. However, I never felt really sick and I didn't let my illness stop me from doing anything during my vacation. Hiking the steep way to the top of Camelback Mountain is one example. I survived this hike by drinking lots of water and sucking on cough drops. A week after I got sick I'm finally feeling better, but I'm taking it easy so I don't get a relapse.

Stalkers of Manny

Chris and Steve asking Manny Ramirez to sign a baseball. Chris succeeded, Steve did not. It was strange. We were standing around in the parking lot before the game drinking beer when somebody noticed Manny walking by. Suddenly every one took off after him. I'm not into autographs so I just stayed put. After the game we waited for Manny to walk back to the car, but someone else picked the car up and left. Manny must have found another route out of the ballpark.

Group Photo Without Me!

You wouldn't know it, but I am standing off on the left taking this photo. Everyone is in the photo but me!

Better Group Photo from Camelback Hike

You have no idea how tired we actually are after the hike to the top of Camelback mountain. It was funny. On the way up there was an 8 year old boy resting on a rock, and a man passed him and said something like "What are you going to do when you're 71 like me?". Well, I can only hope I can hike this mountain when I'm 71.

Better Group Photo

This is a slightly better group photo. I had to turn up the brightness so you could see our faces, causing the photo to look a little washed-out. Then again, we were a little washed-out by the end of the four days.

Stone Porter at Stone Brewery

An impromptu beer/dinner at Stone Brewery.

Best of Photos From Spring Training 2009

Something new I'm trying with an embedded slide show courtesy of Picasa. Also, usually I enhance my photos with Photoshop first, but that takes more time and I wanted to post them sooner.

We had a good time this year in Arizona. Even though we didn't see the Padres, we did go to the two new ballparks in Goodyear and Glendale, both located on the outskirts of the greater Phoenix metro area. The weather was warm (borderline hot) every day but Monday, when it cooled off and the wind was blowing. As usual, even though I watch four baseball games, I don't remember anything about them. We go to the games to talk, eat, drink and people-watch.

It was nice having two new people this year. They both had a good time and will want to come next year.

The only negative part of the trip was the conflict with the other three people who were staying at a different hotel. We only saw them at three games and they left on Monday without saying goodbye. They didn't want to join us for dinner, and we didn't join them for dinner. Oh well. At least I think they had fun doing their own thing.

Once again, I thank Steve M. for organizing this trip and buying all the tickets and stuff. Can't wait until next year.

Direct link to album below:

http://picasaweb.google.com/reelds9/SpringTraining2009?feat=directlink

Group at the Top of Camelback Mountain

I just got this photo sent by Chris of the five of us who dared to hike Camelback Mountain on Friday morning. We woke up at 6 AM to get a just-start on the day. This time we went back to the steep side of the mountain and it was one intense workout. Luckily it was not too warm yet and the wind at the top felt good. There was only one injury when Chris hit his head on a rocky overhang. He lived. Since this was the first morning, the trip had just begun. Four baseball games yet to watch.

Tempe Diablo Stadium

Dodgers at Angels.

Mariners at Cubs

At Mesa, AZ.

Cubs at White Sox

New Ballpark in Glendale, AZ.

HAppy hour.

Goodyear Ballpark

Athletics at Indians in Goodyear, AZ.

Hiking Camelback Mountain

Mike and Mike (and yes, in the morning) at the top of Camelback Mt. in Phoenix.

Vacationing for Stress Relief

Tomorrow after work I fly to Phoenix for four days for baseball, beer and sun. If that doesn't relax me then nothing will. I'll try to upload some photos during the trip to this blog and my Facebook page. It looks like more and more people are going. Five from San Diego, one from Denver, three from Sacramento, two from Las Vegas (kind of really only one) and two from other places. What is that - 13 people? Should be fun.

Hypnosis For Stress Relief

I can thank Facebook for my introduction into self hypnosis. I saw that a friend of a friend on Facebook had links to her business on her profile. So I looked at the web site and saw that she had a clinic in Sacramento that specialized in Hypnosis. I sent her an e-mail asking her if she had any advice for me, not knowing that she was coming to San Diego this weekend looking into starting a clinic here. So I called her and set up an appointment this afternoon for an initial consultation to see if I was a good candidate, and as it turns out, I am! So I decided to to sign up for 12 sessions, which included three CD that I need to listen to daily (not all three, just the stress one first). We had our first session today where she started off my hypnotising me and then started the CD where I listened to a man talk for what turned out to be 24 minutes, but seemed like just 10. Then she, Andria Michele Wood, came back in and finished the session, bringing me out of my state of relaxation. At no time during the process was I ever unaware of what was going on around me, and there were times when I thought it wasn't working. When she told me to become 10,000 times more relaxed, I thought "That is impossible!". However, I did get very relaxed, and even now, hours later, I still feel good. It also turns out that I have already been practicing self-hypnosis during my yoga and meditation sessions where they have you concentrate on breathing, and then relaxing every muscle from the toes to the head. If this works, then you should see a whole new me in the next few months!

IOGEAR Bluetooth USB Adapter GBU221

Now that's a long name for such a small device. Last week I bought this Bluetooth USB adapter for my PC so I could transfer files with my Motorola V9 phone. I had been using my Macbook Pro, but since I only use that computer when necessary, and keep my PC on all day, I wanted to be able to retrieve photos and movies from my phone without having to book my Apple. So I went to Fry's Electronics and found a USB Bluetooth adapter for $14. It must have been on sale because the price after tax was $14.

So I open the package, which wasn't easy because it was encased in that impenetrable, sealed hard plastic case. Then I inserted the device in one of my many USB ports (I have two on my monitor, one on my printer, eight on my USB hub and about four on my PC) and my PC said it discovered new USB device. Then it said to insert a CD if one came with the device, which it did. So I inserted the CD and thought that I installed the drivers from the CD. However, when I went to connect to the phone from my PC, my only options were to send a file or retrieve a file. When I tried to retrieve a file, the application was waiting for the device, my phone, to send a file, and the phone did not have an option to send files that are stored on the micro SD card.

My next step was to uninstall the drivers on my PC and start over. When I did this I re-ran the installation from the CD, and this time the installation took longer and installed about 12 Bluetooth drivers. So it looked like my first attempt to install from the CD failed and I was actually using the limited Bluetooth drivers provided by Windows XP.

Now that I had the correct drivers installed, I once again connected to my phone and this time I was able to browse the data stored in the SD card. However, every time I tried to browse a different folder on the phone, I had to press "Yes" on the phone to reconnect to my PC, and then the Bluetooth connection would disconnect. I was eventually able to retrieve a photo from my phone.

I then tried the same thing on my Mac, and I had no problem connecting to the phone, browsing the files and retrieving files. This morning I tried to figure out if there was some setting on my PC that was wrong, because when I try to pair my PC with the phone, it was asking for a key, and there is no key for my phone. I was able to configure the Bluetooth drivers on my PC to make the file transfer not "secure" and then it did not ask for a key, but I still had the connect/disconnect issues when browsing the phone's files. So I guess I need to do some Google searches and find out if other people have this problem and how they solved it. I don't know if the IOGEAR adapter and its drivers are the problem, or I'm just doing something wrong. I'll write a followup post when I find out.

As a side note, it looks like this simple USB adapter has lots of options, including the capability to set up a Bluetooth network and use a Bluetooth phone to access the Internet. This would be a slow connection, but useful if I'm in a place where there is no wireless connection but there is Sprint coverage. My phone also has a USB port that I currently use for charging. It has a special connection that will only work with my power adapter. I'll check if there is a USB cable I can buy that will allow a direct USB connection to my PC. This would be ideal since USB is way faster than Bluetooth.

Update on 4/10/2009:

I'm ready to give up on this Bluetooth adapter. Even when I connect to my cell phone, I have to re-connect every time I change directories and after every file transfer. I have no problems at all retrieving pictures from my cell phone using my Macbook Pro's Bluetooth. I don't know if the problem is the actual bluetooth device, the drivers or Microsoft. Since I only paid $14 I don't feel too ripped off. Next time I'll do more research before buying a Bluetooth adapter for my PC. Amazon is a good place to read reviews.

50 Minutes Up, 7 at the top and 45 Minutes Down

I made record time hiking up Iron Mountain today. Even though I have not hiked for a month or two, I have been biking. I left the trail-head at 1:40 and my goal was to reach the top by 2:30. I hiked up without stopping or looking at my watch. When I reached the peak, I looked at my watch and it was exactly 2:30!

I spent seven minutes stretching, eating and taking a few photos before heading down. I was walking faster than usual, in one case to pass a couple that keep taking short-cuts by cutting the switchbacks, which is not only illegal but also ruins the maintained trail. Anyways, I did stop briefly on the way down to take a snapshot of the blue flowers blooming on the hill. Spring must be here.

Quilts and Afghans From Aunts

I bought this quilt, handmade by my aunt, at a family reunion auction last summer. It matches the decor in my living room perfectly, accenting the blue love seat.



This afghan was sent as an unexpected gift by another aunt this week. It too matches my color scheme (which is basically blue). It should also make for a warm cover for those cold, San Diego nights. I will send her a thank-you note, as she is not connected to the world wide web.

Buy One Get Four Free

I'm talking about good old-fashion music CDs. Yes, I still buy CDs rather than individual songs as mp3s. However, the only time I buy a CD is when BMG music club has their buy one get four free special. After adding up the shipping and taxes, that comes out to about $32. Now, that seems like a lot for one CD, but it equals out to $6.40 per CD, which is a good price. The five CDs I bought have 60 songs, so that is about 50 cents per song, less than the standard 99 cents/song offered elsewhere. True, when you buy per song you only buy the songs you like, but I believe in listening to an album the way the artist intended, from start to finish in its entirety. If you like the artist, then even those songs that you may not enjoy at first tend to grow on you, exposing you to music you might not have otherwise heard. What is your opinion?

Added on 03/10/09: Just got an e-mail from BMG saying that they are no longer going have a club. There will a site to buy CDs, but on monthly offer and no more special deals like I discussed previously. Oh well. Guess it's time to go back to Limewire.

The Strangest Day Ever

I just had a very strange day. Not at all what I was expecting - but in a good way. My friend Mark is in town from Las Vegas, for various reasons, one of which is to help his sister move into their new home, the one featured in my previous post. So I met him, some friends I have not seen is some time, and other people at the new house where I got to see it from the inside. It is a very nice house, with all the modern features you would expect. After helping move some stuff into the garage (yes, I did more that just take photos of other people moving boxes), a few of us went to lunch. It was an off hour, so the restaurant was empty but the food was good. During the lunch, we talked about who we knew that was buried at the Poway Cemetery, and someone suggested we go there after lunch (we were talking about Joey, that's how the cemetery conversation came about). So off to the cemetery we went. We visited the graves of Tom's dad, Mark's dad, Gonzo and my parents, placing a mint candy (from the restaurant) on each site - in a respectful way.

Then we drove back to the new house where the others had long since left. So we were invited to Mike's home, where they were having a baby shower for Bill's daughter. We came crashing in and said hi to everyone, but shorty after the women left to go see the new home - leaving leftover cake and ice cream. We snacked on desserts for a while, then everyone went home, including me. I wasn't expecting to do much more today than work out at the gym, so this diversion from my normal routine did me good. I'll sleep well tonight.

Ridding My Bike to the Gym

A long time ago, I used to ride my bike to the gym. So yesterday I decided it was time to revive that practice. It has two advantages over driving to the gym. First, I'm not driving my car and polluting the air with carbon emissions. Second, the ride to and from the gym counts as my cardio workout, so once at the gym, I don't have to spend 20 minutes on a boring stair-stepper. I can jump right into weight lifting - after my leg stretching. However, it only took me six minutes to bike there. So I took a different route home that took 10 minutes. That equals only 16 minutes, so I need to find a long route to get at least 20 minutes of cardio. Also, both bridges across the freeway are under construction, and have no bike lane, which makes them kind of dangerous for biking. I'll just have to be extra careful while crossing the bridges.