Our own network January 8, 2009

Although E. sees my latest toy as “something she allows me to do because she loves me”, I am actually pretty proud of it. As I mentioned earlier, our shared storage drive arrived yesterday. I did not have to do a thing – which shows that I am not such a geek/nerd after all, right? – besides plugging the NAS in the router. It was instantly recognized and with the spartanic web interface, adjusting its name to fit into our Sesamstraat network was a breeze.

So right now, all our duplicate data and stuff that we want to share anyway is being transferred to Koekiemonster. My autistic side is partying, because it really feels good to me to have this little box, containing our data in a neat and orderly manner. No more proliferation of copies of the same pictures, mp3s, recipes, etc. Ah!

I actually managed to set up the ftp-server capabilities of the ND, so that we can now access our photos and stuff even when we are in Belgium! A warm feeling of pleasure fills my stomach.

Feels good!

NAS: Network Attached Storage January 4, 2009

E. is experiencing a lack of storage place on her laptop harddisk. Her computer slowed down, and computing was not fun anymore. Moreover, she got a little camera lately, and with video, any hard disk fills up rapidly. So, a storage solution had to be found.

First of all, we are in a quite typical situation: both of us have a laptop, we share an internet connection via a router and – very impractical – we have lots of duplicate data, such as photos, videos, music, recipes, etc.

Being a nerd with a spare laptop, I instantly set up a little file server in the living room. Nothing fancy, just the “Shared Docs” option in Windows XP (which you can barely call a file server). I added a TightVNC server to that laptop, and I moved all our data to the SharedDocs folder. Adding a network drive in XP is also easy, and we now have our own super duper cool media center, file server and cool stuff.

Indeed, because of the SharedDocs, we do not have duplicate data anymore and the network drive allows us to easily stream shared music, photos, etc. to our own laptop. The laptop is connected to the radio, and using the VNC option, we can also listen to the music in higher quality.

Sounds like a super-duper solution, right?

However, I still use the laptop for photo editing and other fun stuff, because of its large screen. The radio-option forces us to put the laptop close to the radio in the living room. And the laptop is noisy. Always-on is because of that not an option, and the complete purpose of a file server (access your files always and everywhere) is lost.

Freecom NAS

So I searched the internet and found a nice solution: Network Attached Storage (NAS). A external hard disk with LAN connection can be added to the network, with very low noise levels and low power needs. Hurray! The “media center” option is lost, however.

On amazon, I found a nice Freecom NAS which I bought. Next wednesday, our storage problems can be solved forever!