File Sharing With Wireless Prompting For A Log In

So I have a Windows 7 desktop.  A Windows XP laptop and another Windows Vista laptop.  Getting the three of them to play nice together can be a bit tricky at times.

I remember, when I had all XP devices file-sharing was a simple process...you allowed something to be shared out, then from another computer you accessed it.  With Windows 7 it's a little more involved.

So, for anyone out there that cannot access shared folders remotely, try this.

In Windows 7, when you share out, let's say your F drive - you right click it, select "Share With" > "Advanced Sharing".  Down at the bottom of that window is a section entitled "Password Protection" with a link to the Network and Sharing Center.

Click that link and scroll down a bit to the section called "Password protected sharing".

Make sure to turn it off like the picture above.

Of course, this is all dependent upon you actually wanting to simply share out your stuff without having to log in all the time.  I personally think it's redundant, but a nice security feature none-the-less.  I'm already behind a firewalled router, with WPA2 encryption and Zone Alarm locked up tighter than a nun's corset.  It's a tiny, itty-bitty layer of security I'm comfortable with leaving open especially considering the following:

On top of all that, Windows 7 uses another layer of packet encryption on top of everything I just mentioned.  That is configured in the dialog directly above the one I just showed you.

 See, that's another 128 bits of encryption across your share pipe.

Anyway, I hope this might help someone out there googling for the answer to why they can't share files on their home network.

One For The Record Books

My colleague, the Network Administrator for our branch of the company, has spent the last week banging his head over a server in our Malaysia branch.

It's a nicely set up machine with a RAID array for obvious purposes.

The person, not pictured to the left there, "in charge" of simply watching the server to see if any of the drives are failing so that he can be instructed to hotswap the drive.  This person shal henceforth be referred to as "The Malaysian".

Our young Malaysian go-getter noticed 2 blinking amber lights.  Decided that wasn't enough to notify anyone.  But when the third amber light appeared, he picked up the phone, snapped on his artificial opposable thumbs and dialed into our offices here to tell my poor colleague that there "might be a problem".

Now...in a RAID 5 environment, with one amber light, one would be motivated to action..yeah, there's still some redundancy, but hey...let's not waste time...maybe there's some important stuff on these drives.  Perhaps, one might think, man-hours upon man-hours have been used up to populate those drives with stuff called "hard work".  But hey, maybe he was busy...and trusted his skills to deal with it before anything got out of control.

Moving on...two amber lights blinking and it's go time.  Redundancy no longer exists and there is zero room for error.  If, God forbid, another drive were to fail at this point it would be what's called a "data disaster".

At this point, the netadmin still hasn't been notified, emailed, called, no flares were shot off, no smoke signals, no Bat-Signal to our netadmin when the second amber light was blinking.

Obviously, a third drive failed.

This lead to the technical term those in the business refer to as "Holy Fucking Mother-fucking Data Loss" (HFMFDL).  At that point...there is so much shit splattered all over the fan it's already started to dry up and fall off.

The option then, is to slap the person on the wrist and instruct our netadmin to "build another server and ship it out to them, mmmmk?"

Skip ahead a week, the server arrives in Malaysia.  Our go-getter out there says, "Hmm, I gotta email our netadmin".  (I know, right?)  So he does...and he asks the netadmin for the root password to the server because he can't logon.  After our netadmin wiped the coffee off his monitor from laughing at and swiftly denying this request, he got another email saying that the reason our Malaysian needs the root password is because he can't log into the server.

Uh-oh, did the netadmin fuck this server up?  Did he build a piece of crap and send it out there?  Did he screw up the install?

No.

The Malaysian forgot to plug the server in.

Vista Machine - Won't Connect To Wireless Network

So my wife's computer is running Vista. And apparently there's an issue with Vista and wireless networks.

I spent two days struggling with this one. The only action I could get was an IP address, but no internet. I would get a message about "Local only".

So I did all the obvious things...like reinstalling drivers, disabling/enabling devices, uninstalling devices, reinstalling devices etc.

Here's the deal:

For some reason beyond my wildest imagination Vista turns your wireless adapter off after a certain period of inactivity.

Go to Device Manager, right click on your WiFi adapter and select properties. From there, click along the tabs (who knows if it's universal) until you see something referring to "Power Management".

Uncheck "Allow Windows To Turn This Device Off".

Morons.

Ok, if you want to turn it off...be a smart enough operating system to turn it the hell back on when you sense activity.

Maddening.

Let's Skip Over Everything

Yeah.

We moved into our new home, and believe me doing so throws your entire schedule off kilter.

So...needless to say I didn't have time to document everything. I needed to get the computer up and running.

This this is amazing. It's the fastest machine I've ever built and it runs everything perfectly.

So...end of project.

Now I need to concentrate on the next 8 weeks of waiting for my first child to arrive!

My Project: Part X

Well, other than my new Power Supply having an X in the name - I have no witty banter or movie tie-in to do with this one.

My mind is pretty wasted from thinking about the Lost finale last night night, which I thought was great. Most co-workers that watch Lost (1) didn't like it. I guess he didn't get everything answered and wrapped up in a pretty bow. But honestly, if you were a fan of Lost, I don't think you're of the mindset that needs thinks handed to you on a platter...the show made you think, it's no surprise that the ending did so as well.

Anyway, here it is. I make this post 8 minutes before I leave work...and once I get home it shall be installed.

And I plan on doing some serious wire hiding, learned a few tricks and I'll show ya what they are.

My Project: Part IX

Yes, there's been a sudden stoppage of posts about my progress.

The machine was built and turned on, I had taken pictures along the way to post each step.

However, when I finished the machine and tried to boot it. It was dead. I checked the power supply with a multimeter and it was DOA.

So I'm waiting on Newegg's RMA procedure to finish, and while I was logged in I looked around for different PSUs and with a little help from the awesome people over at the AMD forums, decided to purchase the Corsair 650Tx.

Maybe add a little extra power to the thing...there's some heavy-duty stuff in there, and if my research is any kind of indicator, there's reports of people getting this Deneb up to 3.5 and steady. I'm pretty sure 400W wouldn't handle that.

My Project: Part VIII

They're coming to get to Baaahhhbra...Braaaains....

Yes. The brains of my new toy. An AMD (my first by the way) Phenom II Quad-Core 6MB L3 Cache AM3 processor.



This beauty came in a box that...maybe it was how excited I was...had a nice, roughish texture to it. I carefully opened the package and pulled, ever-so-lovingly, its small yet powerful contents.

The heatsink and fan were assembled already, no worries...and there it was. Sitting on a bed of greyish-black foam (do I use too many "-"'s?) was my gift...I flashed back to my Commodore 64 and thought about it's processing power and wondered at how far we have come. I then realized I never took a picture of the motherboard with nothing in it...so we'll skip that part and pretend it never happened.

Moving on, I had purchased some thermal compound, picture included for my non-existant readers:



But I didn't need it. There was compound already applied on the bottom of the heatsink and once I secured the processor into it's slot (it's very easy...it won't go in unless you have it the correct way - completely fool proof).

So onto the board the units went.



Happy, I was. No zombies crashed through my window and I placed the parts aside to continue, and survive, another day.