Considering that we don’t lose power very often it seemed like an unnecessary expense. What finally got me motivated was hurricane Irene. My area was heavily affected by the hurricane and we all lost power for days.

Luckily our house was fine and suffered no damage but with a young child, it wasn’t an option to stay home with no power and no refrigerator, air conditioning, etc. for days on end. We ended up staying at a hotel for three days until power was restored. When we got home we had to throw away about $500 worth of food from the fridge and freezer.

Doing the quick math, the hurricane cost us almost a thousand dollars cash simply because we had no power. Factor in the fact that we were uncomfortable away from home and living out of a suitcase. I suddenly realized that if I had spent a bit more than what the cost of the hotel and lost food were on a generator for my home, I’d have been able to stay home and live comfortably and normally waiting for the power to come back on while watching TV and surfing the internet with a glass of iced water on my own couch.

You basically have to look at owning a standby generator like buying insurance. You may feel silly for spending the money on it if you don’t need it for a while, but when you’re suddenly in a bad situation and everyone else is scrambling to find a place to go and watching their food spoil, you are comforted to know you thought ahead. As the Boy Scouts say: Always Be Prepared!

Generator Options

I started my research and quickly found that there are two main options for home backup generators: Permanently installed standby generators and “Portable” generators. I put portable in quotes because the larger units are over 200lbs and require at least two people to put them in a truck. Portable is a relative term.

The good news is that thanks to the internet, research is much easier and you can get great prices online and stores like amazon.com give you free shipping even for the large generators that weigh hundreds of pounds. When I finally ordered my 220 pound generator, amazon shipped it to my door within two days for free!

Permanent Standby Generators

These are the Cadillac’s of generators. They sit proudly on the side of your house next to the air conditioner unit and are attached to your home power system. They constantly monitor the power coming into your home waiting for the power to go out. As soon as they detect the power is gone, they wait a few seconds to make sure it’s not a momentary blip then they fire up automatically and start powering your home.

Most of these units like the Generac Guardian 20,000 Watt Standby Generator are meant to power your entire home including heavy duty items like central air conditioning.

One thing to take into account when choosing a generator that runs off of natural gas or propane is that listed power of the generator is the amount of power it can generate when using propane. If you connect it to natural gas it will actually generate 5% to 10% less power because natural gas isn’t as efficient as propane.

So a 10,000 watt standby generator will probably only produce about 9,000 watts when using natural gas. This can be a big factor to consider if you will use maximum power when running your central air conditioner or other heavy appliances.

The three main benefits of a standby generator are:

- Fully automatic. You don’t have to do anything when the power goes out or when it comes back on.
- Fuel. Standby generators are usually connected to your home’s Natural Gas or Propane lines so you never have to refuel them. This can be a very big deal if your entire area has no power for many days (remember: gas stations can’t pump gas without power).
- Ample Power. These units are meant to be sized to power your entire home including large appliances and central heat and air conditioning. Literally living as if you are still on utility power.

The main drawbacks to a standby generator are:

- Cost. These larger units will generally run between $4,000 and $15,000 to buy and install. After you buy the generator, you will have to pay an electrician to connect it to your home and a plumber to connect it to the gas or propane lines. Standby generators need a foundation to sit on. Some come with a pad but some require a concrete pad be poured.
- Permanent. If you sell your house and move, it will probably not be cost effective to disconnect and take the standby generator with you.
- Maintenance. Generators are engines just like cars. They need periodic maintenance. With a standby generator you have to find a service company to come to your home to service it unless you are mechanically inclined to do it yourself.

Portable Generators

Portable generators are substantially cheaper and smaller than standby generators and give you a lot of flexibility. Most people that buy a standby generator store them in a corner of the garage or shed and pull them out when the power goes out or when they want to use them for portable power such as when camping or at a construction site.

Portable generators come in sizes ranging from 1,000 watts up to about 10,000 watts with the most popular models being in the 4,000 watt to 8,000 watt range. The Generac GP7500E with Electric Start can power a 3 bedroom ranch home’s systems, lights, and appliances and still have plenty of capacity left for niceties like TV and internet.

The three main benefits of a portable generator are:

- Portability. You can literally take it anywhere you need it. Portable generators store easily in a garage or shed and can be put in the back of your truck or van for use elsewhere or to take it in for service. You also have the option of lending it to a friend or family member if they lose power but you have not.

- Cost. Portable generators start as low as $200 and even the larger portable generators cost substantially less than permanent standby generators.

- Simple or no installation. Portable generators give you the option of just plugging in a couple of extension cords and running them into your house if that suits your needs. No need to hire an electrician or plumber

The three main drawbacks of a portable generator are:

- Fuel. You will have to buy and store a good amount of gasoline in advance since most gas stations can’t pump gas without electricity.
- Connection to house. Portable generators offer you two choices to connect to them: either standard extension cords which you will have to run all over your house to power your fridge and lamps or through a manual transfer switch which will have to be installed in  your circuit breaker panel beforehand.
- Limited Power. The size of the portable generator you buy will directly determine how much of your house you can power with it. Even with a good sized portable, you will probably not be able to power your central air conditioner in addition to the other main systems in your house. Another problem is that the more power you draw from the generator, the higher the engine runs, which will make it use more gas. Just like your car, you can do 100mph, but you’ll use a lot more gas than doing 50mph.

Generator Considerations

In order to decide what generator type is the best fit for you, consider these points:

A permanent standby generator is a good choice if you:

• Often lose power, whether for short or long periods of time
• Live in an area that is always last to get power restored resulting in days of no power
• Want the system to work automatically without having to follow a checklist
• Want to have your entire home powered without having to worry about what you can turn on simultaneously

A portable generator is a good choice if you:

• Rarely lose power and it is typically restored within a day or two when you do.
• Want to provide emergency power to your home at lesser cost.
• May move within the next several years and want to take your generator with you.
• Want the ability to use the generator for camping or jobsites away from home.

Determining what size generator you need:

My needs for a generator were pretty easy to figure out, I live in a 1,200 square foot, 3 bedroom house. I wanted a generator to power my baseboard heat, fridge, lighting, and small appliances like TV. I will not use the dishwasher or washing machine when on generator power so I am able to power pretty much my entire house without the central air conditioner with a Generac 7,500 Watt Generator and still have plenty of power left over in case I want to use the microwave for a short time to heat up a sandwich.

One note to remember is that generators are usually rated with two numbers: Running wattage and Peak Wattage. Running wattage is how much it can handle continuously, whereas Peak wattage is how much it can handle in short bursts. For example, your fridge may run at 700 watts, but when you first plug it in, it may need 1,400 watts for a few seconds to get the compressor started.

The reason this matters is in the advertising. Some generators will say “2,000 watt generator”, but if you read the details on it, it’s actually 1,400 continuous watts with a 2,000 watt peak. When deciding what to buy, always use the running watts power of the generator to determine the power output. If you overload a generator, it will shut down until you reduce how much power you’re pulling from it.

Use a power estimate chart like this one to calculate how much power you think you’ll actually need. Keep in mind most CFL (spiral) light bulbs these days are between 11 and 14 watts. Also, if you use common sense with your generator and avoid using high wattage items like toasters and hair dryers, you’ll probably find you really don’t need as much power as you thought.

To keep from getting overwhelmed, just start with the basics that you know you’d need in an outage. Things like your fridge, a well pump, sump pump, furnace fan or baseboard heat circulator and some basics like cell phone chargers, AM/FM Radio, and  lighting like a lamp should pretty much cover it. Anything beyond that really gets into comfort which is fine, but if you’re on a budget you can get a less expensive smaller sized generator to cover the basics.

A couple of quick sizing examples:

This 1,400 Watt Portable Generator can power:

• Refrigerator
• AM/FM Radio
• 10 CFL light bulbs (at 14W each)
• Small TV
• Box Fan

This 3,300 Watt Portable Generator can power all of the above, plus:

• Central Heating Furnace Fan Blower
• Computer with 17″ Monitor
• Security System

This 7,500 Watt Portable Generator can power everything the two above can as well as:

• Well Pump
• Coffee Maker
• Microwave
• Video Games
• Cable Box
• Most of a small house (just making sure not to run high use items like coffee maker and microwave at the same time)

Once you get into the 10,000 watt range you can power pretty much the entire house including smaller central A/C systems. Anything larger will pretty much have you living the same as when off generator power.

Transfer Switch: what it does and why it’s a good idea:

A transfer switch is a small box that gets attached next to your circuit breaker panel and allows you to directly connect your generator to your house safely and easily.

If you opt for an automatic standby generator, it will most likely come with an automatic transfer switch that does everything for you. That’s about all you need to know about that.

If you go with a portable generator, it will not come with a transfer switch and is not required. A transfer switch like the Pro/Tran 6-Circuit Transfer Switchwill make your life on generator power much better and much easier. I’ll post a follow up article on transfer switches soon.

Bottom Line:

You WILL lose power. Whether it happens often or not and for how long will guide your decision on which generator to buy, but my recommendation is DO buy a generator. When you lose power and it’s freezing, the hotels are full and none of your friends or relatives have power, you will have immense comfort knowing you can start up your generator and keep your family safe and comfortable, turning an otherwise stressful and expensive problem into an inconvenience.

Technorati Tags: electric, emergency, generac, generator, portable, Power, standby, transfer switch, watts

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The current choices are “Email, Tweet, Message, and Print”.

Here are some screenshots showing the process: 

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Technorati Tags: ios5, iphone, pictures

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I’ve actually had my iPad 2 for over a mont and have just been using the Grantwood sleeve that I was using for my original iPad while looking for the perfect solution for my iPad 2.

As often happens to me, while I was shopping for cases, I came across the Apple bluetooth keyboard that is a perfect companion for the iPad or iPad 2. The only issue with that though is that I’d most likely end up having to buy a separate case for the keyboard AND the iPad whenever I wanted to take it on the road.

Enter the Logitech Keyboard Case. It is in fact a case for the iPad 2. It is also a bluetooth keyboard that has iPad specific function buttons as well. It is also quite slim and is just big enough to do what it needs to. It is also make of aircraft aluminum to be very tough, light, and almost perfectly matches the metal on the back of the ipad.

What sealed the deal for me was that when you want to throw it all in your bag you pop the iPad 2 face down on top of the keyboard and both become a single unit with only the aluminum back of the iPad 2 showing and the aluminum back of the case showing (brilliant)! No more worrying about having two different devices and two different cases to carry around and manage.

I went ahead and bought the Logitech Keyboard Case to give it a try. I’m actually typing this review with it and my iPad 2 right now.

Features:

The keyboard is bluetooth. You simply pair it with your iPad 2 and you’re done. No messing with wires or connectors that go into the iPad 2′s dock connector. You just turn it on, pair it with your iPad 2 the first time and start typing.

The keyboard has plenty of iPad specific buttons on it to control your iPad 2 without having to take your hands off of the keyboard.

There is a Home button that will flip you out to your home screen no matter what app or screen you’re on. One feature I really like about the keyboard based Home button is that it allows you to quickly double tap the Home button and bring up the multitasking menu of the iPad 2. I can switch to email or another app to check something then double tap again and flip right back to my blogging app without skipping a beat.

There is a search button that will take you to the iPad 2 search page where you can immediately start typing your search (again without touching the screen.

Next up is a slide show button that automatically starts showing a slideshow of whatever pictures you have on your iPad 2. I think of it as a screensaver function. For example, if you’re at work and want to get up and grab a cup of coffee but don’t want all your neighbors to see what you’re up to on the screen, just hit the slideshow button and walk away.

The Virtual Keyboard button is next. It allows you to bring up or hide the iPad 2′s built in on screen keyboard (which by default never comes up while the iPad 2 is actively paired with a bluetooth keyboard).

There are dedicated buttons for cut, copy, and paste. I find this to be a nice feature as again, it keeps you from having to stop typing and use the screen to copy and paste. You can for example use the shift and arrow keys to highlight words then use the copy and paste buttons to move your text around, all without having to touch your screen.

The undo and redo buttons are cool and have come in handy a couple of times but aren’t essential for me.

Next up there are music and movie specific buttons. Play, previous, next, pause, mute, and volume up and down. These are actually quite handy as I use them to play music on my iPad 2 while I catch up on email or type up these articles. If a song comes on that I want to skip, I just hit the next button and move ahead to another song. If the phone rings I hit the mute button. I’m using them more than I actually thought I would.

The last (and most annoying) custom button on the top row for me so far is the lock button. It’s placed at the far upper right corner of the keyboard right where my pinky keeps wanting to go when I’m hitting the delete button (backspace). I’ve accidentally locked and put the iPad 2 to sleep a couple of times when I meant to backspace. It’s not a big deal as all you have to do is hit another key and everything comes right back where you left it almost instantly. I will have to train myself not to over reach for that backspace key though.

Pairing the keyboard with the iPad 2 is super simple. You just turn on the keyboard and turn on bluetooth from your iPad 2. You hit the connect button on the keyboard and a light comes on. You then go to the bluetooth section under Settings on your iPad 2 and you’ll see “Logitech Keyboard Case” listed. You tap on it and your ipad will display a 4 digit code. You type that code on the keyboard and hit enter and that’s it! You’re paired.

The keyboard itself is pretty compact. The keys are a bit smaller than standard laptop keys and you will need a few minutes to get used to typing on it. It really does flow well and in a little while you van crank out your text at full speed. This is especially important for me as I have HUGE hands and get cramped up on tiny keyboards. I used to have a Dell Mini 9 netbook and that keyboard was just too darn small for my huge paws.

Positioning:

When it comes to using the iPad 2 on this keyboard / case, it’s awesome. The case has a little stand that pops up and a groove in the case. You can place your iPad 2 in the groove and let it lean against the stand in either portrait or landscape (sideways) position. As mentioned earlier, it’s bluetooth so there are no wires or connectors to fuss with. One nice feature of using it with your iPad 2 in the landscape position is that it leaves the dock connector exposed so you can charge your iPad 2 or use accessories at the same time.
Case and Protection:

When you’re all done with your typing and surfing, you just pick up your iPad 2, flip it face down and lay it on top of the keyboard. The sides and edges of the case wrap around the outside of your iPad protecting it from dings and bangs. The inside of the case is fully rubberized on all parts that your iPad 2 will touch when in the case.

The only part of your iPad 2 that is exposed when in the case is the back and the edges along the back side. The screen and edges on the screen side of the case are fully protected. One of the invisishield or competing plastic wraps for the backside of the iPad 2 would protect it fine and still work with this case.

The iPad 2 fits quite snugly in the case so I’m really not worried about it popping out in my bag or even if it takes a fall. The drawback to it fitting so snugly is that it won’t work with other cases or the Apple Smart Covers. I figure when I want to travel light, I’ll use the Smart Cover. If I know I’ll need to do more typing, then I’ll bring the Logitech Keyboard Case.

The designers seemed to have put some thought into the design as well. There are cutouts on the case for the dock connector that would allow you to charge your ipad with the case on. There is also a cutout for the headphone jack so you could still listen to your tunes with the iPad 2 closed up in the case.

Power:
The Logitech Keyboard Case has the same magnetic sensors as the Apple smart covers and automatically turns your iPad 2 on and off when you put it in and out of the case.

The bluetooth keyboard uses an internal rechargeable battery. You charge it by connecting a USB to micro-USB cable between the keyboard and your computer. I can’t say yet how long it should work but the documentation does say that when the low batter light comes on you will still have 3 to 4 days of power left, so I’m not too worried about it.

Conclusion:

Overall I’m extremely happy with the Logitech Keyboard Case by Zagg. It’s the perfect compromise for me between a great case and a great portable keyboard without having to carry separate devices and a huge perk that it’s specifically built for the iPad 2 and has the custom function buttons.

It looks sharp and does exactly what I need it to without too many annoyances.

At the end of the day, yes I’ll recommend this to my friends.

Did you get one as well? Find a better solution? Have a question? Leave a comment below!

Technorati Tags: apple, case, Ipad 2, keyboard, logitech, zagg

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I started thinking I’d get an SSD to put into my Lenovo Thinkpad X200 laptop. That seemed to make the most sense based on lower power use and the silent running and zero vibration.

I started doing my research by looking into the cheaper drives because I’m all about finding the best bang for my buck. My first assumption was that most likely all SSD’s are pretty much alike and there really wouldn’t be much difference.

I was proven wrong. After trolling through dozens of lengthy reviews with specs, the general consensus was that the cheaper drives seemed to have a lot more compatibility problems and often didn’t perform as well in speed tests.

I settled on the Intel 80gb X25-M SATA SSD. I would have loved to have gone for the 160gb version but at around twice as much, I decided I should go conservative since, if it sucked I didn’t want to be out the extra money. The Intel drive seemed to get the most solid reviews and wasn’t dramatically more expensive than the cheaper competition. Everyone seemed to say the same thing, this drive is lightening fast and rock solid.

Once I ordered the drive and was waiting for it to arrive, I kept on reading reviews and more and more started thinking about putting it in my desktop as the system drive instead of my laptop. My desktop was already set up with one drive for Windows 7 and my programs and a second one terabyte drive for my data, so the system drive really didn’t need to be that large.

I am running a four year old Dell Dimension 9200. This machine was pretty bad ass when it was new but it is getting pretty long in the tooth compared to its modern equivalents.

Don’t get me wrong, it has a Core 2 Duo dual core processor and 3gb of ram, which aren’t bad specs but it is not as fast with Windows 7 and the latest apps on it as it was when it was running Vista and the last generation of apps.

It’s especially noticeable when waiting for the machine to fully boot up. If I have a lot to do, I dread having to reboot my machine as I know I’ll be staring at the screen waiting for everything to get loaded for a while.

The drive finally arrived, courtesy of UPS and I popped it out of the box. The cool thing is that the drive is the standard size for a laptop hard drive, but it comes with an adapter bracket so that you can easily install it in a desktop as well. It has standard SATA connectors on it for power and data so you don’t have to do anything special or buy any extra parts to get it to work with your machine – either laptop or desktop.

Now I needed to install it into my desktop. I decided to use Norton Ghost to copy my existing desktop system drive to the new SSD so that I wouldn’t have to reinstall and reconfigure everything.

In order to get ready, I decided to free up space on my system drive by moving the page file from C: to my second hard drive which is D:. I also ran disk cleanup in Windows 7 to get rid of about 5gb of temp files, etc. When all this was done, I was at a comfortable 50gb of used space on my system drive, which would give me plenty of breathing room on the new 80gb drive.

I installed Ghost on my desktop, then took out my USB to SATA / IDE hard drive connector and plugged the SSD into a free USB port. I then fired up Ghost, set it to do a drive – to - drive clone from my existing C: drive to the new SSD drive. The copy took several hours to finish. Once it was done, I opened up my machine and swapped the two drives without an issue.

Upon powering up my machine with the Intel 80gb X25-M SATA SSD drive as my new system drive, I got a fatal boot error saying that windows couldn’t find some startup files. I fixed this in about 5 minutes by putting my Windows 7 installation disc in and booting off of it. When the setup screen came up, there was an option to repair windows. I picked it. Setup did a quick scan and reported that it found problems with my boot configuration and asked if I wanted to let it repair the issues automatically. I clicked ok and in less than a minute my pc restarted and  booted off of the SSD.

Now, for the interesting part. Before I swapped the drives, I decided to write down the boot time with the old drive and compare it to the new drives times. With my old system drive it took my pc 1 minute 31 seconds to get to the login screen 2 minutes and 44 seconds total boot time after the login screen before I could launch Internet Explorer and load a web page. With the old drive the Windows Experience Index (which rates your computer’s performance and can be found by right clicking my computer and choosing properties) showed hard drive performance at 5.7 out of a maximum score of 7.9. Not too shabby.

After I installed the Intel 80gb X25-M SATA SSD, my boot times became 48 seconds to the login screen (half the time!) and 1 minute 5 seconds total boot time to launching IE and loading the same web page (about one third of the total boot time that the old drive used!). The Windows Experience Index suddenly rated my hard drive performance at 7.6 out of 7.9 total possible score! Basically, Windows thinks there’s little to nothing out there that’s faster than my new drive.

Keep in mind that this is with the exact windows installation I had before since I cloned the drive so this really is an apples to apples test.

The only other configuration task left after the swap is to install the Intel SSD utility that runs some optimizing routines on your drive from time to time.

I’ve now been running this configuration for over a month and can only report that it is still amazingly fast. I had been contemplating buying a new pc soon since this one was getting slow but with the new SSD drive, I have no reason to upgrade for the foreseeable future.

Technorati Tags: 9200, Dell, Dimension, Drive, Hard, intel, sata, SSD

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I know a lot of the old tricks and techniques for getting good responses to my auctions like posting a ton of pictures (using my own site to host them for free) and giving a thorough and descriptive summary so that people will feel comfortable that they are getting exactly what I’ve described.

Feeling sure I’d make a descent amount of money, I went ahead and posted my item. One thing that eBay does to try to make things easier for you is they automatically generate an Auction title for you based on keywords you enter for the auction.

In my case, they generated “iPhone 3G 8GB Black ATT”. Sounded pretty accurate for me so I just added “No Reserve” to the end and posted it for a 7 day auction.

I was watching the auction go and noticed that I wasn’t getting very many views or bids. After five days I only had 35 page views and one bid. I decided this was too low and started doing some research on how much similar phones were selling for at auction close and how many bids they were getting.

Ultimately I discovered that only people searching for “iphone 3gb 8gb” would find my auction in their search results. If they had put a space between 3 G or 8 GB, eBay would not show my auction because it didn’t have those exact key words in the title including the spaces. How stupid!!

Realizing I was setting myself up for doom as no one was finding my auction to bid on my item, I immediately cancelled the auction and relisted it with the new title “iPhone 3G (3 G) 8GB (8 GB) Black ATT”.

Within the first 24 hours, I had already racked up over 50 page views and 4 bids. Mind you the ONLY thing that I had changed was adding three space G and 8 space GB to the existing title. It made THAT much of a difference.

Now I’m usually smarter about these things but in this case I was lazy and decided to go the easy – research free way out of letting eBay decide what my auction title should be.

In summary, make sure your eBay auctions have exactly the words you’d expect people to search on in the title, forget about putting “no reserve” or “free shipping” in the title as no one will search for “iphone free shipping”. Get it? Good!

Have any good eBay tips? Let me know by leaving a comment below and I’ll ad them to the post!

Technorati Tags: bids, ebay, more, title

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Well, it turns out they did put it there you just need to know where to go to turn it on. It seems that in Apple’s infinite wisdom they decided to leave it turned off by default and bury the setting so deeply, most people would never find it.

Just fire up your iPhone, tap on Settings, General, Usage (yes, Usage?!), and low and behold there is a setting for “Battery Percentage”. Flick that bad boy to “ON” and watch it appear.

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Technorati Tags: apple, battery, iphone, meter, percentage

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Over the last year, I’ve been getting very involved in VMware ESX installations and rollouts at work. It started with doing several hundred P2V’s (physical machine to virtual machine conversions) then onto the server side and actually configuring the servers. We started with ESX 3.5 then upgraded to ESXi 4.0 which is now known as VSphere.

I took a couple of VMware training classes and realized that there was a lot of capabilites in VSphere that we weren’t using at my company. Unfortunately, since it was a production environment, tinkering and experimenting on the ESX clusters at the office wasn’t an option. I’m the type of person that when I get into a technology, I want to know as much about it as possible. It also helps to learn as much as possible as it makes you more valuable at work and to potential (higher paying) employers.

RESEARCH

My research began to find out what it would take to build a VMware VSphere ESXi 4.0 server at home.

A quick google search showed it was very possible to build a home ESX server, but unlike Windows servers there were very specific hardware requirements. Even tougher, VMware doesn’t list what desktop class hardware you can run it on since they don’t officially support running ESX on desktops. There are a couple of sites out there like UltimateWhiteBox.com that list various components that people have reported success in using, but obviously there is a huge range of possible hardware combinations out there on home machines, so a lot is not covered. The other issue is that it seems that the sites aren’t updated that often, if at all anymore.

Continuing my research, I looked into what processors were compatibile with ESXi 4 and settled on the Intel Quad Core. I specifically wanted a quad core processor since I was going to have several virtual machines running on it and didn’t want the processors pinned at 100% utilization from having too little cpu. I also wanted a lot of RAM for the same reason.

I was debating whether to buy all the components and build the machine myself, but every time I started pricing out components, I realized it would cost me the same or more than just buying an off the shelf desktop pc plus all the time involved in building it.

I ultimately settled on buying an HP Pavilion with an Intel Core i7 and 8gb of RAM. This would be a very solid machine at a decent price. I headed over to Amazon.com to see what they had since I could get it tax free and with free shipping.

THE BUILD

The machine arrived and I was impressed with the look. It looked like it was made to be a server with smooth glossy paint and even a cool arctic blue glowing power button. I gleefully started out trying to install ESX. First I tried ESX 3.5 and that failed since it couldn’t find my SATA controller. Next I tried ESXi 3.5 with the same result. I was getting worried but crossed my fingers and installed ESXi 4.0 and it worked! The only hiccup was that it couldn’t see the onboard network controller, which I knew would probably happen as VMware generally only recognized broadcom and Intel based NICs and the HP came with an onboard Realtek NIC.

I was bummed that I wouldn’t get to start playing immediately but was still happy that it was going to work. I headed back over to Amazon and picked up an Intel Gigabit Ct Desktop adapter for about thirty bucks. Two days later it showed up and I popped it into the machine. *Presto!* I have a fully functioning ESXi 4 VSphere server! **YAY!!**

After creating a couple of test VM’s and contemplating what type of home virtual universe I should start building, it occurred to me that the single drive in the Pavilion was not going to be big enough. I then started having my usual internal debate where my geek side fights with my cheap side over whether to buy larger drives or cheaper drives. I found a good compromise in the $119 Western Digital 2TB Caviar Green hard drives. They have an outstanding amount of storage and variable speed which allows them to spin down to a slower speed during the day while I’m away but ramp back up to full speed when I’m banging away on them doing Windows 2008 server installs.

I bought two of the drives and in another two days they arrived. I popped them in (replacing the original drive that came with the Pavilion) and reinstalled ESXi 4. Luckily the VMware installation is only about 15 minutes total. The drives worked like a charm out of the box and are drop dead silent which made me happy since I hate having the jet engine like whir of multiple hard drives in the background while I try to work.

THE RESULT

I am happy to report that over a month later, this machine is rock solid. I have two workstation VM’s and two server VM’s running 24 x 7 on it and haven’t had a hiccup. I’ve retired the hardware that my Windows Home Server was on as I’ve successfully virtualized it. I’ve found so many cool uses for it that I hadn’t even thought of before. For example, I loaded up a generic Windows XP vm that I remote control from my Apple iPad over wifi. I have another that I use when I am downloading from suspicious websites that may contain malware. When I’m done with the download and have scanned it for viruses, etc, I just power off the vm and restore it from a pristine image.

I can’t say enough about how happy this setup has made me (I know, I know, super geek)!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

Here’s my final shopping list for this setup:

-  HP Pavilion with an Intel Core i7 and 8gb of RAM
- Intel Gigabit Ct Desktop adapter
- Western Digital 2TB Caviar Green hard drives

Let me know if you’ve had success with a similar configuration or have questions about setting up your own by leaving a comment below.

** UPDATE FOR ESXi Vsphere 5:

I performed the upgrade from ESXi 4.1 on my desktop pc build to Vsphere 5. The upgrade was pretty easy in that I just downloaded the ISO file from vmWare, burned the CD and booted my ESXi 4.1 server from the CD. It gave me the option to upgrade, I selected it and followed the prompts. The whole upgrade probably took about 15 minutes which included the time it took to upgade the vSphere client and vmware tools on my VM’s.

From my experience, you can dive right in and upgrade your ESXi 4.1 box to vsphere 5 without too much concern. Check out this link for screenshots of the upgrade process on another site.

Technorati Tags: 2tb, 4.1, 5, desktop, esx, esxi, gigabit, home, HP, install, intel, nic, pavilion, pc, quad core, realtek, sata, upgrade, vmware, vsphere, windows home server

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1. How to add HP SFF SAS Drives to your desktop pc I recently acquired some HP Small Form Factor (SFF) Serial...

These drives tend to be very expensive because of their speed and capabilities. Having a couple at home would be very cool indeed except for one problem: I don’t have a server to plug them into and they don’t easily connect to anything in a desktop computer… Or so I thought!

After tons of googling and trolling the online shopping sites, I finally found a solution that is not only fairly inexpensive but also allows you to connect the HP SFF SAS drives to your desktop computer in a RAID setup!

To do it, you’ll first need to buy the Highpint RocketRAID 2640×4 PCIe controller. This card is awesome at around $150. It literally comes with everything you need including rare SATA to SAS connector cables. The card actually has SATA connectors on it, but it is fully compatible with HP SFF SAS drives using said included cables. Based on the quality and support for high end drives, I expected this card to cost close to double that.

This is a PCIe-x1 card which can be put into any PCIe slot including x16. It’s quite small which is great as it’s less likely to conflict with any other cards that need a little more room.

The card has four sata connectors that work with either SATA or SAS drives provided you have the correct cables.

The biggest issue I had when trying to figure this out was trying to find a desktop card that would work with the SAS connectors on the HP SFF SAS drives. In the old days you could just pop the drive out of the hot swap tray and it would reveal standard SCSI connectors.

I ended up ordering the  RocketRAID 2640×4 based on clues in the description online that implied it should work with SAS drives. The real key would be whether it came with cables that would match the drives since I couldn’t find clearly labeled SATA to SAS cables anywhere.

As you can see in the next image, the cables that come with the  RocketRAID 2640×4 are in fact SATA on one end and SAS on the other. They also have power integrated into the connector so no issues there either.

The card installed without a hitch in my Dell Dimension 9200 and the drives attached equally easily.

Once the hardware was connected, I fired up the desktop and immediately saw a new bios boot menu for the  RocketRAID 2640×4. Entering the menu, I saw all the familiar options. First off you initialize the drives, then create an array, specify the RAID level, etc. and save the configuration.

Booting into Windows, you can see the new drives in Disk Management, where you can format them and start using them like any other drive. I couldn’t be happier with the setup.

Have a similar experience or qustions? Leave a comment after the pictures below and I’ll reply promptly!

Technorati Tags: 2640x4, 9200, desktop, Dimension, hot swap, HP, RocketRAID, SAS, sata, SFF

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Why on Earth should it take three steps to delete a single email from my iPhone?

Well, it doesn’t!

Next time you want to delete something, just swipe your finger across it from left to right, picking your finger up at the end.

A single delete button will appear over the item, allowing you to hit it and send that email straight to the trash bin!

Make sure you try it on anything presented in list form as well! I have found it works on the iPhone email, voicemail, and notes apps. I’m sure it works on others as well.

Let me know if you’ve found more by leaving a comment below!

Technorati Tags: apple, delete, email, iphone, notes, voicemail

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The cable company rolled out HD channels on a separate bank of channels from the SD channels. This meant that I had two if every channel. I could watch CBS in SD or HD.

This has always been more than adequate as I would record general shows like news programs and my wife’s soaps on the SD channel and hi def shows like Discovery Channel on the HD channels.

Recently I got a low disk space warning from my DVR. I was confused as I didn’t have many shows recorded. Upon investigation, I found out that Cablevision had changed how the cable box worked. In an effort to consolidate the HD and SD channels, they made it so that if you had an HD cable box, it would automatically show the channel in HD regardless of which channel you turned to (SD or HD).

This is nice in theory but caused a problem. I was now forced to record my wife’s soaps in HD. The problem is that HD recordings use about eight times more space than SD recordings.

So now that I solved the mystery of the missing disk space, I wanted to find out what I could do about it. I hit Cablevision’s website hoping they’d have a new dvr with a bigger hard drive. No such luck. So now I needed to find out how to add space to my DVR.

Next I turned to google to see what others were saying. I happened upon a post from another Cablevision customer with the same problem which is what lead me my answer.

It turns out that the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD cable box supports connecting an external hard drive using an external Serial ATA cable to add space to the DVR.

Don’t be frightened, it’s way simpler than it sounds.

After doing some research, I headed over to Amazon.com and bought the Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1 Terabyte external hard drive. This external hard drive was made specifically to be used with a DVR. Unlike a computer, a DVR writes to the hard drive almost constantly. Also, since the drive would be in the room you watch TV in, they made it very quiet. It would be annoying to hear the hard drive clicking and whirring while watching TV! Last, they made the drive power / activity lights dim and not distracting since again, it shouldn’t take away from your TV experience.

Reading the reviews, the one complaint I saw about the drive that I didn’t like was that the Esata (External SATA) cable it came with wasn’t all that reliable. With that in mind, I bought the SIIG ESata cable which had great reviews, also from Amazon for about four bucks.

A couple days later my new drive and ESata cable showed up at my door.

I popped open the box and headed over to the living room to hook them up.

The My DVR Expander drive is not to big, about the size of a paperback book. There are only two cables to hook up, a power cable to the wall and the ESata cable to the DVR.

Cablevision’s website has a page explaining how to set up the External Drive with the DVR.

Instructions (these are the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD instructions, scroll down for stardard DVR instructions):
The steps according to the Cablevision site are actually short and sweet, before starting press the DVR button on the remote then press B to display the disk space used screen. Note the percentage of space used so you can compare it after installing the external drive.:

1) Plug the power cables of your new drive and cable box in and let them both fully boot up.

2) While they’re both powered on, connect the eSATA cable from the drive to the DVR. Note that they should both be powered on as the instructions that come with the drive say they should both be powered off, BUT those instructions are geared towards a Tivo installation and not for the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD DVR.

3) Almost immediately after plugging in the eSATA cable, the following screen will appear on your TV:

 Press A on your remote control to let your DVR format the external drive. After a couple of minutes it will finish and you will have the additional space added to the available capacity of your DVR.

Note that the space used after external drive installation drops from 58% to just 8%. 

Here are the instructions for connecting the drive to a Tivo or other DVR:

1) Unplug the DVR (Don’t just hit the power button as that doesn’t completely power it off (that’s how it records your shows even when it’s off))

2) connect the ESata cable from the drive to the ESata port on the back of the DVR. It only fits one way. The connector is somewhat U shaped, so just match it up to the ports on both ends.

3) plug in the drive and let it boot up for about 20 seconds to fully spin up.

4) Plug in your Tivo or DVR and leave it alone to boot up. This could take 5 to 10 minutes. Don’t hit any buttons on the remote or DVR. It should find the drive and pop up a screen asking if you want to format the drive for use by the DVR. Hit Yes and let it go.

When formatting is complete, you’ll have about 9x more space available to record on.

You can verify this by going into the DVR menu and checking free space. You should have substantially more now than before you started.

On a troubleshooting note, one person did say the setup instructions above did not work for them. They finally got it working by connecting the drive to the DVR while both were powered up. I don’t recommend trying this unless you can’t get it to work as described above.

A couple of points to note:
This is only a way to add more space to ONE DVR. You cannot connect it to a different DVR to watch the shows recorded on it. If you do, it will just ask you to format it again which will erase all the recordings on the drive.

You can disconnect it and reconnect it to the same DVR and keep your recordings.

You cannot connect the drive to a PC after recording programs. The DVR formats the drive in a way most PC’s won’t be able to read, so you’d have to format it again for the pc to be able to use it, which would erase all your recordings and make the drive unuseable by the DVR without reformatting it yet again.

Troubleshooting:

- If you find that the DVR can’t see the drive after installation and you have to reconnect the cable for it to see the external drive again, you may have a bad SATA cable. I suggest you purchase the SIIG eSATA cable I mentioned earlier and replace the stock cable.

- If you experience stuttering or distortion of the audio or video, the eSATA port on the cable box may be bad. Return the box to your cable company for a replacement. Some people have had to go through two different cable boxes before they got one that worked properly.

Having problems doing this? Have questions on how to do this yourself? Leave a comment below and tell us about it!

Technorati Tags: 1Tb, Cable, cablevision, DVR, eSATA, External Drive, My DVR Expander, scientific atlanta, Western Digital

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