Using Windows Home Server, part 4

So after testing everything else, I got around to testing the remote access functionality.

Since I was on holiday away down  in the south of England, I decided to set things up. Got registered on dyndns.org and set my Linksys router up to ping their servers every time my external IP address changed. This side of things worked pretty well for the next day or so, before the IP changed and the router didn’t update dyndns.org with the change. Which is strange in and of itself.

The WHS remote access website works very well indeed. The downloads went smoothly, even when downloading an entire folder. I intentionally forgot to copy some files to my laptop so I was forced to test this out one way or the other. I want that zip code that the website uses to send your files (all files get included in a zip archive), could prove to be useful. But I digress.

So far, I’m very impressed with it. I was unable to test the uploading functionality because by the time I got round to that my router was suffering IP paralysis.

As a tip, download the automatic update software from dyndns.org and run it on the server as a service to back up the router functionality (if its there). The really strange thing is that my Linksys Router DDNS needs to be setup anyway to work with dyndns.org .I  tried turning it off after I installed the update software, but it refused to work and showed the Router setup page and not the WHS website. I turned it back on and viola - it worked!

Must try the uploading features some time.

The WHS SDK is out am I’m salivating like Pavlov’s dogs for their bell over what I could do with it. I haven’t come up with anything yet, I’m afraid. At least not something that I could do. But it struck me that what ever antivirus software you have running, it should have a Home Connector Tab and a Remote Access Tab. In fact you could extend the same idea to the Dyndns.org update software I wrote about above. Since the idea is for a headless server, the Home Connector and Remote Access Website are now the developers primary  interface and means of interacting with the user.

For example. If I had a SQL server running on WHS ( which I don’t - there were issues last time I tried the install) I could programmatically check the SQL server status and display the data in the Home Connector - kind of like what SQL Management Studio Express and the DotNetPanel do. Hey, come to think of it…DNP is free for up to 10 websites… (consider this a note to self). Now, if I could get SQL Server working…

But I digress. Back to the issue to Anti Virus software. Nortons 2007 Internet Security refused point blank to install. Which leads me ask what plans the WHS team have in this area. Is there going to be a OneCare license included with the release of WHS (this would be great from the point of view of Home Connector and Remote Access integration)? Is Microsoft going to do a deal with Nortons and McAffee over their Server Editions (possible but very unlikely in the light of Microsoft entering their market with OneCare). Or is WHS magically going to be security hole free ( possible, if the WHS team decide to port to OSX ). Now I’m justifiably nervous with out AV software covering my back. I suppose I’ll just have to trust the windows firewall….

The Mobile Web (and Google)

I don’t use the Mobile web much. In fact, I only use it to check my Google Mail and Reader and started that this weekend. Why only Google Reader and Mail? Because Google offers straight text for its mobile websites. Text is cheaper and faster to download over WAP than pictures.

The mobile websites for both Google services are fantastic, save a few things. Reader doesn’t allow you to share an item (which meant I had to star items I wanted to share and share them later), and its really irritating. The ability to add a post to your Google Notebook is also missing (this arguably should be one of the first things included on both the main and mobile sites). I add posts to my notebook all the time. The Google Reader log in page is the “normal” version and you need to scroll right to get to the log in box.

I did take a look at my own blog from my mobile and came away disappointed. It didn’t look very good. The header scaled down to fit the screen, but the background was all messed up.

For the rest of the websites I visited: GET A MOBILE WEBSITE NOW!

Normal websites viewed on a mobile browser become lists of links that are in the header and the “other interesting articles” sections which not only take time to download, but a heck of a lot of time to scroll down to the content you want to read. Again, irritating.

Now bear in mind, I’m not into doing scientific samples to determine wether this is a widespread problem or not and I’m going from my (limited) weekend browsing.

It wouldn’t take a lot to change. Most sites have CSS styles for printing articles that happen to be mostly text and no pictures and perfect for mobiles. Nokia and the rest probably have some culpability in this. They need to ensure that their browsers work properly and can handle “normal” websites better.

As far as I’m concerned, mobile websites for my websites have been added to the ToDo list for the summer.

Should I try Google Calender on my mobile now?