This is a video of a full size Glider making a short landing in a radio controlled model airplane field. On the audio you can hear a lot of concern about the fence and I was worried about a ground loop from the tall grass under his left wing. But the pilot performed a skillful landing and didn’t damage anything.

Enjoy.

Oh, I was rather amused that he was ticketed for landing there. I guess that’s not much to complain about if it’s the worst part of the landing.

Click on the picture above to link to my Gallery

So, by now, if you’re one of the 70,000 or so people testing Windows Home Server, you’ll be regularly backing up your home computers and you’ll have seen that it’s a pretty seamless experience - once your home server has checked out what computers you have on your network, it just works.

That’s the point - it just works - WHS successfully hides a lot of pretty amazing technology from the user, to make using the home server as simple as possible. So, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of that technology and see if I can do any decent job of explaining it to you, the everyday user.

First up is Windows Home Server backup, or rather, one particular element of backup which provides a great benefit to the user.

Let’s say you have a two desktops and a laptop on your home network - the desktops each have a 250Gb drive, and the laptop and 80Gb drive. And let’s say they’re all half full. That’s 290Gb of storage to back up every night and hang on, I only have 500 Gb of storage in my home server - it’s going to fill up in like two days!

How does WHS fit in so many daily backups of all my computers in a limited amount of space?

The answer’s actually pretty simple, thanks to a piece of smart thinking.

Each night, Windows Home Server checks the data on each of your machines and only backs up data that it hasn’t backed up before - i.e. if a file on your desktop hasn’t been changed since it was originally backed up, it doesn’t need to be backed up again, so that’s one way of saving space.

Better still, if you have the same data on multiple machines, WHS only stores one copy of that data, but registers that it belongs on each machine. So when it comes to restoring the files, WHS knows which machines to restore that data to.

Let me give you an example - Windows system files. The laptop I’m writing this post on is a Windows XP Pro machine. The Windows System folder (holding all of the operating system files) is 2.05 Gb. I definitely want this folder backed up in case something goes wrong with my laptop. But those same system files also exist on another XP machine I use in the bedroom - they’re exactly the same operating system files. So WHS backs up the files once, but knows that they’re needed on both machines if I choose to restore either of them. Pretty smart, and saves storage space and backup time.

That’s why your first WHS backup often takes a while - the first backup of your first machine post-installation is literally backing up everything. Subsequently, data on your other machines is compared to the data backed up from the first machine, and if it’s the same, there’s no need to back it up - it’s already safely stored.

Hope you’re still with me - it’s time to get under the hood.

So, how does this all work? Windows Home Server uses a version of a technology known as Single Instance Storage. The general idea behind Single Instance Storage (or SIS as it’s known) is that which I’ve tried to bring to life above - keeping one copy of data that multiple computers share. SIS is used quite commonly in lots of backup solutions and other server products - email systems, file servers that sort of thing.

In the example above, I mentioned that WHS each night compares data it has already backed up (the Windows System files on my laptop) with data on other machines (the same files on my XP bedroom machine) and then takes a call on whether to back those files up too or not.

Windows Home Server doesn’t actually compare or even store the whole files themselves. It works with fragments of those files - called clusters. Your Windows Home Server comes with a built-in, custom-designed database which has two jobs:

1. Store fragments of your data (clusters)
2. Store metadata (data about data) that describes how to reassemble those fragments of data into an entire file system if required.

So for the first backup of the first machine, WHS examines every cluster on that machine, and generates a hash (a checksum generated from performing a calculation on the data itself) which is stored in the database. If another cluster is examined and is found to be the same (by comparing the hash values), then this is noted in the database, but the cluster is not stored again.

The following day, the same process occurs, but only new or changed clusters are copied to the database.

Working at this deeply granular level, using single instance storage means that Windows Home Server is massively efficient at only storing the data it really needs, whilst still guaranteeing that you can backup individual files, folders or indeed your entire computer should you wish.

Head hurting? Yep, mine too.

Simply, If you value your data (In my case I have too many work files, pictures and documents, being distributed around my home network not to have a solid backup plan!), have 2 or more pc’s on a home network (wired or wireless) and have an old PC lying around collecting dust, you may want to invest a couple of bucks in hard drive space to build your own Windows Home (Backup) Server.

References: We got served

Let me know if you need any help with your Windows Home Server project.

Hiddenpcmaster

Tomorrow is Justin’s graduation day, journeying from elementary school onward towards Middle School. But before the journey continues, they held some of the the awards ceremony today…

(Click on the award above for the full size, click again to return)

He Graduated at the top of his Fifth Grade Class! We are so proud of you lil buddy!

Love, Mom & Dad

THIS DOESN’T APPLY TO ALL OF YOU BLACKBERRY USERS, MOVE ALONG

For the rest of us laptop toting wardrivers, read on!

I’m usually on the road during the week and don’t have the convenience of having an internet connection like most office workers. Most of the time the office staff may be too busy to offer assistance over the phone. “Enter NetStumbler”

Windows only: Network manager NetStumbler lists all the wifi networks in your area, their signal strength and whether or not they’re passworded.

NetStumbler is essential when you’re out and about tracking down a connection in the wifi jungle.

NetStumbler is a free download for Windows only.

Previously mentioned here http://www.hiddenpcmaster.com

Today, the Windows Home Server Beta program is open to everyone and anybody that wants to take a look, test it, or sleep well at night knowing that their PCs are automatically being backed up every night. Sign up and you are in!!

http://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer

Don’t be the last household with a broadband connection that has 2 or more PCs to take this great software for a spin. It is simple to setup, easy to use, and provides powerful capabilities including automated PC backup, easily expandable centralized storage (”no more drive letters”), remote access to your home server for downloading and uploading files, and remote access to your PCs too with your own personalized internet domain name.

They are getting close to shipping, so sign up for the beta now before it is too late…..

K9 Web Protection is a FREE Internet filtering and control solution for the home. K9 puts YOU in control of the Internet so you can protect your kids.

Blue Coat® K9 Web Protection is a content filtering solution for your home computer. Its job is to provide you with a family-safe Internet experience, where YOU control the Internet content that enters your home. K9 Web Protection implements the same enterprise-class Web filtering technology used by Blue Coat’s Fortune 500 customers around the world, wrapped in simple, friendly, and reliable software for your Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista computer.

Blue Coat’s unique Web filtering technology divides Internet content into more than 55 distinct categories. These categories are stored in the master Blue Coat database, through which we maintain and update more than eight million ratings of websites and domains. A Web site will fall into one or more of these categories, based on the content of the site. To meet your particular needs and preferences, you can configure the software to block or allow specific categories.

K9 Web Protection is different from other solutions for the home in several important respects:

* Service-based filtering - Blue Coat’s filtering database operates as a service. It receives and rates over 50 million requests every day, making it the most accurate content filtering database available. This accuracy is important in protecting your family, given the Internet’s rapid changes and growth. Plus, there is no database to download. K9 Web Protection won’t clog your Internet connection, get “stale” or out of date, or slow down your computer like other products do.

* Dynamic Real-Time Rating™ (DRTR) - Blue Coat’s patent-pending DRTR technology is a very powerful element in our solution, and is vastly different from the old-fashioned “key word filtering” that is so frustrating to users. Using a method of statistical analysis and artificial intelligence to rate new or previously unrated Web pages, DRTR can determine the category of a URL on the fly, without human intervention. However, DRTR only renders a rating when it is confident that it has reached an accurate conclusion.

We’ve focused DRTR on recognizing the kinds of categories most likely to be blocked. In particular, DRTR is highly accurate in blocking pornography and other “adult content” sites. This focus for DRTR is particularly important because these kinds of sites are constantly - daily and even hourly - popping up on the Internet, and no static database can keep up.

* Automatic updating - Automatic updates of the K9 Web Protection application ensure that you are always protected by the latest features. For example, in Spring of 2005, we added two new categories to our solution: Spyware/Malware Sources, and Spyware Effects/Privacy Concerns. By electing to block sites in these categories, your computer’s rate of infection by unwanted software can be reduced dramatically. We have a variety of new features planned, and your K9 installation will automatically receive updates that include them.

* Efficient caching - K9 Web Protection is a product from Blue Coat. Blue Coat is recognized world-wide as expert in high-performance caching and secure proxy technology. We take advantage of that expertise in K9, so your Internet experience is as fast, reliable, and safe as we can make it.

Unlike other filtering solutions, K9 Web Protection ensures the highest level of protection by building the most relevant ratings database available. Its effective coverage reaches more than one billion Web pages. With K9 Web Protection, you finally have a chance to build a family-safe Internet experience for your home, simply and easily.

For your FREE Copy, Click here to get started!

Hiddenpcmaster Approved and Justin TESTED!

Once again, Justin has won 1st place! He is currently accepting any challengers.

Here is a copy of the RULES which I am currently studying to try and beat the little bugger!