- Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

HP Datavault Home Server
by Andrew Hodgson 25 Mar '10

25 Mar '10

Hi, Had a lot of Dabs points left so picked up 3TB HP Datavault server with Windows Home Server on it. This is very similar to the MediaSmart server, only targeted at small businesses, but with the same software set as the MediaSmart server. The 3TB consists of 2 1.5 TB drives, grate - can consolidate two Buffalo Linkstations plus data on my SBS server onto this box. With Dabs points plus money off vouchers they keep sending me, the unit came in at about £680. I tried to get the MediaSmart server, but it wasn't available through Dabs at any rate. System is a dual-core Pentium (64-bit compatible for future proof, though current WHS is 32-bit). 2GB RAM installed. This box is very small - just over the size of a single drive Linkstation, and it runs very quiet. Lots of impressive lights on the front, very bright! As you may know the console on the WHS boxes is not accessible remotely since it uses some embedded RDP session. The workaround I made was to install WindowEyes 7.11 onto the box itself by using the Remote Desktop connection. I copied the CD contents to the d: drive of the server, then ran the setup program. It is important to choose the following - choosing the wrong option can put the server into an unrecoverable state, I did this and had to reimage the machine with the recovery disk! - Install with no speech. - Choose custom setup. - Enter your name. - Install to default directory. - Choose to use the RDP virtual redirector speech synth - not Dectalk! - No Braille display. - Don't install manual (does it matter?) - Choose default hotkey for startup. - Untick both boxes for WE autostart (very important). - After install completes, don't reboot the system, enable the RDP video chaining driver then reboot. Once the server is back up start WE on the local system, RDP into the WHS box and then start WE on there. You should get speech - the first thing you will get is a warning explaining that you shouldn't go messing around in the various different server consoles. If you run the WHS console from here (via desktop shortcut), you can do most of the items you want using the mouse cursors, including creating accounts etc. Outside the console you seem to be able to do a lot of server functions - i.e., install software, change IIS settings, etc. There is even the option to join the server to the domain, but apparently this isn't in the license agreement, so I didn't join my server to the SBS domain. I get the feeling that there is a lot of custom work on the server installed by both MS and HP, and if you change settings without knowing the workings of the custom software you will break stuff. I created user accounts which matched the passwords of my SBS account, and could access shares on the system fine. The backup feature is very impressive, backing up my Windows 7 machine in less than an hour. Restore unfortunately requires boot CD, so not going to be accessible. There is a remote access feature which is nice. You can remotely upload and download files from the server, and the HTML interface for this works well. You can choose to download whole directories, and you get them as a ZIP file. Uploading caused a bit of an issue for me, though I suspect I will use it mainly for downloading. It tries to get the remote access using UPNP, if you have something listening on a single static IP address on port 80 or 443 don't do this. They force a TZO dynamic DNS service on you, I just cancelled out of the setup for this and it seemed to work ok. There is a nice media converter on here for videos, put the video you want converting into a special share and it gets converted to MP4. There is also a media server running Twonky Media services for all those network players around. Windows Media services is obviously supported natively as well. HP have done the Mac integration piece for this as well, with a special Mac client and a Time Machine server pre-installed. Recovery is a bit of a pita, you have to connect directly to the PC (not using crossover cable interestingly enough), then press the recovery button as the unit starts. By the looks of it this asks the BIOS to boot from a PXE server which your recovery CD on the PC will set up. Once booted into the recovery environment, the wizard on the desktop guides you through reimaging the device. There are options to just reinstall the WHS partition, or to do a full format of the disks (factory reset). This just didn't work for me on my Win7 machine, so had to go and use my XP netbook to do the recovery. Overall am happy with this device, probably won't get another NAS device for ages now :). Apparently there are upgrades due out for the unit, and for older units there were paid upgrades to the latest WHS release, so am hoping they will have an upgrade option available for the next release due out early next year. Only issue with this is Windows domain support. Hope this helps. Andrew.

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outlook, imap, and gmail
by David Mehler 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

Hello, I've got several outlook issues and one imap synchronization issue with gmail i'm hoping someone can help with. I'm using outlook 03 as an imap client to talk to gmail's imap server. A few months ago i had to rebuild a box so i backed up outlook's .pst files and rebuilt the machine. I then used the web interface of gmail for a time as i was on the road and didn't want to restore the files. Well, last night following a microsoft kb article i ran outlook's import wizard and pulled the various backed up files back in to outlook ending up with a single file, rather large as it has several years of messages in it. Outlook can see this. My problem now is i have two imap accounts, the original gmail and another one. Let's take the gmail first, I've got messages on gmail, some of which are not on the .pst file, and some in the .pst file that are not on gmail, I want to synchronize these two so that no matter which interface i use, i'll have access to my complete email set. I thought that was one of the points of imap, but can't seem to figure out how to do it, help appreciated. My second question is outlook 03's inbox cleanup wizard, at least i believe that's what i'm having issues with. This behavior in the past has been with the gmail account, at intervals my inbox is emptied, the messages it contained are still in the all messages or all mail folder so they're still there, just been taken out of where i wanted them to be for easy access. I want to turn off all outlook's autocleanup and purge and archiving features. Lastly, I now have a second imap account and want to manage it's messages from within the same outlook interface/profile. Ideally i'd like the messages from the second accound to go to a separate inbox and folder space, but that i can get to easily. I've not found much on these issues, if anyone has any suggestions i'd like to hear them. Thanks. Dave.

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router lights
by David Mehler 17 Mar '10

17 Mar '10

Hello, Simple question here, how do user's tell which lights on a hub, or switch are active and their color? Thanks. Dave.

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choosing a new imap client
by David Mehler 16 Mar '10

16 Mar '10

Hello, I'm ready to put together a new system and am looking at a new imap client. Previously i used outlook 2003 with jfw 10, which worked, but had one serious error. At an undetermined time my mailbox would be purged, and although the messages were still in my all messages folder, this was accessing imap for a gmail account, they were no longer easy to get to. This i atempted to disable, mailbox cleanup and similar features, which wasn't it and i never solved the problem. So, now my choices are outlook 2007 with presumably the same issue, or thunderbird version3 i believe is out. I am not sure of thunderbird's accessibility. I'm going to be dealing with multiple imap accounts, one gmail, and two others, and i'd prefer secure access. I'm looking for prose and cons to outlook 2007 and thunderbird with jfw in a multiple imap account environment. Any usage appreciated. Thanks. Dave.

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ot: live cd windows based environments
by Ben Mustill-Rose 11 Mar '10

11 Mar '10

Hey all, I'm sorry for the ot but I thought that since my question is fairly technical someone here might have a solution. I've been getting a few machines lately with infections. Pretty bad 100000 icon type infections. The problem here is that most of the removal tools that I use won't run due to things stopping them. One option would be to just format the machines and start fresh, but thats not an option in every situation and if I could get something like malware bytes to run then cleaning the box out may actually be quicker than formatting. Sighted people are able to go into safemode and remove a handfull of nasties, boot into the os normally and continue the removal process but thats not an option for totals due to the lack of sound. What I've currently been doing is removing the drive and slaving it in another box and running tools on the drive that way but thats far from ideal and not always effective. Because of all of these issues, lately I've been thinking about windows based live cd environments and how usefull it would be if they were accessible. If anyone has done, has thoughts on or wants to work with me on any of the below then I would be very interested: Does nvda coupled with brltty and a display work under safemode? if so, how well does it cope with things like malware bytes and super antyspyware? How about creating a live cd based on bart pe with a xpe pluggin to allow audio support and slipstreaming nvda along with the sound driver packs from driverpacks.net? would nvda like the gui since its not strictly like windows? As of v2 of win pe which is microsofts answer to bart pe sound is supported. Whilst pe is commandline, how about hacking a premade gui onto it and again, including nvda and sound drivers? Ubcd4win doesn't have sound support, but its a very complete boot cd full of handy tools based on bart pe. Perhaps it would be nice to get nvda with brltty working on this? As a last resort, whilst its not strictly allowed under the eula, windows xp embedded has built in audio support and the same gui found in xp, so I'm guessing that this might be a good one to play with. What would be nice is if some of us who had knolige about these sorts of things got together and worked on one of the above solutions; I think its something that technicly minded blind computer users as a hole would really benefit from since its nonexistant at the moment. All thoughts are welcome and once again, sorry for the off topic. Chears, Ben.

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Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Dell PE 840 woes
by Frank Ventura 10 Mar '10

10 Mar '10

Andrew, thanks, I would greatly appreciate it if you could offlist email me that tag to: frank.ventura(a)littlebreezes.com Thanks Frank -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 2:05 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Dell PE 840 woes Hi, Yes in the BIOS near the top of the screen. I can mail you one I use privately if you want - I use it for the purpose of downloading these ISO images. You should only need the update DVD if you choose to upgrade the firmware, otherwise just use the build and update utility, which will install everything for you that you need. Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Frank Ventura Sent: 10 March 2010 00:18 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Dell PE 840 woes Hi all, I need to do a reinstall/rebuild ofa Dell PE 840 with Win 2k8. After the first build DVD it asks me for a second update DVD. I found the image on Dell's site but it needs a service tag to download it. The pair of eyes I borrowed couldn't find a service tag anywhere on the outside of the server. Does anyone know where the service tag may be or is there anyway to obtain it from the BIOS? Really appreciated Frank _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins -- 98% of our clients would recommend us Client Survey Jan 2010 Registered in England No. 02933191. UK VAT Reg. No. 666 9148 88. (c) 2009 - 2010 allpay Limited Fully compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Telephone: 0844 225 5729 Fax: 0844 557 8350 Website: www.allpay.net Email: enquiries(a)allpay.net This email, and any files transmitted with it, is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the allpay Information Security Manager at the number above _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

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Install updates and shutdown query
by Darren Brewer 10 Mar '10

10 Mar '10

Hi All I think this is one of those questions where if you know the answer it's so obvious. However I don't so here goes. when shutting down my XP Pro machine I get the standard option to install updates and shutdown. Now I've seen the little shield in the notification area when it's downloading the updates and then it vanishes. I have automatic updates set to download updates and let me install them, but it seems like some only want to be installed on shutdown. I don't want to install updates on shutdown without knowing what they are. So my question is where are the updates awaiting installation being stored? I've looked in the windows update.log file, but it doesn't help locating the files awaiting installation. I've googled this and looked on tech net, but keep finding references to software update services and other irrelevant information. Anyone help? Thanks Darren.

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Dell PE 840 woes
by Frank Ventura 10 Mar '10

10 Mar '10

Hi all, I need to do a reinstall/rebuild ofa Dell PE 840 with Win 2k8. After the first build DVD it asks me for a second update DVD. I found the image on Dell's site but it needs a service tag to download it. The pair of eyes I borrowed couldn't find a service tag anywhere on the outside of the server. Does anyone know where the service tag may be or is there anyway to obtain it from the BIOS? Really appreciated Frank

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Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments
by Frank Ventura 09 Mar '10

09 Mar '10

Here is another interesting link: http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-create-live-usbcddvd-of-vistaxp/ Not sure how this can be done given the licensing issues. Frank -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Shugart Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 10:14 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments I actually read something very interesting on this topic last night. Apparently, Windows 7 has the ability to create a live DVD based on the currently running environment. I don't have any Windows 7 machines at home, so this will have to wait until I get into work to play with this on one of the Windows 7 machines there. I have no idea if the OS on the live environment is just PE or is a real Windows 7, what drivers are available, and if its just meant to boot your existing computer or can be taken to other machines and booted there, but this looks like a very interesting possibility assuming the post I read about it wasn't exaggerating. Anyone on the list with Windows 7 want to try this and see how well it really works? You can get to it from the recovery control panel applet. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Barry Toner Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 6:39 AM To: 'Blind sysadmins list' Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Exact same experiences as Ryan. Barry -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Shugart Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 8:17 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Hi Ben: I, along with a lot of people I'm sure, would be very interested in this. I'm not sure how easy it'd be to take Windows and turn it into a live CD, its just not ment to run that way. However, there are two options I can think of off the top of my head. Microsoft actually makes a bootable Windows environment called Windows PE. It is freely downloadable, just download the Windows Automated Instalation Kit and PE comes with that. I tried at one point to get NVDA to work under that but was unsuccessful. I couldn't get sound to work at all, but that might have been because I wasn't sure how to include drivers at the time. Also, I don't know if PE has accessibility support. The other option, Microsoft makes a version of windows called Windows Embeded. I think the latest version is based on XP, with a Windows 7 version soon to follow. This is designed for things like settop boxes, thin clients, etc. Quite a few of the thin clients where I work use this. I know for a fact, Window-Eyes at least, will run in that environment just as it would normally so I'dimagine NVDA would as well, or SAtoGO or something like that. I don't know how you get your hands on this though. But as I said, it's a great idea and should have been done a long time ago. Thanks. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 9:53 AM To: blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Hey all, I'm sorry for the ot but I thought that since my question is fairly technical someone here might have a solution. I've been getting a few machines lately with infections. Pretty bad 100000 icon type infections. The problem here is that most of the removal tools that I use won't run due to things stopping them. One option would be to just format the machines and start fresh, but thats not an option in every situation and if I could get something like malware bytes to run then cleaning the box out may actually be quicker than formatting. Sighted people are able to go into safemode and remove a handfull of nasties, boot into the os normally and continue the removal process but thats not an option for totals due to the lack of sound. What I've currently been doing is removing the drive and slaving it in another box and running tools on the drive that way but thats far from ideal and not always effective. Because of all of these issues, lately I've been thinking about windows based live cd environments and how usefull it would be if they were accessible. If anyone has done, has thoughts on or wants to work with me on any of the below then I would be very interested: Does nvda coupled with brltty and a display work under safemode? if so, how well does it cope with things like malware bytes and super antyspyware? How about creating a live cd based on bart pe with a xpe pluggin to allow audio support and slipstreaming nvda along with the sound driver packs from driverpacks.net? would nvda like the gui since its not strictly like windows? As of v2 of win pe which is microsofts answer to bart pe sound is supported. Whilst pe is commandline, how about hacking a premade gui onto it and again, including nvda and sound drivers? Ubcd4win doesn't have sound support, but its a very complete boot cd full of handy tools based on bart pe. Perhaps it would be nice to get nvda with brltty working on this? As a last resort, whilst its not strictly allowed under the eula, windows xp embedded has built in audio support and the same gui found in xp, so I'm guessing that this might be a good one to play with. What would be nice is if some of us who had knolige about these sorts of things got together and worked on one of the above solutions; I think its something that technicly minded blind computer users as a hole would really benefit from since its nonexistant at the moment. All thoughts are welcome and once again, sorry for the off topic. Chears, Ben. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4921 (20100306) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4924 (20100308) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

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Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments
by Frank Ventura 09 Mar '10

09 Mar '10

With a USB sound card or USB headset yes. Frank -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Angelo Sonnesso Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 11:37 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Importance: High Can they get sound with the thumb drive? -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Frank Ventura Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 6:01 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments I have seen folks get XP to run off of a Thumb drive. I wonder if a live DVD could be made based on one of those projects? -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Shugart Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 3:17 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Hi Ben: I, along with a lot of people I'm sure, would be very interested in this. I'm not sure how easy it'd be to take Windows and turn it into a live CD, its just not ment to run that way. However, there are two options I can think of off the top of my head. Microsoft actually makes a bootable Windows environment called Windows PE. It is freely downloadable, just download the Windows Automated Instalation Kit and PE comes with that. I tried at one point to get NVDA to work under that but was unsuccessful. I couldn't get sound to work at all, but that might have been because I wasn't sure how to include drivers at the time. Also, I don't know if PE has accessibility support. The other option, Microsoft makes a version of windows called Windows Embeded. I think the latest version is based on XP, with a Windows 7 version soon to follow. This is designed for things like settop boxes, thin clients, etc. Quite a few of the thin clients where I work use this. I know for a fact, Window-Eyes at least, will run in that environment just as it would normally so I'dimagine NVDA would as well, or SAtoGO or something like that. I don't know how you get your hands on this though. But as I said, it's a great idea and should have been done a long time ago. Thanks. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 9:53 AM To: blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Hey all, I'm sorry for the ot but I thought that since my question is fairly technical someone here might have a solution. I've been getting a few machines lately with infections. Pretty bad 100000 icon type infections. The problem here is that most of the removal tools that I use won't run due to things stopping them. One option would be to just format the machines and start fresh, but thats not an option in every situation and if I could get something like malware bytes to run then cleaning the box out may actually be quicker than formatting. Sighted people are able to go into safemode and remove a handfull of nasties, boot into the os normally and continue the removal process but thats not an option for totals due to the lack of sound. What I've currently been doing is removing the drive and slaving it in another box and running tools on the drive that way but thats far from ideal and not always effective. Because of all of these issues, lately I've been thinking about windows based live cd environments and how usefull it would be if they were accessible. If anyone has done, has thoughts on or wants to work with me on any of the below then I would be very interested: Does nvda coupled with brltty and a display work under safemode? if so, how well does it cope with things like malware bytes and super antyspyware? How about creating a live cd based on bart pe with a xpe pluggin to allow audio support and slipstreaming nvda along with the sound driver packs from driverpacks.net? would nvda like the gui since its not strictly like windows? As of v2 of win pe which is microsofts answer to bart pe sound is supported. Whilst pe is commandline, how about hacking a premade gui onto it and again, including nvda and sound drivers? Ubcd4win doesn't have sound support, but its a very complete boot cd full of handy tools based on bart pe. Perhaps it would be nice to get nvda with brltty working on this? As a last resort, whilst its not strictly allowed under the eula, windows xp embedded has built in audio support and the same gui found in xp, so I'm guessing that this might be a good one to play with. What would be nice is if some of us who had knolige about these sorts of things got together and worked on one of the above solutions; I think its something that technicly minded blind computer users as a hole would really benefit from since its nonexistant at the moment. All thoughts are welcome and once again, sorry for the off topic. Chears, Ben. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

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