IOGEAR USB Net ShareStation – Possible Droboshare Replacement?

I came across a review for a new product called the USB Net ShareStation by IOGEAR. This little toy looks interesting enough, especially considering the fact that it allows one to use a 4port USB Hub to add more devices to your network via USB, this seems like a GREAT product. No more need for USB->Network print servers, and now I can use my external USB drives via my network. I am very interested in getting my hands on one of these badboys, and they are currently going for $50 shipped via eBay.

Couple of Con’s:

1. 1 major downside, it’s not Linux compatible out-of-the-box, hopefully someone will hack the device drivers to work with Linux soon… If you know of anyone currently working on this please leave me a comment and let me know.
2. 10/100Base-T port = Not Gigabit Ethernet

This got me thinking however what about using this as a replacement for the {currently} $200 DroboShare, this is essentially a DroboShare for 1/4 the cost, but would this work with the Drobo? Then of course this leads to a followup question of performance, which provides more throughput, the DroboShare or the ShareStation? I realize the DroboShare has a Gigabit ethernet connection, so this will probably be a major drawback, but I am curious to know what real-life experience/benchmarks between the too show…

Because this product is so new there aren’t alot of reviews that benchmark the ShareStation, but as I collect more information on this I will add it to this post. Please if you have any info on this, leave a comment.

Installing Ubuntu on a OLPC Xo – Part 1

Well thanks to the Ubuntu On OLPC XO wiki page I was able to successfully install Ubuntu on my OLPC.
I did however run into a few hitches.

1. Wireless Internet Connection

The wiki page doesn’t make reference to how to setup WEP wireless connection, it only mentions WPA (NETWORKING) so I had to do a bit of research: How to connect to wireless (WEP) in ubuntu?
turns out that the following does the trick:


iwconfig eth1 essid "mySSID" key mywepkey
sudo dhclient eth1

Now I had to figure out how to add this to a startup script so that it would automatically connect to my wireless router upon boot up: Automatic Wireless Connection (At Startup)?
All I had to do was add the following to /etc/network/interfaces

# Wireless Connection
iface eth1 inet dhcp
wireless-key hex-key
wireless-essid ssid

auto eth1

where hex-key = my WEP hex key & ssid = my routers wireless SSID

2. Mouse Problems

The Customizing Ubuntu for XO wiki page explains how to fix the tap-click issue and sensitivity, however the sensitivity issue I am having is that my mouse is too insensitive, My mouse pointer FLY’s across the screen when I move my finger, so instead of using the wiki’s recommened:
xset m 1/4 0
I am using:
xset m 25/20 0
and it is much better now.

3. Screen Saver

The first thing I noticed was there was no screensaver installed, when I went to Settings > Screensaver Settings, I got the following error:
I was able to install xscreensaver, but I got another error every time I made a change to xscreensaver’s settings “Directory does not exist: /usr/share/backgrounds” a quick google search and I found a solution: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xscreensaver/+bug/129769
sudo apt-get install screensaver-default-images
Fixed 🙂

Part 2 of my setup woe’s comming soon…

How to move an Outlook 2007 DataFile ?

I decided to break free from Google Apps webGUI (a.k.a. Gmail) and start using Outlook to access my Google Apps domain account email.

I have an Outlook Profile that contains one Exchange account (Default) and 2 IMAP accounts. I am trying to change the datafile (pst) location for my two IMAP accounts from the default (C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook) to another directory.

I’ve tried Google and I’ve read thru this page: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA012308921033.aspx
But there is a part on that page where I get lost…
It says:

In the Tools menu, click Account Settings. On the E-mail tab, select the new e-mail account, and then click Change Folder. In the New E-mail Delivery Location dialog box, select the Inbox of the old .pst file.

But for me there is no “Change Folder” or “New E-mail Delivery Location” option???

What am I missing?

Edit 7-17-08:

I have found a possible solution, but I haven’t had time to try it out myself, I will post an update when I’ve confirmed this is working:

By default, Outlook places each Offline Folders (.ost) file and Personal Folders (.pst) file that it creates in the %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook folder. This setting allows you to change the default behavior and store the files in any folder.

Open your registry and find the appropriate key below.

Outlook 2007 – [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook]
Outlook 2003 – [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook]
Outlook XP – [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook]
Outlook 2000 – [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook]

Create a new REG_EXPAND_SZ (Expandable String) value called ‘ForcePSTPath’ and set it to equal the full path of the required personal folder directory (e.g. “C:\Mailbox”).

Restart Outlook for the change to take effect. and if this does not work.. try restarting your cmputer aswell.

And

You can also move the current .pst files to the new location using the following method.

>Open the Outlook.
>Click on File > Data Management File.
>Make a note of the path where the Outlook.pst file is stored or saved.
> Close the Outlook and copy the folder to some other location and then reopen outlook.
> use the same procedure to Add the new pst file from the new location and remove the old PST that is there..

It should work fine.. You can follow any method that you think it is useful..

Again, I have not tested the above, so proceed with caution. I will report back when I’ve had a chance to confirm the above is a working solution. Thanks for your patience.

Linux + Xorg + VMware = trouble

Apparently there is a severe bug that relates to multiple distributions of Linux (I am using Ubuntu) and it has to do with VMware and Xorg. This bug causes the keyboard to go all out of whack when using VMware in full screen mode. As of right now there isn’t a solution to the problem but there are a few workarounds:

1. execute ‘setxkbmap’ from the terminal
2. In Ubuntu, Go to Applications > Other > Keyboard Layout, and remove the keyboard layout and then add it back and re-apply

Hopefully someone will correct this issue soon. But for now it seems like everyone is passing the buck (Xorg is blaming VMware, VMware is blaming Linux & Xorg, etc…)

If anyone has some incite or other work-arounds please post.

Links:
LaunchPad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/195982
VMware Forums: http://communities.vmware.com/message/975867
Ubuntu Forums Posts:

• SCIM / Keyboard Layout Issues
• Broken Shift & CAPS LOCK keys – SCIM
• My KVM Breaks Input Devices