For the last few weeks I've had the occasional warning from my DIY Windows Home Server that one of the drive wasn't 100% stable. It would work fine then... just stop. SMART said it was fine when I'd restart but...

Then on Sunday it died and wouldn't restart, so a quick trip to Frys for a new drive, whip off the case, stick in the new drive (replacing the cables as well just to be sure).

Powered it all up. Let it balance storage and... good as new, no files lost (though it did have to delete some backups as there wasn't enough space on the single drive to store everything) but way better than a crash and burn.

Now I might get an extra PCI SATA card and add a couple more drives...

I really liked my Jabra BT800 headset and when it started to die more than be useful I was all set to get either a JX10 or a BT8040.

Instead I spend about 2/3 of the money and got a perfectly adequate Motorola H700 instead (in Fire Red if you must know).

Why?

It didn't fit any better. It didn't do anything that the other two products did (in fact it has less bells and whistles). It (like the others) has a really annoying blue flashing light to point out to strangers that I'm a wanna-be cyborg.

The winning factor... Mini USB charging connector.

Why you ask is that so important?

Simple convenience. I already carry a USB cable I can use to charge/sync my phone, my camera and my GPS unit. Why oh why do I want to carry another cable just for one device.

The headset is useless without the phone. Therefore making sure your device doesn't impose any new requirements on the phone user should be a fairly simple way to appeal to the road-warrior. I don't care what the plug looks like as long as I only have to carry one to charge and sync everything.

Of course one day ubiquitous SplashPower will ensure every device is constantly fed power and UWB will replace Bluetooth for local sync.

I first heard about XIOS (aka iCloud) about a year ago and I've been keen to have a play every since to see if finally someone would get it right.

I've wanted a portable "play and play" OS for a long time. Things like U3 and MojoPac looked like lightweight solutions but had their flaws (MojoPac still doesn't work with Vista) and going for a full VM solution like Moka5 didn't help (Internet Cafes where you can't install a USB device or incompatible host operating systems and problems getting network access from the guest OS)

Internet OSes seemed like a great idea but I've yet to find one that works well enough to deserve a return visit once I've set them up.

Well iCloud (or XIOS - I can't seem to work out what they want to call it) is the first that does a good enough job that I've been playing for a few days as I bounce around machines. In fact, I'm posting this with iCloud running and even using their Music Player to listen to BBC1xtra from the UK and test an IE app.

But nice as it is, it's still very early days. There are typos galore but on the whole it's pretty polished. And there are some pretty cool apps - Dayplan, Money Manager, Notepad and (rather bizarrely) a Balanced Scorecard app complement a collection of widgets, a desktop messenger and an internal browser instance (tabbed, supports Silverlight, Flash and anything else the host browser supports).

But there's a way to go which the development language (for you to write your own apps as a collection of XML files) doesn't quite compensate for.

No email client, the IM client won't talk to my Messenger buddies and there's no Word or Powerpoint app or a database (although these are all promised "real soon")

The other limiting factor for many is that it relies on IE. Now 90% of my time I have that available, but I also have a Mac Mini at home at the moment and would love to be able to move from one to the other seamlessly.

That leads me on to desktop sync.

In the ideal world I'd have a portable desktop I can take anywhere I happen to be working, and have the latest documents to my fingers or up to date email. In a secure, reliable manner (to allow me to work in a connected or disconnected manner) that doesn't impose limits based on if I'm on a PC or a Mac, at home in the office or at an Internet Cafe. Sadly there's no sync yet so I have to carry files on a USB key still!

Nice as it is... iCloud isn't quite my digital dream yet... it's the closest I've seen so I'll keep hoping (and Windows and OSX don't have to worry just yet!)

As anyone who has ever visited a rack room or looked down the back of a home PC can testify... cables get tangled.

If you've ever wondered while passing the time trying to sort out the mess if there's a better way to untangle them.... wonder no more, but get in training as a speedcabling athlete.

This new sport has just crowned it's first winner in a competition in LA that saw contestants battle to de-tangle a dozen ethernet cables of varying lengths... with the added twist that they still had to carry data at the end of the race!

These cables were not just tangled by time and chance. There was method to the madness! To get them to replicate the conditions of the wires found snaking and choking their way around hard drive units, monitors and printers in offices worldwide, Steven Schkolne (creator of this new sport) first started by tangling them in a figure eight. Then he threw the bundles in a clothes dryer for 3 minutes.

The first winner was Matthew Howell - and as well as the fame of being the first crowned champion in the sport he got a $50 voucher for a local restaurant.

Finally, a sport I might have a chance at.... check out the rules and other details at the official site...

It's really frustrating at the moment as almost everything I'm working on relates to MIX08 coming March 5-7 in Las Vegas.... and I don't want to spoil any of the surprises!

So all the really cool stuff that's keeping me busy in the office and on the road at the moment has to stay under wraps.

Come March 10th though you'll have read all about it on VisitMIX and all I'll need to do it link to it ;)

As well as my stuff (which of course I'm excited by!) I'm looking forward to dropping in on Franks panel - "Web 2.0 and beyond - what is the business reality" and some other sessions.

If you're coming to MIX look me up.... but not until day 2 when all my stuff has been presented ;)

Windows Zero Configuration is a real boon to the world of WiFi connectivity. I let WinXP and Vista take care of connecting to the right router and managing all that "stuff" for me and I've never given it a thought.

However, I've started using a different VoIP solution at home and for various reasons it's not plugged into a wired machine but living off a WiFi connected box (if I can work out the audio driver issues on the server it's going back to there, but I might end up having to wire the machine it's on at the moment)

So... what's the problem?

It was a tricky one to find... Every minute or so on a call I'd get a moment of total silence. I couldn't hear anyone, and no-one could hear me. Weird huh? That's what I thought.

So I started investigating. Lots of diligent diagnostics and pleas to the internet search gods and eventually I got a pointer in the right direction.... every 60 seconds Windows ZeroConf checks the health of the connection... sadly that has an impact on the communications to the router:

Reply from 192.168.10.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.10.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.10.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.10.1: bytes=32 time=944ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.10.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.10.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.10.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

So what's the answer?

Well... in WinXP you need to kill the ZeroConf service (hit "Start", then "run" and type "Services.msc" and hit enter. Search for "Windows Zero Configuration...." and hit the "stop service" button) - or if you have a driver/management program for your WiFi card use that instead.

In Vista it's a little tricker

• Open a command prompt using run as administrator.
• Make sure the WLAN service must be running first. If it isn't type net start wlansvc.
• Type in netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=no interface="name of your wireless network here" (with the quotes)
• If you need to see the name of your wireless network first, type in netsh wlan show settings

or (and if you have a group policy set that won't let you run that command) you can try this WLANOptimizer utility.

However there is a downside of turning off ZeroConf.... in my case when the machine that's running as the VoIP host loses the WiFi connection for any reason you have to restart the service, let it reestablish the connection and then shut it down again!

Hopefully, as this impacts both VoIP users and gamers (who need good ping times) we'll see a hotfix for Vista or someone will write a cool utility that softphones can trigger when in a call to stop ZeroConf doing it's check (perhaps extend the refresh interval to an hour from start of call or only if the connection drops or some other rule)

Oh, the VoIP solution I'm using is MagicJack. It's early days yet, but the quality blows Skype out of the water. If you're thinking about getting one check out the unofficial forum for some really good advice.

As a T-Mobile customer I wasn't impressed to read this morning that Starbucks was going to swap over to AT&T as their WiFi Hotspot provider.

One of the reasons for me choosing T-Mo over, say, Verizon or AT&T was the relative ubiquity of their hotspots thanks to the Starbucks deal, but now apart from one borders store and a hotspot in one terminal at SeaTac I can't think where I last encountered a T-Mo Hotspot in the US (and they're pretty few and far between in the UK as well).

I like their GPRS/Edge data service. It works well enough and has great coverage (I've not been without a signal anywhere I've traveled in the US) but it looks like their plans are currently all you can eat internet (over the air data and WiFi) or very limited WAP... and I resent paying for a service that pretty soon I might not be able to use.

Why might? Because the small print in the Starbucks release indicates that T-Mobile customers will continue to be able to use the hotspots after the transition.

The deal actually looks pretty good for Starbucks customers

I did drop T-Mobiles customer support a mail to see if they've anything to say by way of clarification.... hopefully it'll be good news. Meantime I'll be pricing up AT&T data services just in case...

It's quite often a question I ask myself when lost and confused in a city far from home (and actually I ask myself the question when I'm just popping down the shops sometimes!)

Luckily I recently discovered Navizon which lets me pair a GPS device with my phone and show me where I am on a map (yes, I know I can do the same with Windows Live Search for Mobile but ... there's more to the story). Navizon give users who report GPS data back to them points (and points mean cold hard cash via PayPal). The reason Navizon give the rewards is that their positioning service doesn't just work with a GPS equipped device. If you only have phone (and ideally WiFi) capabilities it can use information about the local cells and visible WiFi networks coupled with the afore-mentioned GPS data to make a pretty good guess as to where you are.

One of the cool things is that the Navizon API is available for other companies to make their software location aware so hopefully we'll see some good things coming soon. In the meantime users can also access data (including the optional "tracker" functionality) to keep an eye out for buddies or alert friends and family when they enter a certain place or use the XML feed to locate yourself on a map.

I decided to have a play with the XML feed and Live Maps to see what I could do...

BTW if you sign up to Navizon don't forget my referal code - 5E585D5B5A :)

A few weeks ago I detailed my dream-phone to replace my (then) current Wizard. I ended up getting a Shadow which in many ways is a really good handset but today I read the announcement about Sony Ericssons first foray into the Windows Mobile space and .... I'd like one please ;)

At the moment the best detail is on their press release but it certainly looks like a great start for them in this space - and I imagine with their experience in great smart and music phones - the P9xx and K series - the extra tweaks they'll have added to the platform will make this pretty sweet. I'm just hoping that it comes with a decent browser (and an upgrade path to the next WM releases)

Some highlights are

As usual I wrote this only to discover SteveCla has beaten me to the punch. There's a downside to living GMT-8 I guess... gotta get up really early to scoop the Brits!

Mike Butcher thinks that Twitter is moving away from a status update tool and becoming more of a conversation starter.

I think I agree with him at the moment, but I'm not sure how I'm going to end up using Twitter longer term.

When I first started with it I did use it as a status update thing (once I got over the "why bother" hump). I tweeted when I was waiting for a bus or cleaning my teeth. I used it in the same way I treat the status box in Windows Live Messenger - to share some information about what I'm doing now (usually what song I'm listening to) with my contacts.

Then I started to discover the value as a conversational tool - less immediate (but often more pervasive) than IM but at the same time more robust, especially when you didn't need the relative overkill of email for a one-liner.

I've also noticed that the one line venting has reduced the number of blog posts I have written - there's something about the 140 character vent that often takes away the need for a full blown post.

Tweets are not like ephemeral IMs or status updates in WLM - they have a timeline and permanence which changes the nature somewhat.

I don't think Twitter is 100% there yet though. For my needs Direct Messages are not handled elegantly enough - I'd like a "Whisper" mode where I can send a private tweet to one (or more) people that appears in their timeline if they're viewing it (authenticated) but not in public view (perhaps ~offbeatmammal to whisper, like we have @offbeatmammal for a public reply or # for hashtags to collate tweets on a subject).

I think Twitter has changed the way a lot of people communicate - mostly for the better. There are some who are a lot of noise to signal but you get that in any communications channel. Some I like having the conversation with (and watching their conversations unfold), others I value the status updates.

I wonder what's next for communications...