After my trials and tribulations with Western Digital MyBook external drives, yes that’s plural, I started looking around for alternative storage solutions and decided to go the route of "cloud" storage.

I’m now running JungleDisk which is a Windows Tray application using Amazon’s S3 service for storage. JungleDisk is $20 (one time purchase with free lifetime upgrades) for the Desktop Edition that I'm using, includes Windows/Mac/Linux versions, can easily run from a USB key and can be installed on unlimited machines with one S3 account. JungleDisk is a Windows tray application that, when installed and connected to S3, adds a new drive to Explorer where you can easily copy files like you normally would albeit slower and at a price. It took me a few weeks worth of uploading batches of photos at a time but eventually I got all ~65GB uploaded. I’m now paying roughly $10-$11 USD a month for storage of said of photo’s.

JungleDisk Monitor, the software that runs in your Windows tray, comes with backup features that will automatically synchronize your local files with your S3 account though some of the terminology is a bit terse and the UI isn’t exactly parent friendly but it certainly gets the job done.

[Update: Oct. 21, 2008] Added a few more details about JungleDisk (cost etc.)

Falafel Software, my employer, has written courseware for TestComplete (which btw you can buy here) that includes examples for Data Driven Testing. The examples make use of Microsoft’s AdventureWorks database which requires an MSSQL install (Express works too) which is not something everyone has installed or access to. On a few occasions I’ve had classes where people have really struggled to get MSSQL Server Express and the DB installed successfully not to mention actually trying to connect to the DB.

Several weeks ago I approached DiscountASP.NET (DASP) to discuss hosting options for Falafel’s ActiveFocus (AF) Project Management application, which is up and running on on DASP’s Windows 2008 servers using MSSQL 2008, and those talks turned out better than I had anticipated. DASP set us up with two separate accounts one for testing AF on the above software combination and the second to use for training allowing us to setup and configure an MSSQL 2005 database to host AdventureWorks for training! In fact, they were pretty excited about the training angle which we’ve been using for several weeks now and has worked out well. By using a hosted DB we can simply provide a connection string to the attendees of the class and get them connected right away, no hassling with installation, configuration and connection issues to MSSQL.

DiscountASP.NET is really focused on the ASP.NET developer audience and not only have I found their service to be solid and reliable and their support is outstanding this additional level of support is icing on the cake.

Time to update Why I recommend discountASP.NET?

In a recent post, I talked about the various applications I use while conducting online training. Over the years I’ve dabbled with virtual desktop software but never got very comfortable with the idea and thus it never "stuck". Back in June I decided, once again, to look for virtual desktop software and one of my first searches lead me to this description which looked very promising:

VirtuaWin is a small, fast and easy to use virtual desktop manager for Windows9x/ME/NT/2000/XP with no unnecessary features.

Bingo! Exactly the kind of thing I was looking for and VirtuaWin has lived up to this description. While the above description doesn’t explicitly mention Vista I’ve had no problems (I wish I could say the same about Vista). I’ve been running it now for a month and a half and it’s worked pretty darn well. The current release is 4.0.1 from April of this year so it’s an Open Source project that’s very much alive and well. On of the best features is worked "out-of-the-box" and I’ve tweaked only a few settings so the overall experience as been very good.

At first, it took some time to get used to organizing multiple desktops but once acclimated having the extra space has been very nice. I use four desktops arranged horizontally with the first being my primary, one to the left for browsers, one to the right for email and fourth desktop for things like LaunchCAST for streaming music. My MacBook Pro runs at 1920x1200 and I use a second 20" monitor running at 1600x1200 brining my virtual desktop size to a whopping 14,000x1200, although when connected to a second monitor I usually don’t use the virtual desktops much.

On thing I’ve discovered is that virtual desktops also work quite well for online training making it easy to switch between PowerPoint presentation and the application I’m training on. I guess you could call it an online version of a KVM switch!

I’m going to use this post to rate the iPhone/iPod Touch applications I’ve tried using a one to five rating. In alphabetical order:

• Apple’s Remote -  
  I think this is a great little app.
• Banner -  
  Cool scrolling LED sign app, free but missing a number of key features like scroll speed, color etc. still cool
• Bloomberg -  
  Ignore’s accelerometer so no wide screen reading. I think I like the white text on black but we’ll see. Portfolio tracking could be a bit better but hey, it’s free!
• BofA Banking App -
  It’s just their web site in an app
• Facebook -  
  The update-to-date address book alone is awesome
• Google’s Mobile App -
  Like BofA there are just a bunch of links to web apps. I’ll have to play more with the search capabilities to see how those improve on the web version.
• NY Times -
  Seems pretty slow, though nice to have.
• Pandora - (added July 13, 2008)
  Radio comes to the Touch!
• Tap Tap Revenge - (added July 16, 2008)
  I can’t stop laughing when the dots start streaming down faster than my reflexes can handle!!
• Where -
  For the longest time it displayed the large red "W" then returned to the home screen. IOW, it did nothing. I think their servers are probably getting pounded as just browsing to www.where.com is very slow or times out. It’s working now though only in pieces but I can see there is a ton of stuff to look at. I’m not sure I like bubble selector at the bottom.

What apps are you liking?

With the introduction of v2.0 of the iPhone/iPod Touch software Apple introduced an application called Remote giving you the ability to remotely (surprise) control iTunes on your computer and yes, it’s two way. Personally, I’ve been wanting this sort of functionality for a long time as I’ve had my computer connected to my receiver so I can listen to my Yahoo LaunchCAST station. The downside is the lack of control as my computer is upstairs in my office and my receiver is downstairs in my family room. With Apple’s Remote application can control what’s playing from anywhere in the house, very nice!

I think Remote is a great example of how the iPhone is going to showcase new ways for people to interact with their PC’s remotely. I can already imagine a dozen other situations where I’d like to be able to remotely control other applications on my machine.

Now, where’s Remote Desktop?  :-)

Following on my previous post, after a few months use I finally decided to pick up a case for my iPod Touch and many trips to the Apple store to test them out I selected the Agent18 Shield Case (pictured to the right). It’s a clear hard plastic case which snaps tightly around the device. While I really like it, it could use a thin rubber seal around the edges of all the openings as I tend to find pocket "crumbs" eventually make their way inside and get stuck between the case and the iPod. I looked at a number of other cases and settled on this one since it’s exterior is completely smooth and has no edges that can catch on clothing etc. I also like the fact that it snaps together easily with seems that run the entire length of the device. Aside from the minor "crumb" drawback I highly recommend it.

I’ve been debating about buying a screen protector but haven’t settled on anything yet. In fact, I still have the original static plastic cover intact but it’s starting to curl in spots. If you have any suggestions/recommendations I’d love to hear about them.

I’m a big Clive Clusser fan and I stumbled into this article by Joshua Davis in Wired through Barry Kelly's shared Google Reader items. It’s been sitting in a tab in my browser for days now and I’ve read it a few times and I keep getting drawn back to it sort of like I did with Into Thin Air yet another good real life story.

Thanks Barry!

Do you have a link blog or share links via Reader?