Blog of a Long Distance Worker Tech

The blog about mobile tech

Tag Archives: Mesh

Meshing around

I have blogged before about using the Microsoft Mesh software for keeping multiple computers in sync so that I can pick up any of my machines and pick up exactly where I left off with all of my most important (actually all of them) files with me regardless of which machine I have in front of me. I also use it to ensure that if I do lose any of these machines then I am safe in my knowledge that I have access to all (almost to be pedantic) of my files still.

mesh Well this week I moved one of my netbooks over to Windows 7 which because it had XP meant that it was a clean install. Of course, as part of the installation I set up Microsoft Mesh and selected the normal folders to pull down onto the machine. Well three days later, the sync had not finished and was looking like it was stalled. A quick check through the logs showed an error WinError 18, with the associated text missing file. Checking around I found that the Live Desktop was at 5GB used (which it was not before) and this immediately sprang an idea in my head. Mesh is pretty dumb at times.

It has always been the case that you could setup sync and exceed your online storage and just ignore it. In fact, Paul Thurrott blogged about it in the early days but what was missed was the effect of exceeding your storage, something that I only saw when I also checked my Broadband data usage through my ISP’s nice dashboard. When the online storage is full, Mesh continues to attempt to sync and in this approach it uses bandwidth over and over again so it creates network traffic needlessly. This is a bit poor, particularly when this also seems to hit the processor usage of the machines involved.

Removing the online data store usage of Live stopped the whole repeated sync and suddenly everything is happy again. The world is good, and I am no longer frustrated with the never ending sync.

So come on Microsoft, fix Mesh and give it better behaviour when online storage is exceeded. Additionally, why do you keep it at 5GB? What is wrong with integrating this with the 25GB Live Skydrive?

Laptop Security

Try thinking of your notebook or mini-note not as a computer but as a pile of cash. Would you leave $800 lying around on a library table or the front seat of your car? How about $300? Chances are you wouldn’t, and that’s because we instinctively realize that’s tantamount to inviting unscrupulous types to help themselves.

Mobile PC Security Tips: Part I

This article offers some straightforward security tips, but the best one is unsaid.

Make it so you do not care whether your laptop is stolen. Take the normal physical security precautions, but make best use of the Cloud to ensure that if the laptop is lost or destroyed, that you do not lose any data. This is done via file sync systems such as Mesh, Live Sync or others, or by using Gladinet to give folder level access to online storage mechanisms like Google Docs, Amazon S3, or Skydrive. What about security of the data – well make sure you use full disk encyption for the laptop so nothing on the disk is recoverable without the password.

And then we come to the cost… well use low cost laptops or netbooks at less than €400/£400 or much less, so the biggest cost is actually the installation of a new machine.

These are what I can recommend, think about it.

Microsoft Mesh – Having it all

Now I could do the big write up of Microsoft Mesh and how it can help you, but a whole lot better idea is to run VT after giving you a couple of notes.

  • It allows you to store your most important files on every PC you have login access to – they should always be available, and after running this through the bad times of August and September, I can safely say it now works beautifully.
  • It allows you to store 5GB (maybe more in the future) of those files on a web desktop.
  • You can access those files via web, PC, Mac (it has now become available) and Windows Mobile (in controlled Beta at the moment) – it means never having to say that you cannot give someone a document.
  • It scales much better than Foldershare, which is what I used before.

So, let us run VT (you need Silverlight).

Live Mesh: End to End User Demo

This is a very capable piece of software, which I have combined with others to create that great mobile worker workflow, as well as a great way of ensuring that when a machine goes bad – your files don’t. We will go into that backup solution later.