thought Microsoft were nice enough to include an ASP addon for IIS 7 which works a treat on server 2008 but there are a few things that need to be addressed first.

mainly turn on debug info!!

on server all you need to do is bash this into the command prompt

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config -section:asp -scriptErrorSentToBrowser:true

yes that was easy.

on windows 7 or vista you will need this as well

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set config -section:system.webServer/httpErrors -errorMode:Detailed

Took me best part of a day to work that second line out since I didn’t need it on server 2008.

Not to mention you will need to mess around with the firewall and other things but this should help someone! most likely me next time I need to set this up.

Well 3 years ago you would have laughed off such an idea and had said network attached storage (NAS) since they were cheaper and used less power than a traditional server.

Now its role reversal a U1 NAS box can now cost about 3 times as much as a cheap U1 windows server (with OS). now since NAS boxes can be evil to set up and maintain, mainly because they use a very cut down version of Linux/Unix so when something goes wrong it normally means digging through Google search results for a few days until you find a solution.

So in an rack environment a server wins without question since you can actually have control over it remotely without headaches (as long as you install a full OS on it).

But how about in a small business or home environment, The reason I’m lumping these together is because to be honest they have very similar requirements these days, apart from a small business will do backups more often (in real life this is never the case).

Now this is where it gets a bit more complicated. If you are sensible about this you can avoid massive headaches and punishment to your bank balance. ok so a cheap single bay NAS box will set you back about £30 – £100 (though £50 is about right), this are great though they lack raid and other features from the dual or quad disk boxes (Though for a cheap solution go for it).

Now the Quad boxes are a total waste of money you’ll pay over £250 for once on these (with no disks). These are only useful when up time is critical since you can have a hot swap. But from experience you spend more time restarting Netgear readyNAS drives than actually using them (not used any other 4 bay NAS).

For this just get a server and save yourself the headaches and wasted days. When you think about it you can get a cheap motherboard with RAID that support 8 disks, a CPU, PSU case and RAM for the same price as these.

This just leaves the 2 Bay NAS boxes, this is a strange area of the market since they cost between £50 – £150 and the cheapest ones aren’t generic no brands.

D-Link and netgear have a good foothold here but the major difference is the D-link models are much more user friendly (really it shocked me to) and you don’t need to restart them once a week like the netgears (also netgears have a bad habit of overheating). In netgears defence they offer better more expensive models and they also run much more quietly.

If you are wondering about technical support and advanced features like OS plugins then netgear wins, but there support is still horrible (but D-link is next to none)

For £60 you can get a DNS-320 (pictured above) which is a bargain and with features like one touch backup and print server it will suit a home or small business no problem.

This only leaves small business servers for 2 disk drives. This is a very fast developing part of the market that used to be highly dominated by VIA. In recent years the Intel atom has come onto the scene bringing the price down rapidly. the D510MO (pictured below) is only £50 and offers a 1.5 Dual core HT chip passive cooling, 2 SATA and 8 USB (it only lacks raid).

So there are viable solutions in the small business/home data storage server department but they will set you back about £200. So for this sector NAS still wins.

Conclusion

Its rather simple really NAS boxes are still a cost effective way or getting simple file servers up and running quickly (no permission per user etc. etc.). But when it comes to more complex setups such as in a rack or 4 Bay NAS boxes for small/medium business A server is more productive and in the long run can be a lot cheaper (due to lost time dealing with the NAS boxes mini OS).

For Joe Bloggs in the home the NAS box still wins for the simple things in life regarding media/file sharing and backups mainly because of the cost of home NAS boxes. Though for the people out there who need more than just a file share a nice ITX setup will be the best choice by far (shame about the cost though).

The Last Shadow Puppets – I Don’t Like You Any More

http://open.spotify.com/album/6VVhdj8k4exk1T8izN86SR

Since the You Tube quality is bad and the spotify quality is rather poor as well (none premium) so here is a link to the album on HMV. plus HMV needs some permalinks to there products because that link will probably be broken by next week.

The Last Shadow Puppets – CD – HMV

Quite a simple and soft song but enjoyable all the same.

Enjoy

KaiserCartel – Season Song

Samsung X120

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/thin-and-light/NP-X120-FA01UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

Asus Eee PC VX6

http://uk.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=30dqaE10a0LUo9XJ

But now I’ve given up I surrender it doesn’t look like we are getting any of the nice netbooks the states have had since this time last year any time soon so I’m gonna bite the bullet and loose 168 pixels

so its either

Samsung NF210

Samsung N150

in terms of number there both pretty much the same apart from a few minor details (thought the NF210 is £60 more!)

Though another very good netbook (which I’m gonna look at again) is the

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3s

its 760p but the problem is its almost impossible to find a 6 cell model (4 cell is £200 on amazon)  which means its battery life it about 5 hours plus its a single core. But for the extra pixels it might be worth it. bah I’m confused again

First off my problem was I needed a portable computer solution so I spent a long time (3 months) weighing up the pros and cons of each.

my needs are

• to be able to write code easily on the go with the possibility later to have 3G mobile internet for emergency work when ever and where ever I am.
• watch video (HD if possible)
• long battery life (7 real hours+)
• short charge time
• small form factor 11.6 screen max
• matte screen (unless I opt for a touch screen device)
• sub £400 price tag (a little flexible here)

Tablets

now I was first I didn’t even consider a tablet since the amazing iPad step backwards in technology but then the Zoostorm SL8 caught my eye (plus it was £410 on ebuyer)
 

Now first off the think looked really sexy with its 11.6" "HD" multi touch screen, HDMI, long battery life, 32GB SDD and for a shockingly low price when you think about it. But it would of been nothing more than a pointless toy since it lacked a keyboard and touchpad.

Though I could of easily used it with an external keyboard and mouse and it would of worked easily as a horizontal 3rd monitor for work but alas ebuyer sold out (no surprise), plus It didn’t really fit my "portable" computing solution package.

Multi Touch note/netbooks

now this would be the ultimate package for me a nice multi touch (swivel of course) netbook/notebook. first off the reason why the netbooks ones are bad.

well for one there is only really two of them first being the Eee PC T101MT and the second being the new Dell Inspiron Duo Sparta.

first up the Eee PC T101MT the major issue with this one is that it uses the dated GMA 3150 graphical chipset which only output at 1024 x 600 (and not much better externally). other issues are is uses an N450 atom CPU 1.66Ghz, which in turn means DDR2 is its limit. Then you look at the price £445 and yea it just feels very expensive.

Next up was dells lovely looking but strangely named Duo Sparta, this is priced just below the Eee PC T101MT. Now this baby is loaded to the teeth with its N550 dual core and its 1366 x 768 screen (still 10.1 using the dated GMA 3150) and its multi touch "hybrid" screen (which I think would would better than a swivel, less things to go wrong). Along with Accelerometer and magnetometer (the later seems pointless). It also comes with 2GB DDR3 (for some reason clocked at 800Mhz).

Now this seems almost perfect at the first glace but it still has the GMA 3150 (just overclocked a little to get the extra oomph) but it failed at battery life. Dell states UPTO 4 hours battery life, which is shocking since Samsung use the same CPU and chipset and they state 13 hours (ok in real life it 8.5) but we all know they over state the battery life. 
 

In the notebook field they are normally around the mid £600 mark and offer a nice balance of speed and battery life along with 11.6" screen but they are very hard to locate any solid data on any products you can actually buy. the only one I could find that was kind of in stock was the Acer Aspire 1825PTZ on amazon.

i5 "budget" (SU series) cpu with 8 hours battery life, decent gpu and multi touch, shame its a tad bit expensive at £580) and 2 years old.

Netbooks

now this is an interesting market since they all use the same cpu’s and gpu’s across the board. Which is rather annoying since NVidia have some lovely mobile chips (ion and ion 2 ) designed for netbooks but not even managed to get a glance of one this side of the pond.

To make matters worse the N550 (dual core atom) only in a few models so its an N455 or leave it. Then if you do find one with a decent cpu and battery life the graphical side lets it down. Its damn annoying.

The Samsung N150 with the N550 CPU seemed to fit the bill perfectly (for my needs so no touchscreen) for a lovely price of £200 but the damn GMA 3150 gpu lets it down. Now if it had a 768 high screen instead of 600 I would be sold I wouldn’t even mind losing some battery life for it (battery life is 8.5 real hours) and paying some extra bucks but paying more money doesn’t seem to be able to get you a 768 high screen in the UK which is starting to get a little annoying.

Conclusion

None, I’m still as confused as when I started. There just doesn’t seem to be a notebook/netbook that fits my requirements. The Samsung N550 was the closest since it was the only one that came under the £400 price tag but it lacked the extra 168 pixels. its an annoying compromise to make I would rather drop down to a lower CPU for the sake of the GPU but that isn’t a real option.

Between the random playlists in the office and spotify radio I’m getting a good mix of music daily It really livens up the day.

Cover was done by Kaori Kobayashi and its is from the album Shiny (there’s about 2 minutes silences at the end of the track and nothing at the end)

This one I don’t know really why I like it but I just do it made a nice change of my normal spotify playlists.

once again enjoy, if you wish to hear more here is the artists spotify page http://open.spotify.com/artist/6S2tas4z6DyIklBajDqJxI

Infected Mushroom – Suliman

lets see if I can keep it going for more than a week >_<

This week is Angela Aki – Mad Scientist

Reason for this is I came on while it was on random and I’ve never heard it before.

but the real reason is its not her normal style its a little crazy and I loved it! in comparison her other English tracks are normally much softer. Enjoy

Angela Aki ~ Mad Scientist