Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Goes Live on 24 Mov 2009

Paul Thurrott reports that Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 will be released November 24


"We are announcing that the Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 will be available in all shipping languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish) on November 24 2009. Power Pack 3 will be a free update to existing Windows Home Server users via Windows Update.

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 improves the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center by providing features like backup and restore of computers running Windows 7, Windows 7 Libraries integration, enhancements for Windows Media Center, and better support for netbook computers. Microsoft released the Beta of the Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 in July 2009 and received positive community support and feedback from Beta testers throughout the testing cycle. We let you know back in September that we were going to continue testing the Beta and would not ship the final release of Power Pack 3 until the community has validated our work. We are pleased to now announce the November 24, 2009 availability."

Firefox 3.5.5 just days after 3.5.4

I did not post this although it has been out for a few days. The previous version 3.5.4 seems to have lots of issues crashing my plugins. I am not sure how much is changed, but according to the change log, this is what is listed:

Firefox 3.5.5 fixes the following issues:

* Fixed several stability issues.

There do not seems to be any security fixes in this release.
Well, needless to say, the place to download the update will be from:
http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.5.5&os=win&lang=en-US

Epson TX100 New Windows 7 drivers does not work with Vista

In a previous post, I mentioned the release of new Windows 7 drivers for the Epson TX100:

http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2009/10/epson-tx100-new-drivers-with-full.html

what I failed to notice was that the Epson scan program (v3.4.9) only list Windows 7 compatibility. So what happen to Vista? I tried to installed it and every time it started, it crashes. At first I thought it was me. So I uninstalled clean and reinstall it. Same thing happened.

I cannot find the download online anymore, but I managed to find my previous files. So, I reinstalled the older version for Vista (v3.4.3a) and it works perfectly. I guess in moving ahead, Epson either has branched out the codes or totally forgotten that they still need to support Windows Vista.

Do take note of this. If you had installed and crashed and needed a old copy of the installation, let me know, maybe I can put it online.

Connection issue with Vodaphone GSM Mobile Broadband

I had this laptop which is full of company issue applications etc. I do not know why, but it just doesn't work with the Vodaphone Tongle properly. The first time I had to install the software and it works. After that, when I plug it in, either the modem cannot be found or something is using the modem. One of the solution for now is to uninstall and reinstall the software everything I plug it in to use, which doesn't make sense.

So, I found another way to solve this issue without the need to uninstall and reinstall. If you had to install the latest firmware and software, do so following my blog previous post. This may already solve your problem in the first place.

http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2009/10/upgrading-of-mobile-broadband-huawei.html


If that doesn't work, you need to locate this file:
"C:\Program Files\Vodafone\VMCLite\RedetectVodafoneModem.exe"
Of course, this may be in other directories. Basically, you create a shortcut to run this everything you plug in the tongle. It will re-detect the modem and connect.

I hope this helps some of you out there.

2FA on the Windows Home Server - The Planning

I was talking about how I wanted to integrate the 2FA (two factor authentication) into my Windows Home Server. As luck may be, there is a third party plug available from:

TwoFactor WHS
http://twofactorwhs.codeplex.com/

I had evaluated it and concluded that it is nothing more than just changing the index.html on the web server actually. However, the biggest hurdle here is that the solution I wanted to integrate does not work with this plugin:

PhoneFactor
http://www.phonefactor.com/

According to a post. it is "suggested" to the developer by probably another developer from PhoneFactor to integrate this:

http://twofactorwhs.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=61471

Looks like its more work for me. I probably have to to some work to get PhoneFactor working.

Ok, let's take a look why I want to use PhoneFactor.
Firstly, its using Phone as a authentication mechanism, which is OOBA (Out-Of-Band authentiocation). This word is going to get even more popular soon than 2FA. Because ultimately, traditional 2FA (SMS, token etc) still uses the same channel (application, web) to perform the second level authentication. However, PhoneFactor uses the phone. It is kind of a IVS actually. But I never said this require a very complicated solution.

So, secondly, PhoneFactor actually offers a pack for 25 users for FREE. And this fits nicely into WHS, because the cap for the WHS is only 10 users.

Thirdly, it offers FREE calls in some countries listed here:
http://www.phonefactor.com/products/global-services

And well, ok, my country is listed here. So, it is much more cost saving. Actually, to be honest, if I had to pay a cent for 2FA, I probably wont even think about it.

Lastly, it is token free. This is just not so handy (and costly) to have a token etc. The phone, I always have with me.

So, after kinda "selling" for PhoneFactor, maybe you are also interested to try it out for some of your application and share your experience?

New Search

I had change the previous blogger search engine (google) to the google search engine. Whats change? Well, nothing much, except maybe integration with AdSense and of course, it display faster, which I think is more important. The result is being display just below the search. I hope with this search, both you and me can find the relevant post more quickly and effectively. I always see my blog more or less as a repository for solutions and opinion to something.