Drop box, made the call

Scott turned me on to a very cool app called DropBox.  The app creates a storage area on however many pc’s you desire and then sync’s the information between them automatically.  So for example if I had a document that I wanted to be accessible from ANY pc I normally use I just throw that file in my drop box and it automatically gets replicated to the other systems as well as being available via the DropBox website if I want to get to it from a PC that does not have the DropBox client installed.

It even has an Iphone app that allows you to view any of your drop box content on your phone.  The service also makes sharing files EXTREMELY easy.  You simply mark a file as being shared and you get a link to copy elsewhere or send to a friend via email.  It’s a GREAT service.  Being cheap, I only am using the free service which allows you to store 2 gig of data (can be bumped to 3 if you jump through some hoops)  If you are a hard core user they have monthly plans that allow up to 100 gig of storage.

So if you ever find yourself wishing you had access to a document, pdf, spreadsheet, picture or pretty much any type of file from ANYWHERE, get DropBox.

Continuing along the geek path, I recently flipped our main file and print server over to a beefy 1U server running 64 bit Windows Server 2008.  Doing so wasn’t too much of a hassle but had a few challenges along the way.  One of the challenges was of course moving the data.  I found a couple GUI apps that basically use Robocopy to transfer files between servers.  Unfortunately, no matter what I did, the GUI Robocopy nor an even more powerful utility called Richcopy refused to copy the NTFS security info across.  I was forced to use the plain old command line version of robocopy to get the job done using the /MIR and /SEC switches.

This method did NOT recreate the shares on the new server, which I had to do manually.  During the process I redid the method I was sharing home directories.  Forever I had been sharing each users home directory individually using a hidden $ share.  I read that was not the preferred method any longer so instead I made the user directory above the home directories shared with a $ share and changed the home dir mappings to something like this \\server\users$\username  .  It works fine and saved me from creating several dozen more shares on the new server.

The other challenge has been print drivers.  It can be problematic hosting a print server on a 64 bit machine.  Some manufacturer print drivers seamlessly will support both x64 and x32 clients, some do not.  I learned that the hard way this morning.  It was addressed by simply loading the 32 bit driver from the client when you try to connect to the server print queue.

I still have a few little quirks to work out but for the most part users were able to log in this morning and not even realize that all of their files were now on new hardware which is the way it should be.

So yesterday I finally decided to give my old school buddy Hoyt a call.  He had sent me his cell number via Facebook a few weeks back but I hadn’t gotten around to calling him.  As I mentioned before I had some hesitation in making the call just because to me, it’s a weird thing picking up a line of verbal communication after a nearly 25 year hiatus.  It turns out it wasn’t such a big deal at all.

When Hoyt picked up he still sounded like the Hoyt I remembered from 1985.  He was on the road, making a delivery to somewhere in Carolina.  He was surprised but very happy to see that I called.  We spent around an hour on the phone where Hoyt filled in the blanks of what he had been up to over the years.  He has had a very interesting  journey so far that had a number of obstacles along the way.   We didn’t even really get into my shenanigans during the call as I had to get off the phone to get to a meeting.  Hoyt and I both agreed we would keep in touch and he said he would love for me to come to the east coast and visit sometime. 

After I hung up I was glad I made the effort to make the call, a call that was encouraged by several of my high school FB buddies as well.  I think I have come to dread most phone conversations because of my inclination to get tongue tied at times as well as hit conversational potholes on a regular basis.   I’m glad I set my reservations aside to make the call.