synology...lack of response

Three days and still no response from synology regards the failure of media share over wireless or indeed regards the disappointing wireless performance - the only reason I have not given up on it is the money spent.

Synology update

I am now the proud owner of a Google Nexus 7, 32gb. What a great device but wholly  dependent on wireless connectivity.

 My first few days with the nexus have been plagued with what seems like network lock ups or connectivity dropping but further investigation has revealed problems with the Synology DS13Air wireless capability.

 To be fair sitting at my desk the wireless connect ion is perfect and much faster than my old net gear wpn802, however, that is about 2 feet from the router. Moving downstairs results in less than 20mbps connections and frequent loss of connect ion.

My net gear wireless signal works fine downstairs - I have raised a support ticket with Synology and as a result have changed the connect ion type from hotspot to wireless router. Functionality remains seemingly unchanged but connectivity is not improved.

Worse, I have been experimenting with dlna / upnp functionality and am having problems in that the media server on the ds 213 disappears at random. Much experimentation has resulted in the discovery that when I connect wirelessly using the, flawed, synology wireless I lose access to the synology media server but it works fine on rge net gear. So another bug on which I am still awaiting a response from synology.

213Air update

Interestingly enough the transfer speed is probably not being reported correctly but I did get a response from Synology which amounted to try it with a cross over cable to rule out all other network components. Not tried that yet.

Audio Station is fully in place and working which is excellent news - the Mediaserver version is fast whilst the Audio Station library mode is unusable.

I have also now received my Google Nexus 7 (32gb) and discovered that my ancient Netgear Wimax wireless device has a much better signal that the DS213 Air and to make matters worse the DS213 seems to drop the wireless connection when the drives go to sleep - raised another support call as the wireless performance is actually unusable more than a few feet away even on high power mode.

DS Audio on the Nexus is passable but doesn't have either the views listed in the library or the views showed on the media server which is a shame as it makes any collection of music of any size unwieldly, however, several DLNA based apps in Google Play - BubbleUpnp seems to do the job nicely - has a good interface and is responsive. The only problem I've found is that it cannot play to two different destinations (the are products out there that will but the interfaces are unusable) - I'm awaiting a response from the developer to see if the pay for version corrects that issue.

Impressed with the Google Nexus 7, tinkering with configuring it just so will keep me quiet for a while - as expected it has many more options that the ipad offers and it's not entirely intuitive to the extent that I am reading the manual (well, I will read the manual).

Synology DS 213 Air

I've been installing the new device for a week or so now - impressed so far, the device is silent (really, I had to check it was still turned on about 4 feet from me) when the drives are spun down and virtually silent in active operation - I can hear the fans now and the the slight rattle of the drive while my music collection copies over. I had to pause to listen as my PC is much noisier and it's a fairly quiet PC.

I've been tinkering with Synology's Audio Station package - it looks remarkably like the offering from Sonos and probably a string of other packages. I suspect it is going to struggle with my 145Gb of MP3 files because the reindexing of 2 tracks was distressingly slow but we'll find out. The biggest disappointment is that I think we'll find out a lot later than I might have expected as the file transfer speeds are sitting around 15mb/s - the started at close to 30mb/s which would be ok (but only ok) but now the DS213's CPU has hit 100% and the transfer shas dropped horribly - I can transfer else where at higher speeds and the lan is not busy. Have raised a support form with Synology because they are promoting much higher transfer speeds and this is a worry for day to day use.

The other problem I have at the moment is that I've added a second user and I cannot figure out how to grant that user rights to their own home folder which is a pain, fine for me.

I suspect that these are just niggles as so far everything else is looking good and normal disk performance for the odd file looks great - it's possible that I'm overwhelming the cache on the drive and the caching capability of the device is non existent but that's still slow.

Synology DS213 Air

My most recent Genie Timeline issues appear to have come about following the demise of my backup disk drive - more often than not it is booting and displaying as a RAW device rather than NTFS. I've scanned the drive during one of its good periods with no problem displayed but it still randomly fails.

I've had numerous problems with the drive / the USB 3.0 caddy it sits on so digging out my old USB 2.0 caddy I soon found that the problem is the USB 3.0 device.

However, I've been considering a NAS unit and this is the final straw as I now want to separate out my data from the PC so making the potential for recovery higher and a new Synology  DS213 Air and a 3Gb Western Digital Green Power drive is now sitting waiting for configuation.

Configuration is going to take me a while as the Synology device has a lot of options and features - luckily the interface is extremely smooth and user friendly, unluckily the SHR file system which is the default recovery option for the device churned the disk for over 12 hours before it was usable.

Windows 8 Media Center

There is a nasty rumour circulating on the net that Microsoft are going to make Windows Media Center a pay for option in Windows 8.

What is worse is that DVD play back will be blocked without the purchase of Media Centre.

I use Windows 7 media center, the shortcomings of WMC are as long as your arm, without thinking too hard my top bug bears are the failure of the music library to update reliably and the poor interface for larger music collections.

I've replaced the Movie functionality with MediaBrowser;  I have tried its music support but it is unusable at present (I suspect mainly because useful options are pay for but the default options don't encourage me enough to think my money would be well spent) but for movies it is brilliant.

The only other modification I have made is to the menus to get rid of the extra rubbish that Microsoft keeps trying to push on me.

I have worked extensively with both MediaPortal and XBMC but their shortcoming is that you have to work extensively with them whilst out of the box with very little effort Windows Media Center works and anyone could configure it properly.

So, having made a working Media Center which seems to have a strong user base it strikes me that it would not be practical to charge a high enough premium to genuinely fund improved professional development whilst it is going to slow down take up of Windows 8 (and when the Kinect gets integrated to the Windows 8 interface that would be a shame) and / or drive take up towards Media Portal / XBMC and for a lot of enthusiasts off of Windows.

So surely that rumour must be mistaken.

New HTPC : An update

The box has been in for a while now. Performance is brilliant considering the lack of processor power, the SSD with a decent processor would be quite spectacular I imagine.

I have also "resolved" the problem with the scratches on the remote control - turns out there is a protective plastic layer which I just could not spot until enough use has loosened it so the scratches have gone now.

New HTPC Build : In Use

Installation complete and everything working?

Minor hurdle to overcome, activating Windows 7, completely new motherboard and processor etc which falls outside of the OEM agreement. I have my argument ready for when I have to ring up and try to convince someone as this is clearly the nearest replacement available for the board / processor I had while keeping to the HTPC purpose.

Awful picture of the finished product!

To my surprise activation goes through the automated route instantly. Phew.

The M.Play software supplied with the remote needed a little tweaking to make it work but turns out that it is both simpler to change and more reliable than the IMon Soundgraph software supplied with the Silverstone Grandia. It still has its quirks - I've found that keyboard shortcuts (including those I've defined myself) work perfectly but direct calls to programs seem to do nothing, however, that is consistent and a much nicer interface that the Soundgraph one.

I've discovered some oddities, so for instance there is an Eject button, that once shortcut has been setup to a small script, does successful Eject the optical disk (has to be defined for Windows and Media Centre) but as it points to a specific script is not able to close the drive. I can live with that as the only time I'm likely to need the button is when physically removing / inserting a disk so I'll have to get off my backside and cross the room anyway.

I have also had to redefine the Media Center button so that it actually starts Media Center when on the desktop (which seems a glaring oversight but wasn't hard to fix).

In fact the controller works so well that we have not discovered what all the buttons do / do not do yet because everything else we care about works out of the box - the lack of a mouse action is not really a problem as I've a USB mouse stuffed behind the CDs in the cabinet along with a mini-keyboard. I am missing the alphabetic option on the remote though for digging through > 20,000 music tracks.

Microsoft Explorer Mouse

I have just purchased a Microsoft Explorer mouse.

Primarily this was to replace either the MS Natural 6000 I use at home, which is falling apart or the Trust mouse I use at work (who knows what model, just has a number on the bottom (14835) which is also falling apart and is eating AA batteries at an ever growing pace.

The Natural mouse is a great shape but I'm not great a sitting my hand on the mouse so isn't ideal and when I do consciously put it in the palm of my hand it is too small so I'm not using my finger tips to press the buttons. That said is an excellent mouse which is shown by its continuing relatively high price. The rubber coatings though are falling wearing off - just as they ae on my Trust mouse.

Enter the Explorer mouse. This is a great shape and sits in the palm of my hand much better than anything else I've tried before and supports my little finger fairly well so I'm encouraged to sit my hand on the mouse this time. It uses BlueTrack technology to improve tracking on various surfaces - the Natural mouse is ok on most surfaces but A4 paper defeats it - gives me a reason to keep my desk a least a little clear of junk. The trust is pretty Trustworthy all in all, can't say I've had any problem with tracking but reception can be a bit hit and miss. The Explorer mouse is better, much more positive, my beech effect, melamime worktop still throws it a little but not so much that I'm searching for another surface.

Issues? Build quality. As mice go this doesn't cost in the league of the gaming mice but given you can pick up a mouse for a couple of pounds the £20 for this is not cheap and I am sad to say this is not up to the solid build quality of previous MS mice, it feels light, the plastic feels cheap, the buttons click positively but actually vibrate the whole surface. I quite like the slightly rubberised surface but that will wear off as in past experience so I suspect in another year I will be looking for me next mouse.