Aug 1, 2008
by Edward Casati
Did the US government murder the man that could most incriminate the US Government in the Anthrax attacks that happened in 2001?
As far as conspiracies go, this one is one of the most credible that I have heard in a long time, and I am starting to believe that there may be some (or much) truth behind it.
Last night it was announced that Bruce E. Ivins had committed suicide. He was about to be charged with the anthrax attacks that took place in September of 2001. To put it succinctly, his death is a very convenient thing for the US Government. Did Mr Ivins really die of suicide?
Some facts to consider:
- Mr Ivins was a top Anthrax researcher in the US Government, working for the US Army in Fort Detrick, Maryland.
- The Anthrax attacks occurred one week after 9/11, when the nation was at it’s peak of paranoia and ripe for a further push ‘over the edge’ of fear. They were accompanied with ‘Praise Allah” notes. Do you remember our fire departments being overwhelmed by people reporting ’suspicious white powder’ everywhere for weeks after the attacks?
- The Anthrax used in the attacks, if done by Mr Ivins, was produced by the US Government in US Government labs.
- Deep efforts we made to link the anthrax attacks to Saddam Hussein. A few days after the anthrax attacks, there was word leaked to the news media that the Anthrax used in the attacks contained something called “bentonite”, and that “bentonite” was a signature element of Anthrax produced in Iraq. But the truth is that no tests ever found or even suggested the presence of bentonite. The ‘leak’ concerning the link to Iraq was a US Government leak, and years later it was revealed to be an outright lie. But the press extensively reported the Iraq Bentonite link as true.
- The labs that initially examined the Anthrax were the same labs that probably produced the Anthrax.
- Two months after the attacks the President of the USA was using Iraqi Anthrax as one of his now utterly discredited “Weapons of Mass Destruction” arguments. Colin Powell held up a vial of fake “Anthrax” at the UN shortly afterwards.
Could have Mr Ivins have acted independently because he was Catholic fundamentalist that was deeply anti-Islamic? It is possible… but the Catholic fundamentalists also consider suicide a deep taboo.
But what if Mr Ivins was not working independently? What if he was working in concert with others in the government that were anxious to link Saddam Hussein with terrorism?
Would Mr Ivins have revealed the truth about his participation if he had gone to trial?
Who provided the initial leak about the Bentonite? Was it Mr Ivins himself?
And just how did the US government manipulate the Anthrax attacks to strengthen is claim of the dangers presented by Saddam Hussein?
There are many questions left to answer about the whole “Anthrax scare”, let’s hope that the whole thing is not just conveniently ’solved and forgotten’ now that Mr Ivins is dead.
There are two big questions that need answering:
- Did Mr Ivins act alone?
- Who was the government source that leaked the “Iraqi Bentonite” false story?
Futher reading:
Vital unresolved questions and ABC News by Glenn Greenwald
Using “Genie Backup” to create user data backups.
(Note: I have no relationship with the companies mentioned here aside from being a single-purchase customer)
PP1 introduced the new functionality to WHS of being able to backup the user data stored on the server to external storage. This is a welcome and needed improvement, since the WHS system really was incomplete without this feature.
As I discussed in a previous post on this blog, the new WHS backup system is good, but functionally rather limited; it covers the basics, and that’s just about it. For 99% of users, this is probably all they need. The limitations become readily apparent if you have any experience with ‘real’ backup software… it is sort of comparing “MS Write” with “MS Word”… they are both capable of doing word-processing, but there is a big difference in what they can do for more complex needs.
Some benefits of using a ‘real’ backup package include:
- - A wide range of support for backup devices, including DVD, removable hard drives and even tape drives.
- - Backup methods such as Full, Incremental, Differential and Mirror. (It is unclear to me if the WHS backup is Differential or Mirror, and there are no choices)
- - A comprehensive built in scheduler
- - The ability to roll over to multiple drives if the size of one drive is exceeded. If you have 750GB of data in one share , and you only have individual older 250 GB external drives to use for backup, a real backup package will just ask you for a new drive when the previous one is filled, and continue the backup. With WHS, the maximum size of the share, if you want it to be backed up, is limited to the maximum size of hard drive that you are using for backup. In WHS, if the data does not fit in the single destination hard drive, it will fail without advance warning about lack of capacity.
- - Data compression in all modes (Incremental, Differential, Full, Mirror) to save space on the destination drive. Because less data is being transferred to the drive due to compression, this can speed up backup times considerably.
- - Data Security. If using compression, a password can be used for the resulting backup files overall. And in all modes, full data encryption can be applied to each individual file.
In the end the real reason that I decided to install Genie Backup is that the new backup module for WHS provided by Power Pack 1 does not provide disk spanning capabilities. I am cheap and I want to reuse the hard drives that I already have. I could split up the shares on my WHS and juggle backup drives, or spend much much more on new external backup drives, but I still wouldn’t get the benefits provided by dedicated backup software for less money.
After some research I decided to try, and then purchased “Genie Backup Manager Server“.
Important note: The “Pro Edition” of Genie Backup can NOT at this time be installed on the WHS server, because it (correctly) identifies the server as a Windows 2003 Server and tells you that you need to use/buy the “Server” edition of the software. The people of Backup Genie tell me that they are aware of this limitation, and that the next release should help solve the problem. In the interim they gave me a huge discount of 50% on the ‘Server’ edition of Backup Genie. If you are interested in using Backup Genie on your system contact sales before you buy.
There is a 30 day free trial of the full version of Backup Genie, and I strongly recommend using that before you purchase the full version. The purchase of Backup Genie was done online, paid via credit card. I quickly received a couple of emails, one confirming the purchase and one providing the Serial Number and link for download. The downloaded file is about 125MB and went fast and smooth.
Installation.
- - Proceed at your own risk. Backup Genie is not a Windows Home Server Add-in, and it has not WHS interface. Backup Genie is installed via the underlying Windows 2003 desktop, and run from the same location.
- - A reboot will be required at the conclusion of installation
- - Backup your existing user data to another drive, either via the PP1 Backup Utility (if possible) or manually via the share, before making changes of this type to your Windows Home Server.
- - You will be working at the ‘console’ of your WHS system, and it is easier if you just plugin a monitor/keyboard/mouse to the WHS itself, but you can use remote access to accomplish the same tasks.
- - Download the installation file from the manufacturer and run the installation program.
At this point you can start using the Genie Backup software following the normal backup instructions, with one exception:
You MUST connect to the network shares, not the hard drives directly, in order for a backup to take place.
Under normal circumstances backup software connects directly to a hard drive to accomplish it’s backup functions. You should NEVER connect to a drive directly on a WHS system, you MUST always connect to a ’share’ to read data on a WHS, even if you are working on the local machine. The reason for this is that data is not stored on a WHS system in the ’standard way ‘ on the hard drives, it is stored on ‘virtual’ hard drives, and ONLY WHS knows how to talk to the virtual drives. If you connect to the ‘real’ drives, such as ‘D’, you will not be backing up your data, you will only be backing up small ‘pointers’ to your data.
To connect to a ’share’ on your WHS server, although you are running the software on the server itself, you need to point the backup source to the share on the network as follows:
* “What to Backup” option in Backup Genie
** “My Folders” Tab
*** “My Network Places”
**** “Entire Network”
***** “Microsoft Windows Network”
****** “WorkGroup”
******* “ServerName” (normally ‘Server’)
******** “ShareName”
Yes, it is a lot of clicking to select a share, but it works.
So there you have it, a working alternative to the PP1 Backup Software package on your WHS server.
“Disaster Recovery”
The Backup Genie software can create a “Disaster Recovery” backup, complete with specialized boot disk, designed to restore your operating system entirely should the need arise.
I have not tested the Disaster Recovery option, although I have created the necessary disk and system backup. I figure that if the Disaster Recovery fails to do it’s job if needed, I’m just as well off, since the WHS system does not provide an Emergency Recovery capability at all, aside from reinstallation from the DVD. It’s a case of “better something than nothing.”
The true sentiment about the Bush administration is spoken, as world leaders embrace “Change”.
July 27, 2008
by Edward Casati
What a week it was.
It was a week in which the world opened it’s arms to what it hopes will be return of the America that they respected and admired. It was a week in which even the most hardened pundits remarked with surprised tones “Hey, they still love America… who would have thought it?”
Barack Obama traveled the world. And at every stop, he was greeted not as the future President of the United States, but as a symbol of the return of the United States as a welcome neighbor in the world community.
At every stop, the world showed that the respect and underlying love for America still remains.
The meetings with the world leaders said in every case: “We can work with the America that you offer, and we look forward to working with the old America that we knew prior to Bush.”
- - Both the Palestinians and Israelis openly discussed the future where under new American leadership they can work towards some kind of peace.
- In France, the conservative President welcomed Barack with the words ‘Obama? He’s my buddy!” - these words from a man that the Bush administration lists as their own “buddy”.
- In England, the Prime Minister announced, during Barack’s visit, that they will be withdrawing basically all troops from Iraq by mid-2009… something contrary to every premise the the Bush administration has been postulating.
- The biggest sign of change came from Iraq itself, where the embattled government indicated that the main road to peace in their country is the removal of the American troops by around 2010.
It is almost like the presence of Barack Obama amongst them had momentarily lifted a weight from their shoulders, allowing them to speak their minds, free from the fear that the Bush administration provokes throughout the world. We saw and heard, even if for just a moment, the true feelings of the world towards America, and the hidden derision for American policies towards the world under the Bush administration.
The Bush administration has only about 5 months remaining in power, yet it effectively has no power remaining. It has been locked in a room, screaming out at the walls, with nobody listening. The image that comes to my mind when I think about what happened last week throughout the world is that which we have seen often in movies: a new Sheriff arrives in town, removes the old corrupt bully of an old Sheriff, and gives hope to the citizens of the town that the fear that they lived under has been lifted. The citizens of the town represent the countries of the world. The Sheriff still wields the power, yet he is respected for his leadership abilities, not his big guns and threats.
There is “Hope” for a better world. The welcome that Barack Obama received throughout the world last week was not about a welcome to the man, it was a welcome to a different America from what it is under it’s current administration. It was a welcome to a “Hope” that America will again become the shining example of justice and freedom that it had represented before that image was so utterly destroyed during the Bush years.
America was at it’s richest and strongest when it was seen as the respected and admired world leader, and only with a return to that status can America hope to halt the increasingly sharp decline that America has suffered during the last 8 years.
Bringing hope to the world is very good for America… and last week we saw great hope shown by the world.
(My first real rant on this blog)
Windows Home Server offers no “Trashcan” functionality to it’s users. If you delete a file that is on the ’share’, it is probably gone, deleted, unrecoverable. Arggghh!!!
We have to keep in mind the audience for whom this ‘Server’ product was designed: “Home” users. It’s right there, in the name of the product.
So what is a “Home” user accustomed to on every computer that they have been using for the last 20 years? That they have a “trashcan”, and that if they accidentally delete a file, they can look in the trashcan and pull it back out. It is a FUNDAMENTAL feature of a computer.
I know what you are going to say… “It’s a Server, and no Microsoft Server has ever offered ‘undelete’ functions to users at their workstation.” To which I say “So what?” Just because it has not been offered before, it doesn’t mean that it should not be available now, specially on a product of this type. “It hasn’t been available before” is a really lame explanation.
I can see it now, my wife coming to me and saying “Honey, I accidentally deleted a file, and it’s not in the trashcan… where is it?” To which I have to answer.. “Honey, it was stored on the server, and servers don’t have undelete, so the file is gone.” Her answer will probably be “That is so stupid… what is the point of this ’server’ thing… I’m never putting a file on the stupid server ever again… I worked on that file for 4 hours and now it’s gone… stupid P.O.S.”
Yes, I know that the WHS is based on Server 2003, and Server 2003 does not offer client-level undelete, so it can’t be offered on WHS. The limitation is the underlying OS. To which I reply: If the file storage system could be modified to such an extent that it offers expandable storage through dynamic file relocation and ‘tombstones’, with automatic file duplication on distinct disks for file security, how hard could it be to create a ‘trashcan’ folder in each share so that the user can look there and recover a file? In operation, you delete stuff from the ‘trashcan’ folder and it goes away forever (as expected), but if you delete it from any other folder it goes into the trashcan folder.
There is a way to possibly recover files though some ’shadow copies’ that are somehow created every 12 hours. Shadow copies are not a “trashcan’, they are an adjunct to scheduled backup. Every 12 hours a ‘picture’ of the server is taken, and if the new picture is different from the previous picture, then only the changes in the picture are saved. So suppose you have file “xyz.txt” that you last edited yesterday, and you edit it today. In a few hours the WHS will compare the ‘picture’ that it took yesterday of file “xyz.txt” and what it has today, notice that it changed, and save the changes. So you can go back to yesterday’s old file (maybe, and I guess that it’s better than nothing), instead of having to back to a backup ‘tape’. But if you created or edited, then deleted and then need to recover the file in the last 12 hours, you are probably S.O.L. (Edit based on comment posted on forum: ‘Shadow Copies’ are not enabled on the HP WHS at all, and a server reboot ‘probably’ clears the shadow copies anyway.)
It’s little things like this that can make a product welcome or unwelcome in a home. Not being able to pull things out of the trashcan, as we can (and regularly do) with all of our other computers, seems like a major flaw in the eyes of ‘common folk’, and is something that Microsoft needs to figure out and fix.
(End of rant)
Recommended Software:
CD/DVD Burning: ImgBurn (Free - For PC only)
This is by far the best package that I have found for general purpose CD/DVD burning. It is fast, reliable and very comprehensive. ImgBurn allows you to create disk images onto your hard drive, burn those images onto a CD/DVD, copy files and folders to a CD/DVD, and many other more features.
Photo Intake and Sorting: Photo Mechanic (PC/Mac)
In photography there are basically three steps that need to be taken after you are done taking the pictures: Copy them to your computer, sort the photos and process the choices. Photo Mechanic is THE standard for the first two steps: copying the photos from your card to your computer, and doing the initial sorting. Nothing comes even close to the speed of Photo Mechanic for viewing RAW files.
Computer Backup
Genie Backup Manager Pro 8.0 (for stand alone computers)(PC Only)
Genie Backup Manager Server edition (For WHS)
If you need a standalone backup package, this is an excellent choice. Professional level at affordable cost. I do not use the workstation version because my PCs are backed up via Windows Home Server. The WHS itself is backed up via Genie Backup Server edition. I have a review and comments here (coming soon).
We all want to go ‘green’ right? We want to save energy, be good to the environment, and minimize our power bills. Well, the Windows Home Server leaves a lot to be desired in that area, and I certainly hope that Microsoft is dedicating some resources into improving the energy efficiency of the system.
As designed, the WHS does not have a built-in power-save mode… it is either on full blast, or the electricity is turned off outright. Left to it’s own resources, the disk drives are spinning at full speed all the time, the CPU is at it’s maximum clock rate, with everything waiting to go the instant that there is a command issued from anywhere.
Compare this to a system like the ReadyNAS, which shuts down the hard drives and puts itself in standby mode after a set period of time without any activity. I can leave it ON all the time, knowing that by the time I go to bed it will have gone to sleep also, but be ready to wake up, yawn and stretch a little, and get to back to work in about 20 seconds after I ask it to.
Even if the WHS system were to have have a low power mode that kicks-in after a time period, many tasks that the WHS box need to do happen on a regular schedule, such as hourly for “Disk Balancing”, which would cause it to wakeup repeatedly, and defeat the whole purpose of the sleep timer.
There are steps that you can (and should) take to help reduce the power consumption of a WHS box, and they are not all that difficult.
- If you are building your own system, opt for a low power processor. Modern processors can be much less power hungry than those just a generation ago. A Pentium-4 chip is quite power hungry, and it is not really a very good choice for an always-on device. Remember, you are not going to be playing 3D games on this computer, so keep it simple and relatively slow. You can get a motherboard with a low power processor for around $110, and you will recoup that money in power savings in the first year.
- Western Digital ‘green’ drives can slow themselves down on their own. They do not shut themselves down but they go into a power save mode. Some people have reported issues with running ‘green’ drives on WHS, but that has never been shown to be a confirmed problem.
- If you are going to bed and nobody will need access to the server, shut it down. Save 10 hours of wasted energy.
- The whole idea of having the workstations do their backup in the middle of the night is just plain wrong. How many of us really put our computers in standby when we are done for the day? We either walk away and leave them on, or we turn them off outright. Set your workstations to be backed up at a reasonable time, like 8PM while you are watching TV, and the just shut everything down when you go to bed. Don’t leave a bunch of computers running all night for nothing.
We are starting to see some improvements in the power consumption profile of the WHS software itself, and there are other modifications that you can do to reduce power consumption
- Install the power management software for your processor. AMD has something called “Cool and Quiet”, which manages the clock rate dynamically according to the processor needs for the moment. My AMD processor runs normally at 2.1 Ghz, but on the WHS spends most of it’s time running a 1 GHz, for a significant power savings. There is something similar for Intel processors called “SpeedStep”, but with a significant difference from AMD. In AMD processors, the “Cool and Quiet” technology is always installed as a regular driver, and works well with Server 2003 (the basis for WHS). The Intel “SpeedStep” driver is actually built into the modern OS, and Server 2003 has no clue about modern chips, so it can’t be enabled… or at least that’s what I have been told.
- Install the “Lights-Out” Add-in on the WHS server, and the server will hibernate and wake up on schedule. I can not say anything about it, because I can’t get it to work.
All in all, I am rather disappointed that Microsoft has not made much of an effort to make the systems much more power conscious by design… I know.. it’s based on old code that had no concept of saving power and was meant for data centers… but come on… not even a hard drive wind down after a period of inactivity? Maybe in Version 2?
I look forward to reading your personal power saving tips for this ‘always-on’ device.
Windows Home Server comes in two basic flavors:
- Prebuilt by a manufacturer.
- Build it and install it yourself.
If you build it yourself or you buy it prebuilt, in both cases you are dealing with an OEM product. OEM stands for “Original Equipment Manufacturer”, and WHS is sold (licensed) only to equipment manufacturers. If you build a computer and install WHS on it, then you are the manufacturer.
Part of the license agreement for WHS is that service and support is to be provided by the OEM. If you buy the WHS system pre-built from a company such as Hewlett-Packard, then they provide the support services. You can call HP for help if necessary. If you build the WHS system yourself, then guess who provides the technical support for WHS? Yes, you are correct, you yourself provide the technical support to you yourself.
This can be a problem if you are not very technically proficient. Specially since you can not call Microsoft directly and ask for assistance with WHS issues, unless you are willing to pay dearly for each individual call. Basically you are on your own.
There are some resources that can be of great assistance, not only to those that go with the self-built route, but also to those that have a ‘real’ OEM behind them:
- The Windows Home Server Forums hosted on the Microsoft website. This is THE place to go if you have a question about hardware, software, features, installation, system recovery, and anything else pertaining to WHS. Expect an answer very quickly, from experienced people.
- We Got Served website is a great source for news and reviews and discussions of not only WHS, but also things that you may want to connect to it, be it hardware, media extenders, add-ins, etc.
- The Home Server Show - Another excellent website for general WHS news, the main strength of this site is an excellent weekly podcast dedicated to the WHS and all things related.
This post is not meant to try to dissuade you for any reason from building your own system if you want to do so. On the contrary, building your own WHS system can be fun and educational, and you can end up with a system that is more versatile than that which you can currently buy from a ‘real’ OEM. But it probably won’t be as ‘pretty’ as an HP WHS system, and it definitely will not be plug-and-play.
If you are the kind of person that regularly calls a manufacturer for assistance, just remember that if you build a WHS system yourself, you don’t have anyone to call whose job is to support the WHS.