This weekend was just about like every other weekend around here.  Still working on my streaming server which is taking up massive amounts of time.  Once I get to a certain point on the streaming server, I can relax a little with it and move on to my other websites and start updating them.  The main thing I did this weekend was to take some time and play my new Playstation 3 which I have networked to my home computers and Internet.  I was noticing how crummy the music was as I raced my cars in Gran Turismo 5..  so I thought, I bet I can add my own music to this thing.  Sure enough I was able to add my own music/playlist to my PS3 and then import the list into Gran Turismo 5.  As with anything I do, I usually try to find a bit of help first to make sure things can be done.  In this case I found an instructive video on youtube that was a big help.  I’ve attached the video to this blog entry so that if you would like to know how to go about this..  you can!  It does not tell you how to get your music over to your Playstation 3 and assumes you already know how to do that.

So now I can race with my own retro tunes and be a happy camper.

HOW DO I GET MY MUSIC OVER TO THE PLAYSTATION 3?

Well, it is a matter of network sharing and if you have a Windows 7 operating system on your networked computer you will need to enable file sharing/network discovery for the PS3 to find your computer.  There is some more details that I won’t go into here and could actually form another tutorial..  maybe at a later date.    Youtube has some great tutorials so you might start there if you want to know how to network your computers together..  I’ve been doing it for years and it makes it great to share your files between computers.  Well, that’s all for this post.  I’ll still be working on my streaming server for a while so I’ll keep you updated now and then as to how things are going.

TTFN, Tim

Today I will be talking about computer recovery since today.. you guessed it, I’m recovering a computer.  I want to take this time to make a point for all those who have bought a new laptop or desktop and did not get any recovery software with your purchase.

When you first buy your computer new these days, most do not come with a recovery cd or dvd but normally you can purchase one from the respective company.  If you will notice after booting your new computer by accessing or “clicking” the “My Computer” or “Computer” icon in the start menu it brings up the explorer window where you will notice an extra drive other than your main “C” drive or your “CD/DVD” maybe labeled as “D” and may even be named as “recovery” or something similar.  Well this is the drive that you will recover your computer from in case it ever crashes… oh, and it will crash, I almost guarantee it!!!  Here is where a big problem can start for you right out of the “get go”..  if you format your hard drive the traditional way to recover your computer you will most likely delete this drive and all your pre-installed recovery software which will leave you in a big pickle of a mess.

NOT ALL RECOVERIES ARE CREATED EQUAL

Today my recovery project is a bit different than most because the particular laptop which runs Windows Vista has a bad CD/DVD drive and so it is that I can’t use it to recover.  This computer does not have a recovery partition so that is not an option for recovery.  In my case I just happen to have a portable CD/DVD usb drive that I can use and fortunately I also have the recovery disk from the manufacturer in hand.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Before I start any computer recovery process, I like to work with a clean computer.  Time to get out the cleaner which could even include a can of compressed air.  I clean the computer up, usually inside and out and make sure all the fans are working properly..  an overheating computer can cause havoc on a recovery process …

GETTING TO IT

So the computer is all cleaned up and we are ready to start the recovery.

First thing we got to do is make the computer boot from the USB CD/DVD with the recovery software in it.  This is usually accomplished by accessing the computers “BIOS” program or “SETUP”  as some manufacturers call it.   To access the BIOS you will need to watch your screen on bootup and it will tell you to either hit “F2″ or “Del” or maybe some other key to launch the program.  After you are in the BIOS you just need to find where it allows you to change the drive boot order.  Normally the first boot drive is the hard drive.  If the option is there, change it to USB drive for the first boot drive then save your changes and exit the BIOS program..  make sure you have already inserted your recovery disk into the USB drive or it won’t boot from the USB CD/DVD.

ON OUR WAY

I certainly hope at this point you were able to save all important documents and pictures and any other item that you have been meaning to backup for years because at this point, the recovery will wipe the computer completely clean and re-install all software and drivers as it came from the manufacturer…  before you continue please make sure you have backed up on an external device “ALL” of your important data.

So now we are ready to recover and insert the disc, in my case a disk called “System Disc” goes first followed by the “Recovery Disc 1″.  We are now on our way to recovering the laptop.

Well the laptop went through the recovery with my only having to switch discs out a couple times as it had asked me to do.  Pretty easy recovery actually. Now to go through the registration and set up the first user account.

Everything from this point is just straight forward like getting the wireless network configured and then running virus scans on all the old backup files before copying them back to the computer.  Sometimes things are not this easy when it comes to recovering a computer.  If you have a question about a computer recovery problem, please fire me off an email @ tkeesling82@gmail.com

Well, been working hard this last week just before Christmas and even harder after Christmas on a huge server project.  My goal was to set up a Streaming media server so my family and friends could connect and listen to music or videos via their own wifi connections with their computers or handheld devices.  I was able to take an old Dell computer which had served as a web server for the last couple years but had since crashed, and used it.  I wanted to use a windows based media server for this project.  I ended up setting up a nice server but there were a few problems..  one,  handheld mobile devices could not connect to it.  So I did some more research and found a very nice software package called Subsonic.  This server software boasted to have apps for many mobile devices and pretty easy to install and set up.  So now I’m crankin’ out tunes!  Shoot my new Playstation 3 web browser even connects and plays music through my Sony surround sound system.   So far we are streaming from my wifes new Kindle Fire with an app called by the same name “Subsonic” and streaming to the iPod Touch 4 with an app called “Substream” both apps were free.  The server software however is not free and after 30 days I have to give to the project to keep using it,  that will give me time to see if it keeps working   If any of my friends want to check it out, it is at http://www.timkeesling.com:81 but you will need the login and password to be able to try it out.  email me if you want the login info!

Well, this is actually my first post on my new server system.  I have been working hard for the last couple days getting my server data converted to my new server.  I had a rather huge crash with my old server and almost lost years worth of data and work.  Fortunately,  with a little hard work I was able to recover the data from the hard drive of the crashing machine and now I’m going through the steps of restoring all my server websites.  It has probably been a year or so since I have actually worked with my servers, needless to say, it is some very geeky stuff to configure a server to do all the things it needs to do to work properly and in conjunction with a MySQL server.  Over time, I’ll be updating the GUI of this blog as well and make it more viewable to my liking.  There are two other things I want to start working on again here in the very near future and that is Photography and my Keesling and Brown Genealogy.  You can see my Keesling Family Genealogy website at http://keeslinggenealogy.sytes.net and my photography website at http://truactionphoto.sytes.net but you will find that I have a bit of work to do on these sites.  So it looks like I’ll be staying rather busy for a while with all my fun geek projects.  I’ll try to keep you up to date as I progress with all my work.

Tim