ttol

When you're setting up a central storage for all your home content, 100GB is nothing -- you need to start speaking in terms of TB's. So, for now, the best thing is to do local=realtime, and cloud=selective backup/cache.

I've set it up like this using Windows Home Server. I use a few backup services to point it to some of the folders on the server that are important to me (my work folder for instance).

WHS has the ability to stream remotely, and I haven't found any speed issues doing so from my local network. I would like what you're describing, which is local=cache and cloud=realtime, except technology isn't there yet -- disk space in the cloud is still too expensive and ISP <-> home bandwidth still too slow/throttled/capped.

What you're looking for is Windows Home Server. It's amazing. Stores all the media you need, plus has streaming capabilities over the net. Able to expand perpetually -- no need to reformat or anything like that. I have it running with 10TB of space. It has a great front-end UI, and as close to zeroconf as you can get with this type of service. See exampel screenshot: http://ivivo.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/windowshomeserver_2...

EDIT: Forgot to mention one of the biggest pluses. Microsoft pioneered a special file system for WHS called Drive Extender. There are no drive letters, just folders, and it spans across all your hard drives and future hard drives. No more "oh that video is in H:, oops I mean K:", it's just "It's in the video folder." See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Home_Server#Drive_Exten...

The best thing is that WHS is tightly integrated with Windows, so it has things like autobackup (selective and not), health monitoring (if any of the PC's hooked up at your home springs an alert, like virus found, or low disk space, etc, it notifies the other computers through dismissable systray popup), central user/password management across all your machines, and other cool things. Many companies have also developed plugins for WHS as well (useful things like PerfectDisk for defragmentation). It also works/integrates with Mac environment.

For playback of media content, I have two HTPCs connect from two different rooms as well as some Xbox 360's (yea, the xboxes just found the folders and was able to play the content. it just works). Also, I installed Air Video to stream videos to ipad/iphone.

And since it needs to be always-on, I hooked up a UPS battery to it. It's headless -- just the machine is needed, which is great for a server in the closet. You'll manage the WHS through remote desktop/web ui. You'll also want to get the Rosewill RSV-S8 -- you will need more and more space! (Some people have gone the "octopus" -- lots and lots of external hard drives hooked up through USB. I initially went this route but the throughput became a bottleneck so I got the Rosewill - See: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132...).

Some use-cases: I've got private directories for myself, then I've got public directories such as Photos and Videos, with Photos being writable by certain members of the family. This means I can create a folder, say "07.04.10 July 4th in Boston", and each of us can upload our iphone/camera images to that folder. Now we have a global picture folder for the event we shared together. With Videos, since WHS supports Windows Media Center as well as just normal file streaming, I outfitted my WHS box with 1GBit ethernet card and the machine can stream out files to each of the HTPCs and other consuming devices.

Oh yea, the new Windows Home Server release coming out later this year is going to be even better. If you've got an MSDN subscription, download it and mess with it. You won't be disappointed. It's one of the best products Microsoft has put out.

whats the language/platform of the software? how many customers/users are there currently?

nice. what steps did you take? did you do a reset and delete all settings on the device? when you say "restore from original instead of from backup", what do you mean by "original"? do you do both steps (reset on device, then some restore from itunes?)

yes i did, as soon as i got back with the replacement i restored from previous (original) iphone 4 backup made earlier that day. however the first iphone 4 i got, i didn't do a restore. proximity sensor issue was there too (which prompted the need for an exchange).

Could also be because the antenna was weak so they compensated by making it appear better than it really is.

wait, what? genius bar can fix it with a patch? did they install the patch for you and did that fix the issue for you? do you now have an iphone that has proximity sensor fixed? when they returned the phone, were all your apps/settings intact or was it fresh? what does your about screen say for version numbers?

Well played, sir. My emphasis on REAL in the parent comment was meant as proximity sensor bug being more severe/higher priority (IMHO) than antenna bug in terms of dropped calls.

Yea, the iPhone 4 loses more signal than others due to antenna being on outside. But real world performance shows it still outperforms 3GS/other phones. Other parts of the Anandtech show that iPhone 4's sensitivity is greater.

I didn't do a return because of the antenna issue. I did do an exchange because of the proximity sensor issue though. And, the replacement phone still has the problem. All my calls get are affected by this. Randomly detects my face as input and initiates facetime, puts calls on hold, randomly tries to SMS people, or just ends the call. The real issue is the proximity sensor as that is a bug killing calls now.

I don't disagree that the signal goes down if held in a certain position with the iPhone 4. I just think we might all not have noticed it had they not implemented the 3G signal meter "feature" in OS 2.1, since the signal degradation might be only 1 bar (see: anandtech's article with numbers). In real practice, my calls get killed because of the proximity sensor issue from my face, not the antenna degradation from my hand.

I'll probably get downvoted for this comment but in this case, I think Apple tried to hard-code in a reality distortion field with the bars and it backfired..

A heavily-biased 3G signal meter that shows 5 bars for over half the signal range seems to have been implemented in iPhone OS 2.1 back in 2008. Problems show up with that display implementation due to antenna being on the outside on iPhone 4 and crossing the threshold from 5 bars to "other".

AT&T on the other hand is recommending a more accurate approach instead of interpretting 50% as 5 bars.

Not sure why people are reading this as an AT&T issue.

If you read the blogs and apple's own letter, it does in fact happen with previous iPhones.

EDIT: again, why the downvote? To quote apple's letter: "To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones."

"..this mistake has been present since the original iPhone"

it goes down because if you're at the floor of that green bar (that fills up half the range), and then you put your hand over it, you cross the threshold and it looks like a dramatic decrease.

what should happen, most likely with other phones, is that the range should be evenly distributed so that a drop in 1 bar is a drop in 1 bar. because iPhone 4's distribution is weighted/biased towards the top half of the spectrum, it fails when you cross the threshold. This "feature" seems like it was introduced in OS 2.1 back in '08.

You also can't avoid drops in signal when putting your hand over it -- this happens with every phone. just iphone's visual representation algorithm makes it seem far worst than it really is, and they will fix the way it displays in the next version.

EDIT: Why the downvote? Gruber even stated that the issue is the introduction of the biased bar meter. The exposure of the antenna just highlights the issue when you're at the threshold between 5 bars and "other".

Seems like Apple put the algorithm in place via OS 2.1 update back in '08. http://www.newsoxy.com/technology/apple-iphone/article11156....

If you don't remember, back then every blogger was saying things like "my signal has improved drastically with this update!!11!!1one".

AT&T's recommendation = more accuracy and less reality distortion. (Look at the graph Gruber linked to for what iPhone 4 currently uses for algorithm -- ~50% = 5 bars: http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...)

Next update, you should see OS 2.1's 3g signal update reversed to what it used to be. Let's hope they fix the bigger (read: REAL) issue related to the proximity sensor that actually kills calls.

Apple put the algorithm in place via OS 2.1 update back in '08. http://www.newsoxy.com/technology/apple-iphone/article11156....

If you don't remember, back then every blogger was saying things like "my signal has improved drastically with this update!!11!!1one".

This is what the graphical representation of that update was: http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...

As you can see, over 50% = 5 bars. AT&T's recommendation = more accuracy and less reality distortion.

Next update, you should see OS 2.1's 3g signal update reversed to what it used to be.

not sure why the downvote. backup source is: http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...

the RDF was put in back in '08 via OS 2.1 update to "improve the accuracy of the 3G signal".

the antenna issue seems like it indeed is software and really a non-issue. the "feature" to show 50% of signals as 5 bars was introduced in OS 2.1 update back in '08. Here is a graphic to showcase that: http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...

The fix is to undo that hard-coded reality distortion field into AT&T's recommended formula. In this case, AT&T isn't the bad guy as it seems like apple was trying to show their phones had better signal by misrepresenting the strength.

The other, IMHO bigger, issue is the proximity sensor. To me, that's a NEW issue, and needs to be addressed (hopefully by software patch), since I've had issues with 100% of my calls.

This is because right now, ~50% of the range = 5 bars. See: http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...

I made this comment/question in the other thread about iPhone 4 letter, but I'll paste here:

"i'm wondering why bars are not equally the same height across. the quantity alone should be enough (1 vs 5) to convey strength. with the height being variable, it seems to make things seem worst in the worst possible way -- 5 will still be 5, but when its a 1, because the height is so much shorter, it seems worst than 1. what is the upside to variable height when you already have variable width in terms of number of bars? it's not as if there's an algorithm that determines the correct height for that particular signal, as there is a (faulty?) algorithm to determine the correct width (bars)."

Actually Apple seemed to have biased the iPhone's display of bars to show 5 bars when the signal falls in the top 50% of the range. As Gruber noted, the exposed antenna in iPhone 4 highlighted the downside to that issue -- when you're near the floor of the 50% range, you suddenly go down in bars dramatically.

So the fix is to make what was fake before, more accurate.

Source (from Gruber): http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...

Right now, iPhone 4 shows that if the signal is in the top 50% of dBm range, then it shows 5 bars. If that was implemented back in 2.1, then yes, you're right, the fix coming out would make it "even more accurate" by undoing what 2.1 OS patch did.

Actually they put in the reality distortion field in. Currently, ~50% of the dBm = 5 bars. Now the fix is to take the reality distortion field out.

From Gruber's article, this sheds some light to what Apple currently uses to show 5 bars (graphic shows heavy bias towards top portion): http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...

The fix coming must be more evenly distributed aka more accurate.

gruber linked to this on what Apple currently uses as their formula (neat graphic included): http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...

AT&T's formula must be not so heavily weighted towards 5 bars as what Apple is currently using.

looking at this screenshot of blackberry, http://www.cellphones.ca/news/upload/2009/01/blackberryvoice..., it also has variable height along with variable width. what is the benefit of variable height vs uniform height?

good observation. i'm wondering why bars are not equally the same height across. the quantity alone should be enough (1 vs 5) to convey strength. with the height being variable, it seems to make things seem worst in the worst possible way -- 5 will still be 5, but when its a 1, because the height is so much shorter, it seems worst than 1. what is the upside to variable height when you already have variable width in terms of number of bars? it's not as if there's an algorithm that determines the correct height for that particular signal, as there is a (faulty?) algorithm to determine the correct width (bars).

i hear you. the part that irks me is that in the year since the time of 3GS release, this passed QA for call making. while we give them more time now, we suffer the affected calls. <sarcasm> maybe Gary Powell was the guy in charge of making sure calls worked properly </sarcasm>

isn't it a relief to know it's not your face and not the way you're holding it? once i found out others were experiencing it, it was a great relief. you can now stop doing hand gymnastics with the phone and wait for some fix too.

yea, while the antenna is arguably theoretical/subjective (apple: faulty formula / world: rdf?), the proximity sensor is very real and affects calls now. i too am also surprised people are focusing on antenna and not proximity.