My Documents on SD Card

Although I have 256 MB of ROM on my mobile device sometime that is not quite enough. I have habit of recording audio notes quite a lot. This is problematic since you cannot save those files directly on Secure Digital card. All recording goes in My Documents and it has to be transferred manually. It is quite easy to bring yourself into situation where your 8 GB SD card is empty and your ROM is full.

Unlike desktop, there is no procedure in which you can change location of “My Documents” folder. So I did next best thing - renaming of “Storage Card”. Because of Microsoft’s localization efforts, this folder has name that can be changed.

With registry editor go to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\StorageManager\Profiles\SDMemory”. In that key there is value named “Folder” (if it is not there, create it). Change value of it to “My Documents”.

Second (and final) step is to use file manager to rename “My Documents” into something else (e.g. “My Old Documents”). After you do this, reboot. Once booting is completed, you should have whole content of your SD card inside of “My Documents” folder.

If you forget to rename original “My Documents”, Windows Mobile will, after reboot, detect conflict and card will end up being “My Documents 2”.

Downside to this is that you restrict your ability to use your mobile without card in. As soon as there is no card, Windows mobile will recreate “My Documents” and thus you will need to repeat whole procedure.

This will also happen if you use “Disk Drive” transfer mode (Settings -> Connetions -> USB to PC). If this setting is enabled, every time you insert your device into USB, SD card is disconnected.

Additionally, when you use ActiveSync (or Windows Mobile Device Center), “My Documents” will not be synchronized any more. I seems that synchronization procedure handles SD card differently that other folders.

However, having few GB available makes up for all of this.

FreeNAS on Hyper-V

For small server installation, I decided to use FreeNAS. Intention was to put it in Hyper-V alongside other (mostly Windows) machines and have FreeNAS handle all file sharing between them. Since it was just internal element and there was no DHCP in internal network, fixed IP was to be used.

Only problem with whole setup is that it doesn’t work. Whenever I tried to access FreeNAS machine, it seemed not alive. When I reset LAN IP address in it’s console menu (option 2) it was live again only to be silent on next reboot. That meant that every time NAS is restarted, manual intervention would be needed to make it accessible. Not exactly a comfortable setup.

Fortunately, solution is quite simple. First setup FreeNAS’ IP from console window. Once that part is completed, you will have access to web GUI where second part will take place.

In “System” -> “Advanced” menu go to “Command scripts” and there add two commands:

ifconfig de0 down
ifconfig de0 up

Type for both commands should be set to “postinit”. This will ensure that network adapter is reset on every reboot.

Once done with this, save and shut whole system down. Power it back for testing. If you did it correctly, you should have FreeNAS available.

MobiReg Update

My small registry editor for Windows Mobile 6 just had update.

While most users will not notice anything, those with Smartphone will enjoy new auto-selection of input method. It finally works properly.

You can download new version here.

Corsair Voyager Mini

In order to make Windows installation faster, I decided to buy this USB. While I have great experience with my current USB, I decided against buying same one. Distinguishing between them would probably cause wrong one getting deleted all the time.

Since I did own both Corsair Voyager and Voyager GT before, I decided to check their Voyager mini. It seemed like nice USB drive. It was cap-less (I hate those) and it’s look and size ensured were quite appealing to me.

I will start with one good thing and that is speed. This little guy is fast. It is not as fast as his big brothers (especially GT family), but you will be satisfied. Windows installation just flies on this one. Unfortunately, this is first and last thing I liked.

Most common operation with USB drive is inserting it in USB socket and this is where this drive fails miserably.

In order to insert it into USB, you need to grasp it “just right”. If you grasp it too high it will just retract back. While this is not problem if your computer is on desk, it is quite annoying if you need to plug it in laptop. Only way you can do it every time is to raise laptop (2700 grams) in order to plug Voyager mini (5 grams).

To make things worse, you can insert it up-side-down without any problem. This will not break anything (there are no short-circuiting issues) but it is quite annoying when you don’t notice it. Those computers with vertical connectors are most annoying ones since you are never sure and there is nothing to block you if you insert it wrong way.

While this drive looks like Voyager, it is not. As much as I am satisfied them, I am dissatisfied with this one. I can only find fortune in fact that, since I use it only for installs, it is not used much. I do wonder whether guarantee covers burning…

XP Mode Is Done

Only days separate us from being able to download final release of Windows XP mode. As of yesterday, it has hit RTM milestone.

Those that already have RC installed should not see big difference and hopefully seamless upgrade will be possible.