Earlier this year my music collection started to seem a little stale, and I started to wish for more variety, more music I have not listened to. This lead me to consider a VPN, which would essentially tunnel my Internet connection to a server in the US, allowing me to access Pandora and other sites such as Hulu ⁴. I considered paying for a subscription to a VPN, but was having difficulty finding one that was reasonably priced and would tunnel my connection properly (all my data needs to flow through the US IP, not just a HTTP proxy). The other requirement was that the VPN be accessible via my iPad and iPhone as well as my desktop computers (Windows and Mac), and the only type of VPN connection that seemed to adequately satisfy my needs was an L2TP/IPSec VPN.

Since I couldn’t find a VPN service that seemed to satisfy my needs, I decided to create my own, which means I need root access to a server. I also plan to tunnel a lot of data, considering I will primarily be using it for media streaming. I also didn’t want to pay Windows Server licensing fees, so decided to take the route of Ubuntu Server. OpenVPN does not do native L2TP/IPSec, so was out of the question considering my iPad/iPhone requirement. This left StrongSwan and FreeSwan as the potential VPN platforms.

I started looking at LowEndBox ⁵ for cheap Virtual Private Servers (VPS) that came with copious amounts of data. I don’t need much processing power… just a lot of bandwidth. Initially I thought I found a great service for $5/mo… an OpenVZ based VPS with unlimited data. I purchased a couple months worth, and began setting up an Ubuntu 10.10 server, using the guide at ByBacon.com ⁶.

It was then that I hit a major stumbling block. Every time that I attempted to initiate a connection with the VPS from any one of my clients, the server would fail to respond. Checking the server logs, I didn’t see any record of either PPP connections or IPSec initiations. Obviously there was an issue with the NIC interface.

On investigation, I found that OpenVZ creates virtual, emulated ethernet devices, using the name VENET, with no MAC address. IPSec VPN service I was attempting to use requires root-level access to the device itself, as well as an accessible MAC address. Now, this can be accomplished using a TUN/TAP device… but requires some not-so-simple changes by the OpenVZ administrator. I put in a ticket to have one created, but unfortunately the service I’d paid for happens to not support creating these devices for clients.

So… I needed to find a different service… either Xen-based or VMware-based. Eventually I found a service from ENScloud ⁷ that seems to work well, and provide me with copious amounts of bandwidth. It took about a week for them to provision my server and IP, but after the initial hiccup everything seems to function well (their support guy Brandon was more than helpful after I put in a ticket requesting update). I’ve been listening to Pandora a lot since the VPN was created.

I eventually plan to rent out access to my VPN to family and friends, as I want to recoup my costs, so I figure that if I can rent out access for $5/yr if I get 12-15 people interested. I’ve managed to get it working easily under Windows (certificate-based), Mac, iPad, and iPhone, so no matter what platform family and friends are using, it will be accessible to them. I would eventually like to get a WebDAV service running as part of the service, so those with iWork for iOS can use it for cloud document storage.

There are no 128 bit capable processors available. Microsoft is building for a market that hasn’t even started yet. They’ve barely transitioned to 64 bit! Windows 7 is the first Windows OS that has a truly viable 64 bit market. Manufacturers have had a few years to develop 64 bit drivers, and consequently, it is far more likely that you can install Windows 7 x64 now than you could install Windows XP x64. Add to that that almost every new computer ships with a 64 bit processor, and you have yourself one viable market. Software developers also now have mature SDK’s, and have had a few years to transition to 64 bit computing.

Microsoft has finally shipped Windows 7, with a much shorter timeframe than Windows Vista did. I suspect that they are going to try to maintain such an active pace, shipping software every 18-24 months or so, rather than the 5 years it took for Vista. There is no way that either the hardware market or the software market will be remotely ready for 128 bit computing in 2 years. Yes, they may make it ‘functional’, like XP x64 was ‘functional’, but it will not truly be 128 bit. I suspect that Windows 9 will be as 128 bit mature as Windows Vista was 64 bit mature. Don’t expect true 128 bit computing till Windows 10.

• Microsoft concentrated on bringing too much new technology into Vista. This caused them to delay, delay, and delay again. When a customer is waiting for something new, time becomes critical.
• Microsoft publicized too many features initially. And the features they publicized ended up being most of the ones they had to drop.
• Microsoft concentrated so much on the back-end of Windows Vista that they forgot the front-end. It’s as though they worked and worked and worked on the internal features, and then suddenly realized that they needed to provide something attractive to the end user. So they made it transparent on the user side, and added Flip3D. A transparent user interface is not enough to provide the customer with satisfaction. And a ‘cool’ new way of switching that provides absolutely no usability benefits and only eye candy is waste… it won’t keep a customer.
• Microsoft concentrated so much on the back-end features that they left performance to the end. With the release of SP1 Windows Vista became faster, but before SP1 it was a complete resource pig. And when customers have to use a poorly performing OS for a year before getting fixes, they are less likely to change their perceptions of it, no matter how much you improve.

So… what is Microsoft going to do with Windows 7, in light of what we just talked about? Here are my predictions / views:

• Microsoft is not publicizing features early on this time around. Smart move. Let the buzz build the same way that Apple via ‘leaked’ info from developers and software pirates.
• Microsoft is concentrating more on the front-end this time around. They brought a lot of incredible IT features and benefits to Vista, and these will just get slid in with Windows 7. Now they are concentrating on providing real value to the end user, and not just IT.
• Microsoft is NOT going to let timelines slide the way they did with Vista.
• Microsoft is concentrating on performance this time around. New end user features + performance… what could be better for OS perception and adoption?
• Microsoft is concentrating on Web integration vs Office integration this time around. With Windows Vista they brought tight integration with Office and Sharepoint… now it is time to bring that sort of integration to the Web.

I may add more thoughts to this page. In the meantime, feel free to leave a comment on what you think of Windows 7.