I have several friends who "just don’t get" Twitter.  And I know why – they are not USING Twitter.  They are just looking at the Public Timeline and wondering, "Why do I care about this crap"?

And that is fair.  But that isn’t Twitter.  At least not the best of Twitter.

Twitter becomes interesting (and useful) when you follow people that have similar interests, people who make you laugh, people who make you think, or you get similar people following you.  To accomplish that you have to be actively involved in Twitter – that doesn’t mean running it 24/7.  It does mean getting involved though.

I have four uniquely different groups of Twitter Friends.  Those that follow me for a variety of reasons, those I follow for business, those I follow to learn from, and those I follow to have fun with. It is easy for me to separate the three groups – because I pay attention to them based on the time of day.  During the day, I focus on people I learn from, and people I am invested in from a work standpoint.  Late at night I like to have fun with another group (although many individuals cross-over).

If you are just starting on Twitter you need to find interesting, and interested people.  Two quick ways to do that:

1) Go to http://tweetscan.com and type in a keyword you are interested in – like WiFi, or Microsoft.  Follow some of the people you see Tweeting things you find interesting.  Rinse and repeat.

2) Find people close to you – it is always nice to know that a Freeway is closed, or that school is canceled tomorrow.  Or even that a tornado is headed your way.  You can find people in your area on http://twitterlocal.net.  Don’t narrow your search too tightly – search for your city, or the nearest large city to start.  Again, find people that say interesting things and follow them. Rinse and repeat.

Twitter will ONLY work for you if you follow people – and don’t worry – you can always UN-follow them later.

But don’t stare as the public timeline flies past your screen and tell me you "don’t get it".  You can’t learn programming by clicking on executables, and you can’t learn to bake by eating donuts!

If you "don’t get" Twitter then you are lazy – or scared of "following" – or you just don’t want to get it.

And if those three things do not apply to you, and you still don’t get it – call me – let me help.  But first you need to follow at least 50 people. If you can’t find 50 interesting people on Twitter you are not trying.

PS – Download a Twitter Client Application – like Twhirl.  It takes your focus away from the public timeline and focuses on you, and your friends, and followers – and their friends (which may quickly turn into your friends).

Really.  Don’t dismiss this too quickly. 

Update – as of today, 29MAY08 Twitter Track is disabled. I will update this post when it is turned back on.

Twitter has been described as a “micro-blogging tool”. And it is that. It is also a chat client.

And it is an extremely useful research tool. By tracking specific keywords (your company name for example) you can obtain a near-real-time feed anytime anyone on Twitter mentions your company.

First, the “Track” command. According to the Twitter FAQ:

What is tracking?
Tracking is an SMS or IM only feature that allows you to receive all twitters that match a word you’re tracking. For example, if you send track Obama, you will receive all updates that match “Obama.” All updates sent from tracking will begin with parenthesis. You can easily stop getting these messages by sending untrack Obama.

So using track is quite simple. From your cell phone your could use a Twitter Mobile Client and send Twitter a message like “track Microsoft” and you would receive a message every time Microsoft is mentioned. Of course, receiving an update every time someone mentions Microsoft is probably not what you want to do on your cell phone.

And that is where GTalk comes in. GTalk is a Google Chat Client. And it works wonderfully with the Twitter Track function.

And if you have a GMail account (get one here for free) GTalk can also automatically archive all of your “Tweets and Tracks” into your GMail account.

After downloading and installing GTalk (and creating an account) you can now add Twitter to GTalk You do this on Twitter.com by going to the Settings page and clicking on the “Devices” tab.

Enter your GMail address and select GTalk from the drop-down menu.

Click “Save”

You will be prompted to send a unique code back to Twitter from within GTalk

Just type in the code in the GTalk Chat window (after selecting twitter@twitter.com from the user list) and press enter.

Nearly instantly (assuming GTalk/Twitter are both functioning) you will receive a response from Twitter.

Now you are set.

To track something (Microsoft for example), just type “track microsoft” into the chat window. Twitter replies letting you know it heard your request. And as you can see, it took only seconds to get a result.

To stop tracking type “untrack microsoft”.

You can also correspond with all of your Twitter friends with GTalk. Let me know you got this working by sending “@kr8tr – Tracking is set up” or something similar to me!

Of course, for normal Twitter use, I recommend Twhirl – and Adobe AIR-based application that has a lot more bells and whistles for Twitter.

And soon you’ll be able to use Track in Twhirl as well.

Final notes on Track – it does NOT pay attention to punctuation, so Tracking “@kr8tr” is the same as Tracking “kr8tr”. Track also ignores CASE.

And as of now, there is no filtering in Track – so you will get every instance of the word you track, even if it includes words you would rather not see. I expect this to be addressed (at least at the Twitter client level) very soon. In fact, the CEO of Seesmic was interviewed on The Gillmor Gang and committed to adding these features to Twhirl very soon.

Since I get a lot of searches for various FreeNAS "stuff" I keep an eye out for trends, and add to this series when I see people looking for specific information.

Lately I have seen a lot of people searching for "adding another drive to FreeNAS", so here is a brief tutorial.

I am using a virtual machine, with a virtual disk to create the screen shots – don’t let that bother you – it’s the exact same process with a "real" computer and a physical drive!

I am assuming that you know how to physically install a hard drive.  If not, do a search for "installing second hard disk" in your favorite search engine.

	Open the admin window in your browser and select "Disks: Management" from the sidebar.  You will see a screen similar to the image at the left.  Note that you have to click the little "plus-circle" (highlighted in yellow) to add a drive.
	The most critical thing now is to make sure you select your new drive.  Chances are it will be the only drive listed.  Select the drive from the drop-down list.  Set your power preferences (I always allow the drive to sleep after 10 minutes and set "use minimum power with Standby" and "Minimum performance, Minimum acoustic output".  This allows you to save as much power as possible at the minor expense of having to wait a second for the drives to spin up when you access them. Finally, select the File System type – if this is a new drive with no data on it, leave this blank.  We’ll format it in a second. If it is already formatted, and has data you wish to keep, then select the correct File System for the existing data and skip the formatting step below! Click the "Add" button.
	To save your changes click on the "Apply" button.
	Assuming this is a new disk, it will need to be formatted.  Select Disk:Format from the navigation menu. Select your new disk from the drop-down menu. Be very careful to select the correct disk – all data on it will be lost. Leave the file system as "UFS" and type in a name for the disk (volume label). Leave the minimum space alone and click  on "Format Disk".  Depending on the size of the disk this could take seconds, or minutes.  Once the process completes, go back to the Disk:Management.
	As highlighted here, you can see that the disk is now "online".  You can now set up shares on the drive and start using it!  For more information on setting up shares see Part Two of my FreeNAS Tutorial (link below).

You can find my FreeNAS posts/Tutorials here:

• FreeNAS – switching back. About my decision to move back to FreeNAS from Windows Home Server.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part One – Installation – installing the FreeNAS server onto a PC.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Two – Configuration – configuring FreeNAS and Windows File Sharing.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Three – Upgrading – Upgrading your FreeNAS Server.
• Using Microsoft SyncToy 2 with FreeNAS – Automating your backups – for free.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Five – XBOX 360 – Using FreeNAS with your XBOX 360

Besides my earlier post where I complained about the Widget/Sidebar interface, I have also found three people now who did not have their upgrades complete for some reason. It appears some files, specifically in the wp-admin folder, are NOT getting copied over on the first attempt.

If you see something flaky in the Admin Section (missing buttons, garbled screens, etc) then download WP 2.5 again (to make sure you had a “good” copy of the files) and then re-copy the files to your blog.

Also, Windows Live Writer, which was working fine before the upgrade, now gives me an error when I post. My post IS published to my blog, but WLW makes it appear as if it hasn’t been. I’ll look into this more later.

I get a lot of Google Search hits for this information on SyncToy, so here it is. There is actually a separate executable for running command line options called SyncToyCmd (brilliant!).

Anyway, here is the info.

Usage: SyncToyCmd [-args]
All arguments are optional.
-R Run all folder pairs that are marked as Active for Run All.
-R<name> Run the named folder pair only.
-? Display this help.

Examples:
SyncToyCmd -RMyFolderPair
SyncToyCmd -R

The first year or two I had this blog I found I checked my “stats” often. Technorati, Google Analytics, FeedBurner, etc.

Now, I rarely check my stats. I have the little FeedBurner widget on my blog that tells me how many people subscribe via that service. But it doesn’t tell me how many people actually read my blog. Which is fine, now. Because now I don’t care.

Now I write about whatever the heck I feel like. Or I don’t write.

And that is exactly why, I think, I have more people reading now than ever. About 10,000 page views a month for a blog about nothing isn’t bad.

I’ve also found that it doesn’t hurt to share a stupid video I enjoyed – people get to know me better based on what I find interesting, I imagine.

Another thing – adding crap on your blog, like my “ask me a question” box over on the right, or any of the other 30 things I have tried, just don’t add value. My readers don’t use them – because few of my readers actually visit my blog. Most read in Google Reader, or some other RSS aggregator.

Besides – readers that want to talk to me actually tend to pick up the phone and call me – or hit me up on IM. Just tonight a reader called from Michigan to ask questions about Vista and dual monitors. I talked to him for 15 minutes and told him what he needed (a secondary video card that has Vista, not XP drivers). He had never commented, and I had never heard of him. But I had some time – so I shared it with him. He had been reading for 9 months!

Photos are something that people love. Especially ones that give them a sense of who I am – like pictures of my dog.

Here is my poor Yoshi with “Fairy Wings” my daughter put on him. He didn’t care – he was playing in the front hard – his second favorite thing to do (his favorite is any ride in any care\, for any reason).

The cars driving by and honking and the people pointing and laughing didn’t even phase him. He was getting loving!

Finally, the more I f*ck with my blog, adding all that extra crap nobody sees anyway, the less stable my blog becomes. I would like to see every WordPress Widget warn me up front if it is going to a) modify my theme, or b) touch my database. It’s important.

I often search my blog to find older posts I want to link to.  My blog has a search field on it, so it is generally easy enough to find what I want.  But why should I have to open my blog just to search it?

With a Mozilla (or Opera) browser (I use Flock) it takes just seconds to create a custom search.

For example, let’s build a custom search for Robert Scoble’s Scobleizer blog.

All we need to do is visit the Scobleizer blog and right click in the Search box on his site (click images to enlarge in a new window).

From the popup menu, select “Add a Keyword for this Search…”.

In the dialog box that opens just type in the Name of your search (in this case, “Scobleizer” and then type in the shortcut you will use from the browser – I used “rs” for Robert Scoble.

Now all I have to do to search Scobleizer is type “rs keyword” in my browser – no need to visit Scobleizer first.  Of course “keyword” will be replaced the term I am actually searching for.  Here’s an example – I’ll type “rs lagesse” in my browser – the browser window returns the Scobleizer pages that include the text “lagesse”.

This can be done for any page that includes a search form – Wikipedia, your own blog, YouTube, whatever.

I found it very useful to create a search shortcut called “img” for searching Google Images.

Update: Please read all the comments before sending me a question! You can find my FreeNAS posts/Tutorials here:

• FreeNAS – switching back. About my decision to move back to FreeNAS from Windows Home Server.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part One – Installation – installing the FreeNAS server onto a PC.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Two – Configuration – configuring FreeNAS and Windows File Sharing.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Three – Upgrading – Upgrading your FreeNAS Server.
• Using Microsoft SyncToy 2 with FreeNAS – Automating your backups – for free.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Five – XBOX 360 – Using FreeNAS with your XBOX 360 (this post)
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part 6 – Adding another drive

Very quick one here – but since I get a lot of hits looking or this information, I thought I would post it. Enabling the XBOX 360 to see the FreeNAS server is very simple.

• On your FreeNAS admin page, select UPnP under Services.
• Click Enable on the UPnP page.
• Give it a name that you will recognize when browsing via the XBOX.
• Set the network interface (should be set if you only have one network card.
• Select the FreeNAS share you want the XOX 360 to use – in this case I am sharing my Movies folder with my XBOX – I could also add music, pictures, etc.
• I left the port blank to use the defaults.
• Under Profile just select XBOX 360.
• You can enable the Control web page or not.
• Click Save and Restart.

That’s it – on your XBOX 360 you should be able to go to the media blade, select Video, then browse for computers and see the FreeNAS server (you may have to press the blue “X” button on the XBOX remote to change the source of the movies, music, whatever. Below is the UPnP screen shot from my FreeNAS server.

You can find my FreeNAS posts/Tutorials here:

• FreeNAS – switching back. About my decision to move back to FreeNAS from Windows Home Server.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part One – Installation – installing the FreeNAS server onto a PC. (this post)
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Two – Configuration – configuring FreeNAS and Windows File Sharing.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Three – Upgrading – Upgrading your FreeNAS Server.
• Using Microsoft SyncToy 2 with FreeNAS – Automating your backups – for free.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Five – XBOX 360 – Using FreeNAS with your XBOX 360
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part 6 – Adding another drive

[Of course, this tutorial applies to any remote storage that is connected to as a shared drive. This is a complimentary post to FreeNAS: The Free NAS Server - About and FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users - Part One - Installation]

SyncToy 2 is a free utility provided by Microsoft and it runs on Vista and XP (and Windows 2008 Server). SyncToy 2 (beta) is available from Microsoft here.

Microsoft describes SyncToy 2 as:

Now there is an easier way. SyncToy, a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows, is an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without additional complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another case. Unlike other applications, SyncToy actually keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

1. Download the file.
2. Install SyncToySetup.exe
3. Start the application
   1. Start Menu
   2. All Programs
   3. SyncToy 2.0

After you either allow Microsoft to gather some data about how you use SyncToy (or decline), the opening Welcome screen displays:

Your only option here is to create a folder pair. Folder pairs are the basic building blocks of SyncToy – simply put, they are the two folders you want to manage (sync). Select “Create New Folder Pair”.

As you can see, you are shown two folder selection dialogs. For this tutorial we will sync our Music folder on our PC with the music folder on the FreeNAS server. The first thing we do is locate our local music folder. Click on the left “Browse” button.

A standard Windows Explorer file browser opens. For this example we will sync the music folder located in on my local “F:” drive.

To do that we simply drill down the folder tree until we highlight the music folder. Once selected, click “OK”

Now the left side of the sync is configured. Time to connect to the server!

Next we select the network path to “music” on the FreeNAS Server.In this example, I typed in the UNC path. If you have mapped a network drive, you can browse and select it (see next image).

This is an example of browsing to a mapped network drive.

So now we have our local Music Folder linked to the shared music folder on FreeNAS.

Now you have a choice to make. This requires some more explanation (or you can just click on the link for “More Information”

You have three options here, and it is important that you understand them.

1. Synchronize – changes on either side are reflected on the other. If you delete a file on your FreeNAS server, it is deleted from your local machine. The same thing goes for renaming files, adding files, etc. This is the most common use.

2. Echo – This basically sets the left folder (on your local machine) as the “Master”. Changes you make on your FreeNAS server are NOT reflected on your local drive.

3. Similar to Echo, but deletions on either the server or the local drive do NOT delete files in the other folder. New files added to the local folder are copied to the FreeNAS server, but additions added to the FreeNAS server are NOT copied to the local folder.

For my Music, I want everything I do on my local machine to be reflected on my server. If I add a new song, rename a song, delete a song, etc I want the server to reflect that. Basically I am using FreeNAS to make a duplicate of my local Music Folder.

So I selected Echo and am now asked to name my pair – I’ll call it “Music” because I am creative that way.Type in the name of your pair and click on Finish.

Now we can see the Folder Pairs I have configured. You’ll see “Music” is selected. Now I can click on “Preview” to see what is going to happen BEFORE I actually make any physical changes to my data.

You can see that my ZZ Top music will be copied from my local drive to my shared drive on the FreeNAS server. Cool – I can see that nothing is going to be deleted (look at the “Preview Results” box at the lower left).

Now we do an actual sync by running the Folder Pair. The results show that all nine files were correctly copied to the server.

Here you can see that I have created multiple Folder Pairs for my desktop, movies, music, pictures and video folders.In the next section we will set Windows up to execute these Folder Pair Syncs every night, without user intervention.

Automation – Vista (For XP see below)

We are going to use the built in Windows Task Scheduler program to automate our SyncToy session.

Task Scheduler is locate in the Start menu under Accessories|System Tools – go ahead and run it.

Task Scheduler on Windows Vista. I’ll cover XP further down.

Click on the “Create Basic Task action (as highlighted in the previous image).You will be presented with a dialog box. The first thing we’ll do is name this Scheduled Task “SyncToy Run” and give it a description.

After clicking on Next the dialog presents the “Trigger” portion of the setup. I want this task to run daily, so I am not making any changes here.

The next screen allows us to specify the time of day the task runs. I want mine to run at 3 am – that way it will be finished before I wake up in the morning. Just choose a time when your computers are turned on, and hopefully not being heavily used.

On the action screen we want to start a program.Make sure it is selected and click next.

Ok, now comes a little bit of work (just a little!).Click on the Browse button and navigate to your Program Files folder (normally “c:\program files”)Drill down the folder list until you find the SyncToy 2.0 Beta folder and open it.

Highlight the file “SyncToyCmd”. This is the SyncToy command line executable. It lets us run the Folder Pairs without user intervention.Click on Open.

In the “Add arguments” text box type “-R” (without the quotes. This tells SyncToy to run all Folder Pairs marked as active.The Start in” box stays blank. Click Next.

The final settings are displayed. Review them and click on Finish.

Back on the main screen for Task Scheduler you can click on the “Task Scheduler Library” link on the left, select “SyncToy Run” from the available tasks, then click on “Run” on the right. This will allow you to check that the Task actually runs correctly.

While the task is running a command window will open, as shown here. Depending on a lot of factors (speed of your network, speed of computers, speed of hard drives, etc) this could take hours to run – especially the first time you Sync. Subsequent runs will be much faster since only new or modified data will be copied.

Close the Task Scheduler. That’s it – you are finished. Your data is now automatically synchronized with your server every morning.

Read on only for information on adding the task to XP.

Automation – XP

Setting up a Scheduled Task in XP is similar to Vista. The Task Scheduler in Vista is a newer and more powerful version, but for our purposes the XP version is just fine.

Launch the Scheduled Tasks utility by going to Start|All Programs|Accessories|System Tools.

Although the dialog box looks different in XP, the setup is actually quite similar to Vista. Double-Click on the “Add Scheduled Task” link.

The Scheduled Task Wizard pops up. Click on Next.

Click on the Browse button and locate your SyncToy 2.0 Beta Folder (under Program Files, usually in c:\program files”).

Double click on the SyncToyCmd file and click “Open”.

Type in a name (SyncToy Run) and select Daily, then click on Next.

Set the time for the task to run (3:00 am), choose Every Day and click Next.

On XP you have to enter a valid user account and password. Enter this information (your Window login name and password) and click next.

Click on Finish.

Right-Click on the Task and Select “Properties” from the menu

We are going to manually edit the “Run” line. All we are going to do is add a -R to the end of the existing line.The existing line ends with “…\SyncToyCmd.exe” and we want it to end with “…\SyncToyCmd.exe -R”So make that change.

Click Apply to save your changes. If you are prompted for your password again, enter it.Now you are set up to automatically run the Folder Pairs on your XP box.

You can test it by Right-Clinking on the task and selecting Run from the popup menu.

That’s it. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments.

You can find my FreeNAS posts/Tutorials here:

• FreeNAS – switching back. About my decision to move back to FreeNAS from Windows Home Server.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part One – Installation – installing the FreeNAS server onto a PC. (this post)
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Two – Configuration – configuring FreeNAS and Windows File Sharing.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Three – Upgrading – Upgrading your FreeNAS Server.
• Using Microsoft SyncToy 2 with FreeNAS – Automating your backups – for free.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Five – XBOX 360 – Using FreeNAS with your XBOX 360
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part 6 – Adding another drive

Note: I had meant for my next FreeNAS post to cover using Microsoft SyncToy 2.0 with FreeNAS. A new version of FreeNAS was released though, and I decided to upgrade my server first.

Upgrading FreeNAS is a fairly straightforward procedure.

Before continuing, please make sure that your FreeNAS server is not being used. If the server is upgraded while data is being read/written then that data could get corrupted!

The first thing to do is to back up your existing FreeNAS configuration. This is done from the browser on any Windows machine on your network.

Navigate to the server (see tutorial part 2 for information on this – link at bottom of this post).

You will see the standard FreeNAS interface. From the left hand navigation menu select “Backup/Restore” under System.

Click on the “Download configuration” button

Save the file to your computer (remember where you saved it!)

Before continuing, please make sure that your FreeNAS server is not being used. If the server is upgraded while data is being read/written then that data could get corrupted!

Now that you have a backup you can go ahead and insert the new FreeNAS install CDROM and restart your FreeNAS server. Make sure you boot from the CDROM.

Allow the CDROM to boot until the FreeNAS Screen is displayed. Press enter and you will see the following screen (you may need to wait a minute for it to fully load):

We will be selecting option #9 – “Install/Upgrade to an hard drive/flash device, etc”Assuming you followed my FreeNAS install tutorial, we’ll want to select option 5 – “Upgrade existing installed ‘full’ release from CDROM”.

Enter 5 and press enter. You may get an error of “WARNING: / was not properly dismounted”. It is safe to ignore this error.Your CDROM name will be displayed (in my example it is called acdo. Type the displayed CDROM name at the prompt

FreeNAS will now display the name of the drive FreeNAS is installed on. Make sure this is correct and type Y and press enter.

You may see a couple more warnings about failure to dismount drives. Ignore these errors as FreeNAS is already updating the FreeNAS system on your drive. This only takes a minute.When complete, you will see a similar screen to the image here. As suggested, remove the CDROM and press enter.

Press 7 to return to the main FreeNAS window, then press 7 again to reboot the FreeNAS server.

Once the FreeNAS server completely reboots you will need to note the configured IP address (which will probably be different from what FreeNAS was previously configured for).

Type that IP address into your browser (in my case the IP Address is 192.168.1.250, as show in the image above. If prompted for a login FreeNAS may be set to the factory defaults of login name: admin and password: freenas. In my case, the original password I assigned was intact.

Click Backup/Restore from the FreeNAS menu in your browser.

Using the Browse button select the file you saved during the backup process. Click on Restore configuration.The restore will automatically restart your FreeNAS server.

That’s it. You just backed up, upgraded, and restored your FreeNAS server!

It is important to keep the server up to date as the FreeNAS development team continues to add features, fix bugs and improve performance.

If you have any comments or questions please feel free to share them below!

You can find my FreeNAS posts/Tutorials here:

• FreeNAS – switching back. About my decision to move back to FreeNAS from Windows Home Server.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part One – Installation – installing the FreeNAS server onto a PC. (this post)
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Two – Configuration – configuring FreeNAS and Windows File Sharing.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Three – Upgrading – Upgrading your FreeNAS Server.
• Using Microsoft SyncToy 2 with FreeNAS – Automating your backups – for free.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Five – XBOX 360 – Using FreeNAS with your XBOX 360
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part 6 – Adding another drive

In Part One we installed FreeNAS onto our server. In this section we configure FreeNAS to allow Windows File Sharing and network browsing.

1. Open a browser and type in the IP address of your server (in our example from Part One the IP address was 192.168.1.250. A Logon Dialog will appear:

The login name is “admin” and the password is “freenas”. Enter this and click enter.

2. The main configuration screen appears as below. There are MANY options here – but most users will only need to change a few of them. The first thing we will do is change the default password. On the left hand navigation click “General” under system settings.

3. Click the Password tab.

4. Enter the old password and then the new password in the dialog – the new password is entered twice.

5. Click back to the General Tab.

• Here you can rename your server. The default name is freenas, and that works for me. Feel free to change it. I haven’t played with this so I would stick with a single word with no spaces or odd characters.
• If you are on a domain you can change the default. I’m just on a Workgroup, so I’ll leave this as local.
• For added security you can change the admin name to something else.
• Change the time zone so it reflects your location.
• Click the Enable NTP checkbox to allow the server to update the clock over the Internet.

6. Before configuring anything else we will reboot the server and make sure that we can still login with our new credentials. On the left navigation under system click on Reboot, then click on Yes.

7. The system will only take a minute or so to reboot. Refresh your browser window and type in your new credentials. Next we prepare the shared drive.

8. From the Navigation Menu select Management under Disks. In the screen displayed click the circle with the plus in it to add a new disk.

9. There are three things to change on this page: First, select your hard drive in the “Disk” drop-down. If you had only one drive this should already be selected. Second, let’s save some power and allow the hard drives to power down. I set my hard disk standby time to 20 minutes. Third, set the Advanced Power Management – I set mine to minimum power use with standby. Click the ADD button. Your changes are complete, but not applied. Click the Apply Changes button.

10. Now we need to set the mount point. Under Disks select mount point. Click the circle with the plus in it. On this screen “Disks: Mount Point: Add” we will leave the Type as disk. Then select your drive in Disks the drop down box. Change the Partition drop-down to “2″. Leave the file system as USF. Name the mount point. I’ll call mine data. Enter a description (example – “Backup data”) Click on Add Now click on Apply Changes. Make sure the Status reads “OK”. If it doesn’t delete the mount (circle with the X in it) and go back to the beginning of step 10 and try again.

11. Now we set up sharing. On the Navigation Menu select CIFS/SMB from the Services menu. Click the enable tick-box (highlighted in the image above). Change the NetBiosName if you would like. I call mine “freenas”. (I have a vivid imagination) If you are on a workgroup, enter the name here. My workgroup is “LAGESSE”, so that is what I typed. Now enter a description. Again, I used my imagination and typed in “File Server” Ignore everything else on this page. Scroll to the bottom and click “Save and Restart”.

12. Now on the CIFS/SMB page click the “Shares” tab up top Click the circle/plus to add a share We’ll create a share called Data. Type Data in for the name. Enter a comment (My Data works for me). Click the box with the three dots to the right of Path. In the pop-up click on the folder name (in my case, data). Then click on OK. I turn on the Recycle Bin. Your choice. Click on Add then Apply Changes. Almost done! One more thing to set up.

13. Under Services click on NFS. Click the tick-box For Enable. Click the circle with the plus in it to add an authorized network. In the next screen type in the IP Address of your network. Example – if your server’s IP address is 192.168.1.250 type 192.168.1.1 in here. In any case, just make the first three parts of this the same as your server and make the last part a 1. Click Add Back at the Services: NFS screen click on Save and Restart”.

That’s it! As you can see there are a lot of settings we didn’t mess with. You may want to, or need to change some of these. That is beyond the scope of this simple tutorial.

So let’s go test our new server!

First, the browser test. In your web browser type \\servername and press enter (since I called my server freenas, I type \\freenas\ into my web browser and the following dialog appears:

As you can see – this is a standard Windows Explorer view showing my server and the share I created, Data. There is no printer installed on my server, and I haven’t played with that option, but the printer icon shows as well.

Now I can map a network drive using the UNC of \\freenas\data.

That’s all there is to it. You can go and add additional shares to point to subdirectories in Data – I created folders called Music, Pictures, Movies, Videos, and Users (where I created folders for me and my kids). You can also set up users and groups and limit access to these shares based on the user/group.

There are a ton of features I haven’t even discussed. This tutorial just focused on getting the Windows File Sharing and Browsing set up. The FreeNAS Knowledgebase has a ton of additional information.

You can find my FreeNAS posts/Tutorials here:

• FreeNAS – switching back. About my decision to move back to FreeNAS from Windows Home Server.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part One – Installation – installing the FreeNAS server onto a PC. (this post)
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Two – Configuration – configuring FreeNAS and Windows File Sharing.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Three – Upgrading – Upgrading your FreeNAS Server.
• Using Microsoft SyncToy 2 with FreeNAS – Automating your backups – for free.
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Five – XBOX 360 – Using FreeNAS with your XBOX 360
• FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part 6 – Adding another drive

1. Download the most recent FreeNAS from this page.

2. Burn the ISO image to a CDROM.

3. Put the CDROM in the machine you will use as the file server. (Note – all data on the drive(s) in this machine will be destroyed. Make sure you don’t need any of it before proceeding!)

4. Reboot the computer and boot from the CDROM.

5. Allow the CD to load until you see the splash screen (below).

6. Press Enter

7. Assuming there is no data on the hard drives, select option 9 (Install/Upgrade) from the Console Setup Menu

8. From the install menu, select option #3 (Install ‘full’ release on hard drive)

9. The system will now show you the names of the CDROM drive(s) in your system. Enter in the CDROM name at the prompt (in the image below this is “acd0″.

10. The system will now show you the name(s) of the hard disk(s) in your system. In the example below there is only one drive, named “ad0″. Type the name in at the prompt and press enter.

11. At the prompt for “size of the OS partition” type 64 and press enter.

The system will be installed and a final prompt (below) tells you not to format the data partition. Since we had only one hard drive in the system it was formatted as part of the system installation.

12. Simply press enter and you will return to the Install Menu

13. Press 7 to return to the main menu.

14. Remove the CDROM and press 7 to reboot the system.

15. Once the system is completely rebooted you will see the FreeNAS splash screen- press enter.

16. Note the IP Address assigned to your server. It is displayed on the top of the screen. You will need this IP Address to complete Part Two (Configuration)

17. Congratulations! You have installed FreeNAS! In part two of this series we’ll configure FreeNAS with the Web Interface.

You are now finished with the Installation and everything else is done from a Web Browser on another machine. You can shut off the monitor on the FreeNAS server to save some power. We won’t have to physically touch this machine again.

I’m using FreeNAS again, after a brief 6 month flirtation with Windows Home Server. I’ll go into why I switched back in a future post.

But as much as I like FreeNAS it could be MUCH easier for Windows users to install. FreeNAS should have a separate configuration tab for Windows users that turns on NFS, CIFS/SMB and allows setting up sharing all in one place. And heck yes – make it look like Windows there. Make the Windows user comfortable by giving them a simple interface that does things in a fashion they are accustomed to.

I do realize this is open source, and nobody is getting paid to work on it, and that I should not complain – or at least I should give back to the project. I don’t have the skills to write the code I want, so in exchange for my lack of skills, I’ll offer the following to contribute:

• I will give any Windows User one hour of my time to help them install and configure FreeNAS – no charge.
• First ten users only. If there is more demand then that I’ll just do a training video.
• If you want to take advantage of this offer send me an email (contact info upper left). PLEASE DO NOT just call me – I have a life. Email me and we’ll set up a time, normally on the same day.

And in another upcoming post I’ll show you how to set of SyncToy 2.0 to keep all of your data backed up to FreeNAS, and all of your folders in sync – even across multiple machines. Currently I have four machines that all have the same things on the desktop – change one, they all change.

Total cost of this, beyond the machine to run FreeNAS is zero dollars. Very cool!

FreeNAS is a free NAS (Network-Attached Storage) server, supporting: CIFS (samba), FTP, NFS, AFP, RSYNC, iSCSI protocols, S.M.A.R.T., local user authentication, Software RAID (0,1,5) with a Full WEB configuration interface. FreeNAS takes less than 32MB once installed on Compact Flash, hard drive or USB key. The minimal FreeBSD distribution, Web interface, PHP scripts and documentation are based on M0n0wall.

FreeNAS: The Free NAS Server – About

Update – for convenience I have printed parts 1-3 in PDF format, available here, You’ll need a PDF Viewer. I use Foxit – it is free, and fast. (Sorry for all the typos in the initial post of this part – I was watching the Spurs win against the Denver Nuggets, and posted before I edited. Bummer !) This is part 3 of a multi part post. Part one is here. Part two is here. Part 2.5 is here. OK, I want to get the gunplay out of the way now, since it’s kind of a loss-leader -hey – I warned you of that earlier! Anyway, yes, the cops really found over 70 rounds, and yes, the police were involved. Police and State Trooper, in fact. We pulled off a dirt/gravel road in Idaho, looking to get far enough away from the highway that we wouldn’t get kicked out again by the police. We were dead-tired, and were looking for a place we could camp for an entire day. Two nights in the same place is exactly what we all needed. Time to buy ice, and have a cold beer, and have some fun for a change, instead of arguing and getting pushed around. We road about a mile up the road when we saw a huge windmill towering over a dilapidated RV. NOT a mobile home – but one of those little rounded silver travel trailers that were popular back in the 60′s and 70′s. There was the skinniest man I had ever seen sitting in the middle of the “yard” on a folding steel chair. He had a tall boy in his hand, and a dog lying in the shadow his chair caused. When we pulled up he smiled a huge smile, which was proof enough that he had no teeth, or he had left them inside the trailer. He was so tanned that I could not tell at first if he was white, black, Indian, Hispanic, or just dirty. Tiny (who somehow had appointed himself as the Alpha-Biker) was first to turn his bike off, dismount and approach the man. The man was still smiling ear to ear. In the back of my mind I heard banjo music (Deliverance popped into my mind). Tiny and another guy talked to the old man for a few minutes and Tiny came back to us and explained that the old man would let us camp in his “yard” for a couple days in exchange for some bottled water, and a half-dozen Tall Boy’s each day. It seemed like a good deal. As some of us started making our camp, a few others rode back to town to get beer, ice, water, and food. They were going to get some kind of meat we could cook over a campfire. While they were gone, the rest of us put up a circle of pup tents around the spot that would become our campfire – our city center. We were about 200 feet from the trailer, and about 50 feet from where the old guy sat. He didn’t move for the hour or so we spent pitching tents and building a fire pit. We dug a separate hole a dozen feet away or so for the ice, and beer. As we were finally getting comfortable the other guys came back – completely overburdened with supplies. They had bags of ice, a couple dozen bottles of water, and at least six cases of beer. They had stuff tied all over their bikes. They had a bottle of Wild Turkey. That would be a problem later. As we were unloading we finally found a huge slab of butcher-paper wrapped meat. The guys score about 25 pounds of fresh venison steaks – more than enough for all of us. We paid our “rent” to the old man, who sat the ice and water on the ground next to him, downed a Tall Boy in one or two sips, and opened another – in about a minute. We were icing down our beer and gathering firewood – it would be dark in an hour. Someone asked the old man if he had a frying pan (we didn’t) and explained we wanted to cook some food. He walked into an old shed and came out with an old grill screen. We stacked rocks up and balanced the screen. We had a wonderful fire going, and the beer was getting nice and cold. We were relaxing for the first time in days, and the guys all started to laugh and tell jokes – the first in days. The entire time the old man had not moved, except to get the grill screen, and to open another 2 or 3 Tall Boys. When the venison was unwrapped, the old man stood up, and walked closer. We hadn’t even started cooking it yet when he asked what we were eating with it. We didn’t have anything else, and told him that. He said, “taters”, and headed off to the trailer. He came back in about ten minutes with two dozen huge potatoes and a roll of aluminum foil. He pulled a nasty looking pocket knife out of his back pocket, poked a bunch of holes in the potatoes and proceeded to wrap them in foil – with a funnel on the top of them. He motioned to us more than he talked (I assume because with no teeth, he had trouble talking). But he got his point across – he wanted a few beers, and he was pointing at the potatoes. He placed the potatoes on the outer ring of the fire pit and proceeded to open beers and pour them into each funnel until the potatoes were swimming in beer. He motioned for more wood on the fire, and we obliged. The old man walked over to the venison, and opened it, looking at it, and then at us. Finally (it is VERY dark at this point) he asked if we had enough food. With the potatoes we had more than enough. He pointed at the trailer and asked, Share? Of course we would feed the old man, so we agreed. Moving more quickly than we had ever seen – he damn near skipped across the yard to the trailer, disappearing in the darkness. In just seconds he returned – but he wasn’t alone. He had a woman and three 6-10 year old kids with him. All of them were as dark and/or dirty as the old man. The woman was extremely shy, and kept her distance. The kids were immediately drinking the bottled water, and whispering off to the side. This lasted for what seemed like a long time – we were all talking to each other, the old man and the woman were talking, and the kids were sitting at the fringes of the fire, whispering quietly among themselves – like a pack of wolves, kind of. It was a pretty surreal scene, but none of it bothered us much – we were drinking beer, and more importantly, relaxing for the first time in days. Finally the old man stands up, pops his knife open again, and stabs it into a potato. Meat now, he said. Someone got the venison steaks and started to unwrap them when the man and woman seemed to get into a small argument. Finally the woman heads off to the trailer, returning just a moment later. She had a tin of salt, and some kind of spice mix. The old man indicated that she would cook. She didn’t seem upset by it at all – and since she had the spices, we were happy to oblige. She placed the steaks on the ground (on the butcher paper) and sprinkled salt and spices on each side. Then she reaches in her pocket and takes out her own knife – and starts making shallow slices, cross-pattern, into the steaks. As she does this, she rubs the spices into the slices. She does this for both sides of the steaks – all but one of the steaks. One steak she leaves untouched by salt, or spice, or the impressively sharp knife. She quickly rolls out enough tin-foil and covers the grill grate, then doubles up on it. Without any notice of the heat of the fire she also pokes several holes in the foil. She did all of this without much motion at all – she has done this before. Finally she places all the steaks, save the unseasoned one, on the grill. Then she grabs another beer, and slowly pours it onto the steaks – from a height of about two feet. The beer hits the steaks, and foams up. The smell is amazing, and instant. I have no idea what the spices were, or if it was just the fact that I was relaxed and hungry, but it is a smell I will never forget. The overwhelming smell of pepper, and other spices, and of beer boiling. The smell of the meat starting to boil a bit in the froth. It was amazing. Now for a short side note – to this day I make baked potatoes on the grill in the same fashion as the old man. Everyone who tastes them loves them. I call them “Beer boiled baked potatoes”. You can vary the taste a lot by changing the beer you use. I also season and prepare my steaks in the same way as the woman (although I don’t know what spices she used). But whatever spices I choose, I make the shallow cuts, and work the spices in. I pour the beer on the steaks from a sufficient height that it foams up (otherwise most of it just runs off). Even a very good cook friend of mine admits I make the best steaks he ever ate. Try it. Back to the story. The steaks cook, and the beer burns off. As soon as the first steaks are taken off the fire the lady puts the last steak in their place. No spices. No beer. This one is being cooked as is. All of this took at least an hour – maybe more. The potatoes themselves probably cooked an hour before the steaks went on. As the lady took each steak off she wrapped it in foil, and threw it back onto the edge of the fire, on top of the potatoes. Finally the naked steak was done, and she nodded to the old man, who told us to eat. We ate the steaks using the foil as a wrapper, and we did the same with the baked potatoes. We were so intent on finally eating that I almost didn’t notice the woman cutting the naked steak in half, and then cutting one half in thirds. Each kid got a third of the half, and a potato. The other half disappeared into the trailer with the woman – who emerged again a minute later and rejoined us, eating her seasoned steak, and her potato. She never took a sip of beer, or indicated an interest in the beer, other than for cooking. The food, the experience, the relaxation – it was amazing. It was honestly one of the most memorable meals I have ever eaten. As we finished eating we also re-stoked the fire, got fresh beers, and invited this somewhat odd family to move closer to the fire. It was getting just a bit chilly, but nothing we couldn’t tolerate. The old man finally started to smile again, and laugh. He slapped his knee and yelled, “Music”, which caused all three children to run into the trailer. They returned moments later with a beat up six string guitar with four strings on it, a four string banjo, and something I had never seen before, or since. It looked like a small drum, but it had three strings across it – like a banjo or guitar. It had no neck, or frets, or anything. It was a drum with strings. The taller of the boys kept the banjo he had retrieved, the old man got the guitar, and the woman kept the “banjo-drum” for lack of a real name for it. Now I was really thinking Deliverance, but the young boy started to play first, barely touching the strings. In the still of the night the sound was amazing. He played slowly, and with purpose. He never looked at his hands – he looked at each of us, eye to eye, one by one. Though no smile was apparent on his face, his eyes were laughing. Although the pace started soft and slow it quickly accelerated into a fast moving powerful piece of music that I had never heard. Suddenly the old man chimed in with the guitar and the “banjo-drum” kicked in. It took about 15 seconds to realize they were now playing This Land is Your Land but to a much quicker beat – much more energy. They played 8-10 songs, never singing, just playing. The banjo-drum was played with one hand on the strings and on hand patting the drum. She held the device between her knees, and her eyes never opened while she played. At some point during this, someone opened the bottle of Wild Turkey, and it was being passed around. We did not have cups. Everyone was drinking from the bottle. Although the woman had not touched the beer (except for cooking) she DID drink the Wild Turkey. A LOT of it. Most of us were still drinking beer, so she ended up keeping the bottle most of the time – somehow managing to drink when she had a free hand to not play. Suddenly they began playing Oh Danny Boy, which I had never heard played on a guitar, much less a guitar, banjo and “banjo-drum”. One of the Doctors with us, a surgeon who was a bastard in the Operating Room, suddenly began to sing. In an amazing voice. A voice that seemed to make nature quiet down, and listen. The instruments played on, but they were very soft now. The singing was amazing, even considering that we had all had enough to drink that we could feel it. I had no clue this man could sing. And he damned near brought tears to your eyes. To this day, this is the best rendition of “Oh Danny Boy” I have ever heard – never before or since have I heard so much honest emotion put into the song. I was not the only one moved by it – the old man had tears in his eyes, and the woman had tears on her cheeks. I was looking away from the fire to hide my own tears, but I am pretty sure others in our group were tearing up as well. As the song ended, Tiny asked for them to play an Elvis tune (Hound Dog, I think it was). This big guy stood up and moved as much like Elvis as his body would let him. He sang well. It wasn’t the moving performance of Oh Danny Boy – it was fast, and loud, and his singing was just as fast, and just as loud. We all enjoyed it immensely. Somehow we started karaoke by the fire. Three or four of the guys could sing fairly well. I couldn’t, and didn’t. But I enjoyed watching them, and listening to them, and seeing everyone finally having fun. At some point the lady gave the banjo-drum to one of the other children, and she disappeared into the trailer. The bottle of Wild Turkey, half-empty, went with her. We talked, told stories, sang some more, and drank beer until we were out of music, out of lies, and out of beer. It must have been well past 2am when I finally fell asleep. Some of the guys were still up, which was fine. Tomorrow was an “off day”. I remember thinking as I was drifting off that it would be nice to be able to do this again tomorrow night. I woke up with a start – not knowing where I was, or what woke me. Then I heard it again. It was a gunshot, and it wasn’t far off. I wasn’t the only one that woke – most of us did. I rolled behind the row of bikes while I tried to clear the sleep (and booze) from my head. I needed to know what was happening. Boom! Another shot. This time I heard something hit the shed about 50 feet from us. Boom! Boom! Boom! These were rifle shots. They all seemed to be aimed at the shed, so the fire wasn’t directed at us. Still, we each crawled to our bikes, withdrew our firearms if we had them, and loaded up. I was behind a small swell in the yard – at the farthest point between our bikes and the shed. Boom! A window in the shed shattered. Then a HUGE boom – and flame of fire from the shed window. Someone just fired a shotgun from the shed. I was safe from shots being fired at the shed – but not from shots coming from the shed! One of us panicked (it wasn’t me – I hadn’t fired) and shot a few wild rounds into the darkness, in the direction of the initial shots. Boom! The rifle adjusts closer to the bikes. We still don’t really know where it is coming from, or what is happening. This is exactly what they mean by ‘the fog of war’. We had three shooters at this point. One we knew was with us. We had no idea who the other two were. The rifle shot didn’t come close to us, but there was no doubt it was closer to us than to the shed. Someone must have calmed “our” shooter down – we didn’t shoot again for almost 20 minutes – although there were occasional shots fired to and from the shed. Now there are a lot of things we might have done differently – get on the bikes? Not really an option. Starting them would not be unnoticed. Running? Where? We didn’t really know what was 50 feet away from us. We stayed behind the bikes, and me behind my little hill. Dawn was approaching, slowly. We could see it was coming though. I wasn’t feeling very good about that because a dozen pistols are no match for a single rifle – not at range. Boom! The rifle fires again. Suddenly we hear another shot – from a different direction – almost behind us, but more to the right rear. Not a rifle. Confusion, and some panic is now kicking in. About half of us are Military – but we are Military Medicine – Doctors and such. We are not trained for combat. Someone in our group fires a lot of shots quickly – in the general direction of whatever was behind us. Enough shots that I am sure they pulled the trigger until they had no more bullets. Boom! The rifle, again trained to us, goes off. BOOM goes the shotgun from the shed. Bang, Bang, Bang, go shots from whatever is behind us. Suddenly everyone in our group with a weapon is shooting somewhere – at the shed, towards the shotgun, or at whatever is behind us. It is absolutely insane as round after round are fired in a very short amount of time. You can smell the gunshots in the air. The sheer magnitude of the volley seems to shock everyone – there are no more shots for minutes – at least three, maybe as many as ten. Maybe someone killed someone, I think. Bullets were flying blindly in every direction. We hear one more rifle shot, which didn’t seem aimed at us, or the shed. It seemed to be aimed in yet another direction. People were scrambling to reload – trying to get shells out of saddle bags, trying to scrape a deeper hole. It was surreal. It was also dawn. We could see a few hundred yard now. We couldn’t see anything interesting, yet, but we could see more. Just about this time a huge cloud of dust rises in the distance, and sirens can be heard. The Calvary is coming! Now just to set the stage here – a ton of ammo was just used from at least four firing positions. With the exception of the initial rifle and shotgun shots, 80% of these shots came from where we were (it seemed to me at the time). Some were aimed behind us, but most back towards the rifle shooter. Nothing from us was aimed directly (or effectively) at the shed (which is good, because it’s the only thing our pistols could have reached). Finally we hear a voice over a PA system telling everyone to”drop your weapons and come out with your hands up”. None of us moved. First, we had no idea which way to go – certainly not to the shed, or toward the rifle. Behind us seemed like a bad option as well. We were all scared shitless – we woke up and didn’t even have time to take a proper piss yet. Disoriented would be an understatement. Finally we hear the voice again, this time announcing that they are police, and that, “God-dammit, Jerry, this isn’t funny anymore – we got your ma”. None of us move, but the shed door opens. The old man walks out, without a shotgun, and walks straight out towards the street (which we can’t see). He never says a word. He just walks out of our line of sight. It’s quiet for another minute or two, then the PA comes back on: “OK, you biker boys – I want you to come out one at a time, and walk over here to the street. No weapons, hands in the air”. After a brief and frantic discussion Tiny’s brother says he’ll go first. He had not had a weapon. He slowly walks out of site, then shortly he comes on the PA and says, “OK, guys, come on out – leave your guns where they are – it’s ok”. We all walk out – with our hands up – even though that command hadn’t been given this time. When we got around the corner to the street we saw four police cars. Three were some kind of local cop, and the fourth was a state trooper. They all had weapons drawn, but Tiny’s brother was standing with his hands on a car, and not in cuffs. It looked pretty safe. The old man was not immediately in sight. As we got close, we could see he was handcuffed and in a car. And he wasn’t alone. There was an even older woman (who we had never seen) in the car with him. OK – jump ahead about 9 hours. I’ll give you the short story of what we learned, and what happened to us in that time. The exciting part was above; it’s not in the details So here’s what happened that night. We all were pretty buzzed, but I don’t think any of us were really drunk. I certainly wasn’t. I went to sleep first, and woke up first. I fired one shot (but do not remember doing it). Everyone else emptied their weapons at least once. It was chaotic – when you think you are being attacked from three sides, you return covering fire. What we didn’t know was that the old man wasn’t that old – he was in his early 40′s (I am 45 now, and don’t feel old). The woman was his wife – although she looked like his daughter (but not attractive). The kids were theirs. The other person in the car was the “old” guy’s mother. And she was fucking crazy. And very drunk. She drank the rest of the Wild Turkey (about half the bottle). She had the other half of the steak. She was a mean damn drunk. She had shot the place up before – many times. The “old man” slept in the shed I guess – either because he was drunk, or he wanted to get away from the women. When the crazy old lady got drunk, she took a rifle and for whatever reason (“They do this all the time – to damned often” – according to the State Trooper) she decided to start shooting at her son in the shed. It was dark, and she was a long way away, and drunk. Lucky she didn’t get a lucky shot and kill someone). She shot at the shed, and the “old man” blindly shot back with his shotgun. We weren’t involved until one of our guys suddenly freaked and emptied his weapon. We were never sure who it was (it was dark, we were scared, and nobody ever admitted to it). The gunshots from behind us was a local cop. He didn’t even know we were there. He was on the other side of a hill from us – just shooting to get these crazy jackass’s attention. But he DID realize something was different this time when he suddenly heard a half dozen weapons firing at the same time – some shot seemingly in his direction. He ‘called 911′. Every available cop showed up. Somehow they caught the old lady. The “old man” gave himself up. We “surrendered”. We took a ride to the local town, which didn’t have a local jail. The local cops wanted to handcuff us – the Trooper wouldn’t let them. The local cops wanted to transport us to a jail. The Trooper wouldn’t let them. The local cops wanted to charge us with “Å“reckless discharge of a firearm”. The Trooper wouldn’t let them. The Trooper was NOT a friend of the local cops. It was very clear though that he was our friend. At least the best friend we had in that town. All of our ID’s were pulled. While we were “in custody” all of our bikes were searched. All of our weapons were confiscated – even knives from the bags on our bikes. None of us came up with a record, except Tiny – for possession some ten years earlier. He paid his fine/did his time (whichever) for that and it wasn’t a big deal. One of the guns came back registered to someone else. That was eventually cleared up. In the end the police collected over 70 rounds of spent ammunition. They could attribute about 20 of it to our group (which seems right – most of our guys had revolvers). We were probably responsible for more. Who knows? This is “pre-CSI” days. I the end, we received citations ranging from failure to obey a law enforcement officer (dismissed via mail) to improperly registered firearm (I think he was fined for it). We also did not spend our second night as we had planned. The Trooper made a deal with the local cops – we would sign over our guns (and knives) and leave the county that day. So that’s about the whole story. One cop kinda shot at us. Some of us definitely shot back at him. I fired a shot that I do not remember firing (the scariest part of this story as far as I am concerned). A window was broken. As far as I know that is all the damage that was done. I have no idea what happened to the crazy old lady, but apparently the cops had been out to this trailer many times for gunfire. Odd that such a wonderfully gifted (musically) family was so screwed up. We learned they had no income. They were squatting on the property. The kids were supposedly “home-schooled”. They had no power and no water. We chipped in over $200 to the Trooper for the family. He and a local cop “escorted” us out of the county. We were all equally happy that we were gone. In part four, in a couple days, we’ll finally meet our trucker friend. And we’ll find out why biker’s shouldn’t use the showers at a truck stop. And why we really wish we still had our guns. But I am glad we didn’t. This time, someone might really have gotten hurt. People in my own group wanted to chase this guy down and beat the shit out of him. I was really starting to wonder what I had gotten into.