Um... has this been a problem??

I just got myself a new toy that I have had on my "buy when I have an income" list for ages now--a NAS (network attached storage) box. After extensive research (well, actually, just checking out what got top ratings at various online reviews), I went with a Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro™--I got the 500 GB gigabit ethernet model for $280 at Amazon. Man... Moore's law kicks some serious ass.

Anyway, as I unpacked it, a photocopied warning card was in the documentation:


Um... has this been a problem they've been experiencing regularly? Oy...

Anyway, it seems to totally work, right out of the box. I'm always amazed when stuff like this happens with computer equipment. It's pretty quiet--it's sitting in the living room shelf; it makes a bit more noise when the drive is being accessed, but not much. Also, I've run SyncToy from all three of my machines, to back up and synchronize files to the latest versions--it seems pretty damn slick (another case of, "Wow... crap... it worked!")

However, I had to solve some network problems before connecting my new laptop to the NAS. It could see the internet and shared iTunes folders, but not shared files on other Windows machines. It turns out that Norton Internet Security (firewall) was the culprit, in case this fact is useful to anyone else Googling for these problems (keywords: Windows XP, workgroup, file sharing, firewall, Norton, broken-ass). This took several iterations and much annoyance to figure out. Man... I really hate "I'm-going-to-be-smarter-than-you-nyaa-nyaa"-ware.