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How-to map network drives based on network location

This has been driving me crazy and I cannot figure out how to do it. Here is my problem:
I have a work laptop that I obviously use at work as well as at home. At work I have 6 network drives that are mapped automatically if I log into my computer while at work. At home I have a Windows Home Server with 5 shares that I wrote a batch script to connect to them when I get home. The WHS Connector also adds a shortcut to the shares on my desktop but I want the shares mapped so I can use them as local drives in programs. I also had to write 3 more scripts (1 to disconnect my work drives, 1 to connect my work drives, and 1 to disconnect my home drives) in case I go between work and home without fully turning off my computer and instead just putting it to sleep. I am fairly certain this problem can be fixed with AutoIT or some other tool but I am just surprised this sort of functionality isn’t built into ANY operating system. My laptop has Vista and Linux Mint on it but I know this functionality isn’t in OSX either.
Is there anyone out there that can can suggest something to accomplish this? All I want is something that monitors what network I am connected to, and if that network happens to be home or work, map the appropriate drives. I am going to work on this in AutoIT but I am open to suggestions if you have any.
As soon as I find more information or someone points me to a solution I will update this post with how it works.
Leave your idea’s in the comments.

Google Voice

Grand Central was purchase by Google and is Google Voice now. I am not going into what the service can do for you (that is what Google is for), but the cool thing is my account was eligible for a upgrade today so I click the “upgrade” button to see what was new.
Not a whole lot was new but I did get a chance to test out the transcriber on my voice mail. It was actually fun because just after I left myself a voice mail I got a text message with the transcribed voice mail as well as a email to a link to a mp3 to play the voice mail. Lets just say they need to work on it a little bit. Here is the message I left for myself.

Oh, I wonder if this works. Test, test, oompa loompa, supercalafragilisticexpealadocious, Shaun.

Here is the text I got:

all the i wonder if it’s a work test test hello michael super callus i just got a delicious john

On the plus side, it actually makes voice messages more fun! I mean who wouldn’t want to get a voice mail when it contains hilariously translated messages from your friends.
I tried this with one more voice mail but sadly I just got a error that said “Transcript not available”. I am not sure why, but I could not find a way to make it force a transcript which is disappointing.
Let me know if you have been able to use Google Voice in the comments. If I ever get invites I can send one your way if you ask for it.

How-To Create a UBUD

I just made that up. UBCD is a great tool for tracking down hardware and software problems with non-Apple computers. To be honest I am not sure if it works on Apple computers but I assume most of the tools would not work even if it boots on the hardware. UBUD is my abbreviation for UBCD on a USB Disk (a.k.a. thumb/pen/flash drive).
I ran into a problem on my last road trip fixing someones computer and I was without any CD’s to burn UBCD to. So I ran across these instructions at pendrivelinux.com and they worked perfectly for turning my USB drive into a bootable UBUD.

USB Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) prerequisites:

* ubcdfix2 (does the USB conversion) <--I found that this file doesn't download so you can get it from the link above
* UBCD ISO
* USB flash drive (fat32 formatted) Sorry there is no download link for this.
* A windows host PC to perform the build

UBUD How-To:

1. Download and launch UBCDfix2.exe, a UBCD folder is created
2. Download the UBCD ISO and move to your UBCD folder
3. From the UBCD folder, click fixubcd2.bat and follow the onscreen instructions. I ran into one problem where it said I needed to run the program again because I was using Vista but really I didn’t have to. So if it gives an error in Vista go ahead and try rebooting anyway.
4. Reboot and set your computer to Boot from the USB device

I hope this helps with any problems you may run into when you find yourself without a blank CD.
Let me know in the comments if there are any other tools that you always keep with you on the road for fixing those random computer problems.
Also, has anyone tried UBCD4Win? It seems like it could be interesting for Windows specific (a.k.a. virus/spyware) problems.

Windows Home Server install error

It was driving me crazy all day yesterday to have an error on the HP MediaSmart server I was trying to set up. The error I was getting was:

“The operation cannot be completed at this time.
Please try again later. If the problem persists, please contact Product Support”

In case you are wondering the support link they give you is worthless.
I still haven’t figured out the exact place the error was coming from but I know 100% now that is was something from my works domain policies stupid network. As soon as I tried setting up the server from a machine not on my work domain the installation happened without a hitch.
Unfortunately, I figured that out after already being on hold with HP. Either way it is working now and doing updates as I type this.
If you run into the same problem you may want to try un-joining a domain. And if you find which policy is causing this error please leave a note in the comments.

*Edit* 2009-04-16 I actually found that this was probably something to do with DNS not working on my work network. I also had some problems at home and realized I couldn’t ping the hostname of the machine. I added a entry on my Windows Vista machine to the hosts file found at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc. Once I had that entry in place I had a lot less problems connecting the software. It is just annoying that my DNS seems so screwed up.

*Edit* 2009-05-28 This was confirmed again when I was reading a review of the new LX195. Turns out they had a problem too and it was because they were using OpenDNS. I am also using OpenDNS at home so I would say this problem is confirmed and solved. To get this to work simply edit your etc file as I did above, or switch to your ISP’s DNS servers.