Entries tagged with windows home server - Channel 10

MediaSmart Server Now Only $369

sarahintampa — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:45:00 GMT

Looking for a good deal on a Windows Home Server? Ed Bott just found one for you. It looks like HP is selling the EX470 Windows Home Server for $399, a great price. I have to admit, this is a really tempting deal. (Too bad I just spent that same amount on a new netbook!) The MediaSmart is probably the home server I would get for myself if only for the Easter Egg involving the colored lights on its front. With an easy hack, you can unlock seven different light schemes including a multi-colored one called “Holiday Lights,” which is perfect for this time of year, now that I think about it.

[Update: Here is where you can get a EX470 for $369.99. - Thanks Charlie!]

Windows Home Server Now Under $100

sarahintampa — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:01:00 GMT

According to the Windows Home Server team blog, the price of the System Builder SKU for Windows Home Server has now been lowered. This reduction means that the current retail price for WHS is now more affordable than ever. In fact, we’re seeing it appear on NewEgg for only $99! According to the team blog post, this decision was based on the user feedback they received in the Windows Home Server Community Forums, where consumers provided input on what they thought would be a better price for the WHS OS.

The System Builder SKU for WHS is a great version of the OS for do-it-yourselfers who want to pick out their own hardware and build their own devices.

A WHS box gives you the power of of Windows Server but with all the functions you would need in a home environment. On the WHS platform you can centralize your home network’s frequently accessed data like photos, videos, and music, while also backing up your multiple machines. The data stored on a WHS can also be accessed outside the network, thanks to the built-in web server functionality that lets you access your files from a web interface.

If you’ve been thinking about installing WHS on one of your home machines, now is a great time to buy.

Windows Home Server + Live Mesh @ PDC2008

Nic — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:30:00 GMT

The Windows Home Server team were at PDC2008 presenting sessions on developing WHS applications and services which are now available for on-demand viewing over at Channel 9.

We sat down with Mark Pendergrast, Brendan Grant and Doug Berrett to chat about their PDC sessions and how Live Mesh is being integrated with Windows Home Server including a prototype demo of WebGuide running as a Silverlight application from the Live Mesh desktop.

Session links: Exposing Connected Home Services to the Internet via Windows Home Server (ES12) & Developing Connected Home Applications and Services for Windows Home Server (ES11)

Windows Home Server

lorigros — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:57:00 GMT

Auf der Photokina habe ich mit Marc Oldenburg über Windows Home Server geredet. Der Windows Home Server verbindet PCs, Player und Speichermedien innerhalb eines Hauses miteinander auf einfache Art und Weise. Er bietet einen zuverlässigen Weg Daten zu speichern, auf Daten zu zugreifen oder anzubieten und auch automatisch zu sichern. Der Windows Home Server macht es einfach Fotos, Dokumente und Daten an einer zentralen Stelle zu organisieren. Marc erzählt mehr über Windows Home Server in diesem Video.

Weitere Information rund um Windows Home Server findet Ihr hier…

www.microsoft.com/germany/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx

Oder über den „Stay-At-Home-Server“ hier…

www.stayathomeserver.com

The New Tranquil PC Home Server Revealed

sarahintampa — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:28:00 GMT

Tranquil PC has just announced their newest Windows Home Server, the SQA-5H, or - for more fun – the “SQUASH” Server. The new server offers 5 “tool less” HDD drives, but the SQA-EX slave expansion unit provides five additional drive bays connected with a single cable expansion unit for potential storage up to 10TB. A one-touch backup button on the device lets you do a quick backup to a removable HDD from the server itself. Another button (the “mode” button) allows you to see the storage capacity of your drives at a glance by using an LED light display on the front panel.

The SQUASH server also offers near-silent operation thanks to its fanless CPU cooling system. A 1.66 GHz Intel Atom 330 Dual Core CPU keeps the power consumption low which saves you money while conserving energy.

There are two different variations on this server – the SQA-5H-1000 and the SQA-5H-2000. The 1000 is the entry-level unit featuring 1 GB RAM and a 500 GB HDD. The 200 has 2 GB of RAM and a 1 TB HDD. Because Tranquil is a UK-based shop, prices are in pounds, not dollars. The 1000 unit is £399.00 and the 2000 unit is £499.00.

The server comes in both black and white and is available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Units will begin shipping on November 6th.

My Movies Plugin, Now For Home Server

sarahintampa — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:57:00 GMT

The upcoming My Movies plugin for Windows Home Server has a lot of people excited. Already available for Windows Media Center users, the plugin will soon allow Home Server users to organize their extensive movie collections and use their Home Server as more of a media server. According to a new post on the We Got Served blog, the plugin will function as a standard server for My Movies clients, will include an automated “Disc Copier,” will automatically monitor movie folders added to or located on a WHS share, and will function as a metadata provider without the need for a My Movies client for Microsoft DVD library, Niveus Movie Library, Open Media Library, Media Portal, and hopefully soon XBMC. The plugin isn’t available in its final form just yet, but if you just can’t wait to try it out, a pre-release version is now available for download from here.

Add-In Cleanup For Windows Home Server

sarahintampa — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:17:00 GMT

If you have a Windows Home Server then you’ve probably been having fun trying out the numerous add-ins that have been made available for WHS users. These add-ins let you do all kinds of things from running Outlook to syncing your TV shows from Media Center to listening to the radio and so much more. But what if you’ve been having a little too much fun and have overloaded your server with add-ins? Or, even worse, what if you installed an add-in that wasn’t quite ready for prime time and now it won’t uninstall? Well now there’s an add-in for that!

The Add-In Cleanup Tool helps you clean and uninstall up whichever add-ins you need to get rid of. It will even remove them from the registry, too, after first doing a backup. The tool is installed via Remote Desktop by connecting to your WHS and putting the file ‘addincleanup.exe’ into the C:\Program Files\Windows Home Server folder. You can then choose to add the shortcut to your desktop, if desired. The tool is a free download available from here (zip file). (via We Got Served)

TV Manager for Windows Home Server Now Out of Beta

sarahintampa — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:56:00 GMT

In July, we told you about a new plugin for Windows Home Server called TV Manager. This plugin lets you copy your recordings from a Vista Media Center PC or XP Media Center 2005 over to your Home Server for storage and management. At the time we originally wrote about it, the plugin was still in beta. But now, the first version of the plugin has been officially released: TV Manager 1.0. With TV Manager, you can view your recordings stored on your WHS in Media Center as if they physically resided on your PC. Recordings can also be deleted from either the WHS Console or Media Center.

Since the beta, several fixes and additions have been added to the software, including the following, listed below.

Fixes:

TV Manager Service setting permissions.
Compatibility with limited user accounts.
Launch recordings straight from the Windows Home Server Console.
Changed how recordings were moved (to fix ghost file issue) but lost the ability to monitor progress percentage.

New Additions:

Added Media Center Extender compatibility.
TV Manager Add-In interface redone.
Experimental ComSkip feature (disabled by default)
Regenerate the Xml in case of cache corruption without tester.exe.

If you’ve been waiting for the final version before trying out this software on your WHS, you don’t have to wait any more: you can download TV Manager 1.0 from here and the documentation from here.

Windows Home Server - First Look at New Reference Hardware

Larry — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:28:00 GMT

Charles Torre and I paid a visit to the Windows Home Server team to get the latest on what's up with the SDK they released, what it means to consumers, what Add-In's they're playing with now, and what we can expect from the team down the road. (Check out Charles' video on Channel 9 here)

While I was there, they pulled out some new hardware for Windows Home Server. The first (at 11:00 in) is the Epson Endeavor, based on an Atom CPU (low power, very quiet) using 2.5" laptop hard drives. Next is reference hardware from VIA (at 14:30 in the video) called the Artigo, based on a Pico-ITX motherboard. This one is extremely small sizing up smaller than a Western Digital My Book external hard drive. This one is without a doubt going to be my replacement Home Server.

Related links: WeGotServed (Home Server Add-In's), Windows Home Server Team Blog, Home Server Community Forums.

WHS Outlook Beta

sarahintampa — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:48:00 GMT

Mike Craven has been working on a way to put Outlook on your Windows Home Server through the creation of a WHS add-in. The WHS Outlook Beta add-in will let you use Outlook right from the Windows Home Server Console to check your email, switch between Outlook profiles on-the-fly, access all of your RSS Feeds, create new tasks or appointments, and more. You will get all the power of Outlook right through the WHS Console application. The add-in will require that you use Outlook 2002 or newer and you’ll be able to customize where your PST file is stored – either on the system partition or on the network shares. This add-in has not been released yet but a working beta should be available soon. If you’re interested in testing the beta, visit this thread on the WGS Forums and let Mike know of your interest. Active beta testers will receive a copy of the add-in at no charge when the beta period is over, but for everyone else the software will sell for $29.95 (U.S.) when ready. (Thanks to We Got Served for the tip!)

My Movies Media Center Plugin

sarahintampa — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:51:00 GMT

WeGotServed has the scoop on another new plugin for Media Center - and it’s one of the more useful ones we’ve seen, too. This plugin, called My Movies, adds an extra tab to the “TV+Movies” button in Media Center and shows a list of all the ripped movies stored on your Windows Home Server, including cover art, cast and crew info, and even a link to a trailer. Of course, we can't condone ripping DVD's, but there is plenty of info on the subject.

With My Movies you are able to index your movies, browse them, stream them for viewing, share your movie database with multiple clients, and configure each client with its own parental control limitations. You can download the MyMovies plugin from here.

Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 RTM

Nic — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:51:00 GMT

Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 has been released to manufacuring and is available NOW for your downloading pleasure via the Microsoft Download Center.

Power Pack 1 includes a bunch of new features, enhancements and bug fixes:
- Support for Windows Vista 64 bit
- Home Server Shared Folder backup
- Improved remote access experience
- Improvements to power consumption and performance
- Localization support for Japan and China
- Data corruption bug fixes

More info here & here. Get the bits here

TV Manager Beta for WHS

sarahintampa — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 05:42:00 GMT

There’s a new plugin for Windows Home Server users called TV Manager which copies your recordings from a Vista Media Center PC over to your Windows Home Server for storage and management. The plugin, still in beta, actually has 2 parts to it – one part for the WHS and one for Media Center. After the plugin copies the recording to the WHS, the original is removed from the Vista PC, freeing up valuable disk space on your machine. However, the plugin allows you to still watch the recordings just like you would normally watch “Recorded TV” in Media Center. The part of this program that runs on the Home Server displays a console for managing the recordings and deleting the ones you don’t want to keep. This plugin was created by Brent Friedman of We Got Served, where you can read in more detail about the features, requirements, and updates in the latest version of this beta software. (Image courtesy of WGS)

Windows Home Server PP1 RC available to the public.

EnglishBloke — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:08:00 GMT

Microsoft have released a publically downloadable RC of PowerPack 1 for Windows Home Server.

You can grab it right now from the link at the end of this blog post.

Windows Power Pack one is stuffed full of cool features and enhancements heavily influenced by community requests and feedback.

PowerPack 1 also fixes the 'corruption bug' in Windows Home Server which affected a small set of Windows Home Server users saving to Windows Home Servers with multiple drive configurations.

This public release candidate follows the Windows Home Server teams die hard approach to taking customer feedback very seriously and the team looks forward to any and all feedback from the community regarding this release candidate.

Amongst the features included in the release are:

The ability to run Home Server Connector on x64 Vista.
Backup of the home server Shared Folders.
Remote Access improvements.
Improved Power Consumption.
Support for Chinese and Japanese Languages.

I personally have been running PP1 for a while now and I can honestly say I love it. I have had basically no issues at all. I've never experienced the corruption bug with PP1 and I run 12 drives on my WHS and save from many applications directly onto the shares. Performance has also never been better. I saw a nice CPU drop on my WHS with PP1 and haven't seen any errors in my event log for a long time :)

I think the WHS Team should be very proud of this release. It very much follows the quality of the original product. I think we've got some amazing things still to come from this team, and if the quality of PP1 is anything to go by, I think we're all going to be very happy.

Download WHS PowerPack 1 Release Candidate from Microsoft Connect

Read more details on the Windows Home Server Team Blog

Home Server Toaster Mod

sarahintampa — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:25:00 GMT

Yes, a toaster mod. A Windows Home Server modder by the name of Edgar Voorbraak sent in photos to the Home Server Hacks blog showing off his WHS build that is enclosed in an old toaster casing. He even used some of the toaster buttons to operate the computer - for example, the toaster time knob controls the fan's speed and the emergency stop button is the power button. The toaster server is green, too - it only draws 55W at full load. Inside it contains 4 HDDs totaling 4TB, 1 GB RAM, and VIA C7 1.5 Ghz processor. You can see more photos of the toaster server on the HSH blog post here. For more cool mods, check out the site's DIY gallery where you can submit your own photos too.

ShareMaster Gadget for WHS

sarahintampa — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:45:00 GMT

The Home Server Hacks blog has just announced a new Windows Vista Sidebar gadget just for Windows Home Server users. This gadget, called "ShareMaster for Home Server," gives you quick access to the Windows Home Server's standard shared folders (Music, Photos, Public, Software, Users and Videos). The gadget has six icons on it that correspond to those six shared folders on the server. Clicking an icon on the gadget will open up that network shared folder. What's even cooler, though, is that you can drag and drop files onto the icons themselves to automatically move them from your PC to your Home Server. That's handy! This is definitely a must-have tool for any Windows Home Server owners. You can download the gadget from here. (image via Home Server Hacks)

Building a Green Windows Home Server

sarahintampa — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:57:00 GMT

I've been following a very interesting series of posts over on the Home Server Hacks blog. They detailing, step-by-step, the process of building a $400 "green" Home Server. The server is encased in a Shuttle KPC housing, which is, according to the Shuttle web site, a low power consumption appliance, using only 55 Watts when in use and 33 Watts when idle. To go even greener, you can use Western Digital Caviar GP series drives. There are five parts to this post about building the green WHS and you can began reading the series here. It's a great idea, and just in time for Earth Day, too!

A New Home Server from Avideus

sarahintampa — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:39:00 GMT

The We Got Served blog has the scoop on another home serving offering, this one from Avideus. The Avideus HSE Home Server, like the Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo and Velocity Micro Netmagix servers, will be based on the Intel SS4200-EHW Server design. The company, based in San Marocs, CA, are currently offering a free 1 TB upgrade until May 15th if you buy from the site at PCAlchemy.com (just choose the option from the drop-down box). For more details on the specs check out the WGS blog or the manufacturer's web site.

Custom WHS with 11 Drives

sarahintampa — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Via the Windows Home Server Team blog I heard about some crazy, custom-built Windows Home Server in an Alienware case sporting 11 drives. Of course I had to check this out for myself. Whoa, it's true! This guy in Kuwait is retrofitting an older Alienware case to accommodate 11 hard drives and one optical drive and posting the progress to his blog. Here's Stage 1 and here's Stage 2. He's going to be using 1TB drives - wow! We're definitely looking forward to seeing the final results.

UK Discount on WHS via the WGS Blog

sarahintampa — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:01:00 GMT

If you haven't already heard, the We Got Served blog is one of the best places to find Windows Homer Server news and tips. So, when I saw that they were offering a discount to their readers towards a purchase of a Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo Home Server, I had to pass the info along. It looks like the discount is only applicable to UK visitors, since the URL is to a .co.uk site, but for you guys, you can receive an exclusive deal on both the Scaleo 1900 and 1500 models.

To activate the discount, visit the Fujitsu-Siemens online shop via this URL:

www.fujitsu-siemens-shop.co.uk/privilege
username: home
password: server

Marketing, LOL-style

nhodge — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:25:00 GMT

GoodBarry, a Web 2.0 company and their application GoodBusiness fills that need to deal with the boring administration and sales stuff as you have fun making cool things online.

Rather than traditional marketing with boring brochures and long videos of CEOs extolling the virtues of GoodBarry: Brett Welch has followed in the lead of the Windows Home Server team: write a story book.

Not any story book: this one is filled with internet memes and mega epic lulz4all.

In contrast, the Windows Home Server team took a more motherhood and apple pie approach in "Mommy, Why is there a Server in the House?"

Have you seen other examples of Rickrolls, FAIL and LOLCATs being co-opted by marketing types?

SHOUTcast for WHS

sarahintampa — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:17:00 GMT

SHOUTcast is an internet radio app that lets you listen to radio stations worldwide. But I just discovered that you can set up your Windows Home Server to be your very own, personal SHOUTcast server, which lets you listen to internet radio anywhere in your home. The steps are posted here on the We Got Served blog. The instructions are a bit involved for reposting here, but it could definitely be a great weekend project for WHS'ers. And the best part is, it's free!

PerfectDisk for WHS

sarahintampa — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:04:00 GMT

Today, the guys at PerfectDisk announced on their blog that a new build of PerfectDisk 2008 for Windows Home Server is now available. This new version includes full integration with the Windows Home Server console, where PerfectDisk 2008 will now have its own tab.

The PerfectDisk software defrags and optimizes disks which leads to better performance and reliability. Their "Space Restoration Technology" also helps create a large piece of contiguous free space so there is less fragmentation in the future while also improving write file access, whereas typical defragmenters only focus on read file access.

If you already have PerfectDisk installed on your WHS, you'll need to remove that first before installing the latest version. Installation instructions are here. The software for WHS is only $39.99, or you can purchase a Home Site License and get 10 licenses for your network for $99.99.

Orb on Windows Home Server

sarahintampa — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:36:00 GMT

Orb is a cool web application that lets you stream media from your home computer to any internet-connected device, be it a PDA, mobile phone, computer, or laptop. Since Home Server users tend to have most of their media stored on their WHS box, the most logical place for them to install Orb would be on their server. Thanks to this walkthrough, you can learn how to install Orb on your WHS - a perfect project for this holiday weekend. Read the how-to here on the "We Got Served" blog.

Automate Your Home with Your Windows Home Server

sarahintampa — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:33:00 GMT

For home automation enthusiasts, comes a plugin for Windows Home Server called "Embedded Automation's mControl for Windows Home Server." With this WHS plugin, you can configure and control everything in your home from lighting to AC to thermostats to security cameras from directly within WHS or from any other networked devices like Vista Media Center, Xbox 360, Windows Mobile phones, or any of the new Windows Media Center v2 Extenders. mControl can be used to control a couple of devices or it can be expanded to control all aspects of your home with no need to purchase additional software packages. All you need is mControl. You can download a free trial of mControl for WHS from here to try it out.