MS Windows Home Server

Storage company Iomega has dropped it’s Windows Home Server product because it could not be made at a price low enough for its target audience. The 500GB unit would have sold at approx 600 euros (£450), but price was not the only factor in the decision to drop it from its range. George Melissargos, Iomega’s international product manager for network storage said:

“Microsoft had set such a tight hardware specification that it was hard to source alternative components or to distinguish WHS products from those of rivals. Microsoft was very upset when we dropped it.”

Melissargos also said that Iomega did not rule out offering a WHS in the future.

Story from Personal Computer World.

UPDATE: The article in Personal Computer World has since been pulled by the author due to some misunderstandings from the author and George Melissargos.

General Manager of Windows Home Server Charlie Kindel talks about what’s in Home Server for IT Pros on Microsoft’s Edge site. Charlie runs 5 servers at home, and had no problem integrating Home Server and its functionality. He talks about two guys, Jeff and Oliver, that don’t really exist, but that his team had in mind when they developed the product.  In this 29 minute video he talks about the current Home Server hardware offerings available and chats a little about the pros and cons of buying a Home Server off the shelf or building your own.

Home Server with Charlie Kindel – a real server, just smaller.

Our Norwegian friend Sgaah has posted a guide on how to make VCalendar run on Windows Home Server. VCalendar or Virtual Calendar is an open source Web calendar application for posting and maintaining events and schedules online, in calendar format.

The guide is in Norwegian but as Sgaah says pictures tell more then a thousand words.

The guide is available to view in its original format here or translated into English using InterTran from here with additional information on VCalendar from here.

The Mid-Hudson Computer User Group is holding a presentation on Windows Home Server this Thursday 13th March at Poughkeepsie in New York.
John Bickford you tell you all you need to know about Home Server with a Q & A session beginning at 6:30 p.m., followed at 7:00 p.m. by business announcements. The feature presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m.

More details and directions are available from here.

The latest version of the add-in TiVo Publisher is available for download. Version 1.3  fixes numerous bug fixes and adds the following features:

• FLAC, OGG, M4A (AAC unprotected) audio formats are now supported.
• Video Aspect Ratios are preserved.
• Updated ffmpeg to newer release (2/5/2008, r11870).
• TagLib# library is now used to read audio file tags.
• Additional Video Metadata fields are now viewable on the TiVo (e.g., year, cast, ratings).
• Updated the Video Metadata Editor to support additional fields and added Search (using thetvdb.com, movie-xml.com, or Amazon). (See the previous post regarding the WHS data bug.)
• Re-arranged a few of the items in the Settings window.
• Added Audio Bitrate slider to the transcode settings.
• Better support for TiVo Series3/HD hardware.

See the FAQ for more information. The download is available from here.

The new book by Greg Kettell and Jennifer Ackerman Kettell is about to be published by publishers Wiley. The Windows Home server Bible is a 600 page comprehensive guide that covers all the techniques and step-by-step instruction you need to succeed with Windows Home Server.

• Choose the out-of-the-box WHS solution or repurpose a spare PC
• Go wired or wireless, run Ethernet cable, and configure a router
• Walk through installation and get up to speed on the WHS Console
• Establish user accounts, set up shared folders, and create a print server
• Schedule backups for PCs or Macs and recover from crashes
• Build a media hub and stream to computers, Xboxes, and PlayStations
• Monitor your home remotely with a webcam

Wiley have 3 PDF extracts from the book available for download. First is the Contents, then there is Chapter 1 available which introduces Windows Home Server and finally the index.