By Philip Churchill on March 24th, 2008
Add-In: Advanced Admin Console 0.3.0 Beta
Version 0.3.0 of the add-in Advanced Admin Console is available for download. The add-in which allows you to access administrative tools on the server directly from the console adds a new feature in this version. You can now customize the display order of the built-in tabs and program shortcuts or you can disable them.
http://keinplatz.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8C36276B2BB53CB6!248.entry
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Why is it in that with WHS so many if not every add-in is beta quality? Normally, retail final editions are not beta products needing testing by paying customer, right?
Otherwise, isn’t them FREE applications, which so many Microsoft fanboys are against, for that?
Why pay for beta software or is WHS not a finished product after all?
When I released the first version of the Advanced Admin Console I dubbed it “beta” for two reasons: First, nobody but we had been using it before, so it was very likely that it had bugs that I simply hadn’t run into by the time. And second: It was pretty basic and I knew there was some potential to build in more features and capabilities. So I released it as a “beta” and waited for feedback by the WHS community. I learned that it seemed to be pretty stable and that people wanted a way to customize the interface. Now with release 0.3.0 I did some refactoring of the code so I might have introduced bugs. If everything goes well and no new bugs are found, I think I’ll be re-releasing it as version 1.0, because I cannot think of any features to be added at this time.
AndreasM
EDIT: that should be “nobody but ME had been using it before”
@AndreasM
I don’t think anyone is complaining about having this add-in for WHS. It’s just when folks purchase their paid for software, their not expecting to become part of the so called “WHS community” which end up using “Beta” grade or quality.
How many customers want to buy buggy code that’s beta quality when their paying for it? WHS doesn’t come FREE, right? That last time I check, WHS was selling for $169 dollars, and many of you own the HP EX475 which cost many hundreds of dollars more!!!
Won’t this be nice for Microsoft once it has good people like you creating all these add-ins for their soon to be released WHS v2! Think about it, they get you to buy it, workout the bugs, and even provide them your ideas to resale it back to you…
Nothing but a cash cow milking machine…
@Gabriel H.
In my opinion, for a couple of years now, Microsoft has been desperately trying to catch up with all this ominous “community building” to the Linux community. I guess it’s part of their strategy against Linux, to actively support communities (and community leaders) and spread the(ir) word by developer evangelists. I think they figured that Windows Home Server can only succeed in the Marketplace with customers being able to customize it, as it is possible with Linux-based NAT devices that still “0wn” the marketplace.
My motivation for developing WHS AddIns comes mainly from my steady interest in new Microsoft technologies and the desire to work on productive projects while learning new programming stuff. I just no longer wanted to do pointless fiddling-around with this and that, just to find out how stuff works but no outcome.
And who knows, maybe sometime Microsoft will approach me or other WHS AddIn community developers just like they did with Brendan Grant (http://ihatelinux.blogspot.com/).
What you’re saying about Microsoft’s “milking”: Well, that’s been their business model since the very beginning. I can live with it. You choose…
😉
@AndreasM
You might want to contact Carlos Puchol.
He’s in charge of the FREE open source code project known as Amahi. I’m sure he would be more than willing to value your work and effort. You could end up making a real difference that would count!
cpg at rocketmail dot com
or just Skype him at cpgcpg
Let your work become famous! Support Open Source Code!