Office 365 Integration Module for SBS 2011 Essentials Released

After nearly a couple of months of being in beta the Office 365 Integration Module for Windows SBS 2011 Essentials (OIM) has been released today.

Microsoft Office 365 Logo

Available for free from the Microsoft Download Center the OIM allows customers using SBS 2011 Essentials to run the core technology services they need on-premise and easily integrate with Office 365 for email and collaboration.

Here is what The Official SBS Blog had to say:

The OIM helps centralize user and server management, enabling small businesses to manage their users’ access to services offered both locally and in the cloud from one single place, thus saving time and money. For example, a small business with SBS 2011 Essentials that already has a number of local users and has just subscribed to Office 365 can provision them all into the cloud with a very simple wizard.

Together with the Windows 7 Professional Pack Add-in for SBS Essentials and the Windows Phone Connector, the release of the Office 365 Integration Module confirms Microsoft’s commitment to all Small Businesses to provide them with the best IT solutions for all their needs, mobility, client computing, IT infrastructure and email and collaboration.

You can download the Office 365 Integration Module for Windows SBS 2011 Essentials from here.

Add-In: PerfectDisk Home Server v12.5 Build 309

PerfectDisk the defragmentation tool for Windows Home Server users has had an update.

PerfectDisk Logo

Version 12.5 Build 309 includes the following 12 changes:

  1. Updated group policy administrative template files (.adm, .admx, .adml).
  2. Setting of the next run date in scheduling has been fixed.
  3. Modified “About” dialog.
  4. Scheduling in PD 12.5 Professional (Consumer version) has been updated to enable emptying the recycle bin and deleting of temporary files.
  5. Fixed a problem in saving settings in Hyper-V Guest and vSphere Guest.
  6. Fixed crashes caused by port scanning software (GFI LanGuard and Nessus).
  7. Improved performance on startup and on saving of global settings.
  8. Corrected the startup time for schedules created immediately after system restart.
  9. Corrected positioning of windows created outside the visible screen surface.
  10. Fixed SSD drive detection in virtual environments.
  11. Improved progress bars and logging for PerfectDisk Exchange.
  12. Fixed an issue detecting IDE drives in vSphere Guest.

Existing users can click “Check for Updates” or wait for the program to Autoupdate.

PerfectDisk Home Server is available as a free trial after which it will cost you $39.99

Acer Aspire easyStore for $290

Thanks to reader Jacan we bring you our latest Deal of the week.

Deal-of-the-Week

And it’s a great unit too, the Acer Aspire easyStore AH342-U2T2H has version one of Windows Home Server and is a unit we have reviewed in the past, and great value it is too.

Acer Aspire easyStore AH342-U2T2H Home Server

The Easystore D510 would normally cost you $499.99 but it is currently on special for $289.99, saving you $210 plus this price includes Free Shipping and a 60-Day Return policy – Nice!

acer Aspire Easystore Tower Server System Intel Atom D510 1.66GHz 2C/4T 2GB AH342-U2T2H

The Ultimate Windows Home Server

MaximumPC has an article on building the ultimate  Windows Home Server.

buildit-whs-beauty-big

Their 3 page article includes a build list which includes Fractal Designs Array R2 Mini‑ITX case and a HighPoint RocketRaid 2720SGL RAID controller running WHS 2011.

Utilizing 15TB of storage over 5x 3TB hard drives plus a 1TB HDD for the OS itself the article goes over the assembly and configuration of this setup including how to move the shares.

You can read all about it here.

Seagate Completes Acquisition of Samsung’s HDD Business

Seagate Logo

Seagate and Samsung HDD have joined forces to offer more extensive storage solutions and to quickly develop new solutions that address the industry’s rapidly evolving storage needs.

Here is their press release:

CUPERTINO, Calif. – December 19, 2011 – Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX), a world leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions, today announced the closing of the transaction to acquire the hard disk drive (HDD) business of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology.

Under the terms of the transaction, Seagate has gained select elements of Samsung’s HDD business, including assets, infrastructure and employees that enable Seagate to drive scale and innovation. These assets include Samsung’s leading M8 product line of high-capacity, 2.5-inch HDDs. Samsung employees joining Seagate include a number of senior managers and design-engineering employees from Samsung’s Korea facility, who will focus on development of small form-factor products for the mobile compute market. N.Y. Park, senior vice president and general manager, will oversee Seagate’s product development activities in Korea and serve as country manager of the Korea design center, reporting to Bob Whitmore, Seagate’s executive vice president and CTO.

"Together, Seagate and Samsung have aligned our current and future product development efforts and roadmaps in order to accelerate time-to-market efficiency for new products and position us to better address the increasing demands for storage," said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO. "It is an exciting time in the industry with rapidly evolving opportunities in many markets including mobile computing, cloud computing, and solid state storage."

This transaction was announced in April 2011 along with a series of other agreements between Seagate and Samsung. Seagate is supplying disk drives to Samsung for PCs, notebooks and consumer electronics devices. Samsung is supplying its market-leading semiconductor products for use in Seagate’s enterprise solid state drives (SSDs), solid-state hybrid drives and other products. The companies have also extended and enhanced their existing patent cross-license agreement and have expanded cooperation to co-develop enterprise storage solutions.

"The strategic relationship will open new opportunities for the two companies by mutually complementing each other’s creative technology solutions for a broad diversity of IT applications," said Oh-Hyun Kwon, vice chairman of Device Solutions of Samsung Electronics.

The transactions and agreements substantially expand Seagate’s customer access in China, Southeast Asia, Brazil, Germany and the Russian Federation. Seagate and Samsung also have been working together to ensure that customers continue to receive a high level of service, support and innovation, including activities to align the two companies’ supply bases and delivery infrastructure. To ease the transition of products and technologies, Seagate will retain certain Samsung HDD products under the Samsung brand name for 12 months, and maintain or establish a number of independent operations including sales staff, key production lines and R&D. Customers can find more information at www.seagate.com/samsung.

The combined value of these transactions and agreements is approximately US $1.4 billion, consisting of 45,239,490 Seagate Ordinary Shares and the remaining balance settled in cash. In addition, Samsung will designate a nominee to join Seagate’s Board of Directors.

Seagate does not presently expect significant restructuring costs and expects to achieve considerable reductions in overall operating expenses for the combined business while minimizing the integration costs. As previously stated, Seagate expects that the transactions and agreements will be meaningfully accretive to non-GAAP diluted earnings per share and cash flow in the first full year following the closing. Seagate will provide additional financial information for the combined company on its fiscal second quarter conference call in late January.

The Tranquil PC Design and Manufacturing Process

If you would like to see how UK based Tranquil PC design and manufacturer their servers then Ian Dixon from The Digital Lifestyle has created and edited a set of videos on the process.

The four videos lasting over thirty minutes, go through the CAD design process, to manufacturing to the final product test.

Tranquil PC Design and Manufacturing Process

You can find the videos here.

Add-In: CloudBerry Backup for WHS v2.6

CloudBerry Backup for WHS v1, WHS 2011 and SBS 2011 has been updated to version 2.6

The product which automates data backup directly to Amazon S3 and Windows Azure includes the following changes:

  • Continues Real-time backup (CDP) – With this feature your data is backed up in real-time as it changes. Every change to the files will be captured automatically and you don’t need to set up a separate schedule for the backup. The software will automatically look for new and modified files and send the copies to the cloud storage in the background.

             CloudBerry Backup for WHS Continuous Real-time Backup

More details on CloudBerry Backup for WHS can be found here.

DVBLink Upgrades 10 Euro from 2012

If you are a user of the DVBLink software then we have a quick update from dvblogic regarding their upgrade and downgrade policy.

DVBLogic Logo

Free DVBLink upgrades/downgrades between v3 and v4 will be discontinued 1 January 2012 and effects customers who purchased DVBLink v3 and/or v4 products on or after 1 July 2011.

Starting 1 January 2012 all upgrades and downgrades between v3.x and v4.x will cost 10 euros flat fee per user account in the DVBLink license portal.

More information on DVBLink can be found here.

The BYOB Podcast Episode 70

BYOB Logo

Episode 70 of the BYOB podcast has just been posted:

Gaming build, VM build, and VM philosophy.  Tonight we talk to Paul Braren (aka: tinkererguy on the forums) about two of his builds.  We also cover some details on ESXi as well as a general discussion on VMs.

You can catch this weeks episode here.

Seagate and WD Hard Drives no Longer with Three or Five Year Warranties

It seems that some of Seagate’s and WD’s most popular hard drives for desktops and laptops will no longer carry three or five-year warranties.

WD20EARS

In an article at ComputerWorld they are saying that these two hard drive manufacturers are cutting back on hard drive warranties, in some instances from five years to one, in order to save money or redirect it to product development.

Seagate’s warranties on certain drives will be reduced as of Dec. 31, and WD will follow beginning Jan. 2. All drives shipped prior to those dates will continue to carry the current warranty term associated with the products.

As well as the flooding in Taiwan pushing the prices of hard drives to treble in the last few months the every day consumer now has this to contend with too – Not good!