HP Data Vault Now With 3 Year Warranty

Our friends at HP have been in contact with some good news. All new and existing HP StorageWorks X510 Data Vault customers will now benefit from a three year return-to-base warranty on the unit.

This warranty change is global and applies to US, EMEA and the Asia Pacific areas.

If you need to ring HP with an issue, you will not have to "re-register" or notify the support teams of this change as HP has updated all of its warranty and support databases.

This is great news and will bring peace of mind to existing and potential owners.

Note: this change applies to Data Vault only; MediaSmart Server warranty remains 1 Year.

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Add-In: Add-in Central 1.0.2.31 Public Beta

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The add-in Add-in Central has been released ahead of time as a public beta.

The software (and service attached to it) is designed to help you discover and track useful add-ins right from within the Windows Home Server as well as notifying you when updates to your installed add-ins are available. This is accomplished via its its "Live Tracking" feature.

Add-in Central New Categories

Enhance your Windows Home Server experience by browsing for add-ins by category, keyword, or even by community rated popularity. Useful summaries, screenshots, and documentation links are provided to help guide your search. Once you’ve located an add-in that looks interesting, Add-in Central can automatically download it to your home server and help you along with a hassle-free installation process.

Add-in Central New Updates

Add-In Central Features:

  • Notifications of new updates for Windows Home Server Add-Ins
  • One Click upgrades that will provide a simple and fast way to upgrade your current Add-Ins
  • Browse, find information with screenshots, and download Add-Ins directly from your Windows Home Server console
  • View Add-Ins by popularity, category, or find the latest ones to hit the market
  • Direct links to support forums which help improve communication and provide direct troubleshooting support
  • Screenshots and descriptions help you make the right choice when downloading new Add-Ins

Add-in Central Live Tracking

More details are available from here.

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Setting up Remote Access

The How-To Geek have a "Setup Remote Access in Windows Home Server" tutorial.

How-To Geek Configure your Domain Name

The tutorial takes you through setting up remote access (duh!) and how to access your Home Server remotely by using your web browser.

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Backup Solutions – The Options

There are cheap ways to backup (optical media, external hard drive, flash drives) and there are more convenient and flexible methods such as:

  • Online Data Backup
  • A NAS (Network Attached Storage) device

or of course there is a Windows Home Server.

Want to know more about these solutions? No problem – James Callahan has the details here.

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vPOP3 Mail Server for WHS

I had never heard of vPOP3 before being asked to review it, at first glance at the website www.pscs.co.uk it looks like a piece of software that would be a worthwhile edition to any WHS for both domestic and business use.

The software unfortunately fails on my first impressions. I downloaded the software direct from the website, and transferred it direct to my servers software folder, I am presuming at this point this is what I need to do, as unfortunately there isn’t any manual or online instructions. I was assured that there were tutorial videos which I didn’t see until late on through the review, you can find them beneath the download of the software.

After looking over the videos I strongly advise you watch these before/whilst installing as I mentioned before there is no other manual.

Installing was very simple, once you have transferred your setup.exe file to the software folder you will need to access your server, by going to D:\share\software there you will see your installer, run the installer, the only thing you will be asked for is to set the quarantine location which should pre-populated, for those that it isn’t type the name of your server in.

Once installation is finished you can open your WHS console on your machine, you will see a vPOP3 Mail Server. You should find the users section already populated with your WHS users, now unfortunately for me when I first went into my users there was nothing there, after a while of trying to figure out why I eventually clicked on the Name heading as if I was changing the way it would sort the names, hey presto all my users appeared.

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You can configure each user to their own pop account and also setup a catchall account, each user can have multiple aliases assigned to their account, but individual SMTP details cannot be setup for each user.

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The great feature for me would is the ability to copy all incoming and outgoing mail from any user account to any other user account, whether it is external or internal. This allows you to keep a track of all email of your children, a function that gives you satisfaction they are safe with whom they are talking too.

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Auto responders are available so when you are on holiday it will respond with a predefined message, this is presuming you leave your WHS server on while you are away, I am sure many don’t.

The webmail is very basic and those used to using Hotmail or Gmail will be vastly disappointed, it has no calendar but does boast a basic address book, again those previously using other webmail services will be disappointed. You can access the webmail function from your default server page when out and about as the installer nicely puts a link on the front page, but you do have to login to your server page and then the webmail.

If you have a marked one of the users as an administrator in the webmail section you will find administrative access at the bottom of the menu. In the admin section you will find a lot of advanced options that are sometimes not relevant like the vPOP3 Fax Server section, you also get a lot of additional control that you haven’t got in the WHS console, for instance you can override how often you would like your vPOP3 to go and collect email, in the WHS console 10 minutes is as often as the mail server will collect email, from here you can change to as low as 1 minute.

Configuring your email client such as outlook or windows live mail to collect your email from your WHS vPOP3 enabled server is easy, and there is a simple video to watch to show you how to do this.

Overall a decent simple piece of software for both domestic and business use, but if you are looking for something with more than the basics, like calendar sharing and address book sharing this certainly isn’t for you. It is surprising just how much knowledge is required to setup a basic mail server like this, so approach with caution if you are easily scared off by vast pages of options.

I am going to be reviewing the Axigen mail server next so will let you know how the two fair.

Matthew Glover
www.matthewglover.co.uk

New Windows Home Server MVP

Mon Home Server is a French site dedicated to Windows Home Server, and congratulations are in order to Sebastian Toussaint who has been awarded as a WHS MVP.

Mon Home Server

Well done Sebastian – Bon travail

Cloudberry Backup for WHS Video

One online backup solution for WHS users is Cloudberry Backup for Windows Home Server.

Cloudberry Backup utilizes the Amazon S3 storage service, and to better explain the service they have just released this short video.

More information on Cloudberry Backup for Windows Home Server is available from here.

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 83

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The Home Server Show episode 83 is out, and this week is a trouble shooting special where Dave and the gang discuss some Home Server errors and issues. That off course is as well as the latest WHS news and views.

Available from here.

Is Home Server Heading for the Nearest Cloud?

Media Center MVP Ian Dixon has special guest Ed Bott on episode 250 of "The Media Center Show".

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Best-selling author and award-winning journalist Ed, gives his views on where technology is heading including Windows Home Server , which in his opinion has no future as it is heading to the cloud!

Ed’s comments on WHS can be heard approx. 58 minutes into the podcast, which you can find here – What’s your opinion?

The Dropbox Sync App on WHS

Minnaar Pieters installs the popular file sync app Dropbox on his Windows Home Server.

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Ex lecturer Minnaar has Dropbox installed on his Macbook, a Windows 7 PC, WHS and his iPhone enabling him to keep all his documents in sync and backup up.

I also have a Windows Home Server at home, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that Dropbox installs on it without any problems. While it might not give a WHS add in, you can install it using Remote Desktop. So now my documents are backed up instantly on that server as well, because it has an internet connection.

You can read his post here.