By Philip Churchill on December 10th, 2008
Win a HP MediaSmart Server
Gadget and computer hardware blog "CrunchGear" have a holiday gift guide dedicated to the HP MediaSmart Server with a chance to win it too.
Available from here.
By Philip Churchill on December 10th, 2008
The Death and Rebirth of a Windows Home Server
Blogger Christopher Price writes about the death of his Celeron D Home Server after the PSU literally exploded in front of his eyes. Chris explains how he was able to recover his data even though the motherboard also died at the same time.
You can read the story here.
By Philip Churchill on December 10th, 2008
PC Pro SQA-5H Home Server Review
UK based magazine PC Pro have reviewed the SQA-5H Home Server from Tranquil PC and give it a respectful 5 out of 6 star rating.
"As a cherry on top, Tranquil has thoughtfully installed the open-source Firefly media server, adding the ability to stream music over your LAN to iTunes and network devices."
You can read the full review here.
By Philip Churchill on December 10th, 2008
MediaSmart Server EX470 $419.99 with free shipping
You can get the HP MediaSmart Server EX470 from the HP Official Store for just $419.99 with free shipping.
From the original price of $549.99 the following link will take you to a page with two lots of $50 rebates taken off. During checkout just add coupon code SV2132 for an extra $30 discount, bringing the total to $419.99.
By Philip Churchill on December 10th, 2008
Via ARTiGO A2000
Here is the new ARTiGo A2000 from Via Technologies.
Based around a 1.5 GHz VIA C7-D processor and using the VIA VX800 Unified Digital Media IGP chipset. The ARTiGO A2000 can support up to 2 GB of 667/533 MHz DDR2 SODIMM memory and comes complete with Gigabit LAN. As well as space for two SATA-II compatible hard drives, there are also 3 x USB sockets and a type I Compact Flash socket for further expansion. And all in a very small 5.3” x 4.5” x 10.2” package which makes VIA’s Nano-ITX offering quiet and energy efficient.
Available from December 15th, the ARTiGO A2000 will cost from $299.
More details here.
By Philip Churchill on December 08th, 2008
Add-In: DVD Manager 0.0.0.10 Alpha
For ripping your DVD’s automatically using Windows Home Server, the new DVD Manager is the add-in to use. This free and easy solution supports ripping to various formats including to a folder or a WMV, AVI or ISO image.
Please note that DVD Manager does not decrypt your DVDs so you will need an on-the-fly DVD decrypter. Supported decrypters include the free DVD43 or SlySoft’s AnyDVD (not free).
More details are available from here.
By Philip Churchill on December 08th, 2008
Add-In: My Movies for WHS 1.03
My Movies for Windows Home Server version 1.03 is now available for download.
The following improvements and fixes have been added from 1.02 PR4:
Added: MusicBrainz as meta-data provider along with FreeDB.org
Added: Option to receive Album Art from MusicBrainz/Amazon
Added: Ability to embed Album Art into MP3, WMA and Flac
Added: Ability to contribute Album Art to the My Movies WebService, and receive Album Art from the WebService.
Added: Option to create a secondary smaller CD rip for mobile devices
Added: Improved meta data handling that combines various sources into one result for improved accuracy.
Added: GD3 commercial high-quality meta-data for installer version. Will later be available as an add-on purchase for end-users.
Fix: FileStorage area moved to drive D to avoid problems with missing space for users with large collections
Fix: Auto-update AnyDVD setting lost when entering the settings page.
Fix: Issue with monitoring using a full share instead of part of a share, if only part of a share should be monitored
Fix: Incorrect WMA profile settings
Fix: Some MP3 settings were not correct applied
Fix: Notifications was removed at incorrect times
The installer is available from here.
By Philip Churchill on December 05th, 2008
The Home Server Show #25
The Home Server Show #25 is up with the latest news and a round table discussion with Terry Walsh and Andrew Carr from We Got Served, Ian Dixon from The Digital Lifestyle.com and yours truly on gift ideas for the Home Server user.
The show is available from here.
By Philip Churchill on December 05th, 2008
Windows Home Server Saved my Butt
Microsoft’s Community Lead Kevin Beares has written a great account where Windows Home Server complete drive restore saved his butt after his wife’s laptop got infected with a virus from Facebook.
“…Home Server is not just a Network Attached Storage (NAS), it is a full backup and capable of restoring the complete drive, not just the files and directories that are backed up in the cloud by services like Mozy.”
Kevin continues by giving his thanks to the Windows Home Server Product Team for creating such an amazing product.
Although I am a Microsoft MVP for WHS and some would think I am bias; I totally agree with him. Before Home Server I would remind friends and family the importance of backing up on a regular basis and only do so myself at most once a month. If that was the case today I would have lost many important files, photos and emails. I just thank God that when the worse happens and the gremlins strike that my computer can be taken back to the state it was a few hours ago.
My best Christmas present is Windows Home Server. Is it yours?
By Philip Churchill on December 03rd, 2008
Vista Media Centre and Virtual WHS Combined
For one mans story on combining Vista Media Center with a virtual Windows Home Server using the VMWare software see Paul Young’s post over at his blog Paul’s esoteric meanderings.
