Category: Windows Home Server

Jul 16 2011

Windows Home Server Upgrade – Progress Report

Just wanted to share with you my “upgrade” experience going from the original Windows Home Server to Windows Home Server 2011. This morning I made some hardware upgrades, specifically: adding another 4GB RAM, replacing the existing four hard drives totaling 3TB of varying sizes with three 2TB hard drives. This part didn’t take so long …

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Jul 04 2011

Boydo Test Drives Windows Phone 7

Just a quick update for tonight. From here on in I will be using the new Samsung Omnia 7 I picked up on the weekend as my primary phone. For me, there’s no better approach in becoming more familiar with a device than to jump in with both feet and work it out as you …

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Feb 22 2011

Windows Home Server 2011 Features Time Machine Backups… Sort of…

Automated backups for Windows machines has been a staple of Windows Home Server since it was first released and in  Windows Home Server 2011 that core functionality has been preserved. Microsoft had planned to  support backups of Mac OS X computers through the Time Machine feature however Apple removed the ability to do so by …

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Feb 13 2011

Drive Extender Alternatives for Windows Home Server 2011

Last year, I covered the shock announcement that Microsoft was dropping the Drive Extender (DE) technology from its second version of Windows Home Server (formerly codenamed “Vail” but now dubbed Windows Home Server 2011). In a nutshell, DE provided some critical functionality including: storage pooling (the ability to combine multiple drives into one large storage …

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Dec 23 2010

Save Your Gadgets and Power Bill This Christmas

At this time of year many of us will be doing the rounds to see family, friends and relatives and, in some cases, this may involve a decent amount of travel (intrastate, interstate or international). If you are going to be away from home you might consider doing the following: Completely shutdown your computers (as …

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Dec 02 2010

HP Retires MediaSmart Server Line – Death Knell for Windows Home Server?

Windows Home Server “Vail” (the second version of Windows Home Server) slated for release by Microsoft next year already suffered a significant setback and subsequent public backlash last week after the announcement that its Drive Extender functionality was to be dropped. Drive Extender provided the very popular storage pooling and selective folder redundancy features found …

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Nov 24 2010

Windows Home Server – Vail is Fail After Abandoning Drive Extender

Windows Home Server Vail Fail

In a hark back to the flop of the Windows Vista “wow is now” campaign Microsoft has seemingly shot itself square in the foot by announcing that the second version of Drive Extender (or DE) technology from Windows Home Server was being dropped. For those of you wanting to know about the original Windows Home …

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Aug 18 2010

Windows Home Server V2 Beta Available

Just a quick one this evening. For those of you who are interested, Windows Home Server “Vail” (for home or home office use) and “Aurora” (for small business use) have been released on Microsoft Connect. What has really got me excited are some of the new features, specifically: the ability to natively backup MacOS X …

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May 23 2010

AirVideo – Media Streaming for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad

AirVideo (Streaming)

In anticipation of our iPads arriving on Friday (although I am predicting a Thursday release so Apple gets the hop on the media), I have been looking for a media streaming solution to counteract the 16GB capacity of our purchased iPads. If we are at home, having to sync media for an impulse viewing is …

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May 07 2010

100th Blog – Roll the Highlights Reel!

Today marks the 100th post on my blog and of course, no significant celebration of a milestone would not be complete without looking over some of highlights since the beginning. I’ve written some informative pieces looking at ways to improve the accessibility and reliability of the technology that we use in our everyday lives. In …

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