Just got an email from Microsoft announcing a Community Technology Preview Program for Windows Home Server. You can sign up for the beta here.
Microsoft Releases Windows Home Server Community Technology Preview
Hello!
Today, Microsoft announced the release of the Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Windows Home Server. People that are interested in evaluating the Windows Home Server CTP can apply for participation in the program here.
This update to the current Beta 2 provides a wide range of code fixes, user interface improvements and feature enhancements, such as:
A More Complete “Out of the Box” Experience
The CTP offers users a more complete and simplified experience, including an easy, 7 step setup process that appears after the installation of the Windows Home Server software. You can now define a unique name for your home server, and you can also replicate the experience of configuring e a home server with the Windows Home Server software pre-loaded from an existing home computer.
Easier Remote Access Configuration
Users can now setup and configure Remote Access capabilities from the Windows Home Server Console, including selection of a personalized web address from the Windows Live Custom Domains service.
More Control Over Home Network Health Notifications
Users can enable or disable home network health notifications and can dictate where and when various notifications are displayed on their computers.
Improved Password Settings
Users can clearly define their password settings, and designate a password hint to assist in recovering a forgotten Windows Home Server password.
System Add-ins
Users can now add and remove Windows Home Server Add-in programs developed with the Windows Home Server Software Development Kit.
Currently in beta, the Software Development Kit (SDK) provides guidance to software developers interested in building applications for Windows Home Server, using the application programming interface and services in the Windows operating system.. The beta SDK documentation is available at no charge on the Microsoft Developer Network.
What is Windows Home Server?
Windows Home Server will help families with multiple PCs connect their home computers and digital devices, in order to easily store, protect and share their photos, music, videos and documents. More than 60,000 people are participating in the current beta program. This fall Windows Home Server will be broadly available to consumers on new hardware from leading partners, such as the HP MediaSmart Server.
Microsoft also announced a beta test for the next version of Media Center. Head over here and sign up for it, and if accepted you should know before May 31.
Mary Jo Foley says this next version is code-named “Fiji”, and will be an update to Vista Media Center.
According to sources and various blog postings, Fiji will be a collection of fixes and updates to the Media Center functionality that Microsoft delivered in Vista. But it also will include some new features aimed at consumers interested in extending their video/music/photo/TV experiences. sources have said that Fiji will require certain functionality in Vista Service Pack (SP) 1, which is still widely expected to ship before the end of this year.
This post originally was titled “Windows Home Server Public Beta Announced (also new Media Center)”, but TheThirdEye made a good point in the comment that it wasn’t an accurate way of describing it.
April 18th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Server, Home Server, Vista, Media Center, Windows, General |
2 comments
Boy, this is a hard one. How many of these icons can you associate with their Office program? Some are easy, like Word and Excel (and the Outlook icon doesn’t seem to have changed much at all), but good luck with Groove and Project.
Feel free to write on the screen to figure it out.
So, how many did you get right? The results:
All this work done by Microsoft’s Darren Strange. I just thought it was way too much fun not to share here.
April 18th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Office, Humor, Applications |
one comment
The BBC has an article about the growth of the video games industry and the effects that has in a creating a Hollywood-type culture. I just found this graph so interesting:
It’s showing game sales over the last seven years, and growth projected out for the next four.
Now granted, it’s patently inaccurate, because it shows the PS3 and Wii selling games as early as 2005, and the 360 selling games in late 2003, and that probably means its depiction of the PS3 selling more games than the Wii and nearly as many as the 360 is probably inaccurate too, but I find the trends interesting. It shows the industry recovering from its downturn and gaining about $2 billion in revenue, and a market more evenly split than the last generation.
More choices due to better competition = great for the market. However, console exclusives are the bane of any console owner, so I’m hoping they wise up. I really want to play the new Wii Mario games, but I won’t, because they are trapped on Nintendo’s console, and I’m not paying $250 just for the hardware for those two games (and no, none of the other games hold enough appeal at this time). I know the last thing we’ll ever see is Mario on an Xbox, so maybe I’ll wait for the next generation to buy this generation’s Wii for $100.
(via Kotaku)
In other news:
Mountain Dew is doing a Halo 3 beverage, bearing a character’s likeness and the Halo brand.
Positioned as “game fuel,” the beverage will sport the Halo 3 logo and a game character. Pepsi is betting the limited edition beverage will be a huge hit with the college-age crowd. According to IGN, Halo 3 ranks No. 1 among 2007 titles in awareness and purchase intent for the past two years.
It will have Halo’s Master Chief on the side, and contain a whopping 120 milligrams of caffeine! It says “Game Fuel” on the side, making it devastatingly accurate.
Also, an ongoing comic book series about Halo characters is coming this July from Marvel. Selling at $3.99 for the first, 40-page issue, and produced by the legendary Daredevil team of writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Alex Maleev. The description, from Kotaku:
Picking up from the conclusion of blockbuster video game Halo 2, the must-read issue reveals how the Master Chief, while onboard a hostile ship headed towards Earth, is battling against Covenant forces! Intertwined with Master Chief’s interstellar one-man-war is the saga of a great American city’s rebellion and downfall, two disparate lives’ collision and shared fate, and the Covenant’s hunt for an ancient relic of untold power and value. With hope dwindling and the fate of humanity hanging by a thread, is there any chance for a future?
A Lost video game is also confirmed for the 360, PS3 and PC. Nice! I love Lost. Not that there’s any chance of it being good, but I’ll love it just the same…
April 18th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Sony, Nintendo, Halo 3, Halo, Xbox 360, Xbox |
no comments
Robin Harris has an article about ZFS, an open source file system that will be available to users of Apple’s upcoming Leopard service pack. It will include a number of exciting file system features, including:
- Prevents data corruption through smart use of checksums for every block on every hard disk, self-validating every single bit of your data.
- RAID without RAID - virtual RAID system that treats all disks as one single disk. Just add a hard drive to your system and it becomes part of one giant hard drive, and it runs faster than most typical RAID solutions.
- Creates snapshots of all your data, letting you view data at several previous points in time, and letting you restore from these snapshots if something goes wrong.
This is some great stuff, and Mac users are really lucky to be getting this in their next major update. Windows users are getting all these features, but only as part of Home Server, which is hugely dissapointing. If Apple is giving this stuff away, basically for free, Microsoft needs to think about doing the same, at least at some level, since the technology to do so for Windows is already in existence in another version of Windows.
Yes, it would take time, but if Microsoft is serious about matching or beating Mac OS when possible and realistic, it needs to make this available to paying customers of Windows Vista. My recommendation: Announce it as a Windows Vista Ultimate Extra, available some time after the release of Home Server. Realistically, how long could it take to release the Home Server file system as an Ultimate Extra, porting the code from Home Server to Vista Ultimate as an Extra? Eight months? Twelve?
The code is there. If you don’t want to give it away for free, give it to Ultimate. You owe us.
(via Digg)
Speaking of Home Server, a build of it leaked out, and Microsoft was fuming, revoking the access of anyone named “Richard” to the beta. The Home Server blogged cleared up some confusion, saying that it wasn’t a Microsoft MVP that did it, and that they caught the person (oh, and he/she wasn’t named Richard after all).
April 18th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Home Server, Server, Vista, Apple, Windows |
3 comments
