A great runthrough of Windows Home Server setup

February 15, 2007
Smart Home, Uncategorized
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Terry over at We Got Served posted a nice run through of what the setup for Windows Home Server beta 2 is like. He took pictures along the way and if you are curious to see what it looks like before you get your beta kit take a gander. We Got Served Note this is probably the last post I’ll make for a while; I’m off to Africa for vacation. We are going to the Serengeti!

Jetman: A human jet airplane

February 14, 2007
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There are few things cooler than this. Ever. I want one of these. Wow. http://jet-man.com/playervideo.swf?video=jetman2007.flv  

Where I answer "why not"…

February 13, 2007
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FYI: I just posted a lengthy post titled “Why Doesn’t Windows Home Server do Foo?” over on the Windows Home Server Team Blog.

Building your Windows Home Server box

February 11, 2007
Smart Home, Uncategorized
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Until OEMs ship Windows Home Server hardware the only way to run Windows Home Server is on a machine you provide. The hardware requirements are pretty meager: An x86 CPU with roughly the same horsepower as a 1GHz Pentium III. It will actually run on less (I had it running on an old 550MHz Pentium III for a while), but for a reasonable experience you want something in this range. My current box at home …Continue reading →

RSS Aggravation

February 11, 2007
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So far I think they all suck. What am I talking about? RSS Aggrigators. I’ve been bouncing back and forth between RSS Bandit, Google Reader, Outlook 2007, and several others for the last few months and none of them make me happy. A critical requirement for me is to be able to access my feedlist, with updated read counts, from any of 3 or 4 computers. RSS Bandit allows uploading and downloading the feedlist to …Continue reading →

One Man (keeps) Shouting

February 8, 2007
Smart Home
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Rick has posted several more parts of his ongoing series on Windows Home Server based on his discussions with me. He’s up to “Part 4“ as of today: Part 1 – Security of Data, User Privacy  Part 2 – User Management Part 3 – Business/Marketing Part 4 – Technology Enjoy…

Scoble says the buzz has died?

February 5, 2007
Smart Home
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First, I think the idea of having a conversation via blogs is funny. In his post today Robert says “I hope to interview Charlie Kindel (he runs the Home Server group) when I visit Seattle later this month…“ Since he didn’t send me email with a request to meet, I guess I’m suppposed to reply via my blog as well. So here goes: Hi, Robert. I’d love to chat with you when you are up …Continue reading →

Book Review: River of Gods

February 5, 2007
Books, Smart Home, Uncategorized
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Whew! I finally finished River of Gods by Ian McDonald this weekend. I categorize River of Gods as a “Great story but a PITA to read book”. Here’s the deal: I shouldn’t have to work to read a science fiction novel. To me “a great read” just flows…I start reading the first chapter and 17 hours later I close the book and say “wow”. The books I love to read don’t make me tired. I …Continue reading →

Windows Home Server team blog

February 1, 2007
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My team (the Windows Home Server team) now has a blog. Here’s the abstract for this new blog. This blog is managed by the Windows Home Server team at Microsoft.  Our goal with the blog is to educate and inform families with multiple PCs about how Windows Home Server will help them easily store, protect and share their treasured photos, music, videos and documents.  We hope you enjoy the blog and find it a good source of …Continue reading →

Visual Studio Express and Windows Home Server

January 26, 2007
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Dan Fernandez is the lead product manager for Visual Studio Express. He just blogged about developing tools and applications for Windows Home Server using Visual Studio. + As I mentioned in my Channel9 video I’m super excited that WHS is going to enable geeks, makers, hobbyists, or whatever you want to call them to build fun and exciting things for their homes. Of course, WHS will also allow “professionals” to build products that extend the …Continue reading →

Matt Pietrek & Windows Home Server

January 26, 2007
Smart Home, Uncategorized
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I just noticed that Matt Pietrek has been blogging about his experience playing with Windows Home Server. Matt is one of the many MS employees who have been Dogfooding the product for a while.

Change the world or go home

January 25, 2007
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I’ve been working at Microsoft a long time. Almost 17 years. My family and I have made huge sacrifices in our personal lives for Microsoft.  For the most part, I’ve been financially rewarded for those sacrifices. Financially, it’s been a good deal. However, when people ask me “Why? Why do you still work at Microsoft?” the answer is out of my mouth before they can even finish asking the question: “I can’t imagine anywhere else where I …Continue reading →

Home Server Flickr Group

January 20, 2007
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Windows Home Server prototype Originally uploaded by ckindel. I’ve created a Flickr group for collecting pictures of people’s home servers and other related imageshttp://www.flickr.com/groups/homeservers Inspired by the Media Center group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/mediacenter  

Cheesburger Brown…rediscovered

January 18, 2007
Books
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Those of you paying attention will remember Cheesburger Brown. He’s an insanely talented sci-fi author and artist who, two years ago, penned Simon of Space as well as Darth Vader’s blog. Simon of Space was originaly written in the form of a daily serial where each chapter was posted as blog entry every day. When he was posting it, checking for new chapters was a seriously important part of my daily routine. It has since been …Continue reading →

Android Dreams

January 17, 2007
Books, Smart Home, Uncategorized
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I recently finished John Scalzi’s Andoid’s Dream. I’ve said it before, but I’ve always been a huge fan of Robert Heinlein and John’s writing reminds me of his. This book is John’s 3rd sci-fi novel and his maturity over time as a writer is obvious. I think Old Man’s War is my favorite Scalzi book so far (although Ghost Brigades rocked too), but this is a fun, interesting book. It has great childish humor (passing gas is a …Continue reading →

Worst (Best?) Icy Road Video ever!

January 16, 2007
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If you’ve ever been in a situation like this you’ll probably cringe. Otherwise you will probably laugh.

Questions Answered

January 16, 2007
Smart Home
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Over on the discussion thread for my Channel9 video I just posted answers to some of the questions people have been asking about Windows Home Server…  

He bit him!

January 16, 2007
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I have not watched the 3rd and 4th hours of 24 that were on last night. Just didn’t have the time. But I did watch the first two hours on Sunday nght. All day yesterday the vampire scene kept popping into my head. Each time I burst out laughing. He bit him! He killed him like a vampire. The writers of 24 are brilliant.  

My Windows Home Server

January 13, 2007
Smart Home, Uncategorized
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My Windows Home Server Originally uploaded by ckindel. This is my WHS box at home. It started out in a different case (an Antec), but I retired my wife’s old computer and it used this Lian Lai case (which I’ve always liked). So I used this as an opportunity to put in a bigger power supply (4 750GB SATA drives are just on the edge of what a 350W supply can do) and a 4 …Continue reading →

Who I’m watching

January 13, 2007
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After keeping the secret for so long, I’m probaby over doing it by constantly searching live.com (and google, sigh) for “windows home server” and seeing what people are saying. However, I keep finding jewels. Here are some of my recent favorites that I’m now watching: http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/archives/category/windows/server/home-server/ http://www.blogpulse.com/rss?query=%22home+server%22 http://www.techmeme.com/070108/p30#a070108p30