When programs just work

October 12, 2004
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I don’t get to write much code anymore. When I do I get an amazing amount of joy out of it. Tonight I realized that my MCE Controller, which I hacked up to enable me to control my Windows Media Center machine via Ethernet from my Crestron system has simply “just worked” since I released version 1.0.1 in February. I’m struck with how easy it was to write using C# and the .NET Frameworks in …Continue reading →

Doing the Multimon

October 12, 2004
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ExtremeTech discusses “Doing the Multimon“. Great article. Too bad they don’t talk about the very cool Ultramon, which gives you great fine grained control over your multi-monitor setup including different desktop images, screen savers, and more.Even more agregious is the fact they don’t talk about MaxiVista which allows you to turn any other PC (particularly that ancient laptop you have lying around) into a second or third monitor.I wrote about both these great tools in …Continue reading →

Walt on backup

October 8, 2004
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Walt Mossberg has an article on backing up your precious data.

Sony Vaio type X

October 7, 2004
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Engadget moans thatthe price of the ultra-cool Sony Vaio type X is too expensive. Sure it is expensive today but soon this level of sophistication in PC hardware will be broadly available at much move competitive prices.

Iain Blogs about Version 1.0 products

October 7, 2004
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Iain (who as moved to http://blogs.msdn.com/iainmcdonald) has a great post based on an old doc written in ’95. The topic of the post is how to avoid the pitfalls of a Version 1.0 product. Good stuff.

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 – gamepc.com review

October 7, 2004
Smart Home
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GamePC – Symphony Arrives : Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 GamePC.com reviews MCE 2005 and loves it. “…MCE is still (in our opinion) the best home theater product currently on the market by a very large margin.” Another “version 3 success” by Microsoft? I certainly think so, but then I’m highly biased.

Windows Media Center Extenders

October 5, 2004
Smart Home
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Buy.com is now taking pre-orders for the Linksys WMCE54AG “Wireless A/G Media Center Extender”…aka Bobsled. I am so incredibly proud of this device. Way back in 2000 I sat down with Don Gray and Bob Atkinson to brainstorm the concept of using RDP to remote UI and AV from a media server. This concept has finally been released as a full product. Of course you can’t actually use one of these until Windows Media Center …Continue reading →

Dilbert’s Home Server

October 5, 2004
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According to the press release, “…Dilbert’s Ultimate House”(DUH). DUH is a virtual web-based home that the famous icon of the workplace Dilbert, his fans, tech geeks, the environmentally conscious, and those who just plain love the comfort of a good sofa, will covet.”He’s got a pretty clean looking wiring closet, but what kind of home server is that? And why does he still have all those magnetic tapes (or are they CD’s…not that it matters)? If he …Continue reading →

Time to RAID PVRs, says Silicon Image

October 5, 2004
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In Time to RAID PVRs, says Silicon Image The Register reports that Silicon Image has a new RAID chip that they think they can sell to PVR vendors. Not sure how this differs from their existing SATA/IDE RAID chips. But they seem to agree with me that those hard drives are fragile and redundancy schemes are a Good thing.

Helmet Home Server

October 5, 2004
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news.com reports on a new PC form factor: Helmet PC aims to score with football fans. This thing would make a fantastic home server (see my mini-ITX post)…as long as you used a Seattle Seahawks helmet and not a nasty Raiders helmet.

Ichiro’s 262 Hits

October 4, 2004
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When I was in Japan in June I had a free day and decided to do some sightseeing. I decided to take a train somewhere that would have tourist attractions outside of Tokyo. The concierge at my hotel suggested Hase and Kamakura. So off I went. I love trains, and I love train stations, but I don’t speak or read a stitch of Japanese. While stainding in front of the ticket machine a the train …Continue reading →

Windows Server is listening…

October 4, 2004
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Billie Jo Murray, who runs the Windows Server Customer Experience Group, is now blogging. If you have feedback about Windows Server’s documentation and customer programs head over to her blog and let her know.

mini-ITX Windows Server 2003 Home Server

October 3, 2004
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I recently built a really small and quiet home server that ran Windows Server 2003 based on a mini-ITX motherboard. It turns out you can build a great system in a very small package. The only down-side is that the really nice cases are pretty expensive compared to larger cases driving the total cost up. The system I bought was a Casetronic C134 based system from LOGIC SUPPLY. With no OS, a 20gb hard drive and 512MB …Continue reading →

Storage at Home – How to store that precious data – Part 1

October 3, 2004
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Many, many enthusiast/geeks like myself have huge storage needs. I currently have the following data on my home network: 200GB of WMA 9 Lossless music (“backups“ of my CD collection). 30GB of WMA 9 128kpbs music (re-encoded of above for access by my portable players). 1TB of home video captured from Hi8 tape to DV format (still trying to find a reliable way of batch encoding this to WMV 9; should be able to get …Continue reading →

Storage at Home – How to store that precious data – Part 2

October 3, 2004
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Use High Quality Drives “Enterprise” class drives, typically with SCSI or Fibre channel interfaces, are tested more thoroughly at the factory (and have longer warranties to prove it). The problem is these drives are significantly more expensive than consumer drives, use interfaces most home users don’t have (SCSI or FC), and typically have much lower capacities (I don’t think anyone even makes an enterprise class drive greater than 160GB). Better enclosures, with built-in fans are …Continue reading →

Great article on Personal Storage

September 29, 2004
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ExtremeTech has a great new article titled New Strategies for Personal Mass Storage. I’ve been working on a longish post/article on personal storage that I hope to have done in a week or so. This ExtremeTech article is great background material. While you’re waiting for me to post my diatribe on storage consider this: Some time after our daughter was born I accidentally recorded over two (yes, I made the mistake twice!) VHS tapes that …Continue reading →

Tipping cows

September 29, 2004
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I heard a silly discussion on the radio (Ken Schram…sigh) this morning about a bunch of poeple in the blogsphere up in arms about tipping baristas at Starbucks.  Inane. While I was listening to this I was buying my latte at Jitters (I hate Starbucks; their coffee is too boring; they are the McDonalds of coffee) I had to laugh. The tip cup had a little sign on it: Tipping: Good for us, bad for the …Continue reading →

IainMc is blogging

September 28, 2004
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One of the most feared (ha!) people in the Windows organization is now blogging. Check out Iain’s blog. Iain is one of the main reasons Windows 2000 and XP got out the door. Not to mention Exchange. 

Is your Exchange 2003 server generating spam?

August 20, 2004
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Ouch. I was up until 3:30am last night because I noticed my Exchange 2003 server was sending a ton of messages. I noticed this because I was trying to diagnose another, unrelated, problem and happened to look in the outbound Queue in Exchange System Manager. My SMTP connector showed several hundred queued outgoing messages. Given that I have about 6 users on my Exchange server and none of them send more than 2 or 3 …Continue reading →

SBS 2003 Rocks!

August 12, 2004
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Yankee Group says 86% of midsize and smaller companies use Small Business Server. Microsoft’s Small Business Server is a remarkable hit, said a research firm Monday as it released the results of a survey that claimed an astounding 86% of small and midsize businesses either use the server bundle or are planning to deploy it. “Who knew this was going to be such as huge hit?” says Laura DiDio, the Yankee Group senior analyst who …Continue reading →