Rob Chartier ~ Contemplation... : Microsoft

WHS Add-Ins

Rob Chartier — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:40:58 GMT

Based on a tweet from a colleague I decided to keep track of which Windows Home Server Add-Ins I installed, any issues and general comments/feedback with each.

The two primary websites for Add-Ins that I could easily find are:

Home Server Plus
Microsoft - Most popular Windows Home Server Add-ins

I base my comments on the follow criteria:
    1. After a quick review of the purpose of the add-in I still think it would be of use
    2. It has to work
    3. It has to not kill the CPU or any other resource on the machine

Here is the list (keepers at the top, losers at the bottom):

KEEPERS

Advanced Admin

Purpose: It allows you access to items like your Control Panel, Printers and Faxes, Admin Tools, Command line, Network Places, etc..
Bottom Line: Its a great add-in when you dont want to RDP into your machine directly.
Installed: YES. And its going to stay there.

WHS Mobile

    Purpose: "It allows for simple remote management of your Home Server while on the go"
    Bottom Line: Probably the best Add-In so far, with lots of room to grow.
    Installed: YES, including the Windows Mobile Client on my HTC Touch Pro.

LightsOut

    Purpose: "...that allows you to place your home server in sleep or hibernation mode at scheduled times."
    Bottom Line: Definitely can see a use for this, especially for vacations, or even night/weekends.
    Installed: YES - It actually came preinstalled on my device. I'll leave it.

WHS Customizer

    Purpose: WHS Customizer gives you control over your home server's remote webpage.
    Bottom Line: This one has some potential. Right now it only allows you to change the default image. The tool to import an image doesn't feel right. I attempted to import an image which it wouldn't let me resize, just crop at a weird size. I then used MSPaint to get it into the correct dimensions which still failed miserably. I think they need to add some sort of description on the perfect image to use.
    Installed: YES

AutoExit

   Purpose: It can be used to shut down and reboot machines in your home network from within the console.
    Bottom Line: This looks quite useful, especially the Wake On Lan features. You need to install their system tray application for each client, for communication. This part I don't like.
    Installed: YES. I will try it for now…

WHS Disk Management

    Purpose: "This add-in is designed for users who need more detail about their server's storage status than what the standard Windows Home Server Storage interface provides."
    Bottom Line: I actually like the 3D representation of the disk usage. Just eye candy?
    Installed: YES

Router Control

    Purpose: “The Router Control add-in for Windows Home Server enables the user to get more control over his/her UPnP internet gateway (e.g. see and modify dynamic port forwarding).”
    Bottom Line: I installed this one with the hope that it would work with my router. I have one of those linksys WRT54G devices (old, yes), which runs Tomato. And it seems that that add-in and Tomato just wont play well with each other.
    Installed: YES, but I will uninstall until Router Control supports Tomato.

LOSERS

My Movies for Windows Home Server

    Purpose: My Movies provides automated disc copying of cd's and movies from attached USB drives...
    Bottom Line: I will just use RDP for this. I dont find it of much use (as an "Expert" user)
    Installed: NO

Remote Alert

    Purpose: Allows admin's to monitor remote access attempts to their Windows Home Server
    Bottom Line: I have never really been a fan of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), nor would I know what to really do with the fact that some hax0r kid from some random IP address was trying to get at my box. Skipped.
    Installed: NO

avast! Antivirus

    Purpose: Antivirus Solution
    Bottom Line: I have my own AV solution in place, and I wouldn't use avast! either way (past bad experience). NOTE: My WHS install came pre-installed with MacAfee, which I immediately uninstalled. MacAfee and I have had a long and not so friendly past with each other that I would rather not get into right now...
    Installed: NO

Diskeeper

    Purpose: "...elevates system performance, debugging fragmentation-based problems as they occur..."
    Bottom Line: Based on the screen shot and description it looks actually extremely useful, that is probably why it costs $99. I had to skip it due to the lack of funds in my piggy bank.
    Installed: NO

F-Secure Home Server Security 2009

    Purpose: See comments above regarding avast!
    Bottom Line: See comments above regarding avast!
    Installed: NO

KeepVault

    Purpose: "...provides real-time, automatic, and continuous synchronization, backup and sharing for your most important digital files via local or online storage."
    Bottom Line: I found this Add-In was mostly gear towards KeepVaults sales. At first glance they provide the online storage and this Add-In is geared towards pushing your data up onto their server. Its hard for me to justify 40GB @ $48 per year when I just spent so much money on WHS.
    Installed: NO

mControl

    Purpose: "mControl is software for your digital home. From your Media Center PC..."
    Bottom Line: At first glance it appears that someone has did the integration with WHS and Home Automation (like X10 Devices). This rocks. I put this one in the "Install Later" bin because of the really high cost. ($200+ ??)
    Installed: NO

PerfectDisk 10 for WHS

    Purpose: Disk defragmentation...
    Bottom Line: Until someone can recommend that this defrag is better than the one provided by the OS, skip!
    Installed: NO

Recorded TV Manager Add-in for WHS

    Purpose: "...integrates your Microsoft Media Center computers with your WHS..."
    Bottom Line: I personally use XBMC and not WMC. Skip!
    Installed: NO

WebGuide for WHS

    Purpose: "WebGuide for WHS lets you access your home entertainment on the go."
    Bottom Line: I have little need to stream media remotely. My WHS is strictly for storage and streaming via SMB to my LAN.
    Installed: NO

uTorrent

    Purpose: Adds uTorrent management to the WHS Console.
    Bottom Line: I don't use the Torrent network to download files, not to mention the fact that I couldn't even find the installer.
    Installed: NO

Duplication Info for WHS

    Purpose: "...shows you which files have been duplicated to a second hard drive."
    Bottom Line: I'm not too sure how often I would actually check up on file duplication, for some reason I just want to trust and rely on the underlying infrastructure to just work.
    Installed: NO

Grid Junction UPS Add-in

    Purpose: Adds UPS monitoring to WHS.
    Bottom Line: I added this to my "Review Later" list
    Installed: NO

Enter Muutu…

Rob Chartier — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:00:49 GMT

Have you seen Muutu yet? Its not just another classifieds search engine, but THE classified aggregator and search engine.

At first look at the search results you will soon notice that they actually aggregate across the multiple sources available. One thing I hate doing is having to scavenge the top 5 local classifieds sites to find what I want. Muutu aggregates and organizes it all for me.

Immediately you might just scoff it off. Others have tried to compete with Craigslist and failed, this is just another. Muutu and Craigslist are not competitors, they are complimentary. People should continue to post to sites like Craigslist but the intelligent seeker should switch to Muutu.

IMHO, Craigslist is making a typical Microsoft mistake (Windows Mobile, IE, etc..). They gain market dominance and then just sit on their hands. They have stopped innovating. Muutu is that next step in the Classifieds market that needs to be taken.

You can mark each item as “Good deal”, “Bad deal”, “Sold”, or “Fraud”. As this engine gains popularity I can see those features becoming more important. They indicate “Distance”, but I’m pretty skeptical if it actually works correctly. Automatically links in Google maps, and the original ad. Everything that a shopper need at your fingertips.

The feedback that I have for the Muutu team is as follows…

1. Include spell checking on the search results. That is, if there is a spelling mistake:

a. and the search yields no results, cross sell the new search criteria immediately

b. and the search yields results, show the results, and Ajax the correct spelling cross sell search.

2. Images are very important

When making a purchase I base much of my decision on the actual product and its condition. The smart consumer is very aware of this and uses photos to help with the decision.

Muutu will need to improve their image detection process. They will also need to be able to facilitate a quick preview of the images, without opening the “Original ad”, and finally their search engine should include a checkbox to limit to ads with just images.

3. Go Mobile!

Lets see a Windows Mobile (or iPhone) based application to intelligently dig into the data.

4. More regions (You do support Vancouver, so I’m happy, but what about the others?)

5. More sources, more sources, more sources!

6. Being able to compare like products, prices and trending data would be a big plus.

Lastly, being a .NET guy myself, I love the fact that this entire technology is based on Microsoft’s ASP.NET.

Hey Microsoft, make it easier for us to adopt home.live.com...

Rob Chartier — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:51:00 GMT

If you haven’t noticed, live.com has been going through some upgrades and I have officially moved my environment over to http://home.live.com. I have even switched to the Live Search provider for IE7.No more Google.The biggest pain point for me is the 300x300 advertisement on http://home.live.com. I usually don’t mind the ads, like most, my mind has this ability to simply filter that crap out. But if I'm going to set it as my browser home page the ads just make it dirty; load time sucks, the distraction is even worse....

Having Google.ca as my home page was a good experience for me, because it was minimal and contained no ads (other than the few google spewed out on occasion).

So my recommendation to Microsoft is to avoid placing ads on a URL where you need to have the greatest adoption for the product line to succeed.

Microsoft Expanding Canadian Operations in Greater Vancouver Area

Rob Chartier — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 17:05:00 GMT

New software development center to be opened in fall 2007. Read the press release here..

A Microsoft software development shop in Vancouver? So close to the mothership...This will be interesting.

As most of you know Vancouver is hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics. There are rumours that the Olympic Committee has sucked all of the local talent dry. Of course that is great news for all those looking for work. You can put your resume on the market and get a flood of new prospects daily. For those of us on the other side of the coin who are looking for the few that are really top notch the job is just getting harder and harder and much more expensive!

Vancouver is really becoming the place to be for technology.

Until Microsoft releases all of its source code they have to go sit in the WikiCorner

Rob Chartier — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:45:00 GMT

I really do not understand the point of view of Wikipedia, nor the very biased author of this silly little article: "Microsoft in hot water over Wikipedia edits"

Let me summarize what I conclude after reading it:

1. Microsoft, alone, is not allowed to have anyone review or manage content on WikiPedia. Even if this person is an independant expert on the subject. Paid, or unpaid.

2. IBM is allowed to have content updated as they please, and pay people to do it, seemingly because they support Open Source software in a larger fashion than MSFT. So I guess that just makes them better?

3. Microsoft's only course of action in order to have any sort of content on Wikipedia updated is to create a slew of whitepapers which address each issue and to link into the Wikipedia and hope that the people at Wikipedia or even IBM review the whitepapers, and update the content for them. They are not allowed to tell Wikipedia about it, because they will just be ignored.

As long as Rick Jelliffe didnt post an ad up for Vista (Buy it now!) then isnt the whole purpose of Wikipedia to be a collaborative project? Why is MSFT being singled out here?

The headline should read: "Wikepedia sells out to IBM and refuses to let Microsoft contribute" or "Until Microsoft releases all of its source code they have to go sit in the WikiCorner"