Archive

Two Minute Review of the Angry Birds iPhone 4 Cases from gear4

Andrew Edney

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Feb 13, 2011

Two Minute Review of the Angry Birds iPhone 4 Cases from gear4

Do you like Angry Birds? Do you need an iPhone 4 case? Well now you get can Angry Birds protective cases for your iPhone 4 from gear4. Just be careful you don’t make the other birds angry – look what happened to the pigs!

Back at CES 2011, we saw a number of Angry Birds items, toys, games, and cases. Now we get our hands on them.

We received the King Pig:

the Red Bird:

and the Yellow Bird:

According to gear4’s website they are the only 3 cases available, but at CES we also saw a white bird and a black bird.

Fitting the iPhone 4 into the case was fairly simple – but it was a little tight, so watch your fingers.

Final Thoughts

If you are a fan of Angry Birds, then you might want one of these cases.

The case is very light and seems solid enough to protect your iPhone.

My only negative comment is that it was very difficult to get the iPhone out of the case, I was convinced I was going to break the plastic (I didn’t).

The Angry Birds protective cases for the iPhone 4 retail at £24.99, and they also come as iPod Touch cases, also retailing at £24.99.

Visit the gear4 website for more information

Using Advanced Format Drives with Windows Home Server V1

Andrew Edney

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Feb 13, 2011

21

Using Advanced Format Drives with Windows Home Server V1

More and more advanced formed drives are on the market, and if you want to use them with your Windows Home Server V1 Microsoft advise you against it. Here we will show you what you can do it safely use them.

What is an Advanced Format Drive?

Advanced Format is a generic term pertaining to any sector format used to store data on the magnetic disks in hard disk drives that exceeds 512 to 520-bytes per sector. Advanced Format is also considered a milestone technology in the history of hard drive storage, where data has been processed in 512 byte increments since the inception of the hard disk drive in 1956. Changing the sector format convention to larger data sectors such as the 4,096-byte structure used in the first generation of Advanced Format technologies, utilizes the storage surface area more efficiently while enabling the integration of stronger error correction algorithms to maintain data integrity at higher storage densities.

Read Tim’s Hard Drives Explained BYOB Supplemnt

I have a WD 2.0TB green drive – the WD20EARS drive that I want to add to my Windows Home Server.

You can use the WD Align utility or you can do perform some separate steps (which is what we are going to do).

Download WD Align

Using wdidle3

The heads on these drives park after only a few seconds, which over time will shorten the life of your drive, so what you need to do is change this setting to a little over an hour.

WD provide a utility called wdidle3 to do this.

Here is how WD describe it:

This firmware modifies the behavior of the drive to wait longer before positioning the heads in their park position and turning off unnecessary electronics. This utility is designed to upgrade the firmware of the following hard drives: WD1000FYPS-01ZKB0, WD7500AYPS-01ZKB0, WD7501AYPS-01ZKB0.

Download wdidle3

Burn the ISO to a CD, unplug all hard drives from your computer and plug in the WD drive and boot up using the CD. When the tool has loaded just type wdidle3 /d to reset the time. Then just unplug the drive and that’s it.

Here is a short video showing this in action.

Preparing a WD20EARS drive with wdidle3

Thanks Tim for the video!

Setting the Jumper

You need to set a jump on pins 7 and 8 (as shown below).

If in the future you want to use the drive with an OS that supports advanced format drives (such as Windows 7 or Windows Home Server 2011) then just remove the jumper, but make sure you have copied your data off first as you will lose your data.

Adding the WD20EARS drive to Windows Home Server V1

Adding the WD20EARS drive to Windows Home Server V1 is no different than adding any other drive.

Put the drive into your WHS, and you will see it on the Server Storage tab as Not Added.

Click on the drive and then click Add and follow the usual Add a Hard Drive Wizard:

And now you will see it has been added and available to use.

Final Thoughts

With these type of advanced format drives available now incredibly cheaply, more and more people are going to use them so if you want to use them in your Windows Home Server V1 you need to perform the above steps. If you are using Windows Home Server 2011 you don’t need to do the jumper setting.

The whole process only takes few minutes and should extend the life of your drive.

Are you using any advanced format drives? Have you had any problems? Let us know….

Windows Home Server Add-In Lights-Out Updated Beta for V1 and WHS 2011

Andrew Edney

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Feb 13, 2011

2

Windows Home Server Add-In Lights-Out Updated Beta for V1 and WHS 2011

Fellow WHS MVP Martin Rothschink has been in touch to let us know that his WHS Add-in Lights-Out has a new beta for V1 and also for Windows Home Server 2011.

Windows Home Server V1

Lights-Out for WHS v1 is currently available as stable version 1.0.4 and as new beta version 1.5.0.
What is Beta 1.5.0?
Lights-Out Beta 1.5.0 for Windows Home Server v1 is a further development of Lights-Out 1.0 and offers a couple of new features and improvements.
Read here what’s changed and what’s new:
http://www.axonet.de…eta%201.0.5.pdf
Then uninstall your current version, download and install 1.5.0 Beta:
http://www.axonet.de…r1.5.0.1440.msi

Windows Home Server 2011

A new Beta 1.5.0 is now available for Windows Home Server 2011 Build 8400.
Release notes can be found in the documentation.
Documentation:
http://www.axonet.de…rver%202011.pdf
Please read this very carefully and prepare your server as outlined in Appendix C.
Lights-Out for Windows Home Server 2011, Beta Version 1.5.0 Build 1440
http://www.axonet.de…1.5.0.1440.wssx

It’s good to see at least one of the popular V1 Add-In developers producing a Windows Home Server 2011 version – well done Martin.

Microsoft and Nokia Announce Mobile Strategic Partnership

Microsoft

Jon da Silva

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Feb 12, 2011

5

Microsoft and Nokia Announce Mobile Strategic Partnership

After months of rumors and speculation, Nokia and Microsoft announce a partnership.

LONDON – Feb. 11, 2011 – Nokia and Microsoft today announced plans to form a broad strategic partnership that would use their complementary strengths and expertise to create a new global mobile ecosystem.

Nokia and Microsoft intend to jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity. As each company would focus on its core competencies, the partnership would create the opportunity for rapid time to market execution. Additionally, Nokia and Microsoft plan to work together to integrate key assets and create completely new service offerings, while extending established products and services to new markets.

Which Tablet is Right For You?

Jim McCarthy

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Feb 12, 2011

5

So you think you want to buy a tablet device, but which one is right for you? We’ll explore the options to try to help you to make a decision.

Requirements

I don’t know about you, but recently I have been getting plenty of requests for help in picking out a good tablet for friends and co-workers. I thought that it might be useful to summarize those conversations and see if this helps anyone else to decide on the right tablet for them. Before we begin, what do you want to do with your shiny new tablet? Before buying any tech device, I try to make sure that I understand exactly what I want to do with it first. This should help to narrow options down to the ones that matter to you. Here are some typical uses that people have discussed with me recently for tablet devices:

Light-duty internet surfing
Netflix access
Access to corporate email and calendar function
Data access when traveling
Playback of video content, including Media Center TV recordings and DVD rips
Playback of music
Remote access to your home server
Gaming (of course!)
Ability to edit Excel, Word and PowerPoint files while on the go
Handwriting recognition
Integration with One Note

OK. Now that we know what we want to do with these devices, let’s look at the major options and evaluate.

iPad

Of course, we have to start with the iPad from Apple. According to this coverage, Apple has close to 90% market share for this category. My wife received a 64GB 3G version for Christmas this year and she loves it. So do I! The device is very well made, is convenient to use and is a useful size when travelling. This is how Apple describes this product:

A revolutionary device for browsing the web, reading and sending email, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading e-books and much more.

How does it stack up against our requirements? Let’s take a look.

Requirement	Met?	Comments
Light-duty internet surfing	Yes, with limitations	No Flash or Silverlight support
E-reader capability	Yes
Well-developed app store	Yes	Widely regarded as the best available
Netflix access	Yes
Access to corporate email and calendar function	Yes
Data access when traveling	Yes	3G access with AT&T in US is $25/month for 2GB and £15/month on Vodaphone in the UK
Playback of video content, including Media Center TV recordings and DVD rips	Yes, if loaded to iTunes first
Playback of music	Yes, if loaded to iTunes first
Remote access to your home server console	No
Gaming	Yes	Broad selection of games, from racing games to first person shooters to educational for kids
Ability to edit Excel, Word and PowerPoint files while on the go	Yes, with optional software	Require Pages—word processor, Numbers—spreadsheet, and Keynote–presentation software at $9.99 USD per application. Limited ability to edit/update Office documents.
Handwriting recognition	No
Integration with One Note	Yes	Microsoft just released a One Note app for iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch.
DLNA compatibility	No	Air Video installed on your PC/home server/Mac is a good alternative that works well; Airplay is also available if you have a 2nd generation AppleTV
User expandable storage	No
Front and back facing cameras	No
Integration with handset	No
Battery life	10 hours	Yikes!

This device has been described as a content consumption device. It excels at surfing the web, as long as the site does not use Flash, and if you have video content in iTunes, it will look fantastic. With support for Netflix as well as the ability to buy and rent content in iTunes, this is an entertainment powerhouse. A drawback for a home server owner is that all video content that you want to load has to be loaded into iTunes first, and if you want DLNA capability, you need to load Air Video ($2.99 USD in the App Store). It supports corporate email and calendaring, and my company has also implemented Sametime IM for the iPad, which is really handy. Where it falls down a bit is editing Excel, Word and Powerpoint files. If you are just reviewing and commenting, the capability that comes along with Pages, Numbers and Keynote is probably enough to allow you to leave your laptop at home. However, any intensive sessions with generating content in these applications will likely leave you wishing that you had your laptop. With the 3G versions, you have the ability to be connected even when outside of Wi-Fi range. Pricing for the 64GB 3-G version is currently $829 USD/£714 GBP.

iPad Portal US App Store UK App Store

StableBit DrivePool for Windows Home Server 2011 Coming Soon?

Timothy Daleo

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Feb 11, 2011

10

StableBit DrivePool for Windows Home Server 2011 Coming Soon?

I just saw that a company named StableBit has announced on the Social Microsoft site that they have an Add-In solution for Windows Home Server 2011. Not much is known at this point, and no software download is available, but it looks like it might be offer some benefits to those who miss Drive Extender in 2011. We will let you know more as we get more information.

The original post can be found at:

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whsvailbeta/thread/92977d6c-bd5a-4a0b-b0ab-166f4e7914e0

This add-in will let you add multiple hard drives into one combined storage pool on the Windows Home Server. You can create folder shares on this storage pool, and each folder on the pool can either be duplicated or not duplicated. Files placed in duplicated folders will be protected against single drive failure by being placed onto two separate hard drives.

Features:

Combine all your hard drives into one big storage pool (except the system drive with the OS).

Add and remove drives from the pool at any time without re-partitioning or manually moving folders.

Create duplicated folders on the storage drive pool that are protected against single drive failure. If a drive fails on which a duplicated file was stored, the contents of that file will remain readable even without the drive.

They go on to say:

The features list and screenshots are based on the current working ALPHA, so you can understand that there are some things still missing and subject to change.

This is the first announcement that we’re making, there will be a more formal announcement and a fully functional Technical Preview version available in the coming weeks.

We can only see screenshots so far.

The screenshots provided look cool.

For any questions, you can contact them @ http://stablebit.com/Contact

The Digital Lifestyle Show #292- Unboxing Andrew

Andrew Edney

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Feb 11, 2011

0

The Digital Lifestyle Show #292- Unboxing Andrew

This weeks Digital Lifestyle Show podcast is out, and it’s called Unboxing Andrew. I wonder why that is?

Here is what Ian has to say about this weeks show:

Finally Microsoft have the release candidate of Windows Home Serve Vail (now called Windows Home Server 2011) and Andrew can talk about it, so we let him out of his box for a bit to talk about what is new in WHS 2011.

Garry and I also talk about some of the news items from the last week including GMAbooster for booting netbook performance, BBC iPlayer for iPad, VideoRedeo, new Media Center addins, Android Remotes, and DVBLink competition winners.

Listen to this weeks Digital Lifestyle Show here

Win Feedsource Add-in for Windows Home Server

Andrew Edney

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Feb 11, 2011

5

Win Feedsource Add-in for Windows Home Server

A few weeks ago we posted that Sam Wood’s new Windows Home Server Add-in Feedsource was available. Would you like to win a copy of Feedsource as Sam as given us two licences to giveaway to UWHS readers.

What is Feedsource?

Feedsource is a Windows Home Server Add-In that publishes secure Really Simple Syndication (“RSS”) feeds for Shared Folders through the Remote Access web site.

Authorized users access Feedsource RSS feeds from inside or outside the home network to view new and changed files in Shared Folders using any RSS reader that supports authenticated feeds.

Features

Authenticated RSS feeds for Shared Folders that show create, delete, rename, and change events for files and directories
Granular control to enable or disable RSS feeds for each Shared Folder
Automatic integration with the Remote Access web site to view feeds from outside your network with no extra port-forwarding or configuration
Simple setup through the Windows Home Server Console
Secure authentication and authorization using SSL and existing Windows Home Server access controls
RSS 2.0 and Atom support

Learn more about Feedsource at the Tentacle Software website

So, if you want to win a copy all you have to do is leave a comment here and we will pick two winners at random.

The giveaway is open to anyone and the closing date will be Wednesday 16th February and the winners will be posted on UWHS then.

Good luck!

How to Enable TimeMachine Backup for your MAC to your Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials or Windows Home Server 2011

Andrew Edney

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Feb 11, 2011

4

How to Enable TimeMachine Backup for your MAC to your Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials or Windows Home Server 2011

Sean Daniels has posted an article on his own personal blog showing how you can enable TimeMachine backups for you Mac on either SBS 2011 Essentials or WHS 2011. But shouldn’t this be out of the box functionality?

Back in WHS V1 days (that sounds very strange!) if you had an HP MediaSmart Server you could backup your Apple Mac computers using TimeMachine on the Mac. I even wrote a walk-through guide on how to do it. Now along comes Windows Home Server 2011 and it includes Mac support, however anyone actually wanting to backup their Mac to WHS 2011 (or SBS 2011 Essentials) would have noticed that they can’t.

Well Sean has posted a work-around on his site showing you how to do it – and it’s not that hard. Thanks Sean!

Take a look at Seans article here

However, shouldn’t this functionality be included “out of the box” if it really does have Mac support? In fact, the Mac Connector even claims that you can backup your Mac to your Windows Home Server – so come on Microsoft, what’s going on!

WHS Phone for Windows Phone 7 Updated to Version 1.2

Andrew Edney

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Feb 10, 2011

1

WHS Phone for Windows Phone 7 Updated to Version 1.2

If you have a Windows Phone 7 device and a Windows Home Server then you will want to get the WHS Phone app and the WHS Phone Add-In for WHS, and WHS Phone has just be updated to version 1.2.

Tim wrote about the app a few months ago.

Here is what the developer has posted on his website today:

WHS Phone 1.2 will be in the marketplace soon. It requires WHS Phone Addin 1.2.1 and up.
This is the first big update. There are a lot of new features as well as some refactoring of old features.
Here are the list of changes for this release:

Changes

Add Document Support (word, excel, PowerPoint, PDF)

Add a user setting to pick the application home screen

Add a notification that there is an Addon update

Redo the Music playlist building gestures

Add Photo Navigation from the Photo Viewer (Swipe)

Add Pinch and Zoom feature to the Photo Viewer

Customizable font size in all lists

Handle Tombstoning Better

Multiple Playlist Support

Rebuild the File Browser to handle large amounts of data

Add a shuffle feature for the playlist

Sort Shares and Files by Name

Add music, photos, and videos count to server tab

Add a shuffle setting for the music player

Add a repeat setting to the music player

Remove the “Music” and “Photos” permissions from the WHS Phone Add-in and Add “File Browsing”

Add Custom Port for SSL connection.

Add Settings for photos text

Add Photo Setting for Number of Columns in the Photo Browser

Add Photo Thumbnail Caching

Integrate with the Music and Video Hub

Add a folder filter to the File Browser and Photos Browser

Rebuild the Audio Player

Add Album Art to Audio Player

Add Progress bar to audio player

Make all textboxes close the keyboard with the enter key.

Add a filter to the file browser

Add Photo swipe for photos that are not in the Photos folder

Add a setting to check for Add-in Updates

Update Language Resource Files

Add “New Playist” button to the playlist selection popup.

View Photo from outside of the “Photos” folder

Combine the Music and File Browser

Check WHS Phone Addin version when logging into with WHS Phone

Fix Delete Playlist

Fix buffer bar when reloading audio player while song is playing

Update Manifest for Music Hub integration

Bug Fixes
• Cannot load images with Ampersand in the path
• Going Back to the Audio Player Always resets Volume to 100%
• Password field does not scroll into view when editing
• Fix the connection settings “Auto Login” and “SSL” conflict.
• Fix the Create and Edit User Pages
• Delete user progress bar does not work.

You can learn more about WHS Phone here

The Home Server Show 123 Out Now

Andrew Edney

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Feb 10, 2011

0

Dave and the guys over at the Home Server Show have just released show number 123.

Here is what Dave has to say about this weeks show:

Windows Home Serve 2011 still has the attention in this weeks news. Episode 123 is mostly that but I think there is something for everyone in this show. We talk Add-Ins, Storage, Virtual Machines, Worm Holes, and every other topic we can think of. There is no set format in this one. We hit the ground running!

[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast in iTunes(MP3).
[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast in the Zune Marketplace.

Microsoft Release Windows Internet Explorer 9 RC

Andrew Edney

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Feb 10, 2011

1

Microsoft Release Windows Internet Explorer 9 RC

It’s been in beta quite a while, but today Microsoft finally pushed out the Release Candidate of Internet Explorer 9.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/products/ie-9/home

Installing IE9 RC is simple, you just download the application file.

Then you run it and wait while it downloads all the required updates and then installs.

Then when it’s finished, you have do do a reboot.

And that’s it – you have the IE9 RC running!

Have you used it? What do you think?

Android BBC iPlayer App Review – UK Only (For now)

jay_s_uk

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Feb 10, 2011

3

Android BBC iPlayer App Review – UK Only (For now)

The BBC released their own native android app for BBC iPlayer today so we’ve decided to run it through its paces to see how well it performs.

I should just state now that this is an Android version 2.2 and higher only application as it requires flash to stream the audio/video. So if your android phone only runs 2.1 or below, can I strongly suggest that you visit the forums at XDA Developers and look at rooting + upgrading your phone as 2.2 (or 2.3 if your phone is one of the lucky ones) is well worth the time and effort.

BBC iPlayer has been available to android 2.2 devices for a while now through the included web browser, so why give us a native application?

First off, lets look at the interface.

The image on the left is from the web version of BBC iPlayer and the one on the right is from the native app.

In the web version, the search, channels and categories function are listed under the section you are viewing, e.g. TV, Radio. In the android app, the search button is on the top right (the magnifying glass) and the menu button is the one next to it (the three straight lines). The TV section is also split into 3 pages, featured, popular and for you, where as the web version is all on the same page. When the menu button is pressed, you get presented with the following menu.

The categories and the channels choices are the same as the web browser, but the native app gives you the choice of choosing live TV as well. Now this choice is an added bonus over the web version.

Streaming live seems to work very well and doesn’t take long to load (this is of course dependent on how good your wifi is and how fast your internet connection is) although if you’re having problems, the video quality can be switched from medium (500kbps) to low quality (400kbps) in the settings menu. The video quality can also be increased to high (800kbps), which functioned perfectly fine on my N1.

The categories and channel sections function the same as the web site version of BBC iPlayer.

The radio section, like the TV section, gives you featured, popular and for you. When the radio menu button is pressed, the option of categories, stations and live radio get presented.

These three categories act the same as the TV section.

Windows Home Server 2011 Drive Mirror -Video Edition

Timothy Daleo

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Feb 10, 2011

18

Windows Home Server 2011 Drive Mirror -Video Edition

Mirror, mirror on the drive. I need my data to stay alive. Windows Home Server 2011 has a built in Drive Mirror feature that will allow you to create a synchronized copy of the drive. While this feature is not new to Microsoft products, the ease of setup from within the Server Manager makes it easy for the WHS 2011 user to create Mirrors. Check out the video!

Windows Home Server 2011 Drive Set Up

Before you start the mirror process you want to make sure your data is organized. Best practice would be to mirror before any data is on the the drives to save time, but if they already have data you are still ok.

Organize your data and decide which drive(s) you will Mirror.

Windows Home Server 2011 Drive Mirror

To create a Drive Mirror you use the Server Manager. If you do not see the Server Manager in your Task Bar, navigate to Administrative Tools through the Start Menu. You might want to grab your favorite beverage and RAID the cookie jar before you start this process.

The video will show you how to create a Drive Mirror.

Windows Home Server 2011 Drive Mirror Process

My drives had a lot of data on them when I created the Mirror. I would suggest doing this when they are empty if possible.

4 1/2 hours into the Mirror process. The drives were half full so I know it was going to take a while.

6 1/2 hours into the Mirror process. It was ok. I had time to go outside and spray the ants with RAID anyway.

Disable Backups During Mirror Process

I decided to cancel my backups during the Mirror sync since it was trying to backup C: and F: data while it was also moving D: and E: data. This taxes the CPU and just makes the whole process take longer. I would suggest starting the backup again after the Mirror sync is done and process is completed.

Conclusion

Creating the Mirrors in Windows Home Server 2011 is easy and works great. I feel safe that my data is backed up and am even planning on adding more drives as these start to fill up.

Windows Home Server 2011 Release Candidate

You can download Windows Home Server 2011 at:

Download WHS 2011

The installation of Windows Home Server 2011 has only a few basic requirements.

Windows Home Server 2011 is a 64-bit only operating system.

You can install the server software either manually or unattended.

System Requirements

1.4 GHz x64 processor
2 GB RAM
At least one 160 GB (or larger) hard drive
NTFS is the only supported file system

Supported networking configuration:

Your server computer must be connected to a router via a network cable
Windows Home Server works best with a UPnP certified device, but it is not required
The router works best in the 192.168.x.x subnet, but it is not required

Try Windows Home Server 2011 and download from Connect today!

And don’t forget to check out some of our other Windows Home Server 2011 Videos and Walk-throughs