Show your support for WHS & MSE

Following the traffic and interest on the subject of Anti-Virus and Windows Home Server yesterday, I wandered on over to Microsoft Connect to make a feature suggestion for Windows Home Server (requires a Windows Live log-in to access).  Once logged in, you’ll see that others are voting up the suggestion – right now it stands at 12.  You have the ability to add your vote and your comments.

In addition, I’ve started asking questions on the Microsoft Answers website.  The answer is that there is no answer at the moment The response from one of the MSE MVP’s suggests that the next version of WHS will be 64bit based (which lines up with the comment that I made about Win2k8R2 recently), however it remains that there have been no official announcements.

Anti-Virus on your Windows Home Server?

Funny that.  Only three days after making a reply to a comment on my blog to this effect, someone has discovered a seemingly innocent and benign way to inject malicious content into your network, and directly to your Windows Home Server.  Naturally, it relies on an automated process to obtain data, which lends truth to the maxim that if someone (or something) else uses your machine, then it’s just not secure. (Thanks to Jim at We Got Served for the heads-up)

If Microsoft are nice enough to step up and offer free protection for your machine, then, in my humble opinion, you are nuts not to take advantage of it. Microsoft Security Essentials has reviewed well, and is free to users with genuine software.

But here’s the question:

Why is there no version of Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows Home Server?

It’s the same demographic, and the addition of a MSE Add-in to WHS would add a further layer of win to what are currently two seperate outstanding applications.  It seems that I’m not the first to ask the question.  Steve Boots, who is a Windows Live MVP opines in those threads that AV on a WHS is unnecessary.  I respectfully disagree with him.  I suspect that all those that are running the uTorrent and My Movies Add-ins do as well.

Windows Home Server vNext release date?

Today I made the seemingly unsubstantiated claim on Twitter that WHS vNext would be released in the first half of 2010, which was followed by many requests for more information / detail.  Insofar as written detail or links, I’ve got nothing that will excite you.  Sorry.  But I can add some context to my comments.

Reinventing the blog

As mentioned in a couple of prior posts (and spanning back over a couple of years), I’ve removed the CarPC from the WRX, because I just didn’t have time to fiddle in the garage and spend time with my family.  This triggered the search for new hobbies that I could work on after the little people went to bed.  Bottom Line:  A Home Theatre PC that I’ve been running for three years, and a Windows Home Server that has been running for two months.

Stay tuned for some content.  I’ll be adding the links and screenshots from my Home Server build, and blogging through the build of my new Windows 7 Home Theatre upgrade.

Windows Home Server @ Sydney Windows User Group

Had great fun tonight discussing Windows Home Server at the Sydney Windows User Group.

Discovered, as I usually do – after the fact – that there are a number of websites, and pieces of information that I have collected over the build of my Windows Home Server and Home Theatre PC that others are likely to be interested in.

I’ll update shortly with the deck I presented – I’m busy contemplating how to tidily and efficiently re-focus my blogging and on-line presence – the explosion of Social Media tools makes for frantic re-organisation and management from time to time.

[UPDATE]: My slide deck from the SWUG meeting now attached after the jump.

Where’s all this traffic coming from?

I’ve just been checking the logs for the carpc website, and I’m amazed at the amount of traffic that it’s still generating, even though I haven’t updated for some time. The top 100 hits come from a dozen countries, and links fron sites in languages that I can’t read. God bless the interweb.

The main reason for the dry up of updates is because the carpc is now out of the car, having been replaced with an Alpine 7998 deck. I miss the GPS, and the volume of music, but with new kiddy I didn’t have time for the constant tweaking and maintenance that comes with a CarPC. However, I’ve moved my attention now to my new Home Theatre PC (naturally). It’s been years in the talking, and now that I’ve found a case that I’m willing to have in the lounge, the tweaking has started again, although now it’s tweaking that I can do later in the evening and in the comfort of the lounge room.

So – that means that the CarPC rig is all for sale. It’s probably easier if you’re in Sydney, so that I can take you through all the bits and pieces, but an interstate sale is fine as well.

I’ll have some photo’s up shortly, although feel free to email me if you’re interested.

Another Sydney meet

We’re planning another meet for mp3car.com members in Sydney, you’ll find the details being discussed in this thread.

Details at this stage are:

* Sunday 4 September at 2pm
* Somewhere in the inner west

Meddler and I are off this weekend to scout for suitable locations. The last meet was arranged by our personally forwarding the specifics of the location to known members of MP3Car.com, primarily to offer security. We understand that members don’t want the general public knowing what is in their cars.

As a player in the car audio scene for over 10 years, and having lost sound systems before, I understand completely.

If there is a better method available – we’re all ears.

GPS back on line

Following the lead and the instructions found in this thread on MP3Car.com, I managed to get the GPS back up and running. Of course this would have been more useful three weeks ago when I was running all over Sydney buying baby stuff. Hm.

Now that’s all running nicely, I can start experimenting with the new GPS software released in the last couple of months. Nice.

Overdue update

It’s been a while since the last update. Essentially, everything has been running really smoothly, and there isn’t a great deal to report. Well, there is that issue with the GPS which seems to forget about the drivers every now and then, which makes the touchscreen mouse freak out.

I’m still using FrodoPlayer as my main frontend system, and I’ve added in 033L’s Gamma Control software, which is really simple and effective, and means that I can stick with the darker skin that I prefer the look of.

I’d love to create a skin that is specific to my exact needs, but I just don’t have the art skills. I must get around to updating the site with the photo’s of the new installation, and rolling out the site update.

The plans for the reinstallation for the boot have been accelerated, as it appears that boot space is now at a premium, as we’re shortly going to need to transport baby related equipment. Cool – stealth sub!

Sydney MP3car.com meetup summary

Sydney members of MP3Car.com met up today to display their creative efforts.

The installations ran the whole spectrum from completed (one with a mototrised 19″ monitor in the boot, to an installation in a cardboard box (complete with ZipLock quantities of stamps attached!). The photo’s when posted, will be available here.