Been a wild ride, but now I have a new phone!
Well, I’ve certainly been busy these last few months.
Work is been keeping me busy and I’ve been revisiting my education, getting some new certs.
I’ve also been picking up my Warhammer 40k gaming and adding to my Orks (Currently assembling another Trukk). I will do an article showing my forces now with some pics soon.
Also, my phone was lost (Or stolen, still cant tell). This meant police reports and insurance forms etc, but thankfully that’s something I’ve been quite prepared for.
Still, it disconnected me from a lot of my social life while I was using my old backup device. In the end, the insurance sent me a cheque and said “Buy a new phone”. Read the rest of this entry »
The dilema of a new phone & Google Sync!
A few weeks ago now, my iPhone was lost (Or stolen, not really sure).
Anyway, since that time I’ve been using my backup phone, a HTC Touch Pro.
If I’m honest, using my old phone has been a real test of my patience and tolerance. I’m reminded of the saying, often spoken, that ‘once you get broadband, you cant go back to dial-up’. It is so true.
This phone uses a resistive touch screen, and by todays standards, not a great one either. It was tolerable then, even borderline ‘good’ (for the time), but now it feels like a chore to use after my experience of the smoothness of the iOS interface. Menu’s jerk, gestures don’t register and (more annoyingly) the device is NOT INTUITIVE.
But I digress…
The reason for this update is not only to keep the blog going but also to take down my reflections of the difference between this phone and my now missing iPhone. Also, I’d like to make a mention of how having a good contact sync allowed me to switch to my old phone without any fuss.
I use Google Sync via ActiveSync (Microsoft’s Exchange standard protocol) for syncing to Google.
This gives me instant sync of my contacts, calendar and of course, email to my movile device. It also means that if my phone is lost of stolen, if the phone is remotely wiped or destroyed then I never lost my contacts, which for some reason a lot of people still have not got their heads around. I still get facebook messages or emails reading “Lost my phone and all my contacts, please let me know your contact details”.
Really? Haven’t we got past this by now?
Anyway, if you use Google Mail, you should use Google Sync, here.
Warhammer 40k: Space Marine – Release dated!
Oh yes!
An amazing day is upon us. The video game Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, currently under development by Relic Entertainment and to be published by THQ, is finally been stamped with a release date! August 2011.
I’m seriously excited about the release of this game and have been checking for updates of release for some time now.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is going to be a 3rd person, Gears-of-War-esque experience, but that is as far as the comparison goes. The game itself is set in the future-gothic setting of Warhammer 40k and maintains the gritty, dark feel of the Dawn of War game series also developed by Relic Entertainment. As per usual, Relic have pured all their care and attention into this game and I’m very sure its going to pay off, given their history of producing quality Warhammer 40k games like the Dawn of War series of games.
For some more detail on Relic and some details on Warhammer 40k video games, check my older article about Dark Millenium Online.
The main plot of the game involves you assuming control of a Space Marine Captain of the Ultramarines chapter, and decending upon a Forge World used to manufacture Titans (Giant 100ft killing machines capable of levelling entire cities at a time) and defending it from a massive invasion of Space Orks.
Seeing as Space Orks are my favorite army in Warhammer 40k, I’m looking forward to seeing them represented well in this game. There is also the promise of the forces of Chaos presenting themselves and most likely orchestrating their own plans against the Imperium.
This game promises a very visceral gaming experience and I am to understand that there is no cover system employed, which I find both very fitting to Space Marines and the Warhammer 40k universe.
Official website of Warhammer 40000: Space Marine.
Warhammer 40000: Space Marine is confirmed for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 release.
Here are some previews of what is to come (Warning: Blood & Violence in videos).
Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2011 ‘Universe’ Dev Diary & Gameplay:
Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2009 Debut Trailer:
Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2010 Gameplay Trailer:
The Return of the Commodore 64!
I never owned a Commodore 64, I was a Commodore Amiga player when I was younger, and I remember those days with great pleasure. Games like Walker, Project X, Body Blows, Lemmings, Clockwiser and many classic others like Another World, Flashback and Cannon Fodder still echo in my mind with the ‘click-click-click’ of the double-but-still-single button joystick. I even remember a certain sibling would hog the damn thing playing epic marathon sessions of Sensible Soccer. So I had some mixed feelings of joy and regret when I heard about the return of the Commodore 64. Joy because it reminds me of the old Amiga days, and regret because I never got a C-64 and wish that I had, so that I could fully embrace its return with the deep nostalgia that it deserves…
Still, the new C-64 looks very cool, in a retro way.
At first glance it appears very similar to the original, with the same chunky keyboard and retro asthetic and feel. Upon closer inspection, especially toward the ports on the back and side, there appear to be more than initially meets the eye. I’m not really surprised, but still find that it looks odd having modern ports on such a retro piece of technology (Though to be honest, it wouldnt get very far in todays world with an antenna pass through or even scart port on the back). Commodore have clearly put some effort into bringing the machine upto modern day standards, at least in the connectivity department. I even see what looks like a HDMI port on the back, but it looks like a very PC-like back plate around the ports. I’d be interested to find out more about whats inside, but would not be surprised if there is an x86 Intel or AMD processor lurking there.
With some more investigation, there is also a choice selection of media card ports on the right side of the unit, suggesting that perhaps games (ROMs?) can be loaded from SD cards.
Somehow I get the feeling that the new revamped C-64 delivers the retro experience to the modern age, despite not physically seeing one. Lets hope the firmware or Operating System supports more modern offerings too.
Here’s hoping for the new Amiga to come out soon with similarly retro feel, though from details on the site, the ‘new’ amiga looks distinctly modern.
There are more details of the ‘new’ C-64 and upcoming Amigas on the Commodore USA site.
And here is a video from the Commodore Site:
Parody advert that made me laugh…
Today, I was browsing YouTube between doing some work and an un-skippable advert displayed before my requested video.
Now, normally I dislike un-skippable adverts before videos, but I can understand their necessity.
Anyway, this video (advert) not only made me sit up, pay attention and laugh, but I then completely forgot about what I originally wanted to see and went on a search to find this video and the product it was advertising! The product in question is the ‘Orabrush’, which apparently is ‘the world’s best tongue cleaner‘ capable of going a long way to preventing bad breath (Not a bad thing for a lot of people).
Marketers, take note!
The Orabrush:
And for those that may not see the parody:
Microsoft says “IE6 bad! IE9 GOOOOOD!”
Yesterday, Microsoft released to the world its first non-testing version of Internet Explorer 9.
To go with this, Microsoft has recently launched a duo of websites aimed to convince people both that IE6 should be dropped, and also that people should upgrade to IE9 (Or at least 8, since IE9 is not available for Windows XP).
This is clearly quite a bold move by Microsoft, which made a lot of effort over many years to make IE6 the de-facto browser. There was also a lot of work put into making ‘IE-specific’ sites that worked best on IE6 due to subtle (Also some obvious and painful) changes in web code. This is hopefully becoming a thing of the past with IE9’s much touted compliance to web standards, and is welcomed by web developers far and wide. They have even launched a new site showcasing performance and web standard tests to prove IE9’s apparent greatness.
By visiting the ‘Internet Explorer 6 Countdown’ site, you can see some interesting statistics (Provided by Net Applications) of the global distribution of IE6 usage. At first it seems like a non-issue, when you consider that only 12% of IE users run IE6, when you really consider it, that 12% represents a lot of people. Try as I did, I could not find anything at all that could tell me what numerical value that 12% represents but if you consider that roughly 10% of people on this planet have access to the internet via computers, that is around 600 million people. That 600 million is obviously subdivided by people using Macs, PCs, etc, and that the total share of browsers subdevide that still, but IE still has a ~57% share of the browser world. At the end of the day you can reasonably say that at the end of all of it, thats Millions of people.
Furthermore, when you consider how some countries like South Korea (And I think China) have required their citizens by law to have IE6 Active-X plugins to access their online banking, the scale of the problem starts to become apparent. Again, that is the country of South Korea (48,747,000 people in 2009) required everybody to do this by law in order to access their online banking. South Korea represents 24.8% of that 12% of IE6 users.
Pretty serious stuff, that 12%.
Here is a snapshot metric of the IE Countdown site:
Links:
The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown
Beauty of the Web (IE9 marketing site)
Why I’m considering buying an iPad(2)
I’ve never been much of a supporter of the iPad.
It always struck me as an overgrown iPod/iPhone, and I already have both of those, so why would I want one? Exactly… I dont, and I’ve been fairly vocal to friends as to why. This is why I genuinely surprised myself when I felt drawn enough to the iPad(2) to actually check the pricing and count in my head how I could budget it into my life. Do I have enough money? How long would I need to save up? Can I sell something I dont need? At that point when these questions arise it’s equal to anything else that I actually really mean to buy like an ‘essential’ upgrade to my PC.
First I’ll go into some more of the reasons that I object to the iPad(1) and Apple ecosystem before explaining why I’m attracted to the iPad(2).
As I’ve stated, I have an iPhone 3GS, not because I’m an Apple fanboi or because I subscribe to the Apple cult of Steve Jobbie Jobs (I believe it will one day be revealed that he is somehow related to the devil). Anyway, this isnt about Jobs, this is about my own complicated feelings toward the iPad.
I have a 3GS, and I enjoy using it, because of one main reason: The touchscreen. It’s the best, and every other phone I’ve come into contact with doesnt come close to emulating its finesse. This is purely about the technical design and quality of workmanship that goes into most Apple products.
Before I had an iPhone, I had a Windows Mobile 6.5 HTC TytnII Touch phone, and thoroughly enjoyed it, primarily because of the slide-out keyboard. Slide-out keyboards have a special place in my heart because they work and work well. If you’re going to be using something like your phone on a daily basis then the most crucial factors of the enjoyment of said device (for me anyway) boils down to the quality and effectiveness of the input methods. This is a rule I adhere to with my PC also; Have a comfortable good quality mouse, keyboard, a monitor that you are in the very least more than satisfied with, and a chair that you can sit in for hours comfortably. They dont neccesarily need to expensive, but they need to not bug you.
During the time I had my old WinMobi6.5 phone the touch screen was not the best but it worked, however, the slide-out keyboard worked superbly so whenever I needed to type I just snapped it out and I was away. Good times and fond memories.
When I came to look at upgrading my phone, I considered getting a touch model. This I saw was a real issue, as all the touch-only devices which were becoming normal all still had not-great touch screens. The touch on these were, and still are, unresponsive, jerky, requiring multiple presses, inaccurate, frustrating… Then there was the iPhone. My first experience using the touchscreen on an iPhone was an eye-opener for me in that it showed me what a touchscreen really needs to be. It’s responsive, accurate, fast and reliable. I could use this on a daily basis… Yes I could. But then there is the other equally sucky reason which would come with owning an iPhone which I avoided for years since my first experience; iTunes.
Man, do I hate iTunes.
The point is, I find it a burden rather than a joy. It gets in my way when I need to do something simple like copy a couple of MP3s from my (Meticulously organised) library of music onto my device and go. Instead I have to make sure that they are synced to iTunes, and make sure iTunes is picked up the correct details and album covers then sync iTunes to my iPhone and when that is done, I’m good. iTunes always adds an extra step to my interactions with my own device. If I want to back it up, I have to do it through iTunes. This is bearing in mind that the one and only time I actually came to restore my iPhone from an iTunes backup, I found that iTunes had corrupted the backups meaning that I cannot even say ‘I may hate it, but at least it works!’. Also, I dont want iTunes to organise my music for me (I forgot to untick that option many years ago when I first tried iTunes and still sigh at the destruction that was wrought upon my music library). I have other reasons and equally frustrating experiences I could talk about when using iTunes, but this would go on too long.
On the other side, I can understand why iTunes is so ingrained into the Apple ecosystem, because it is the portal to Apples own App Store ecosystem to get you buying ‘Apps’, music and renting movies. In the time I’ve owned an iPhone, which is over a year, I have purchased 2 pay-for Apps from the App Store and that was probably in the first month or so of owning the device. Other than that I’ve probably downloaded a couple dozen or so free apps and been more than happy with that much.
So my solution for that connundrum of keeping iTunes on my PC? I have it in a VM! Win!
Thats right, I have an iTunes-only VM which I fire up, sync my iPhone, then shut down. I love it like that. An iPad would probably slot into that scenario of usage very nicely also, but I dont want an iPad… I want an iPad(2)!
So, finally, why do I want an iPad(2)? The primary reasons that I can see this fitting into my life is mostly with the camera, reading books and HDMI. There are few technical reasons that really attract me to the iPad, as any reason I would be attracted to it would really be filled by my iPhone as they are still basically the same device.
So, back to my primary reasons. I use Skype quite a bit to interact with my girlfriend and family as I feel that it adds a genuine step forward from straight audio calling. I have a netbook to achieve this task but I often find it akward using a PC (even a small one), but I like using cameras to see and be seen by the other side. The thought of having an iPad(2) to sit on the sofa and talk to my loved ones would be excellent for my usage.
In terms of reading books, the iPad screams against my common sense on a technical basis. I love reading books, however, I am very aware that the LED backlit LCD screen on the iPad(2) is not changed from that of the iPad. Technically, an LCD screen is not good for sustained book reading. Its just not capable of preventing eye strain like devices that use E-Ink such as Amazon’s Kindle (The kindle is also 1/3 the price of the iPad). Still, I’ve been finding that I have been using my iPhone more and more since the (free) iBooks app was released by Apple, especially because I can import PDF files into it to read on the train or other times. I have been using my iPhone to revise exams, which I have exam prep and practise questions in PDF. This was also recently handy when I was recently at a 40k game and did not have my rulebook or codex with me. Luckily I had uploaded a digital copy in PDF to my iPhone and was able to check some things there, and this was further proven by my opponent who actually had his iPad with the same rules uploaded onto his. In these scenarios, I see the usefulness. This is not sustained reading, like you would a book, but short bursts of 20-30 minutes of reading. I’m interested to see the comparison of long-term reading usage of iPad vs Kindle. It is also of worthy note that there is an Amazon Kindle App for the iPhone/iPad.
Lastly is the addition of HDMI output from the iPad(2). This is huge for me, as I would be able to take my iPad(2) with me to my friends house and display on their TV a movie I have created and synced to my iPad(2) using iTunes. I could also use it to display anything from the iPad(2) to the screen. This would include movies, pictures/photos, and running apps in upto 1080p output.
Finally, I have considered getting an Android tablet, and have looked at a few. I’ve also considered getting an Android phone as an upgrade to my current 3GS, but time again I find Android wanting when it comes to different things. Although Android in general satisfies my own need to hack and customise my device, I have found that I dont necesarily want to do that with my own personal mobile device. With something like my phone, which I carry with me all the time and use all the time to reference material, look up maps, connect and communicate with friends, check emails, etc. For that I wish to have something that can easily connect me to the things I need with the minimum of fuss. I dont want to have to struggle and fight with a device that I reach for first before anything else. With Android I find that my own requirements (Which I think are higher than most consumers) are not satisfied. There are a few defining core reasons for this that I will attempt to explain.
Android makes me wary because of the multitude of differing versions that are popping up causing compatibility barriers. Every android device is not equal, less so than iOS devices like iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. I believe this is due to a few reasons including the fragmented nature of Android and the increasingly common practise of customising the individual device as well as the reliance on service providers to deploy updates. This is somewhere where I believe Apple actually have it right because their draconian practises have forged a system that updates come directly from Apple equally. an update is an update for all, whether they choose to upgrade to it or not. This is where Google needs to grow some danglies and take more control of the Android space before it fragments further.
Another definining feature that stands out for me, and is a bit of a deal breaker, is that Android cannot sync to multiple exchange accounts. iOS does this without fuss. The reason for this is email and contacts, my primary reason for using my iPhone. My contacts are my link to everything in my mobile life, as I would expect with other people and my email is the primary method of communication for my work and is synced via Exchange. I also sync my email, contacts and calendar to my Google account using GMail’s native Exchange API, which is invaluable for me. Those 2 sync relationships not only provide a pull/push of email and calendar from my work and personal mailboxes but also decentralise that content from my mobile device, giving me peace of mind that if my iPhone is lost or stolen, all of that important information is not lost forever. For me, gone is the nightmare of having to stress about the loss or breakage of my phone casuing data loss. We can all remember those days, where contacts were stored on the SIM card, or even worse, on the phone device only.
So, at the end of all of this I hope I was able to give an understanding of my reasons for genuine interest in an iPad(2).
It’s not so much of a U-Turn, but that specific features that I would have wanted from the original iPad to make it usable have now been included.
This has made an iPad(2), for me anyway, something that actually could be genuinely useful in my life and therfore a potential purchase.
Below is a quick run-down of the essential iPad(2) features/specs:
-9.7 inch 1024×768 Capacitive Touchscreen
with IPS Technology
-Apple A5 1Ghz Dual-Core CPU
-Memory (RAM) TBC (Rumoured to be at least 512MB as with iPhone4)
-Graphics Processor TBC (Apple announced that new iPad(2) chip is 9x faster than iPad)
-Front Camera VGA (800×600) resolution
-Rear Camera 720p (1280×720) HD resolution
-Up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music
Pricing will be the same as original iPad (Prices quoted are current per date of this post):
WiFi-Only: 16GB=£329, 32GB=399, 64GB=£479
3G+WiFi: 16GB=£429, 32GB=£499, 64GB=£579
Full Specs are available here
The iPad 2 is released in the US on 11/3/2011 and in the UK and rest of world on 25/3/2011.
Let them eat cake!
I like cake. Those that know me, will know that. 🙂
But more importantly I’m a strong believer that should people be allowed and given the choice to do what they want, that the vast majority of the time people will do the right thing or at least TRY the things that society/religion deems socially unacceptable/immoral. I don’t like to consider people to be stupid, at least not until they prove themselves to be stupid. Of course there are some OBVIOUS exceptions to my utopian view of society; People should not force or hurt each other.
With that in mind, why then are some things illegal or considered so immoral as to be offensive?
Some of the things that fall under this umbrella are alcohol laws, drug laws and even the way an individual chooses to dress.
It seems to me that this boils down to the political agendas of a few and the influence of the (Usually local) media.
I’m not trying to spin a web of conspiracy (Even though conspiracy cannot be ruled out completely) but the fact remains that because of how human beings are inherently tribal, there are a multitude of nations, countries, religions, races, borders and many other divisions that can be observed as examples of how one society can be so different in its views to another. We’ve all seen it, travelled to another country and inadvertently offended a local because we quite simply didn’t understand the local customs, traditions or mindset.
Why is it that standing on one side of a completely artificial line/border means that you can drink at the age of 18 and why can you take certain drugs without being arrested? Why is it that in certain societies, even wearing your skirt a little shorter will cause a woman to be shunned? Why is it that legalising a drug would be more of a political move by a politician in one country, but something that is just common sense in another? Of course it would take far too long to reason through all the reasons for this, and whether they are justified or not, but too often I’ve heard people preach their own opinions as ‘what should be the way it is’. The practicality of opinion is something that varies quite profoundly also which doesn’t help (My own opinions included here).
I guess what I’m ultimately trying to get at here is that when you travel, you see that things can be different. Not right or wrong, better or worse… But plain different and can be no other way when considered within the boundaries of the time and place. The problems appear to arise when opinions are pressed onto others, instead of allowing them their own choice. But that’s just my opinion on it.
So, I say, let them eat cake.
Everybody likes cake right?
Review of Ultramarines – A Warhammer 40,000 Movie
*SPOILER ALERT*
Well, last night I saw Ultramarines.
This is kind of a big deal for some mostly because it’s the first ‘proper’ Warhammer 40k movie produced by anything approaching a real studio. As I explained in my earlier article regarding Dark Millenium Online, Games Workshop has recently been very shrewd (Or picky) when it comes to signing the Warhammer 40k name to anything that they do not have complete internal control over. This of course is a good thing in terms of quaility control, but when considering that GW dont develop anything outside their own tabletop game themselves or contribute towards other projects such as games or the Movie in this article, it means that they can be a little stiff.
Still, it’s their product and thats their right.
So, enough rambling and more about the movie: Ultramarines – A Warhammer 40,000 Movie. I was a little dissapointed with some aspects and pleased with others.
I’ll dive right in to the bad stuff by announcing that upon finishing watching the movie there were some things that immediately stuck out to me. The most obvious of these was a certain unsettling feeling of misinterpretation that sat with me throughout the movie. I will explain this by saying that the Space Marines in the movie didnt seem to be Space Marines according to my interpretation of what a Space Marine represents. For those who care to read into it, there are a lot of ‘facts’ in the 40k universe that build the idea that a Space Marine is a badass piece of work. Things like the power armour they wear that is handed down through warrior generations, the genetic modification, psychic conditioning and even redundant organs that they have all seemed to count for nought in a movie filled with 1-shot kills and other mysterious deaths I usually associate with ‘silly people in movies’ (Those times watching a movie when you throw your hands up and say ‘You didnt see that coming?!’). It seems unreal to expect them to be the bastions of humanity against all kinds of vicious and violent advosaries when they appear to have little resilience themselves.
This brings me to the story itself, which I am quite split about. Despite being written by Dan Abnett, who I have a lot of respect for as a well known Warhammer novel writer, overall the story arc and general narrative appeared out of balance. I felt there were many missed chances to introduce and explain the greatness of Space Marines, perhaps by using flash backs or other techniques. Consequently, I was ultimately left with a feeling of that the story itself seemed obscure and that I wanted to see bigger events and battles. In terms of filmography, there were too many moments of ponderous walking, panned shots and asmosphere building flashes. When clashes with the Chaos Marines flared, they were very often far away or blurred siluettes in the night. A missed opportunity to have a larger scale battle that Space Marines are known for. Something unrelenting and fierce that I feel is been better exploited in Warhammer video game cutscenes, such as those in the Dawn of War series of games which portray Space Marines to be unrelenting, purposeful and curageous warriors. This is just my opinion of course.
Something else I had a split opinion on was the animation.
In a conversation I had with a friend a short while ago, he described the visuals used in the movie as ‘hammy’, which I countered that its not about the visuals. Unfortunately, there are times in the movie when the animation is somewhat embarassing and others where it looks pretty good. For agument sake, lets also remember that this isnt Pixar or Disney doing the animation here, its a relatively unknown studio called Codex Pictures. They dont have many big name projects to mention, the most notable of these are the Lego Bionicle series of movies that I understand were successful enough to the target audience… But this movie is something different. They’re playing in bigger leagues now and will be compared as such, so animation needs to be slick, even if the modelling is not great. Unfortunately I feel its the other way around, feeling as though a lot of work went into the models of the characters and not so much into their animations, subtle movements and mannerisms. As a result, still shots look great and character movements look stiff and akward. Facial animation was often impressive but equally bad at other points, however, the biggest shortfall in the visuals department has to be the smoky/foggy effect present through what feels like most of the movie. At times I almost squinted to try and see further during pan shots of what would have been an outdoor landscape.
I must say that wasnt bored by watching the movie. There was a fairly good feeling of atmosphere and suspense, which went on a little too long at times but was consistent. I wasnt bored, but I would not say I was gripped either (Gripped like for example when I recently watched Inception for the first time). This was part of the movie that was pretty spot on, and encouraged an impression that something was going to happen.
Voice acting was excellent in places, but was consistently good at a minimum. Donald Sumpter excelled in what I believe is a marvellous performance as the Apothocary Pythol, and along with Terence Stamp who provided a very good but not amazing voice of Captain Severus. Mr Stamp let the character down by being a little flat at times. John Hurt was suprisingly average as the Imperial Fists Chaplain, however, Sean Pertwee did not seem to fit his role as did some of the other voices for members of ‘Ultra squad’.
In conclusion, it was a good but not great movie, which in itself is dissapointing as it is a real first. There is a lot of missed opportunity here, but I hope for more and better.
Windows Home Server Drive Extender – RIP
Today, I felt compelled to make a comment on the Microsoft Connect site, which apparently is the place that Microsoft listens to the voice of the community. The following is the entirety of my comment:
I’m not going to dramatise this, but I feel compelled to say something here.
I’m not sure how far my comment will go or if anyone at Microsoft will read this, but here I go:I have to admit, Drive Extender was one (If not THE) reason I moved over from a very stable self-built Linux home server to WHS. I’ve also advocated it through my own experiences and helped others who have had issues with WHS.
In my opinion, the original Xbox needs to be remembered as a product which Microsoft initially did very badly at in a very crowded marked but was able to leverage their overall platform and services advantage to make into a success in Xbox-v2 aka Xbox360. They also managed to give the industry veterans a bloody nose with an arguably superior product in many respects. I am an Xbox360 owner also, and am very happy, but clearly remember the lacking original product. Microsoft did not back down due to technical limitation/difficulty or SKU alignment with the Xbox, they added more features, observed their peers and achieved something amazing.
Lets see them do it again with WHS-v2 as it has the potential to take the home server market away from the many competitors who are already heralding WHS’s demise. Some of these notably include Data Robotics (Drobo) and the team that produces Amahi Linux home server (Not to mention the many many others that I wont mention here). HP also appear to be preparing to take the home server market in future using their WebOS product.
This is the beginning of something that will be huge in the future.
Home storage requirements are growing rapidly, and Microsoft is a brand that people know for better or worse. They need to step up to this or they risk losing the home server market before it gets anywhere. What the WHS product clearly needs is everything it currently has, but with a dedicated and consumer-focused team behind it. Its a product that should be considered for the long-haul race, not the proverbial sprint.Come on Microsoft, do it properly.
That was it, but why did I feel that I needed to do it?
Drive Extender is an integral part of Windows Home Server and is being removed.
FollowKMan 