Hey goober have a Home Server
So, for those of you familiar with Fry's here in the US, they used to sell Basic PCs and what not with a hacked version of Linux. Wal-Mart may do this too, and for the most part a good hobbyist had a blast with them for a while, but after that while wore out, they'd download some pirated Windows XP from the usenet and go use it for normal PC'ing. I won't get into the pirating and whatnot, but this is not at all uncommon, and around these parts of Texas, I have walked into more than one small business, after "Joe's kid from down the street" had been into a network, only to find multiple of these things pawning around, trying to pass themselves off as Windows Desktops…but I digress.
So I here from a good friend through Twitter that HP is running another Fire Sale on their Windows Home Server line…
http://mswhs.com/2008/11/18/hp-mediasmart-server-ex470-for-31499/
And to look at it that's a great deal, but then read the reviews, and look at the maturity of Windows Home Server, and then dig further, and soon enough you will read about people buying these crapples and turning them into Linux Servers and whatnot. Some because they cannot get the RAM or processor upgraded properly without frying the system…
So now I look at this, and I think to myself, with all the power and resources behind them, HP and Microsoft, with all that market research they have available, what they came up with, for one of the best products in their quill is to try to appeal to the lowest common denominator, Price. Build it cheap, sell it cheap, cause that's what the OS is…cheap.
But wait a minute. Windows Home Server is built based on probably one of the best Products Microsoft has ever put out Small Business Server 2003 R2. Alright so they stripped out AD, and Exchange, and Companyweb, and pretty much all the goop that is SBS, but they replaced that magic goop with different goop. And the WHS goop is actually pretty kool. Image Backups of desktops. Shared/User based access to shares, files and folders…you know the common stuff: Software installers, Personal Directories, Music, Videos, Photos, etc. Plus it gives remote access through a Portal to that stuff. And if your desktop at home is XP Pro, Vista Business or Vista Ultimate, you can go all Ninja Remote Desktop on you, and let you work remotely on your Home PC (can you say GoToMyPC?). There's way more great stuff about WHS, not the least of which is media sharing to the XBOX 360 and Media Center.
So with all this great stuff, and a HUGE HOBBYIST COMMUNITY out there developing add-ons and more great goop, why is HP and, implicitly, Microsoft telling the world this ain't worth anything more than 512MB RAM and 500GB of storage (only about 400) in usable. Is your life worth more? After all, that's what they want you to put on it…all your desktop information, all your photos, home videos, movies, yes Vlad, you can store your Porn there, if you really NEED to, and music on there. Is all that great stuff only worth @$350-$400? It's pretty sad, and pretty indicative of what they (HP) thinks of this product. It's a real shame too, because if they keep putting it on crap, people are gonna think that WHS is CRAP, which it ain't. Given all that look for great stuff coming soon. It starts with WHS, and goes from there…