eBabble

Found this excellent walk through at Maximum PC for setting up Windows SteadyState.

Setting up Windows SteadyState

Ten minutes with my new iPhone 3G and it was obvious I needed a case that completely covered the unit, otherwise it would be trashed within the week.

Griffin FlexGrip iPhone case

I read a post today about setting up hMailServer on your Windows Home Server (WHS).  This reminded me of a lot of comments made during the beta stages of WHS when testers kept asking for a mail server like Exchange to be added to the product.  The developers responded that if you needed that feature then Small Business Server was the product for you.

I’ve used every version of Small Business Server right up until the RC1 of SBS 2008: it was the only all around server product that Microsoft offered with wizards and hand holding that allowed you to have an active directory and Exchange for the small office environment.  I needed something that allowed email access from anywhere (OWA), easy remote connectivity and simple remote desktop connection, and basic file sharing.  SBS had these features from the get go and have added more wizards and simplification with each version, making it a must have product for my small office.

Unfortunately WHS turned that thinking on it’s ear with its outstanding backup, file sharing, remote access and easy storage handling.  It’s dirt cheap for what you get and I run the OEM version on decent server hardware.  I only ran the release candidate of SBS 2008 to see if they’d implemented the same outstanding backup from WHS, but they didn’t.

Windows Home Server did everything I needed except email serving.  Luckily I had solved that issue some time ago by using Gmail as my main email client through web or IMAP in Portable Thunderbird or Outlook.  I’ve had a domain for ten years now and have used 1&1 for web hosting most of that time.  Every email user should register a domain and at the very least use it for email: one ISP move and it’s paid for itself in lack of frustration.  I have my email account set up so it automatically forwards a copy to my Gmail account, which neatly filters out spam for me.  My ebabble domain email is set as the default address.  The only issue is in Outlook it shows my Gmail email address “on behalf of” my domain address, which really annoys me.  Gmail is accessible anywhere, even nicely implemented on my shiny new iPhone.

For those that need to run a mail server on WHS just use the built in POP and SMTP services built into Windows 2003: here’s an excellent walkthrough for Windows Server 2003 but if you remote desktop into WHS you can accomplish the same.

To create some buzz for the upcoming Red Alert 3 Electronic Arts has released the original Red Alert for free.

Command & Conquer Red Alert

Updated the SOHO Server build last week: managed to get 1 TB drives in since Seagate’s price drop.  Anyone who was afraid of Windows Home Server because of the data bug rest assured it’s been fixed.

PC Build: SOHO Server $1000 CDN

Ran across this tip while web browsing this morning.  It’s a golden oldie: when wiping your Windows XP installation to get things squeekly clean, copy c:\windows\system32\WPA.DBL off the system first.  After your reinstall boot to Safe Mode and paste it back: no reactivation needed.  This will only work if you’re not changing any hardware.

We’ve dropped the cost for the Budget PC to $750 CDN including a 19″ LCD and UPS.

PC Build: Budget System $750 CDN

Our second “build-a-PC” makeover, this time for $1500.  This one is an all around workhorse that should serve every member of the family.

PC Build: Home System $1500 CDN

Another change on our PC Builds: the ultimate $5000 PC has become the $3000 Gaming PC.  Why?  Because that’s all you need to spend to get an incredible gaming machine, that’s why.  Enjoy the expanded format.

PC Build: Gaming PC $3000 CDN

You’re copying data over and don’t want to delete any existing: of course the dialog box doesn’t have a “no to all” button, so you click no about a thousand times.  Or follow this trick: hold down SHIFT and click no: now no existing files will be overwritten.