WTF? WHS?

I went ahead and setup a Windows Home Server.

I know what everything is thinking: "You just did that because you now work for Microsoft. Nice glass of Kool-Aid."

Yeah, yeah. I have reasons. No, really I do.

First: Goals

I needed a place to store my files, a central location where I can not only keep everything [pictures, tv, movies, documents, etc] but also keep some of those replicated on more than one drive. I also wanted to have my machines backup automatically, but that was a second priority for me. As long as I don't lose personal data, I could care less if I have to reinstall my OS.

Second: Restrictions

In a perfect world, I would be able to go out and buy a new server. Or maybe even build one. But in my case, I had to use what I had around the house. Seeing that I only have two extra computers: a 4+ year old Motion Computing Tablet and a 1+ year old Mac Mini. I knew I would have use the Mac.

Based on what I wanted and what I had to work with; the only solution I saw was to setup a Windows Home Server (WHS). I had read so much about them for the past year or so, great reviews.

I was not sold on it just yet.

Why do I need a special OS and not just a XP/Vista machine with shares?

Windows Home Server allows me to have a drive pool. Normally if you have multiple drives, they show up as different drives. BUT with WHS, it pools the drives together. It appears as one large drive, a sudo RAID. It also allows you to replicate a share across more than one drive, to help protect against data loss.

Yeah thats all that matters to me; that sold me.

Its nice to have a compact, quiet server.

Next step is to get some add-ins...

Remodeling

Sorry for not having any new posts recently...I have been busy remodeling a house that I am going to rent with a friend in Capitol Hill (Seattle, WA)!

As soon as its finished, I will be sure to blog about what we did and how it turned out.

On a separate note, I think summer is over...

D60 Captures

So last week I got a new dSLR. I had been using a Canon Digital Rebel circa 2004, but it was getting old, I only had one lens and it had a mark on its sensor (it left this weird mark on each picture I took.)

I decided it was time for me to upgrade.

After much research, I settled on a Nikon D60. Its not the best, but its size, features, and cost fit me the best. I am working with the Nikkor 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 VR lens for now, but looking to upgrade my lens collection in the near future, especially before I head to Lebannon.

I look the camera out to take some pictures last Saturday night.

First impressions are that its a light camera, and easy to hold on to. The VR or image stabilization helps a great deal, especially in dark situations. I was very pleased with the pictures I was able to take, remember that I am not that skilled [yet].

I am going to start using Adobe Lightroom 2.0 to process my photos, but for now even though I shot them in RAW [er I mean NEF, Nikon's version of RAW] I haven't done any post processing yet. They are noisey and blurry, I know, I know. Its my first run with the camera, at night, without a tripod.

I put up a few more pictures from my new camera on Flickr, take a look: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeewan_ghuman/sets/72157606974830826/]

New Layout

So what does everyone think of the new layout?

What could be better? What is good enough?

Leave suggestions/comments in the comments!