Windows Home Server Presentation & Demonstration

[jointer99]

Kevin Beares (Windows Home Server Community Manager) from Microsoft, Redmond and Charlie Russel (local Microsoft MVP) will be presenting/demoing Windows Home server (www.homeserver.com).

Date: February 4th, 2008
Welcome time: 6pm
Start time: 6:30pm
Location: Telus Theatre (Room 233 Building SE6) BCIT Burnaby Campus

Please register using the following link: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=123572

Please note pizza and pop will be served and there will be some great draw prizes (copies of WHS [40+ at the last count], webcams, wireless mice, etc.).

Microsoft Windows Home Server V1 (WHS) was released at the end of last year. WHS is an exciting new consumer product based on proven Windows Server 2003 R2 technology with the following features:

• Supports up to 10 networked client PC’s
• PC's backed up daily, automatically
• Redundant storage of central Shared Folders to protect your data
• Simple recovery of lost files or even entire PC's
• Digital media organized in one central hub with streaming to Windows Media Extender enabled devices, eg. XBOX 360
• Monitors and displays health of the network, server and client PC’s
• Server management from client PC’s (headless operation)
• Complete access from networked PC's to all your WHS files
• Shared Folder access control based upon user profiles
• A personalized web address for sharing your digital media with upload and download capabilities
• Easily expandable storage space for future use
• Remote access to your PC desktop from the web
• Innovative third-party applications (mostly free)

Kevin and Charlie will be discussing/demoing:

• Microsoft’s goals for the digital home and where WHS fits into achieving those goals
• The technology behind WHS
• The features of the product
• Available pre-packaged hardware and hardware requirements if you want to build your own
• Third party extensions to WHS
• Power Pack 1 recently announced at CES 2008
• Beyond WHS V1

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to find out more about WHS from those close to the action. If you already have WHS come along and give us the benefit of your experience. If you don’t have WHS come along and find out why you should. WHS has created a lot of positive media attention and excitement within the IT Community.

The "Digital Home" is a reality for a only a few right now but this is going to change rapidly over the next few years. By 2012 it is projected that 4.5 million homes will have some form of home server increasing rapidly thereafter.

If you are heavily into digital media (photos, video, music) then WHS is the central storage choice for you. Remote access to your media via the web allows you to share it with others or use it on the road. How about uploading your digital photos when on vacation? No problem!

For those of you who want to customize the default WHS website or add your own website(s) and/or photo albums there is a great free add-in called Whiist which won the Microsoft $10K Code2Fame award http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/partners/challenge.mspx. Whiist was developed using the WHS Software Development Kit. There is a rapidly growing list of useful free add-ins available. There is also a steadily growing list of community sites supporting WHS. For example: http://www.mswhs.com/, http://www.myhomeserver.com/ and http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/. Although WHS is offered as a “consumer” product there is also a growing interest from small or home businesses due to the convenience and reliability of the unique backup features.

Graham Jones
President, VANTUG (www.vantug.com)