http://www.impawards.com

I have finished building the second version of my Windows Home Server. The first generation did suffer from a hard disk failure because, I'm guessing, the case does not provide enough airflow. Also, WHS seems to always have a good reason to spin the drives, so they where quite hot all the time.

I've changed the motherboard to an Intel one. The main reason was to have 4 SATA ports. I've build a 2 TB storage array by recycling an old Medea case. I've mounted a 12 cm fan in front of the case to ensure a good airflow around the disks. The arrays is built using 2x500GB Western Digital disks and 2x500GB Samsung disks. The Western Digital disks are running 5°C hoter than the Samsung's.

I've been part of the WHS SP1 Beta testers and I'm now able to backup my main desktop running Vista 64 bits, thanks to the new WHS console.

I've also changed the default Power Options of the WHS box to "Server Balanced Processor Power and Performance." This allows the disks to spin down when not in use.

I must say I'm quite pleased with the end result.

Here are some pictures:

Congratulations to the Sun21's crew for the first crossing of the Atlantic ocean powered only by the Sun!

I'm very proud of my uncle, Michel, who is the boat's skipper.

Sun21's website relates the adventure of the crew, with nice videos and pictures. Have a look here:
http://www.transatlantic21.org/

Cheers,
Pascal

I'm back from vacation.

Click the image to view the beautiful panorama from the top of Sifnos (4.6MB, requires QuickTime.)



Cheers,
Pascal

"Top Ten Development Opportunities
Microsoft has identified the following ten attributes and capabilities developers should add to applications so that the user enjoys maximum benefit from the Windows Vista experience."

Making Your Application a Windows Vista Application

"Digital Video on CD and DVD; MPEG coding for digital video on CD and DVD discs."

Digital Video Overview

"flow|state
UI design craft"

flow|state

"At the end of all my Bugslayer columns in MSDN Magazine (and previously Microsoft Systems Journal), I have included a couple of tips. While numerous folks have asked for the complete collection, I'd never had them in one place."

Bugslayer's Tips

"QuirksMode.org is the personal and professional site of Peter-Paul Koch, freelance web developer in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It contains more than 150 pages with CSS and JavaScript tips and tricks, and is one of the best sources on the WWW for studying and defeating browser incompatibilities.
It is free of charge and ads, and largely free of copyrights."

QuirksMode

I just bought a 80GB FreeCom Classic SL Network Drive. I will use this unit for backup purpose outside of the my computers through Ethernet. I may also consider to share music for streaming from a stand-alone media player unit without having to have my computer running.

After installing the driver, the new disk appears as a normal drive under Windows XP. My first mod was to replace the original 80GB Hitatchi Desktar disk by a more confortable 200GB Maxtor DiamondMax. For those interested, you need to break the warranty seal and remove two pads under the unit to be able to replace the disk. After rebooting, my new drive is working perfectly. Nice to known, in case of problem in the future.

[Update]
Done more search on Google, seems the unit will not be able to stream audio content directly to a standalone player. NDAS requires to have appropriate drivers on the machine to be read from, too bad. So it will just do as backup system then.

"Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer for Windows XP
The Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer is a free %u201CPowerToy%u201D for Microsoft Windows XP that provides the ability to view, organize, and print photos captured in RAW image formats from supported digital cameras"

Download details: Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer for Windows XP

"Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005"

Keyboard Shortcuts Results

After installing Windows Media Center 2005, I've found this page much useful to get all the keyboard shortcuts.

Knowledge Base
Events Fail in ATL with Enum
FIX: Events Fail in ATL Containers when Enum Used as Event Parameter
Computer Graphics
Computer Graphics
Apple Motion .Net Info about Apple Motion
Creative Cow
Article about Apple Motion
Digital Animators
Great tutorials (Apple Motion, etc.)
Hardware
http://www.cosmicreactor.com/index.php?id=46
Lots of information about Hauppauge products
Software Development
WiX toolset
The Windows Installer XML (WiX) is a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. The toolset supports a command line environment that developers may integrate into their build processes to build MSI and MSM setup packages.
http://www.cosmicreactor.com/index.php?id=43
Windows Template Library (WTL) is a C++ library for developing Windows applications and UI components. It extends ATL (Active Template Library) and provides a set of classes for controls, dialogs, frame windows, GDI objects, and more.
Doxygen
Doxygen is a documentation system for C++, C, Java, Objective-C, IDL (Corba and Microsoft flavors) a
Crypto++ Library
Crypto++ Library is a free C++ class library of cryptographic schemes. Currently the library consists of the following, some of which are other people's code, repackaged into classes.
WTL Docking Windows
WTL Docking Windows
Scintilla
A free source code editing component for Win32 and GTK+
WTL Tabbing Framework
WTL Tabbing Framework
http://www.cosmicreactor.com/index.php?id=36
WTL@microsoft
viksoe.dk
WTL and lot more
Code Guru
Code Guru
Code Project
Code Project
MSDN
Microsoft Software Developer Network

The Register put an interesting review of HDTV online. Check it out here.

New year, new skin, new cms. Moved to Nucleus. More to come, keep coming back.

Pascal