bruceb news

I’ve mentioned Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Home Server appliance before, but it bears repeating – this has the potential to define a new category of home appliance that will be more interesting than you expect. It’s hard for you to imagine why a product with “server” in the name will enter your house, but it addresses some common problems in imaginative ways.

If you haven’t looked at the feature list for Windows Home Server yet, browse through this overview. Imagine something compact, inexpensive, and reasonably easy to use that accomplishes these things (and more):

“The backup service backs up every every computer on the network, automatically, using a clever storage system that makes efficient use of disk space on the server.

[…] continued

I have long insisted that scanners had to be tethered to a computer because it wasn’t feasible to control a scanner across a network.

That began to be eroded by the floor-standing copiers that could scan sheet-fed documents at the speed of light and deposit PDFs onto a server, into a folder on a workstation, or into a hard drive built into the copier. I saw an Imagistics copier recently that had reworked its control panel to make it easy to stand at the copier and send PDF files flying all over.

Today I set up an HP OfficeJet 7410 all-in-one printer that was plugged into the network with a single Cat 5 cable. […] continued

All right, now I’m getting angry.

Like most of my business clients, my documents are stored on a network server. When I click on “My Documents,” I’m taken to \brucebserverusersbruceb. My clients store business documents in \serverCompany or \serverfirmdocs. Those shared folders are frequently mapped to a drive letter, so the M: drive also takes me to my document folder.

More than six months ago, I began to get intermittent reports about problems saving files to network shares. Clients with a file open in MS Word would see the file become “read-only” right before their eyes. They’d have to save the file with a new name, over and over. […] continued

From Max Barry’s marvelous book Company, about corporate life in the weeks after the computer network goes dead:

“Two weeks ago the network went down; soon after Senior Management assured the company it would have the problem fixed within a few days; now everyone is realizing it is never going to happen. Work-arounds are springing up everywhere you look, like new grass after rain. In the absence of e-mail, employees are discovering the art of speaking into phones. They are realizing that discussions that previously required three days and six e-mails can, with phones, be settled in minutes. Spam and computer viruses, both of which IT claimed were unsolvable problems, have vanished.

[…] continued

Here’s a review of a beta release of Microsoft Windows Home Server, which continues to look like a genuinely exciting advance for home computing. Here are my earlier thoughts on the preview at the Consumer Electronics show last month.

When it is final, most of us will see it preloaded on separate, dedicated devices; there will also be a software-only version for people who want to build their own boxes. The devices will be surprisingly small, and all signs are good for them to be extremely easy to use and remarkably useful. Here’s the overview from PC Magazine:

“This week, Microsoft unveiled beta 2 of Windows Home Server (WHS), the company’s effort to improve and simplify the computing and digital-media experience for the increasing proportion of households that have broadband connections and multiple PCs or PC-like devices such as XBox gaming consoles.

[…] continued

Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 includes wonderful tools for remote access – Remote Web Workplace provides access to office desktop computers, and Outlook Web Access makes Outlook folders available anywhere.

After upgrading to Internet Explorer 7, SBS users are getting scary messages when they log in to those remote services. A screen exclaims that “there is a problem with this website’s security certificate” and advises in boldface type that “We recommend that you close this webpage and do not continue to this website.”

If you are an SBS user, you may ignore the warnings. Big companies purchase security certificates from third parties for a lot of money; SBS creates a “self-signed” security certificate that makes IE7 suspicious. […] continued

EDIT: On December 19, Microsoft released an add-in to index files on network shares in Windows Vista. See this comment.

ORIGINAL POST:

Windows Vista cannot index files on a network share. It cannot do instant searches for text in files stored on a network server.

This is startling. It is infuriating. It may tip the scales against Vista for my business clients. Let me give you some background about why this seems so important.

Most small businesses handle their business flow by organizing company files in a central location, sorted into folders – typically organized by client name. That’s adequate to avoid the expense of a document management program or a separate network appliance for project management, data storage, collaboration and indexing. […] continued

Microsoft Office 2007 will arrive on January 30 along with Windows Vista. My sense is that it will have a much different effect at large companies than in small businesses.

Everyone’s initial impression will be disorientation, since menus and buttons are radically rearranged. Those feelings will pass and small businesses and home users will likely get back to work more or less the way they were working before. In the end Word can still be a word processor that saves files in folders.

There is a huge infrastructure built into the Office programs to support collaboration – document management and version control, discussions, group calendars, and much more. […] continued

I love 802.11x wireless networking, but it makes me crazy too. It’s solid technology that keeps calling attention to itself – routers stop working or signals aren’t strong enough or laptops suddenly refuse to associate with an access point or signals step on each other in crowded office buildings. Now there’s a flurry of wireless devices that aren’t necessarily compatible as the industry inches painfully towards a new standard that eventually might improve things.

Netgear has introduced the HDX101 Powerline Ethernet Adapter, which might be an alternative for some home users. A cable runs from the router in one room to an electrical outlet and plugs into one of these adapters. […] continued

Verizon’s EVDO wireless access is heavenly for some travelers. For a hefty monthly fee – $60-80/month – Verizon provides a reasonably fast Internet connection anywhere in its cell phone system. Some new notebooks have the hardware built in to support the EVDO connection, or cards can be connected to the laptop via USB or PCMCIA.

Here’s an interesting alternative piece of hardware – the Kyocera KR1 Mobile EV-DO Router. Plug it in and it instantly connects to the Verizon network and sets up Internet access for any nearby computer, acting as an 802.11g wireless access point with all the usual options for WPA/WEP security, plus four ports for network cables. […] continued