servers

Sure, the iPad's fun. It's thin, it's addictive, it can handle a wide variety of apps and media files. There's only one problem: it still needs to sync to a PC.

If "magical" was the catchphrase most repeated at last year's iPad unveiling, "post-PC" was this year's equivalent for the iPad 2. I had hoped that, along with the iPad 2, Apple would find a way access media libraries wirelessly. They have, in a way, with iOS 4.3's new Home Sharing capability--but it needs a Mac or PC … Read more

This is an update of a deal I posted last year.

The CloudEngines Pogoplug is a seriously cool gadget that turns one or more USB hard drives into network-attached storage. And not just network-attached, but also Web-accessible. And phone-accessible. The key word here? "Accessible."

It originally sold for $129, but the second-generation Pogoplug is on sale at B&H Photo for just $49.95 shipped. The only catch: You'll have to accept the eye-searing pink design.

Here's how the gizmo works: you plug up to four USB hard drives into the Pogoplug, then connect the … Read more

I attended Meridian Audio's press event in its NYC office last Thursday, and came away impressed with the company's DSP3200 Digital Active Loudspeaker ($6,000 per pair).

The small, stand-mounted speaker was shown with a Sooloos Control 15 music server; the complete system was just a pair of speakers and the server. The elegant Control 15 touch-screen interface can access your collection of CDs and digital audio files, at full lossless quality.

High-end audio systems can be a little intimidating to use and can dominate a room, but the lifestyle-friendly Meridian-Sooloos combination is just the opposite. It's a music system, pure and simple. … Read more

One of the crowning features of Windows Home Server, which Microsoft announced it was cutting as part of the next major version of the OS, is set to return with the help of some third-party software makers.

Drive pooling, which lets users take multiple hard drives and turn them into one solid block of storage was made possible by a feature called Drive Extender. In November, Microsoft announced it would be removing the feature in the second major version of the Windows Home Server software, code-named Vail, citing higher-capacity commodity hard drives as making the feature obsolete.

Users cried fowl, … Read more

The iTunes-like DoubleTwist AirSync app for Android just picked up a significant new feature with its latest update. Android users will now have the ability to share their music, videos, and photos through a connected television, Xbox, or PlayStation 3. In other words, your Android phone becomes a media server.

DoubleTwist has become increasingly popular over the past few years, adding new options along the way. The application was conceived back in 2008, where it was among the first apps to sync media files--including those from iTunes--to and from portable media players. Android handsets were added to the list of … Read more

Microsoft said today that it had sent the first service pack for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to original equipment manufacturers, with a consumer release to follow later this month.

The news comes several weeks after Microsoft's Russian Windows localization team had reported the update as being finalized from its first and only release candidate, and released to manufacturers.

Microsoft says the update will go out to consumers through Windows Update on February 22. TechNet subscribers and Microsoft's volume license customers will get their hands on it a week earlier, on the 16th.

SP1 includes an … Read more

Microsoft today announced 19-year company veteran Satya Nadella will replace Bob Muglia as head of its server and tools business.

Nadella, who had previously headed up research and development for Microsoft's online services division, was also the lead for the company's business solutions team and a lead engineer in its server group. Microsoft says Nadella's new role as president of the server and tools business is to "oversee the overall strategy, engineering, marketing and product development for Microsoft's server, tools and cloud platform efforts."

The news comes a month after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer … Read more

Whispers and tweets about Microsoft's Windows Home Server hitting the all-important Release Candidate status this week have proven to be true, with Microsoft offering up the software earlier today to users on its Connect site.

The software, code-named Vail, is the second iteration of Microsoft's Home Server product, and is based on Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft first let users try out the software in beta form in April of last year. Along with Vail, Microsoft has put out a release candidate of Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, previously code-named Aurora.

One of the biggest changes to hit … Read more

India appears unlikely to implement its threatened ban on BlackBerry services, but the government is still demanding access to the data on Research In Motion's secure enterprise network--something RIM keeps insisting it cannot provide.

RIM had been ordered to give the Indian government a permanent solution on access to its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) by yesterday to avoid a ban on its services. India has been insisting on the access for the past several months as a way to monitor e-mails for national security reasons. But with the deadline past and no solution apparently in place, what does that … Read more