I recently got another Xbox but when I tried to stream music from my HomeServer it would throw the following error; “Can’t connect. Make sure you have activated this console on your computer”
The existing Xbox continued to stream without any problems so I knew streaming was working.
Windows HomeServer uses Windows Media Connect (not Windows Media Player) to stream, and whilst no config is exposed inside the WHS console you can still configure it via c:\program files\media connect\wmccfg.exe. I found I had a load of devices (including the 2nd Xbox) listed as denied – Media Connect only supports 10 devices. Removing some of the old devices (PCs which had been rebuilt for example) and changing the new Xbox to Allow fixed the problem.
We’ve all heard stories and some of us have been unfortunate enough to permanently loose some of our valueable data. Its when this happens that you realise how important it is to keep a backup of the data – once bitten twice shy.
My first data loss was in 1997 and fortunately it was just some documents. Annoying but not a nightmare. The experience spurred me to go an buy a consumer tape streamer. I think it was an HP device which connected to the PC via parallel cable and had a massive 700Mb capacity. This I used for a good 2 years before I started using CDs.
When I installed my first server at home, backup got more complicated: I was now backing up a complete machine (NT 4.0 with Exchange 5.5) and its data rather than just the data itself. For this I started using a backup utility (NTBackup) which saved the backup on another computer (the client). This worked ok and I continue to use this model for backing up four servers today: a Domain Controller (this stores usernames/passwords and other user-related information), an Exchange Server (email and calendar) and two ISA Server firewalls.
Last year I installed a Windows Home Server, and this has made data backup so much easier. Home Server is a special-purpose computer which has no screen or keyboard and acts as the focal point for home networks. It stores all your data, allows the family to access it from any computer in the home or on the internet. It automatically backs up every computer each night and even provides a simple way for you to restore a computer from scratch (e.g. after a hard disk is replaced).
However, if I lost the Home Server, I’d also loose all my data and the backups! Hence I’ve subscribed to iDrive. iDrive is an internet-based backup service which securely keeps copies of all my data on servers in their datacentre. Further, it keeps multiple copies of each file in case I want to go back to a previous version. Every night, iDrive copies all the files which have changed that day up to their servers, encrypting them in the process so noone else can read them. And they only charge a measly £50/year for this privilege. There are alternatives to iDrive (e.g. JungleDisk) but I preferred the UI on iDrive.
