Microsoft has released Windows Server 2008 Foundation (a low-cost variant of the Windows Server 2008 core). Paul Thurrott covers some valid reasons for Microsoft releasing a product that is squarely aimed at tiny businesses (15 people or less) and in doing so they are also taking a broad swipe at the hardcore enthusiast market. Notably these are the two market segments that have a predilection towards the use of pirated Windows OS products (be it client or server) and with this release, Microsoft is making it even easier to go 'legit'. There are a couple of more reasons which I believe led to the release of this SKU.

1) The Worldwide Recession - Lets face it, the global downturn is not going to be kind to sales figures and Microsoft needed to pull something off that would keep those cash registers ringing (and in doing so keep shareholder value intact) well through this time of economic prudence.

2) Linux -  This is actually related to my first point above. Companies not spending more often than not translates into companies looking to free software. Ubuntu has free fully supported enterprise server and desktop versions out every 6-months and they've got zero shareholders to worry about. That's the deep-seated Redmondian fear. I'm not even going to prod the 'TCO monster' with a 10-foot pole, but depending on how you look at it, the release of Server Foundation will likely act as a gravity well and pull those sitting on the fence back into the Microsoft product fold.

It will be interesting to see the final feature set of Windows Server 2008 Foundation. With no support for virtualization (as per the EULA I suppose) and single-processor-socket only support, I wouldn't look to it to run my "weather simulation" server, but as a low-end file/database server it seems like Microsoft may just have hit the sweet spot.

This is one of the most refreshingly different games I’ve played in quite some time. The only other game I can think of that is comparable is ‘Portal’, incidentally also available on Steam. Ricochet perhaps comes close, but Goo gets extra points for originality.

 

World of Goo is a fantastic physics-driven puzzler which will keep you occupied for hours on end, and challenge you with a variety of brain-racking puzzles.

I’ve you have not heard about this game, I strongly recommend you go buy it and if you’ve heard of it, but are wondering whether its worth $20 (yes just $20!), all I can say is what are you waiting for? Its worth every last penny. Get Goo-ing!

So, I finally completed the upgrade to BlogEngine 1.4.5, and I took this opportunity to also finalize the migration from a Windows Server 2003/IIS 6 hosting platform to the Windows Server 2008/IIS 7 platform. Despite the inevitable teething troubles, everything seems to be stable now. This was largely due to the fact that the IIS 7 deployment requires a different (read "more secure") approach.

I'll be blogging soon about how I went about setting this up and I look forward to comments and suggestions on whether anyone had a better experience or knows how to approach this more efficiently.

I was looking for a way to backup all the relevant drivers for my hardware on Windows today and came across a awesome little tool called DriverMax. After the free registration (mandatory, if you want to use the software beyond the 30 day trial period), DriverMax scans your Windows PC for drivers, compares your existing driver versions to its massive online database and comes back with a detailed report on which drivers need updating. The utility itself weighs in at around 3.3 Mb. More...