Google Announced Google Gears today, a new set of open source technologies that allows web applications to work ‘offline’ in a disconnected mode.  This could be a HUGE benefit for Google (and other Web Applications) as they compete against Microsoft with their online suite of office-like applications.

One of the biggest complaints of web-based applications is “What if my Internet connection is down, or if I am on an airplane? ”  Gears solves this problem by installing a local server and database, and allows for for ‘caching’ of data and applications for disconnected use.

This is still an early beta of the technology, but this is a great step for extending the web to mobile, offline use.  The API is available now, and allows 3rd party developers to use the Gears technology in their web application.

More Coverage:

PCWorld

ZD.Net

eWeek

The Live Writer team released Beta 2 today.  It has quite a few new features, and an updated GUI that looks great.  In just a few minutes of use, I find it far more intuitive to use and it feels more ‘Vista-ey’ than the prior version.  And the new inline spell-check is a godsend for horrible spellers like myself :-).

If you are using Live Writer, be sure to upgrade to this version, well worth the 5 minutes to download and install.

And best of all, Ink Blog Plugin still works great in this version for Tablet PC blogging!

Download Live Writer Here

Release notes and info on the WLW Team blog Here

I just came across a neat little utility called Package This that allows you to create an offline Windows Help File (.chm) from topics on MSDN.  This is a great way to get the latest SDK documentation on your local drive without having to wait for (and install)the latest refresh DVD.

The utility is available in both compiled and source, and does have a few dependicies, so make sure you read the info first.  Download Here

As a test, I created a local version of the Windows Home Server SDK docs, and it worked as promised.

Special thanks to MDodich on the WHS forums for pointhing this out!

UPDATE : Please note, the WHS team has created an addendum to the SDK that is not in this help file.  You may download it here

Well, I’m over a week late with this, but lack of sleep

does funny things to your productivity!

Linda & Ed’s beautiful baby girl was born this morning, May 8th, at 8:35 AM. Mom and Baby are both doing great!

Baby Erin Devon Holloway is 7 pounds, 8 ounces and 19.5″ long.

This is our first child, and it is an amazing experience.  I can’t believe how many things the books and classes did NOT cover, but we are learning as we go, and will figure it all out (sooner or later)

More photos at our Flickr Site!

-Linda & Ed

Just got an email saying that the Windows Home Server team has released a CTP (Community Technology Preview) version today.  CTPs come after Beta’s (though it is technically still a beta) and before RTM (Release to Manufacturing). That means the WHS team must have the bits aligning nicely, and are on track for a release.

Check out the official WHS Blog for details on the CTP, and to sign up for the beta. (Hardware not included 🙁 )

When I first head about WHS, I thought it was a great concept, but couldn’t see it replacing the Terabyte NAS device I already had in my house.  Turns out I find myself using WHS more and more, and the NAS less and less.  With over 500 Gigs of data, the NAS device is not going on eBay anytime soon, but if I were buying today I would go with the ‘smart NAS’ (WHS) over a closed, traditional NAS.  It will be interesting to watch the market and ecosystem develop around this product…

PS – no this is not becoming ‘Ed’s WHS blog’ 🙂

If you’re like me, you probably spend a lot of time installing and uninstalling new software – either to try the latest and greatest programs or for a project you may be working on.  As we all know, sooner or later this starts junking up your PC, and you will see Windows start to slow down.

In the past I’ve always kept a drive image using Ghost or some other imaging tool to help with this problem.  Using a drive image I could quickly revert back to a prior, clean,  version of my drive and get the performance back without spending a day (or more) reinstalling & tweaking Windows and all my applications.  This would also let me image a new drive, each time I upgraded to a larger or faster hard drive, again saving the full reinstall time.  This worked pretty well, but is still time consuming, and you have to remember to keep manually making drive images to keep everything up to date.

Since I’ve started testing Windows Home Server (WHS), I’ve thought this may be a great way to solve the problem.  And sure enough, it is. I was reading Charlie Kindel’s blog today (Charlie is the WHS PUM and founder inside of Microsoft), and he had a great post on doing just this.  In his case, he was just expanding an existing drive, but using this same concept you can upgrade a drive or revert back to a prior (cleaner) version of Windows.  Great to know!

On a side note, still tinkering with the WHS SDK, trying to find some ‘killer apps’.  Suggestions welcome 🙂

The Windows Home Server team has released a Software Development Kit / APIfor the product.  I’ve been using the beta for a while now, it’s great, but there are quite a few additions I would like to see – so I guess this opens up a lot of opportunities.  After a quick glance, this looks like a very well-rounded V1 SDK.  Nice work guys!

More Soon!

I was at CTIA for a few days this week, and as I was walking the floor yesterday morning I see a golf cart whiz by with a bunch of ‘black suits’ in it.  Next cart had, what I thought was my good friend Dennis Rice in it, boy has he got some clout, I thought.  When I yelled hello, and got ignored, I assumed it was just all going to his head 🙂

I then realized maybe it wasn’t Dennis, and that it was Bill Clinton – another cart whizzing by full of the suits with headsets confirmed this for me.  Al the carts stopped just 20 feet away, and as I looked back, a huge mob was quickly approaching.  I quickly moved over to where they stopped (they were doing a press interview), and got right up front.

Talk about being at the right place at the right time – I was right in front and got up close with Bill & George.  Not everyday you get 10′ away from two ex-Presidents!  Pretty cool day.

But the highlight had to be as I was leaving…as I pushed my way through the crowd to leave, I heard the following conversation:

Tradeshow BoothBabe:  “I just want to get close enough to see Bill, and shake his hand”

Random Guy in crowd: “Oh honey, he’d let you do much more than shake his hand!”

Haha too funny!