The time has come. Alexander, Felix, Christoph and I had a lot of fun reading through the hundreds of ideas submitted by the Windows Home Server community for new add-ins and it’s time to let you know who made the final ten.
Starting Monday 15th June and running through until Tuesday 30th June, you will have the chance to judge the AIC ‘09 Finalists, and vote for the one which you want to be developed into an add-in and released before the end of the year.
Yesterday, we released details of the 20 runners-up, whose fantastic ideas will hopefully be picked up by eager community developers out there – well done to you guys for a great set of ideas.
The Finalists
I’m delighted to announce that the following ideas made the final shortlist. (Brief descriptions are provided here, and the attachment below provides a full description from each entrant). In alphabetical order:
| Add-in Name | Entrant | Brief Description |
| Automatic Add-In Updater | Erik Madsen | An add-in that can automatically check for updates of add-ins and inform the user when there’s an update with a button to update the add-ins |
| Folder Monitor & Notification Scheme | Adam Swift | This add-in will give the ability to set up a list of shared folders that will be monitored for file changes (adds or deletes) and will send out a notification to a list of registered users detailing the information on what has changed on the shared folders. The notification could be set up as either an email alert or perhaps an RSS feed. |
| Home Calendar, Tasks, Contacts | Jared Finkenbinder | This add-in should use universal data stores such as ical and vcards to share data to multiple productivity suites such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Entourage, etc. This does not need to serve email, it is simply a way to have a centralized database for shared, common items for the family or home office. |
| Microsoft Web Platform for WHS | Name Witheld | The Microsoft Web Platform for WHS add-in allows anyone to have easy access to some of the best website management systems on the planet (Wordpress, Drupal etc). Microsoft even worries about the updates for you. |
| Photo Manager | Name Witheld | A photo app on the home server that helps you organize your photos so they are easy to sort and easy to find what you are looking for. This would include face recognition software to find all the photos for a certain person that you would have to go through all your albums to find. |
| Run TV Cards on WHS, Controlled from MCE Clients | Sven Halling | Allow the home server to run (MCE compatible) TV cards to record TV straight to the WHS storage, and be played from any client (MCE or other) connected to the network. Scheduling of recording shall be made from any MCE PC connected to the WHS. With this we get a truly networked TV function that also saves energy (as the WHS is the only machine that needs to run all the time). |
| Time Machine | Simon Needham | Total turnkey, out of the box, it just works storage support for OS X Time Machine. |
| WHS Undelete | Andrew Carr | Transfers a copy of any file deleted from the WHS into the recycle bin of the computer it was deleted on. |
| WHS Windows Update Manager | Rob Cassie | Allow users to centrally manage Windows Update for all connected PC’s from the console. |
| Windows Live Skydrive Add-in | Name Witheld | The main idea of this add-in is to provide an automated way to monitor folders on the Home Server and automatically back them up to Windows Live Skydrive which provides 25gb of free storage. |
I hope you agree, that’s a great set of finalists with ideas covering a wide range of enhanced features for Windows Home Server. I’d personally install every one of them on my home server if they were made available!
Full Add-in Descriptions
Each entrant has provided a detailed description of how their add-in would work, which you should read through to help you evaluate each idea. We haven’t altered these descriptions at all (except to translate them into German for our friends over at the Home Server Blog).
Download them here: AIC09 Finalists – Details
Voting Begins Tomorrow
We’ll publish details of how to vote here on the site tomorrow. Remember, every vote counts as not only are we deciding which add-in will get published, you’re also voting which idea is worthy of the prizes we have on offer from our supporters.
Remember too, that we’ll also be pulling out one vote at random, who will receive the following great prize pack:
Home Server Prize Pack including:
- HP MediaSmart Server LX195
- 500Gb Fujitsu Storagebird External Hard Drive
- Diskeeper for Windows Home Server
- My Movies for Windows Home Server
So, make sure you check back tomorrow for the final leg of the Windows Home Server Add-in Idea Challenge ‘09!
PS. A Very Big Thank You once again to this year’s competition supporters:
![supporters-final-thumb1[1]](http://www.wegotserved.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/supportersfinalthumb11.png "supporters-final-thumb1[1]")
14. June 2009 at 7:51 pm
Congratulations to all that participated and Thank You to this year’s competition supporters.
I look forward to next years, winners.
14. June 2009 at 9:19 pm
Some very good add-in ideas there. I would be surprised if no less than 2 of these are developed regardless of whether they win. It’s very hard to choose between I have about 6 I would install in an instant (on the basis of good development). I think I have found my winner though.
14. June 2009 at 9:20 pm
Uhh, there are going to be some hard ones for the developers, depending on what wins.
Things such as TV cards on WHS and managing Windows Update on client PC's from the WHS are ones that could be really hard to actually deliver.
Regards,
Brian
14. June 2009 at 10:16 pm
Yes without installing services on the clients some of them seem almost impossible
18. June 2009 at 2:42 am
Yes, but those are one of the most usefull ones. I'd really like to free my Media Center from the tuner. Plus you would not have to pay monthly fee for cable box in each room. That's real incentive for TV plug-in (even if it will be commercial).
14. June 2009 at 11:03 pm
Windows Update on client PC's from the WHS is possible if it installs WSUS and creates an GUI for it
15. June 2009 at 1:40 am
O how i would love to Update and manage my client PC's from the WHS using WSUS thru a GUi add-in
15. June 2009 at 1:43 am
also as a side note,,,we would also need a partition expander for the MMS sinse a 20gb doest work and the WSUS is to large for this … sorry probably a redirect for this subject
16. June 2009 at 2:53 am
For me most important would be integration with SkyDrive. possibly with the cache capabilities for live sync.
Second up… Photo Manager with … the Live integration (No, I am not a Microsoft "plant")
19. June 2009 at 2:21 pm
I would have voted for that (if my idea wasn't in the top ten). however I reckon the problem is that MS (plant or no plant) have far too many cloud storage services that do the same things (Mesh, Sync, SkyDrive, MyPhone, Office Live, Hotmail) all tack on different pieces of storage (some are doing the same things in diff ways). I wouldn't be suprised if they consolidate some of these … which could impact integration depending on which the winner is (I reckon Mesh because of the hype). Not sure what is planned for Wave 4, but would be nice if they clarified their direction.
FYI I am not a Microsoft plant either … or a Apple plant (or would that be tree?). Thats why you should vote for my Windows Update Manager
23. June 2009 at 7:29 am
Thanks guy.
22. December 2009 at 6:30 pm
Addin manager – http://www.home-server-blog.de/2009/11/22/home-se...