The day has finally arrived for us to reveal the results of the Windows Home Server Add-in Idea Challenge ‘09!
Over the past two weeks, you’ve been voting for your favourite idea from the final ten in your thousands – those votes, combined with the judges’ final view on feasibility have led us to the results, which are as follows:
1st Place
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.
2nd Place
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).
3rd Place
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.
4th Place
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.
5th Place
WHS Windows Update Manager – Rob Cassie
Allow users to centrally manage Windows Update for all connected PC’s from the console.
6th Place
Time Machine – Simon Needham
Total turnkey, out of the box, it just works storage support for OS X Time Machine.
7th Place
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
8th Place
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.
9th Place
Folder Monitoring + 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.
10th Place
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.
Voter Prize
Congratulations to Bryan Crosby whose vote was picked out at random, and wins a great home server prize, including the HP MediaSmart Server LX195 and a host of goodies.
As you’ll remember, the winning idea will be developed into a full Windows Home Server add-in, and developer Felix Kollmann has already started on initial ideas for Home Calendar, Tasks, Contacts (I hope it gets a new name too!). Work will continue on the add-in through to the end of the year at which point it will be released to the community.
With the winners announced, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who submitted an idea and voted along with the competition supporters below who have generously donated a heap of kit as prizes, which the guys above will receive in the coming weeks for their ingenuity. Finally, I’d like to thank Felix, Alex and Christoph over at HSB for inviting WGS to get involved in the competition – great collaborating with you guys and I hope we can do it again!
Until next year, that’s the Windows Home Server AIC ‘09 done and dusted!
![supportersfinalthumb11[1]](http://www.wegotserved.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/supportersfinalthumb111.png "supportersfinalthumb11[1]")
4. July 2009 at 7:36 pm
Congrats to Jared! There were a lot of great add-in ideas and I can't wait to tryout the winning add-in once it is developed.
4. July 2009 at 8:54 pm
Oh my goodnes! I did not expect to place that high let alone win!
Thank You!!!!!
Thank You!!!!!
Thank You!!!!!
Thank You!!!!!
Wow!!!!
5. July 2009 at 3:44 am
awesome. When can get get ahold of these addons?
5. July 2009 at 1:01 pm
By the end of the year, first place will be available. No guarantees on the runners up.
5. July 2009 at 9:30 am
Congrats Jared, you had my vote!
5. July 2009 at 1:03 pm
Same Wonderful idea. was stuck between Windows Update, Undelete and this. My gut told me to go for this because one day MS or another addin dev might just happen to pick up the other 2 ideas anyway.
6. July 2009 at 6:04 pm
I wonder who actually got the most votes? Any plans on releasing that info?
6. July 2009 at 11:40 pm
Using GcalDaemon & Google calender, I already have this very same thing. WHS gets GcalDaemon installed to sync with the google 'cloud' and all my client pc's talk to WHS. WHS gets a link on its webpage to the google calender and bingo all is done.
Was hoping on #2 winning despite the fact that it cant be done.
16. July 2009 at 3:49 am
Wow, networked TV…I think this has been done already, take a look at SageTV WHS Edition. Of course it does not share with MCE but does share with SageTV extenders, PC clients, and over the internet with placeshifter. Second place for an idea that's been done….wow!
27. July 2009 at 2:51 am
Congrantulations to all winners!
I am paticularly interested in the winner of 3rd and 4th place… any ideas of when they will be available……thanks
23. September 2009 at 11:41 am
How`s this coming along ?
Has there been much progress on developing the add-in for the 1st place winner ?
23. September 2009 at 8:31 pm
Haven't heard from the guys in Germany for a little while – will check and see how it's going…
26. October 2009 at 2:31 am
How is the development going?
15. October 2009 at 4:39 pm
??? – Has there been any progress at all???
3. January 2010 at 10:23 pm
I¨ve seen the have developed my idea at Home Server Land