edcasati.com

Sweet Potato Puree with Blue Cheese and Brown Sugar Walnuts

Serves 6-8

For the Sweet Potato Puree
6 sweet potatoes (about 4 pounds), peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
4cloves garlic
4 tablespoons butter
½ cup plus 1/4 cup water
4 ounces Maytag blue cheese, crumbled or cut into small chunks
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper

For the Brown Sugar Walnuts
1 egg white
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
8 ounces (or 2 cups) walnut halves and pieces

Space two racks evenly apart in the oven and preheat to 350°F Spread out the potatoes, garlic, and butter in a 13x 9-inch baking dish. Pour the water over the potatoes and season with the salt and pepper. Cover the dish tightly with foil, transfer to the top rack in the oven and bake for one hour or until the potatoes are very soft.
While the potatoes cook, whisk the egg white in a medium-mixing bowl until frothy. Add the sugar and salt and whisk again to combine. Add the walnuts and stir to coat well. Spread the nuts out on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or a silicon liner, or use a non-stick baking sheet. Transfer to the lower rack in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove and gently mix the nuts around on the sheet pan, scraping the sugar from the bottom. Let the nuts cool while the potatoes finish baking and then roughly chop them before serving.

When the potatoes are done, remove them from the oven and add the blue cheese. Transfer them in batches to a blender and puree until very smooth, adding the 1/4 of water as needed. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste. To serve, scoop the potatoes into a serving dish and top with chopped candied walnuts.

and

Root Vegetable Caponata

Makes 1 1/2 quarts (Serves 4-6)

2 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into 1/4-inch pieces (“lardons”)
1 small onion, diced small
2 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1 red pepper, julienne (1/8-inch strips)
2 tablespoons water
1 medium celery root (about 10 ounces), peeled and diced small (2 cups)
1 small butternut squash (about 12 ounces), peeled and diced small (2 cups)
3 medium parsnips, peeled and diced small (2 cups)
1/2 cup toasted pistachios, roughly chopped
3/4 cup golden raisins, soaked for 15 min in warm water and strained
3 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375° F. Heat large sauté pan or wide round roasting pan over medium heat. Add bacon to the hot pan and cook until it begins to crisp and brown, about 5 minutes. Add the onion and garlic and sweat for 3 minutes. Add the pepper and cook one minute. Add the water and deglaze the pan, scraping the brown bits from the bottom as the water sizzles. Once the water has evaporated, add the butter and olive oil, and then the celery root, squash and parsnips. Stir to coat the ingredients with the butter and oil. Place in oven and let roast until just tender, about 30-40 minutes, stirring twice. Remove from the oven and season with salt and pepper. Toss with the sugar, vinegar, pistachios and raisins and serve.

From a recent interview.
(This is what you get when you have no clue, and you just string together every talking point that they made you memorize)

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

==================
And her reply to another interview question.

First you will be annoyed, then you will smile, then you will lose that smile and start to think about it.

(A recent interview with Sarah Palin superimposed on notorious beauty pageant video)

No comment.

Is McCain too mentally unstable to be trusted in a position of leadership?

How else to explain his actions this week?

Last week: “Remain calm, the economy is fundamentally sound.”

Today: “Arghhhh… cancel all my appointments and meetings, the economy is such a pile of dog poo that we are doomed by Friday if we don’t make some legislative choices. I am suspending my campaign for President, suspending one of only two chances where Americans will get to confront my opponent publicly… and rushing back to Washington to save America !!!”

C’mon… is this how McCain reacts to all crisis?

A couple of months ago he was immediately ready to take the USA to war with Russia over the invasion of Georgia. War with Russia… think about that.  Remember how he grandiosely declared “Today we are all Georgians.” Whatever happened to that whole fiasco… oh yeah.. it resolved itself locally.

What is most funny, and probably humiliating for McCain is that tonight, Wednesday night, the same day that he canceled his campaign so he can jump into action, the Democratic party announced that they have probably reached an agreement with the Republicans on this matter (click here), and it will be ready for the President’s  signature shortly. So now what does McCain do?

Pathetic.

And dangerous.

========

Now his real reason for wanting to cancel the Presidential candidate debate this Friday.

The McCain campaign has already suggested that because of the cancellation of Friday’s debate, there will be no time for a Vice-Presidential debate at all, having instead Obama and McCain meet for a debate in place of the Vice-Presidential candidates, during what would have been the Vice-Presidential debate.

In other words, this all really boils down to further hiding Palin from public view by not having her participate in a debate.

The word “Pathetic” keeps popping into my mind.

Credibility is paramount in a President. Credibility, trust, inspiration… the marks of a leader.

The following single interview is sufficient to completely disqualify McCain from the office he is seeking. His answer indicates that he is either ignorant, is a complete hypocrite, has Alzheimers, or is just plain a liar.

Anybody that follows business news, to the lightest extent, knows that Carly Fiorina was one of the WORST CEO’s in the history of business, not only trashing Hewlett-Packard during her tenure, but also being responsible for the scandal where she was caught wiretapping her own board of directors. This is all common knowledge, and extensively reported.

Until just a few days ago she was the chief economic spokesperson for the Palin/McCain ticket.

==========

(Copied from another website, original link here)

Last week, after the Wall Street crisis took center stage in the presidential campaign, John McCain began assailing the greed of corporate fat cats, blasting CEOs who “seem to escape the consequences.” Reminded today by Meredith Viera that Carly Fiorina, as CEO of HP, walked away with over $40 million even after her tenure at the company was marked by tens of thousands of job losses and a 40% decline of shareholders stock value, John McCain insists that Fiorina did a heckuva job and played dumb on the details of her huge payout.

Viera: You have said, bottom line, it’s those fat cats. It’s the greed of Wall Street. You promised to crack down on CEOs who walked away with huge severance packages. And yet the person who up until recently was your public face on your economic policy was Carly Fiorina. She’s the former CEO of Hewlett Packard, she was fired in 2005, but she left with a $45 million dollar golden parachute while 20,000 of her employees were laid off. She  is an example of exactly the kind of person you say is at the root of the problem. How can you say that?

McCain: I don’t think so. … Because I think she did a good job as CEO in many respects. I don’t know the details of her compensation package. But she’s one of many advisers that I have.

Viera: But she did get a $45 million dollar golden parachute after being fired while 20,000 of her employees were laid off.

McCain: I have many of the people, but I do not know the details of what happened.

Are we really supposed to believe that McCain had no idea Fiorina was an epic failure at HP and still took home a huge $40 million dollar payout? Of course not. He just knows he can’t say with a straight face that he chose her, knowing she symbolizes the very corporate greed and corruption he now rails against.

===========

How anybody can take this man seriously is beyond my comprehension.

A very interesting commentary about Sarah Palin by a resident of Wasilla is now publicly available. I am including a few salient excerpts. The full letter can be found  here.

Interesting stuff.

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska.  I have known Sarah since 1992.   Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools.   Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher.   I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law.  I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

…

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator.   She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of=2 0low inflation (1996-2002).    She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food.  The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked?  or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved!  The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be.  She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska.  Rather than invest this sur plus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise.  As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff.  Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed.  City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter.  People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”.   Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited.  At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see  below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it.  He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper.   Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

…

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid.   She had no background in oil & gas issues.  Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job:  the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job.    In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens.   Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him.  She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork.  Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which h ad been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican:  no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them.  Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

….

Anne Kilkenny

August 31, 2008

The Republican party as a major choice to make in the next 24 hours - Should they keep Sarah Palin as their VP candidate?

Sarah Palin revealed today that her unmarried 17 year old daughter is 5 months pregnant. Mrs Palin also has her own new son to take care of.

If there has ever been anyone that is justified to bow-out “To spend more time with the family”, this is it. And for once, it is not a fake “excuse statement”. Mrs Palin really does need the time with her family, instead of spending the next few months on the road campaigning. I think many conservatives wIll judge her negatively if she does not withdraw given her current family needs.

This is all aside from the fact that she has been largely recognized as completely unready for the job.

The GOP ran a ‘focus group’ of “Undecided Voters”, with the following result:

“…Only one person said Palin made him more likely to vote for McCain; about half the 25-member group raised their hands when asked if Palin made them less likely to vote for McCain. They had a negative impression of Palin by a 2-1 margin…” Source: Time Magazine

Since this is an election that with be decided by the “Undecided”, this is big deal. Such a negative reception by the “Undecided” is not what the GOP needs to improve their (already slim) odds of winning this election.

Expect the VP withdrawal announcement on Tuesday, with the new VP choice announced the same day, and (Romney?) speaking on Wednesday night.

Buy your “McCain/Palin” buttons today! They might be valuable relics 50 years from now!

Today Sen. McCain announced his choice of running mate for the office of President of the United States: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Is this some kind of joke? Surely he can not be serious.

Governor Palin’s resume:

- Mayor of a town of 9000 people
- Less than 2 years into her first term as Governor of Alaska

That’s it… nothing more. No experience as a State Representative, no experience in Foreign Policy, no experience dealing with foreign leaders, nothing.

And this is the person that would take over the United States government in case McCain can not finish his term?

To see just how bad this choice really is, we might want to examine the role of the Vice-President:

a) To replace the President should the President be unable to perform his duties. This would unquestionably be during a time of national crisis due to the loss of the President.
b) To serve as a primary adviser to the President.

Is Governor Palin ready to fill either of those roles? Not at all.

A  time of crisis, such as the one that would take place if the President can not fulfill his role, requires a person of extensive political experience, a person that can step in with the full confidence that they can fill that emergency role that has been thrust upon them. Governor Palin does NOT have the necessary experience to take over that role at a national (and arguably international) level, an event that which may never take place, but could also take place a week after McCain’s inauguration.

And what about being an advisor to the President? This is where the choice of Palin at VP is really incomprehensible. How can she advise someone like McCain, with his 35 years of experience in government? So what will her role be? To sit at the back of the room, be quiet, listen and learn?

This choice also raises serious questions about McCain’s overall judgment and the type of people that will surround him.

So why was she chosen? The answer to this is fairly clear: politics. And it makes me openly declare that Senator McCain is putting Political Party above the best interests of his country. Think about it… there are so many people within his political party that are clearly more qualified to become Vice-President, yet he chose Gov Palin.

Gov Palin’s true qualifications:

a) Young - to balance off McCain’s age problem
b) Female - to provide the appearance of ‘balance’ within his party. (Look at the slate of Republican Presidential candidates for the truth about this subject)
c) Anti-Abortion
d) Long term member of the NRA (National Rifle Association)
e) Someone that can not steal McCain’s ‘thunder’ and make him look like a second-rate candidate.

In other words, she was not chosen because of her qualifications to serve as Vice-President, she was chosen because she can appeal to individual specific segments of American Society.She was not chosen because she is the best choice for America, she was chosen because she is convenient to the political party.

We can only hope that the American people see through this hypocritical ruse, and refuse to vote for this ridiculous ticket. That does not mean that they have to vote for the Democratic party if they don’t want to, but they should certainly consider refusing to vote for a Presidential candidate that would show either the bad judgement, or the self-serving reasons, or a combination of both that have resulted in Gov Sarah Palin being placed ‘one heart beat away’ from becoming the ‘leader of the free world’.

Using “Genie Backup” to create user data backups.

(Note: I have no relationship with the companies mentioned here aside from being a single-purchase customer)

PP1 introduced the new functionality to WHS of being able to backup the user data stored on the server to external storage. This is a welcome and needed improvement, since the WHS system really was incomplete without this feature.

As I discussed in a previous post on this blog, the new WHS backup system is good, but functionally rather limited; it covers the basics, and that’s just about it. For 99% of users, this is probably all they need. The limitations become readily apparent if you have any experience with ‘real’ backup software… it is sort of comparing “MS Write” with “MS Word”… they are both capable of doing word-processing, but there is a big difference in what they can do for more complex needs.

Some benefits of using a ‘real’ backup package include:

• - A wide range of support for backup devices, including DVD, removable hard drives and even tape drives.
• - Backup methods such as Full, Incremental, Differential and Mirror. (It is unclear to me if the WHS backup is Differential or Mirror, and there are no choices)
• - A comprehensive built in scheduler
• - The ability to roll over to multiple drives if the size of one drive is exceeded. If you have 750GB of data in one share , and you only have individual older 250 GB external drives to use for backup, a real backup package will just ask you for a new drive when the previous one is filled, and continue the backup. With WHS, the maximum size of the share, if you want it to be backed up, is limited to the maximum size of hard drive that you are using for backup. In WHS, if the data does not fit in the single destination hard drive, it will fail without advance warning about lack of capacity.
• - Data compression in all modes (Incremental, Differential, Full, Mirror) to save space on the destination drive. Because less data is being transferred to the drive due to compression, this can speed up backup times considerably.
• - Data Security. If using compression, a password can be used for the resulting backup files overall. And in all modes, full data encryption can be applied to each individual file.

In the end the real  reason that I decided to install Genie Backup is that the new backup module for WHS provided by Power Pack 1 does not provide disk spanning capabilities. I am cheap and I want to reuse the hard drives that I already have. I could split up the shares on my WHS and juggle backup drives, or spend much much more on new external backup drives, but I still wouldn’t get the benefits provided by dedicated backup software for less money.

After some research I decided to try, and then purchased “Genie Backup Manager Server“.

Important note: The “Pro Edition” of Genie Backup can NOT at this time be installed on the WHS server, because it (correctly) identifies the server as a Windows 2003 Server and tells you that you need to use/buy the “Server” edition of the software. The people of Backup Genie tell me that they are aware of this limitation, and that the next release should help solve the problem. In the interim they gave me a huge discount of 50% on the ‘Server’ edition of Backup Genie. If you are interested in using Backup Genie on your system contact sales before you buy.

There is a 30 day free trial of the full version of Backup Genie, and I strongly recommend using that before you purchase the full version. The purchase of Backup Genie was done online, paid via credit card. I quickly received a couple of emails, one confirming the purchase and one providing the Serial Number and link for download. The downloaded file is about 125MB and went fast and smooth.

Installation.

• - Proceed at your own risk. Backup Genie is not a Windows Home Server Add-in, and it has not WHS interface. Backup Genie is installed via the underlying Windows 2003 desktop, and run from the same location.
• - A reboot will be required at the conclusion of installation
• - Backup your existing user data to another drive, either via the PP1 Backup Utility (if  possible) or manually via the share, before making changes of this type to your Windows Home Server.
• - You will be working at the ‘console’ of your WHS system, and it is easier if you just plugin a monitor/keyboard/mouse to the WHS itself, but  you can use remote access to accomplish the same tasks.
• - Download the installation file from the manufacturer and run the installation program.

At this point you can start using the Genie Backup software following the normal backup instructions, with one exception:

You MUST connect to the network shares, not the hard drives directly, in order for a backup to take place.

Under normal circumstances backup software connects directly to a hard drive to accomplish it’s backup functions. You should NEVER connect to a  drive directly on a WHS system, you MUST always connect to a ’share’ to read data on a WHS, even if you are working on the local machine. The reason for this is that data is not stored on a WHS system in the ’standard way ‘ on the hard drives, it is stored on ‘virtual’ hard drives, and ONLY WHS knows how to talk to the virtual drives. If you connect to the ‘real’ drives, such as ‘D’, you will not be backing up your data, you will only be backing up small ‘pointers’ to your data.

To connect to a ’share’ on your WHS server, although you are running the software on the server itself, you need to point the backup source to the share on the network as follows:

* “What to Backup” option in Backup Genie
** “My Folders” Tab
*** “My Network Places”
**** “Entire Network”
***** “Microsoft Windows Network”
****** “WorkGroup”
******* “ServerName” (normally ‘Server’)
******** “ShareName”

Yes, it is a lot of clicking to select a share, but it works.

So there you have it, a working alternative to the PP1 Backup Software package on your WHS server.

“Disaster Recovery”

The Backup Genie software can create a “Disaster Recovery” backup, complete with specialized boot disk, designed to restore your operating system entirely should the need arise.

I have not tested the Disaster Recovery option, although I have created the necessary disk and system backup. I figure that if the Disaster Recovery fails to do it’s job if needed, I’m just as well off, since the WHS system does not provide an Emergency Recovery capability at all, aside from reinstallation from the DVD. It’s a case of “better something than nothing.”

The true sentiment about the Bush administration is spoken, as world leaders embrace “Change”.

July 27, 2008
by Edward Casati

What a week it was.

It was a week in which the world opened it’s arms to what it hopes will be return of the America that they respected and admired. It was a week in which even the most hardened pundits remarked with surprised tones “Hey, they still love America… who would have thought it?”

Barack Obama traveled the world. And at every stop, he was greeted not as the future President of the United States, but as a symbol of the return of the United States as a welcome neighbor in the world community.

At every stop, the world showed that the respect and underlying love for America still remains.

The meetings with the world leaders said in every case: “We can work with the America that you offer, and we look forward to working with the old America that we knew prior to Bush.”

• - Both the Palestinians and Israelis openly discussed the future where under new American leadership they can work towards some kind of peace.
  - In France, the conservative President welcomed Barack with the words ‘Obama? He’s my buddy!” - these words from a man that the Bush administration lists as their own “buddy”.
  - In England, the Prime Minister announced, during Barack’s visit, that they will be withdrawing basically all troops from Iraq by mid-2009… something contrary to every premise the the Bush administration has been postulating.
  - The biggest sign of change came from Iraq itself, where the embattled government indicated that the main road to peace in their country is the removal of the American troops by around 2010.

It is almost like the presence of Barack Obama amongst them had momentarily lifted a weight from their shoulders, allowing them to speak their minds, free from the fear that the Bush administration provokes throughout the world. We saw and heard, even if for just a moment, the true feelings of the world towards America, and the hidden derision for American policies towards the world under the Bush administration.

The Bush administration has only about 5 months remaining in power, yet it effectively has no power remaining. It has been locked in a room, screaming out at the walls, with nobody listening. The image that comes to my mind when I think about what happened last week throughout the world is that which we have seen often in movies: a new Sheriff arrives in town, removes the old corrupt bully of an old Sheriff, and gives hope to the citizens of the town that the fear that they lived under has been lifted. The citizens of the town represent the countries of the world. The Sheriff still wields the power, yet he is respected for his leadership abilities, not his big guns and threats.

There is “Hope” for a better world. The welcome that Barack Obama received throughout the world last week was not about a welcome to the man, it was a welcome to a different America from what it is under it’s current administration. It was a welcome to a “Hope” that America will again become the shining example of justice and freedom that it had represented before that image was so utterly destroyed during the Bush years.

America was at it’s richest and strongest when it was seen as the respected and admired world leader, and only with a return to that status can America hope to halt the increasingly sharp decline that America has suffered during the last 8 years.

Bringing hope to the world is very good for America… and last week we saw great hope shown by the world.

(My first real rant on this blog)

Windows Home Server offers no “Trashcan” functionality to it’s users. If you delete a file that is on the ’share’, it is probably gone, deleted, unrecoverable. Arggghh!!!

We have to keep in mind the audience for whom this ‘Server’ product was designed: “Home” users. It’s right there, in the name of the product.

So what is a “Home” user accustomed to on every computer that they have been using for the last 20 years? That they have a “trashcan”, and that if they accidentally delete a file, they can look in the trashcan and pull it back out. It is a FUNDAMENTAL feature of a computer.

I know what you are going to say… “It’s a Server, and no Microsoft Server has ever offered ‘undelete’ functions to users at their workstation.” To which I say “So what?” Just because it has not been offered before, it doesn’t mean that it should not be available now, specially on a product of this type. “It hasn’t been available before” is a really lame explanation.

I can see it now, my wife coming to me and saying “Honey, I accidentally deleted a file, and it’s not in the trashcan… where is it?” To which I have to answer.. “Honey, it was stored on the server, and servers don’t have undelete, so the file is gone.” Her answer will probably be “That is so stupid… what is the point of this ’server’ thing… I’m never putting a file on the stupid server ever again… I worked on that file for 4 hours and now it’s gone… stupid P.O.S.”

Yes, I know that the WHS is based on Server 2003, and Server 2003 does not offer client-level undelete, so it can’t be offered on WHS. The limitation is the underlying OS. To which I reply: If the file storage system could be modified to such an extent that it offers expandable storage through dynamic file relocation and ‘tombstones’, with automatic file duplication on distinct disks for file security, how hard could it be to create a ‘trashcan’ folder in each share so that the user can look there and  recover a file? In operation, you delete stuff from the ‘trashcan’ folder and it goes away forever (as expected), but if you delete it from any other folder it goes into the trashcan folder.

There is a way to possibly recover files though some ’shadow copies’ that are somehow created every 12 hours. Shadow copies are not a “trashcan’, they are an adjunct to scheduled backup. Every 12 hours a ‘picture’ of the server is taken, and if the new picture is different from the previous picture, then only the changes in the picture are saved. So suppose you have file “xyz.txt” that you last edited yesterday, and you edit it today. In a few hours the WHS will compare the ‘picture’ that it took yesterday of file “xyz.txt” and what it has today, notice that it changed, and save the changes. So you can go back to yesterday’s old file (maybe, and I guess that it’s better than nothing), instead of having to back to a backup ‘tape’. But if you created or edited, then deleted and then need to recover the file in the last 12 hours, you are probably S.O.L. (Edit based on comment posted on forum: ‘Shadow Copies’ are not enabled on the HP WHS at all, and a server reboot ‘probably’ clears the shadow copies anyway.)

It’s little things like this that can make a product welcome or unwelcome in a home. Not being able to pull things out of the trashcan, as we can (and regularly do) with all of our other computers, seems like a major flaw in the eyes of ‘common folk’, and is something that Microsoft needs to figure out and fix.

(End of rant)