Can Windows Home Server cure digital nausea too?
Windows Home Server, just announced today at CES in Las Vegas, looks like precisely the kind of product we could really use here chez O'Connor Clarke. From a first very quick run through the specs and product overview, I think it could turn out to be a boon for our little home network.
But until and unless they can put up a proper website about it, there's not a chance in hell I'm going to be exploring any further.
There are a few scraps of information available at the Microsoft Presspass site (the news release, a Q&A, and a couple of background documents) but rather than launch this promising product with a well-planned and informative website, they've opted for the humorous approach (and I'm using "humorous" in the loosest possible sense).
The site, goofily labelled the Center for Digital Amnesia Awareness, is a bigass piece of Flash, featuring some guy cast in the role of "intensely irritating fake doctor". As soon as you arrive at page one, this chap starts blathering on at you in a way that is very far from amusing and not even remotely enlightening.
As you walk through the sparse content sections on the site, the same bloke keeps popping up. There's no way to switch him off, no "skip intro" option, not even a mute button. Disabling Flash in youe browser only takes you to a single page that says you have to install Flash before you can go any further. Great.
Even the "Case Studies" featured on the site, aren't - it's the same annoying dude performing a series of cameos. By the second page, I was already shrieking "make it stop! Make the scary man go awayyyy!!"
I am exactly the target demographic for this product - and the launch site makes me want to punch my own computer full in the face. How smart is that?
But until and unless they can put up a proper website about it, there's not a chance in hell I'm going to be exploring any further.
There are a few scraps of information available at the Microsoft Presspass site (the news release, a Q&A, and a couple of background documents) but rather than launch this promising product with a well-planned and informative website, they've opted for the humorous approach (and I'm using "humorous" in the loosest possible sense).
The site, goofily labelled the Center for Digital Amnesia Awareness, is a bigass piece of Flash, featuring some guy cast in the role of "intensely irritating fake doctor". As soon as you arrive at page one, this chap starts blathering on at you in a way that is very far from amusing and not even remotely enlightening.
As you walk through the sparse content sections on the site, the same bloke keeps popping up. There's no way to switch him off, no "skip intro" option, not even a mute button. Disabling Flash in youe browser only takes you to a single page that says you have to install Flash before you can go any further. Great.
Even the "Case Studies" featured on the site, aren't - it's the same annoying dude performing a series of cameos. By the second page, I was already shrieking "make it stop! Make the scary man go awayyyy!!"
I am exactly the target demographic for this product - and the launch site makes me want to punch my own computer full in the face. How smart is that?
