Many loyal readers may remember Trash PC, a Pentium-4-packing beige tower that I recovered from the garbage. The Trash PC is now Trash Server.  As a server, it was necessary to paint Trash PC black (all servers are black, didn’t you know?).  This was accomplished with a partial can of automotive trim satin black paint.

Trash Server’s intimidating list of features include:

• 2.8 GHz Pentium 4
• 1.5 GB RAM (You’re looking a cool $22 upgrade from Trash PCs 768 MB RAM)
• 80 GB HDD

With these impressive specs, you may expect Trash Server to run an equally archaic operating system.  On this point you are wrong.  Trash Server sports the latest offering from Redmond: Windows Server 2008.

The minimum system requirements for this behemoth server OS include a 1 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM, a staggering 10 GB HDD, but wait, it also requires a DVD drive.  Trash PC was not endowed with a DVD reader, so Trash Server received a DVD+R DL drive.  This upgrade pushed the hardware costs dangerously close to $50.  Luckily, Newegg was offering free shipping on both the RAM and the DVD drive.  Speaking of cost, my Server 2008 system is limited to 5 CALs (that would be five “client access licenses” for those fortunate enough to not speak Microsoft licensing) due to the bank-breaking cost of additional CALs, and also the fact that the 5 CALs excede my user base by 150%.

Since Trash Server did not get a display, all console access is handled via Remote Desktop Connection from my OS X system.  The new 2.0 release of RDC for OS X is a nice improvement over the 1.x release and meets all of my administrative needs.

Server 2008 is reponsive from the console as well as thorugh the various services it provides for my otherwise OS-X-only network. What services you ask?  Trash Server offers services ranging from Active Directory and DNS to file sharing.  Note that the file sharing services are a minor role as Trash Server only has an 80 GB (non-redundant) HDD, and all of my data resides in the decidedly not-Windows-friendly HFS Plus (read: Mac) file system; those pesky forward slashes…

Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld Selling Shoes, Windows

Many seem confused by the ad and some are even angry (?). Personally, I think it is funny. I’m not any more or less inclined to buy a copy of Windows, but I do like the new direction of Microsoft’s advertising.

More less than intelligent commentary here and here.