I just can’t describe how much I am loving my new HP EX490 Media Server. I’ve had it running flawlessly for 2 weeks now. Everything just works, simples! It’s small dimension also means I am saving a lot of space. I’ve configured LightsOut to further conserve my electricity consumption.
Anyway, this post is to highlight the awesome (and what makes the EX490 stand out) feature of this Media Server – it’s built in interface system. Assuming that you enable Remote Access with the appropriate user settings, there’s endless possibilities to explore! If you go to the WHS console and go to Settings>Remote Access tab and change the website homepage to the HP Mediasmart Server homepage you will be greeted with this screen when you access your server’s https URL:
(Please click on each picture to get an enlarged version)
Now isn’t that just sexy! I personally feel it is miles better compared to the original WHS page. You can virtually do ANYTHING here, browse shared folder, stream videos, stream music, stream photos, remotely connect to your server (Remote Desktop) or other online computers in your network – the options are (virtually) endless here!
One of the features I love here is the HP Photo Publisher feature. It enables you to upload media (mainly photos) from your server to some of the popular media hosting sites as shown in the screenshot below:
However I think the icing on the cake is the Media streaming option. It has (in my honest opinion) the prettiest and most functional interface one can ever ask for. I’ve only enabled Music streaming but just check this out:
There is probably more to explore but for the mean time I’m sold. I think it’s just THE essential toy for any geek out there 🙂