I was supposed to go to CES this year but as it got closer to the show, there was some last minute reshuffling someone else ended up going in my place. There was another guy in the group who just wanted to go more than I did. CES can be a grueling week, especially if you have to do a lot of booth duty as well as setup and break down and I was scheduled to be working every day. Then, just as I got ready to go to CES, the calls start coming in for meet ups with other companies and if I had gone, I’d be booked to the point where I wouldn’t have any time to just look around. I’d like to go there just once and be able to just walk around without having to do it at a frenetic pace.

One of my friends, Kevin Colburn, who escaped from his HP cubicle earlier this year to do his own thing got some coverage from a few gadget blogs for his Island Words software along with his Gamecycles. Specifically, Slashgear and Cruchgear both gave GameCycles.com some mentions, although no link love. Gizmodo and Engadget were too busy gushing over the iPhone at Mac World to cover anything else. Good job Kevin, I hope it generate some good sales leads for your gaming/exercise products.

Andy McCaskey of Slashdot Review has been doing a great job of allowing me to experience the show virtually by podcasting interviews and show coverage each day. I was almost interviewed last year by Andy, but we ended up chatting for a while instead, because I wasn’t comfortable going on record talking about the controversy brewing between the Blu-ray and HD-DVD format war.

All the major news outlets were favorably impressed with HP’s announcement of the MediaSmart Server based on Windows Home Server. There is a lot of coverage, links, videos, etc., over on Charlie Kindel’s blog.

I would like to announce that the product I’ve been working on for the past
year has just been released. I love this product and have had a great time
working on it. One of the most gratifying parts of working on the product
was that whenever we had someone test it, we could never get it back from
them. 🙂 At first, some people didn’t even know that they needed it and yet
after they start using it, they didn’t know how they lived without it. It’s
a network-attached storage/backup device for the home called the HP Media
Vault. You can also use it in a business. I use one around work all the
time and find it just as valuable in a business environment as it is at
home. The software that comes with it automates both disk image backups as
well as file-based backups. It can be used to easily share files between a
Windows PC, a Linux workstation, or a Mac.

One of the coolest features is the ability to stream music, photos, and
videos to your TV/Stereo systems around your home by using a digital media
adapter. I’ve started a new FAQ and user group which you can find here:

http://www.k0lee.com/hpmediavault

If you compare it against similar products, I think you’ll find that it leads the field when you compare its capacity, performance, price, flexibility, and support.