I still think my new Shadow is a pretty good phone. Needs GPS and better (much better) battery life to be perfect (and some workflow tweaks to the OS), but that’s another story.

One thing I’ve noticed about the non touch device though is that it’s a bit harder to manage stuff than on the old Wizard… and now I think back that was sometimes a little painful – tracking down photos or SMSs or editing a bunch of phone numbers.

Luckily I don’t have that problem any more. With Dashwire I now don’t have to think about it. No wires, just a simple app installed on my phone synchronizes everything – SMSs, photos, videos, contacts, call log, voicemail, ring tones, speed dials and even Pocket IE favorites – to a web interface.

From there I can edit, synchronize back to the phone and choose what to share in a public gallery.

If your client is up and running on the phone you can even use the web interface to compose and SMS message and have it sent from your phone.

The convenience of Dashwire is one thing, but having a backup of all your phones content is a pretty fantastic facility. If you’re ever faced with a hard reset of your phone (say to upgrade the firmware) or you manage to lose or break your handset having an up-to-date backup is going to easy the pain.

For the backup plan I’d love to see them able to retrieve details like it IMEI and serial number, and if they know your operator make reporting a stolen device painless (or at least guide you through the process) – but just having the information to hand would be a real bonus.

Looking forward to seeing how Dashwire evolves, and what their business model looks like

A few months ago I installed some "dogfood" software for a new Microsoft project that promised to revolutionize computers at home.

Yeah, right I thought. And it'll bring me a cookie and tuck me into bed.

Well several months have passed and it's yet to surprise me with its culinary skills, but it has lived up to it's promise of making our home network a better, safer place.

This wonderful piece of technology has a name - Windows Home Server - and is available right now.

So why do I like our Windows Home Server?

Organization and peace of mind.

The organization comes from having one central, expandable, reliable place to back up everything. Be it photos that I took on a trip, MP3s I ripped from a CD or an MPEG of a family movie (and yes, if you're backing up personal copies of DVDs you can store them there to!). Those files are then available from any machine on the network and thanks to embedded Windows Media Connect software you can display the photos and video on your Xbox360. Check out this amazing home media setup based around Windows Home Server for storage and streaming...

But where does the peace of mind come from? I'm glad you asked! It's all very well remembering to save your photos onto a shared folder on the server, but what about everything else. Your emails, your MS Money file, that document you just over-wrote with totally the wrong thing, the laptop you just dropped and that's making a very funny sound instead of starting up?

Every night Windows Home Server wakes all the connected clients up, and backs up anything that has changed. But it's not just a backup from the last time it changed, it keeps a history of each file and allows you to revert a single file or an entire machine back to whatever point in time you need. You have total control over how much backup data is kept (within the confines of available space of course, but WHS machines are easy to add new disks to either internally or via USB 2.0)

Best of all because WHS is based on Windows Server technology it's robust, reliable and proven. Couple that with an open API that allows people to write plug-ins to extend the capabilities of your server (want to host the family blog or automatically back up to a remote location - all possible, and more).

So when your kids come home and ask "why is there a server in the house" .... you've got an answer