Earlier today I made my first of several posts about building a Windows Vista “PowerToy” on the Windows Shell Blog. This first post is an introduction to what PowerToys are and a bit of history of how mine (a Windows Search gadget for the Sidebar) began.
Well, nearly perfect. Tonight I tried out the latest version of TVersity. It’s a non-Microsoft implementation of the same kind of UPNP sharing that Windows Media Player and the Zune software do. Except with some extra features, including one really big one:
It lets you stream non-WMV video files to your 360! No media center needed. And unlike the Transcode 360 option for Media Center, you don’t even have to do any tricks like picking “transcode” from a “more info” menu. You just fire up your 360, go to “Videos” and then “Computer” and you have a list of everything you’ve shared out. Just pick one and click play. Couldn’t be easier.
It even works great on Vista (including the x64 version). I had to add a firewall rule manually, and manually start the service (because of UAC I think) but it told me to reboot which would have started it as well. For a free beta app that’s pretty good.
Only improvement I want is for the list to display videos in folders. I have 200+ videos right now and it shows them all in an alphabetical flat list. However, that’s something the Xbox 360 software will need to solve since right now a flat list is all it supports for video (it does folders for Pictures so I imagine it would be do-able).
Anyway, I’m especially glad they have this solution since yesterday I managed to break my Media Center PC (the Mac Mini) during an attempted memory upgrade gone horribly wrong.
George Budabin, father of Andru Edwards (of GearLive and Seattle MindCamp fame) recently passed away. In memorial, Andru has asked friends to link George’s name to this post, so I’ve happily obliged. I also wanted to take this opportunity to offer my condolences to Andru for his loss. I didn’t even know that Andru was adopted, but I was moved nearly to tears by his account of their relationship. What touched me the most was the happiness they were able to bring to each other right til the end. Farewell George, and god speed.
It took a little longer than I’d hoped to get it up, but I have posted on the Shell Blog an update concerning the project I’ve been working on for much of the last year which was previously known by the codename ”Casino.”
I just unsubscribed from Naill Kennedy’s blog. Why? Because it turns out he’s a petty, thoughtless punk. He admits he never made any attempt to contact the blogger or anyone at Microsoft about the post - despite having countless avenues to do so (a comment, an e-mail, the feedback form on the site, etc). Instead he perpetrated a childish and disgusting prank.
As a commenter on Niall’s blog pointed out, Niall is also most likely on the wrong side of the copyright issue he’s using to justify his actions. He hasn’t responded to the question of whether he received permission from the person in the photo (Dean Hachamovitch of the IE team) or the owner of several trademarks that appear in the background of the image (Microsoft), especially considering Niall’s claim that he wants to charge a royalty for use of the photo under a Creative Commons license.
Furthermore, I wonder if Niall received permission from the originator of the photo he replaced his photo on Flickr with (the infamous “goatse” picture) that then appeared on the RSS Team’s blog for a short time. I’m betting he didn’t, and that this is nothing more than an immature prank he’s trying to justify and not an earnest ”defense of copyrighted material” as Niall claims. If it were, he would have contacted the blogger, his employer, or his host. And not stooped to such perverted means of retribution.
What do you think?
Go here to help some brave UW students who are in Uganda working with Save the AIDS Orphans Uganda and trying to raise money to complete construction of a new building that will house 50 orphans.
Right now they need $2500 more to complete the project which I’m told is largely to pay for the roofing of the building.
Also I just found out that Kate and her friends are blogging their experiences in Uganda.
On a seperate but related note, you can learn more about the atrocities occuring in northern Uganda where children are abducted from their homes and turned into soldiers, click the Invisible Children banner on the right-side column. If you haven’t seen the video (which we showed at MindCamp back in April) I highly suggest ordering their DVD. You’ll support the cause AND learn more about the horrible things happening over there.
I promise I’ll be back to making actual blog posts Real Soon Now. Lately I’ve been keeping very busy between work and enjoying the beautiful Seattle summer (out here it’s important to appreciate every ounce of sun while we have it!).
I’ve not been terribly good about my blog reading either.
I’ve been meaning to post about the various concerts I’ve already been to this summer. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find some time to get on that.
Great 5-minute clip from Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” over on Comedy Central’s page.
But don’t watch it too many times, or you might clog the internets!
Good thing these guys aren’t running things… oh wait, nevermind.
I just boarded my flight from Seatac down to LAX. My phone is my only connection to the wired world for thenext several days, and after we take off I’m not planning on using it for anything other than good old-fashioned phone calls. We’ll soon see just how long that lasts!
Actually, URGE is awesome. I still think they should fix the authorization the way I described. But I don’t even think it will be a big problem for me.
Why? This is the first service where I don’t feel like I actually need to download the tracks. The library integration in WMP 11 is so damn good and the instant search-as-you-type is brilliant. So far the selection seems better than any of the other stores. I’ve already found tracks I couldn’t find on Yahoo, Napster, or iTunes.
Plus I’m really digging the “Acoustic Chill” radio station. It’s the sort of “radio station” that you can hit “skip” if you don’t like a song. So it’s really just an on-the-fly playlist being streamed to you. But I like it a lot. The whole experience just rocks. So I’m cancelling Napster and I’m going to pay for URGE when my 14-day trial is up.
My URGE wishlist:
1) Higher bit-rate streams. Right now downloads are 192kbps WMA, which is great. But the streams are 128kbps, which encourages me to still download stuff when it feels like I really shouldn’t have to.
2) The authorization/activation fixes I outlined in my earlier post about Napster.
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Hi. I'm Brandon. I'm a geek, and I work on Search technology for Windows at Microsoft. This is my blog.
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The views expressed within my blog are my own - and are not in any way indicative of those of the company I work for, Microsoft, or it's employees. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.
