theHTPC.net

Just a quick note…Heatwave plugin now has 7MC support!

Jon — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:47:19 +0000

Yep, the popular weather plugin for Vista has been modified to support 7MC. x86 and x64 download versions for Heatwave v1.2 are available here.

Here is a list of a few other additions to this pre-release version:

A widescreen layout is now included. If you don’t like it, it can be disabled in Settings on the Appearance page.
There is a day/night (sun/moon) forecast indication next to the location title. If you don’t like it, it can be disabled in Settings on the Appearance page.
The layout of the main page has been tightened up a bit (the data refresh times have been lost in this version, however will return in a later version)
The various times will now be formatted according to the system time format
The temperature ranges are now presented in high-low order. You can flip them back to the way they were in Settings on the General page.
Changed the formatting of temperature ranges to make negative temperatures more legible

How about a few Halloween weekend deals?

Jon — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:16:26 +0000

Being an affiliate, I get emails every day about deals from many different sites. Fact is, some of them are very good deals. Here’s a few that I would say are relevant to anyone visiting:

$24.96 Off** Today!
FREE BUDGET SHIPPING
MediaGate MG-M2TV 1080p HD Media Player Featuring DTS
Buy.com price: $89.99
List price: $114.95
$24.96 Off** Today! + FREE BUDGET SHIPPING on the MediaGate MG-M2TV 1080p HD Media Player Featuring DTS

Memorex Blu-ray Disc Player, Full HD 1080p
Buy.com price: $149.99
List price: $299.99
*Expires 10/31/09
$150.00 Off** Today! + FREE BUDGET SHIPPING on the Memorex Blu-ray Disc Player, Full HD 1080p

FREE BUDGET SHIPPING
Samsung 2494SW 24″ Widescreen 1080p LCD Monitor, 50,000:1 (DC), 5ms, DVI
Buy.com price: Special Price
List price: $415.00
*Expires: 11/3/09
FREE BUDGET SHIPPING on the Samsung 2494SW 24″ Widescreen 1080p LCD Monitor

$50.00 Off** Today!
FREE BUDGET SHIPPING
Cables Unlimited Audio Unlimited Wireless Speaker System – 2.0-channel – 10W (RMS) / 20W (PMPO) – White
Buy.com price: $79.99
List price: $129.99
$50.00 Off** Today! + FREE BUDGET SHIPPING on the Cables Unlimited Audio Unlimited Wireless Speaker System

Hope one of these is useful to someone!

Slow couple of weeks, but added some new site functionality.

Jon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:12:30 +0000

I have a decent little group of readers, but only a handful actually have registered and leave comments (thanks to those of you who do!). In order to make it a little easier to generate some discussions, I’ve enabled multiple sign-on capability for those of you who have one of the more popular social accounts. Right now, I support Google, facebook, twitter, Yahoo!, OpenID and AOL accounts.

So, if you would like to login and have any one of those aforementioned accounts, you will be presented with the appropriate button on the login page.

You may also notice the new Gigya toolbar at the bottom of the page. Hopefully you will find it useful. If not, it can be hidden. I also have a new facebook fan page. Please become a fan!

Hopefully I will have some new material soon, but things have been busy on my end. Testing an 802.1x implementation at work, chiropractor visits 3 days a week and preparing for our 5-day cruise next weekend (can’t wait!) hasn’t left me a lot of time. I do want to say that the next release of Media Browser (codename Firestorm) is due December 20th. I can only assume that this will be the first release under their pay model (which is hush hush right now, but it will make you all very happy), but maybe they’ll give up an early Christmas present and start off the new year (2010) under the pay model. We’ll have to wait and see!

7MC users – Internet TV and Netflix is here!

Jon — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:36:23 +0000

I was just met with a nice surprise while playing around on my bedroom’s 7MC HTPC client…the Internet TV icon on one of my menu strips. Upon clicking that little icon, I got a few nice surprises:

Internet TV

Check and install

Pick a channel

Choose a show

Have a Netflix account?

If so…

…install it

Browse your instant or DVD queues or any category of available titles

Check out the details

Search for something to watch or add to your queue

For those of you who used the VMC Netflix plugin, this is definitely a step up. The new Internet TV also has Adobe Flash support!

So, if you’re at work like I am and are running 7MC…you’re going to have a nice surprise waiting when you get home!

Media Browser 2.1.3.0 (Phoenix) released!

Jon — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:33:18 +0000

It’s a couple of days earlier than its projected release date of the 22nd, but who’s complaining? Taken from the announcements section in the Media Browser forums, here’s the changes and newly added features:

CHANGES

Added: Parental Controls Facility
- Can control media based on metadata rating, or conversely block everything
- PINEntry, added support to match diamond theme when user has diamond theme enabled.
- Option to unlock entire library on first PIN entry this is consistent with most other PC systems but can be turned off.
Added: Support for music plugin.
Added: Retrieval of runtime data from mediainfo.dll if no Metadata present.
Added: Ability to disable weather on EHS, by entering a blank weather location.
Added: Mouse friendly tweaks to tame mouse enter/exit from scrolling data all over the place.
Added: Descriptions for options in Config page.
Added: Tiered Backdrop support (not extender friendly).
Added: option AlwaysShowDetails (Default true) will always show the details page for all content (Episodes or Movies)
Changed: Priority of aspect ratio to take metadata if there over mediainfo.
Updated: Runtime data now stored in minutes to mitigate re-calculations.
Updated: The default poster size to rectangle instead of square (220×330).
Updated: EHS, Recently Added now scrolls back to page 1 when transitioning between folders.
Updated: Information control to support recurring messages for ‘X’ cycles.
Updated: Cleanup for media delete mechanism (only movies and episodes support deletion at this time).
Updated: Seasons and Episodes inherit parental rating from their Series.
Updated: Diamond Theme v0.2 Revamp
- Diamond supports Episode View combined with ‘advanced commands’ + ‘enable delete’ allows for episode deletion.
- Diamond – new mini-mode for movies and episodes details page.
- Changed Title to automatically scroll across screen if text is longer than display area.
- Diamond added information bar to all views.
- Due to popular demand changed diamond bottom fade from white to black.
- Diamond compatible with custom fonts.
- Coverflow: Radically improved spacing which now allows for large covers without spacing issues (within reason).
- Movie/Episode Details, Command Buttons no longer overlap poster preview.
- Modified media info icons.
- Diamond details view added scrollable overview.
- Fixed date display for titles with no dates.
Removed: Classic Theme taken out of Media Browser it is no longer supported.

BUG FIXES

Fixed: Standard filters so they now display images correctly (visible in genres).
Fixed: Play All,queue and random.
Fixed: Remember index-by state.
Fixed: Auto enter single directory option.
Fixed: MediaInfoProvider Video Codec
Fixed: Issue where A|An|The were not being ignored during sorting.
Fixed: Vanilla season count mistakenly defaults to 0
Fixed: Crash that would occur in folder validation when a folder has been moved
Fixed: Patched autoscroller code from sending negative sizes.
Fixed: Episode sorting now correctly sorts items.
Fixed: Adjusted positioning of elements on config page
Fixed: Incorrect Breadcrumbs for actor(s)/genre(s)/director(s).
Fixed: Data duplication of actors for individual episodes.

Direct download is here. Remember to take any and all bug reports to the Community Tracker. The forums bugs section is closed.

Lockerz.com invites available.

Jon — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:33:01 +0000

Lockerz.com is a site where you get invites, play games, buy stuff, participate in community events, earn points and then redeem them for real prizes. Normally, I don’t go for stuff like this, but I know who the guy is working on the site, so I thought I’d give it a chance. Getting in early on these things can get you some cool stuff sometimes. They are currently in beta testing mode, so I think now is probably the best time to get started while the points (PTZ) are easily obtained and prizes are plentiful.

“Pfft…it’s a pyramid scam. No thanks.”

If that’s what you’re thinking, it’s not. Liberty Media funds Lockerz.com. If you don’t know who Liberty Media is, well, you probably know some of the other products they own or money behind: Starz Entertainment, QVC, Bodybuilding.com, Sirius XM Radio, Time Warner Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp., DirecTV, et al. Former Amazon.com CEO, Kathy Savitt, is running the show.

Anyway, if you want an invite (the only way you can join), shoot me an email or comment it in the format of username at domain dot root (don’t want any spiders getting your email now, do we?).

How’s this for a remote?

Jon — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:07:22 +0000

Came across this a couple of days ago and almost forgot about it before being reminded of it on a forum post. At only $40, something like this could be the ultimate in an HTPC keyboard/mouse/remote combo…I introduce this little jewel:

It’s like a Blackberry except you have a touchpad where the screen should be and your phone keys are replaced by mouse buttons. It works via RF, so you get about 30ft of range and it works with virtually any OS. Did I mention the best part? $45 shipped to your door.

You can get one here and they come in black or white.

unRAID 4.5 beta7 released.

Jon — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:54:44 +0000

It’s been 5 long months since the last release of any kind for us unRAID users, but two days ago beta 7 made its way on the download block. From the unRAID forum, this is what is included/fixed with this release:

Changes from 4.5-beta6 to 4.5-beta7 -----------------------------------

Bug fixes: - If 'config/style.css' is not present, then don't tell browser to load it. - Fixed kernel crash when number of drives > 17, now correctly supports up to 20 drives ('Pro' issue only).

Other changes: - Prevent disks appearing 'unformatted' as a result of incomplete Stop Array operation. - Add driver for Adaptec 2410SA PCI RAID card (untested). - Upgrade linux kernel to 2.6.30.8 - Upgrade samba to 3.3.7 - Upgrade fuse to 2.8.1

You can download it directly from here, or take it easy on Tom and grab the torrent here.

Media Browser daily builds ceasing immediately.

Jon — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:38:14 +0000

I have apparently caused a problem to the Media Browser development team by offering the daily builds and am stopping them immediately. I do know that I posted a caveat stating that the usage of the daily builds were at the user’s own risk and no support was to be sought after on the Media Browser community boards, but that was obviously ignored. This lead to a flood of bug reports that should never have happened and pushed the developers into many “wild goose chases”.

I never intended for that to happen and have to sincerely apologize to the Media Browser developers. In hindsight, I see that I should have left well enough alone considering they have already chosen a testing team (I’m one of them, ironically) and left them to do what they were picked for.

I’m sorry that some of you who can’t or don’t know how to compile the daily builds will have to do without for a few more days, but I’ve done some damage since the effect I had hoped for was a complete opposite to which actually happened.

All posts containing daily builds have been removed and the links themselves will no longer work as they have been removed from my DropBox repository.

Media Browser YouTube contest!

Jon — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:39:24 +0000

Taken directly from the Media Browser forums:

CONTEST: Create a Video of Media Browser in Action
Create a video of Media Browser in action, maybe show off your customizations. Or teach the new generation a thing of two about Media Browser and get your video posted on Media Browser’s homepage.

Prize

If selected your video will go up on the homepage of http://www.mediabrowser.tv
Media Browser VIP access
First ever Media Browser VIP badge

Bonus Points

Display use of the configurator application as well

How we Judge the Entries

Presentation
Originality
Value Learned (How well did you communicate your experience)

The Rules

Create a video of your Media Browser setup in action.
Create a video of your Media Browser setup in action.
Video runtime must be approximately 2 to 3 minutes in length (some leeway here).
Videos that breach copyright rules will be disqualified – NO EXCEPTIONS (i.e. displaying ‘The Simpson Season 20′ when the box set hasn’t even been released yet will get your video thrown out)
Contest is open to all, multiple entries are accepted. Top 5 videos will be chosen by Media Browser team with a final vote by the community to determine the winner of the competition.
Winner(s) will be contacted and asked for their name and a blog link or other.

How to Enter

Post your videos on youtube with a link back in this thread to your video.

I’ve enabled youtube support on the forum so you can post youtube video without quotes like so “[youtube]FULL URL HERE[/youtube]” without quotes.