TechLifeWeb

Sites that I found interesting for October 23rd 2009 through October 25th 2009:

• Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 – Help & How-to – Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7? Use this guide from Microsoft.
• How to automatically skip commercials in Windows 7 Media Center – Ben Drawbaugh has a great guide on commercials skipping in Windows Media Center and as we all hate commercials its well worth looking at. via @isdixon on Twitter.
• Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media – While you can't simply use Upgrade media to do a clean install of Windows 7 on an unused PC with a blank hard drive, the workaround this time is easier than ever. Assuming you know the trick.

Sites that I found interesting for October 20th 2009 through October 22nd 2009:

• How to Use Digital Cable Tuners with CableCARD in Windows 7 Media Center – Last month at the CEDIA EXPO trade show in Atlanta, Microsoft made a major announcement regarding CableCARDs: the company announced that consumers would now be able to install digital cable tuners with CableCARD into their Windows 7 PCs…all by themselves.
• Thymer – Super easy Planning, Task and Project Management – Project management and task planning for people who hate project management and task planning.
• For the Sysadmins: Software Compliance Tool – Software Compliance Tool is a small application designed to reduce the overhead in managing unwanted applications in a business environment. via @sintaxasn on Twitter.

Sites that I found interesting for October 10th 2009 through October 14th 2009:

• Running WHS on Server 2008 Hyper-V Part 1 – Microsoft MVP Philip Churchill discusses running MS Windows Home Server on Hyper-V.
• Windows 7 demo: Search tools – ZDNet's Ed Bott takes a closer look at the search tools in Windows 7 and shows you how you can use them to make your digital life a little more organized.
• RAW Image Support – W7/Media Center 32/64 bit – Barb Bowman explains how to get support for RAW in 7MC
• Use iPodifier to add Windows Media Center TV Recordings to Your iPod – The free app automates transcoding DVR-MS files (and other formats) to MPEG-4 or H264 and then adds them to iTunes and syncs to the device

Sites that I found interesting for September 17th 2009 through September 21st 2009:

• AT&T to Let You Patch the Dead Zone in Your House for $20 per Month – The telco has started offering the 3G MicroCell, a wireless network extender the company claims acts like a mini cellular tower in your home. With it, users can expect enhanced coverage for both voice and data for up to 5,000 square feet, with support for up to four users at any given time
• Batch Converting a Directory Tree of Videos Recursively with Handbrake for Streaming to an Xbox360 – This script takes every *.avi file in the current (.) folder, and all folders underneath it (-R), and for each of this files, creates a new filename with the word "-convert" inside. It then calls the HandBrake command line (yours may be in "C:\Program Files" so you might need to change that. It uses the Xbox360 preset.
• Media Center Studio – Media Center Studio is a free application for Windows Vista and Windows 7 that enables you to customise Windows Media Center. It is the successor of MC Menu Mender, bringing it up to date for Windows 7 and adding support for theme application and editing.

Sites that I found interesting for June 18th 2009 through June 20th 2009:

• Windows 7 Hits a New Low – Working installation on no less than a Pentium II system. Machine consists of a 266 MHz CPU, a whopping 96 MB of memory, and a next-generation 4 MB graphics card.
• Media Browser Beta 2.1.0.0 – Really excited about the new features of Media Browser 2.1. Jas Manghera has all the details in his latest blog post. Hopefully we should be able to get the code in the next day or so. via @molsonfl on twitter
• The definitive guide to creating an audio library across Windows Media Center, Windows Media Player, ITunes and the iPod. –

Sites that I found interesting for June 14th 2009

• Guide to Building a HD HTPC – Good place to start for choosing Home Theater PC Parts – Page 85 – AVS Forum
• Dell: Twitter Helped Boost Sales for $3 Million –
• Enable Concurrent User Sessions in Windows 7 – If you have Media Center powering your television, this will let you connect to another session on the PC to do maintenance.

Sites that I found interesting for May 26th 2009 through May 27th 2009:

• Hide Media Center Start Menu Strips – This handy little app gives you easy access to what menu strips are displayed through a couple of menus. The program supports both Vista and Windows 7, automatically detecting which version suites your current setup.
• Aspera brings faster file downloads to Media Companies – The solution work best with companies who transfer large amounts of data across a network such as a media company. An example would be a media company who is transferring a 1GB file from Asia to the USA. On a gigabit link with normal ftp and 10ms delay this would take over 6 minutes with an average pipe speed of 21.8 mb. With the Aspera solution it takes 16 second with an average pipe speed of 509mb.
• Free GPS app gives full GPS functionality for BlackBerry – GPSLogger is a free piece of software that records your GPS location on your BlackBerry, including elevation and speed. Additionally, GPSLogger is able to guide you to a previously recorded location using the “Guide me Home” feature.

Sites that I found interesting for May 20th 2009 through May 25th 2009:

• AT&T tips 32GB iPhone 3G through BlackBerry trade-in program – As part of AT&T’s efforts to get the BlackBerry Bold in as many hands as possible, the carrier has posted an as-yet non-existent 32GB iPhone 3G as being worth $355 when traded-in for a BlackBerry Bold.
• Kyocera Brings Solar to Prius Rooftops – Kyocera has won a deal to supply Toyota with solar panels for the new Prius.
• MediaInfo – Get technical information and tags of a lot of multimedia files. Supported formats : – Video : AVI/OGM/MKV/MPG/VOB/MP4/3GP/… – Audio : MP3/OGG/MKA/MP4/AAC/…

Sites that I found interesting for May 13th 2009 through May 17th 2009:

• The Exploding Digital Universe – What are we going to do with all our digital stuff??
• Jump Into The Stream – "This isn’t an inbox we have to empty, or a page we have to get to the bottom of — its a flow of data that we can dip into at will but we can’t attempt to gain an all encompassing view of it." – John Borthwick, betaworks.com
• Windows 7 Media Center Themes – Out of the box, Windows 7 Media Center does not have themes. Theme7MC gets around that and has some stunning themes for you to download. via @isdixon on twitter.

Sites that I found interesting for May 1st 2009 through May 6th 2009:

• tubeCentric.tv – tubeCore makes video from DLNA Media Servers such as Tversity, PlayOn, and TwonkyMedia available from within your Windows Media Center. via @isdixon on Twitter.
• What to look for in Windows 7 – Screenshot tour of Windows 7
• Upgrading a pre RC windows 7 beta to the RC – I RECOMMEND doing fresh installs between OS versions. There is just too much cruft that builds up over time. Also, you are replacing beta code with beta code so even more reason to get fresh. However, here’s what you can do to bypass the check for pre-release upgrade IF YOU REALLY REALLY NEED TO. Thanks to @simonster on Twitter.