I use Salami's Movie Organizer for metadata for movies, but for TV I wasn't entirely happy with the ruby script, because I'm not a huge fan of CLI, and it didn't get "posters" for seasons/shows.
So, rather than complaining about it, I created TVScout (I…shouldn't be allowed to name things, first name was VideoBrowserTVMetaData). It requires .NET 3.0, I figure since VB is for Vista, that really shouldn't be a problem. Like the ruby script, this makes use of TheTVDb for metadata.
TV Scout v0.1
Features
Fetches "poster art" (where available) for seasons and for series
Renames files, gets metadata, etc, just like the ruby script.
Handles S00E00 and 00×00 (and S0E0, 0×0 and anything in between)
Limitations/Known bugs/problems
always updates metadata (for series.xml)
always fetches posters
always renames files (if they match)
can't set custom file structure filters
Files must be in a season folder. ie, "Battlestar Galacatica (2003)\Season 1\s01e01.avi"
Unlike the ruby scrapper fetches all the metadata for a show first. This means if you're only processing one or two episodes, it'll be "slower" (30seconds?) depending on your connection. For more than that, it should use less web calls.
To Do
I want to get a popup/prompt which will do a basic search, then ask what show you're talking about, so that the folder names don't' have to exactly match theTVDB's. Ie, For the "remake" of Battlestar Galactica, the folder has to be "Battlestar Galactica (2003)".
Parse files not in a season folder so that they put inside one (/create season folder), then processed properly
Make the options usable
Process "root" directories (ie C:\TV\) instead of just specific shows (ie, C:\TV\Battlestar Galactica (2003))
Make source code available via CodePlex - just a time/can-be-botheredness thing. I'll do it when I get the popup working
Instructions
Run TVScout, and browse to a folder of a particular TV show, ie "C:\Red Dwarf"
Put each seasons files into their own folder, ie "C:\Red Dwarf\Season 1"
Assuming the filenames contain "s01e01" or "01×01" (for episode 1, season 1), when you "Fetch Metadata", TVScout will get metadata, as well as any available images for each episode, season and finally overall series.
Fire up Windows Media Center with Video Browser installed, and your show should have metadata associated with it!
Disclaimer Use this at your own risk. While it works pretty well for me so far, but I won't be held responsible for loss of data, hair, or anything else you may lose in a result of downloading or running this app.
Download (save to HDD first, then run, don't just run from IE, that will most likely crash)
If you're like me, navigating video in Windows Media Center can be painful. The titles are small, the images are more often than not blank, or worse – get dropped so WMC regenerates every time you go into the folder. On the flip side, navigating music is easy because of the album art and metadata.
Enter Sam Saffron's Video Browser. Video Browser is a MCML plugin (so it is compatible with Media Center on the XBox 360), which uses MyMovie's XML for metadata, so if you already use MyMovie for metadata that's perfectly usable, but I've found Salami's Movie Organizer to be the easiest to use to fetch metadata for movies. This makes Media Center have even more WAF (Wife Approval Factor)! Apart from a poster-view of all your videos, it also brings up meta data (such as actors, rating, running time, director, year of release and a blurb!), making it easier to decide what to watch.
Video Browser also handles TV episodes/seasons, however the only way to get metadata for it so far is with Sam's Ruby TV scraper, which while it works is sucky if you don't want to install Ruby.
Last year I began creating a Windows Live Messenger plugin which set your status (through DDE) to what game you were playing. Unfortunately development was cut short when I realised it had a really nasty habit of chewing up CPU resources.
However, I'm happy to say I've squashed that bug by using a single process handler, rather than one for each game. A rather obvious mistake when you think about it, but truth be told, I haven't thought about it for months! I've also added all the games in the Xfire_Games.ini file, which is somewhere in the thousands! Obviously, I haven't tested all of these, so they may not all work.
Unfortunately, WLM still requires signed DLL's/can't seem to handled unmanaged code wrappers for the plugins so it has limited ability to 'replace' XFire for in game chat…a separate program would have to be running/called by the plugin for that to work. My knowledge of DirectX is limited at best, so it may be one of those things that never happens.
In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger, set AddInFeatureEnabled to 1
Create HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Aeoth, add a new String Value called Location. Set the value of 'Location' to where you extracted the dll and xml files (ie, D:\wsg0.1)
Install the DLL into the Global Assembly Cache - drag and drop it into C:\Windows\Assembly or from commandline, gacutil -I wgs.addin.dll
Run Windows Live Messenger, Options, Add-ins, Find the DLL, Click 'Settings', Detect Games. Close that settings window
Use the drop down where you set your 'status', and you should see a "Turn on 'WGS'". Select that.
Play games!
To Do
Easier installer
In game chat (via separate program/relaying messages)
XFire_games.ini import utility/auto-update of database file
It's been a month since part one (CPU+Motherboard), and I must admit the comments didn't help me choose at all! Why? The comments didn't lean one way or another.
I've decided in the end to go with an Intel E1200 and Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L. Despite renewed searching for AMD power usage including the Semprons, the E1200 still seemed to have the edge (especially when you factor in pricing and availability). The difference in power at this end of the spectrum is pretty low - more power will be wasted by an inefficient PSU than an inefficient low end CPU.
This means going with the current market prices, the CPU is $50 and motherboard $70, meaning there is a healthy $480 in the budget for case, power supply, hard drive(s) and any third party cooling required.
My requirements
The ideal case would be a tiny unnoticeable case, yet somehow like the Tardis able to store 50 hard drives; and the ideal PSU would be 100% efficient, making no noise at all. Neither are going to happen, but what's the next best thing?
Since I've chosen to go with a motherboard with four hard drive ports, I want the case to be able to hold four hard drives. Optical drive really isn't a concern, because (with any luck) I'll only be installing WHS once.
Meet the Contenders
The reason I've chosen to combine both cases and power supplies is that although you can get some awesome looking cases, or some with fantastic functionality, those cases tend to go for AUD$200+, and then to get a "decent" (and by decent, I mean quiet and won't burn out once you overload it by plugging in three hard drives, not 1kW) power supply will set you back another AUD$100->$150.
This system even on load and with 4 drives, will struggle to make it to 100w (actualdraw, before factoring in power supply efficiency, would be about ~10w average per HDD, with a top of 40w for motherboard and cpu combined). Power supplies are less efficient at very low loads, so the closer the PSU's maximum wattage is to the actual/projected draw, the higher the efficiency should be. On the PSU front its very hard to find anything below 300w that claim to meet "80PLUS" standards, with Seasonic making a hard to find (in Australia) 300w model, Zalman producing a 360w. Thermaltake have an interesting 5.25" bay model which puts out 270w.
That was until I found the picoPSU, which was looking like a real winner…until I realised it really only has one or two hard drive power connectors!
To move onto something with more connectors, we're looking at the standard size ATX PSU. The Antec EarthWatts line of power supplies are cheap, low noise, fairly efficient, and have a low wattage. I ended up with a 380w EarthWatts PSU in my HTPC build.
The "New Solution" (NSK) range of cases from Antec provide pretty good price/performance, and all come with an Earthwatts PSU. The NSK1380(350w, ~AUD$120), NSK3480(380w, ~AUD$120), NSK4480(380w, ~AUD$100) and NSK6580(430w, ~AUD$135) all look like real contenders to me (the NSK2480 is what was used in my HTPC).
They all share roughly the same design - just larger than the model number below it, except for the NSK1380 which is a cube form.
(There is also the NSK4000 and NSK6000 which appear to be the NSK4480 and NSK6580 chassis respectively, sans power supply. The damage for the NSK4000 is only AUD$69 however, meaning it could be more suitable to be combined with the picoPSU.)
I must admit CoolerMaster, while a well and truely established giant in the PC Case industry, isn't one I'd normally choose from "low end" cases. I suppose it helps that this case is $200 without a PSU, meaning it is over budget and definitely not a low end case. The iTower 930 looks like your standard beige (make that silver and or black these days!) ATX case with one "small" difference - 4 hot-swappable SATA drives. It includes little caddies to put your drives in, then you just slot them into the computer.
While not a new idea, being SATA means not only do you not have to open the case to add a drive, you don't have to even shut down the machine!
There are other advantages too, the iTower 930 is made from mostly steel, meaning it should produce less vibration than cases with a majority of aluminium. Whether or not that's the case is another matter.
Decision Time
Sure, the iTower is probably the most "featuresome" case on this list but coming in at ~AUD$200 seriously hampers the rest of the budget, especially when you consider it still needs a power supply. Can the iTower compete with the cheaper NSK series (with or without the EarthWatts PSU)? Is the Antec EarthWatts efficient enough to knock out a picoPSU? Can the picoPSU safely be fitted with adapters for more drives? Have I left anything off my list?
The "downside" is this is a copy from Remix 08, so its cased inside the super sturdy material known as cardboard rather than the usual retail casing shown to the right.
To enter, leave a (relevant) comment using a valid email address on any post in this series, or make a blog post about WHS and link back to one of my BuildingWHS posts. You'll get one entry for each blog post you comment on - not an entry for each comment!
The winner will be selected randomly after all parts have been chosen, but before the final building video/blog post. Entries accepted from anywhere in the world, excluding kittehs. They've already got their own fansite and programming language, its not long before they take over..
Before I make my comments about Silverlight 2 Beta 2, I've first had to get the darn thing working with Visual Studio 2008. Anytime I'd go to open a Silverlight project, I'd be greeted with "The project type is not supported by this installation".
Unfortunately, I was foolish enough to install the VS2008 SP1 beta/.NET 3.5 SP1 beta (largely thanks to the cool stuff mentioned at Remix) which apparently was the original cause of this problem. It wouldn't be too bad if Blend had any IntelliSense, but unfortunately the only way to develop the C# behind the SL2 project is to use VS2008.
After several uninstall/reinstalls of everything I could find relating to VS2008 (and no more reinstalls of SP1 Beta), I stumbled across Michael Sync's tips for Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Tools + VS2008. I uninstalled and reinstalled everything according to that post…but it turns out all I needed (no reinstalling required) was but one parameter while launching VS2008…
devenv.exe /resetskippkgs
Now I'm "enjoying" Silverlight 2 content again, but hopefully future versions of the SL2Chainer will fix this on install!
The Live Writer team have released a tech preview of the next version of Windows Live Writer. While the GUI for Wordpress’ editor is certainly improved in v2.5, it still doesn’t beat the power of a desktop app. The fact that while I’m writing this post, it looks like I’m writing it straight on my blog is fantastic for visualising how good/bad/otherwise it’ll come out at the end of the day, rather than having to just “know” or use preview everytime I add an image.
It has a few neat looking features (that are immediately noticeable) such as
Support for Lightbox/Lightbox groups! (Via Options under Link on images)
Quicker access to different “views” of your blog. Down the bottom there are now three tabs, Edit, Preview and Source
Images can now be centered! Yay!
Image editing options now include cropping and tilting. While I’m unlikely to use tilting, cropping I’m sure I will. There are always moments where an image is one or two (or 10!) pixels off, and it is much quicker to crop in WLW than it is to load up Photoshop again.
Going from the Live Writer team’s blog entry, most of the changes are related to the SDK, albeit not stable at the moment.
On a negative note however,
It seems to of changed quotes from being " to “ and ”. A small visual difference, but when copying code examples, means you have to run a search and replace to get any snippets working! Update: As Brandon Turner pointed out in the comments, Tools -> Options -> Uncheck "Use smart quotes" fixes this issue. The Live team is fast to respond!
You still can’t modify any of the parameters on the border effects. By that I mean you can’t make a drop shadow more subtle, change how strong the reflection is, or even change the colour of the solid 1/3px borders.
I'm sure there are one or two things I haven't noticed at first glance, so by no means take this at a definitive list of new features.
Update: Okay, so SL2B2 is coming out next week apparently, and it addresses at least some of the control issues! Maybe I'll get some of my wants sooner rather than later.
No, this isn't a leaked announcement of SL2B2, but things I want (need?) into Silverlight before v3. I've been playing with SL2B1 lately, and while I'd love to say it totally rocks and I'll be using it everywhere from now on…but I just can't bring myself to that level of fanboyism.
Tile/TileBrush/Ability to tile images. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants to use a tile background in parts of my app which can't overlay HTML.
"BitmapEffects". While these have sort of been depreciated in WPF 3.5 in favour of PixelShaders, Silverlight doesn't have the ability to do Inner/Outer Glow, Drop Shadows, etc.
More controls - Think of this point as <em><em'ier><EM'iest!'>! I attempted some Silverlight 1 stuff, but it was a nightmare building anything "rich" because all controls had to be built by hand. Don't get me wrong, SL2B1 has a lot more controls (and very common/useful ones at that), but there are still a fair few missing from WPF.
Webcam support; Flash can do it, but I personally think the amount of media stuff that Silverlight can do would make it even more useful. Webcam support in Silverlight, along with additional controls like TreeView…you could replace whatever instant messenger you currently use with a completely web based/silverlight without losing any of the rich experience!
Perhaps less restrictive port ranges for Sockets, currently only 4502->4532 & 80 are supported. According to Robert Folkesson "the site of origin restriction will go away in future release", maybe the port restrictions will too.
can has Silverlight for WinMo now pleeeeease?
To me, Silverlight 1 was interesting in the aiblity to deliver WMV, but failed to really get my interesting. Silverlight 1.1/2 is a lot more powerful by bringing .NET into things as well as inbuilt controls (and yes, I know a host of other things), but it still doesn't seem all there.
I can now see the obvious reason for why it was rebranded from the seemingly "good" codename of "WPF/E" (where the E stood for everywhere) - it's not WPF, its sort of a subset, but not really.
The wife's new gaming rig contains a Leadtek 9600GT, which was slightly cheaper than a 8800GT and subsequently slightly slower. For the games she plays (heck, even the games I play) at the monitors native resolution (1680×1050) it is more than powerful enough. The only problem with the card (and 99% of the cards on the market) is the huge amount of noise that can be generated. The 8800GT's stock cooler for example, can get up to 70 decibels! I remember my 7900GT getting up to similar levels of noise.
The unsuspecting stock cooler Naked 9600GT
Enter third party coolers. On my ageing 7900GT, I have a Thermalright HR-03 installed, which I thought was fantastic, although the price (~$80 at the time, plus more for a fan), size and weight were a bit much to take. Prices on the HR-03 (as well as the GT and Plus models, which add compatibility) have come down (to ~$50), but they're still expensive compared to the Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 which PCCaseGear are selling for just $37.
I was a little unsure of what the results would be, as the airflow in the wife's computer isn't fantastic (just one 120mm Antec Tricool fan (set on Low), the stock Intel Heatsink/Fan cooling the Core2Quad Q6600, and the fan on the 430w Antec Earthwatts power supply) which usually hampers passive cooling considerably.
9600GT with Accelero S1 mounted - it dwarfs the card!
Idle
Load
Leadtek 9600GT (Stock Cooler)
36c (started at 31c and then after 10mins stabilised at 36c)
62c
Leadtek 9600GT (Accelero S1)
35c (started at 28c and then after 10mins stabilised at 35c)
55c
To simulate load, I played through the first two levels of Gears of War, with all details on high (apart from AA), it was silky smooth.
The results are amazing: the S1 come out 7c cooler. While the passive S1 by itself is a better cooler than Leadtek's active cooler and normally I'd be more than satisfied by that, I had already purchased the Turbo Module because of the airflow issue I mentioned, so I thought "what the heck, lets add it to see the difference!"
The Turbo Module consists of two frameless fans, which clip onto the Accelero S1 (or S2), and plug in via a 3pin fan power (or with an included adapter 4pin hdd/odd molex power plug). Installation should just be: clip it on then plug it in. Unfortunately, I discovered the 3 pin fan power cable wasn't long enough to reach the closest CHA_FAN plug, so I had to use the adapter. Then I discovered the power cable was obstructing one of the fans due to the stiffness of the cable. As it turns out, I didn't tuck all cables into the heatsink properly, doing so prevented the fan cables from obstructing the fans.
An alternative to the Turbo Module is to use cable ties with a large quiet fan if you've got one (I'd recommend 92mm or 120mm) but unless you've got one handy the Turbo Module will probably come in cheaper ($12 vs ~$30 for a "low noise" 120mm fan).
"Turbo Module" added
Idle
Load
Leadtek 9600GT (Accelero S1 + Turbo Kit)
~28c (it fluctuated between 27c and 28c for about 10minutes)
36c
That's 26 degrees Celsius or 48% cooler than the stock fan on load, and 19c cooler than the S1 by itself.
The Turbo Module certainly has huge benefits, as I'm sure strapping any fans to it would. Since the S1 without any fans is "acceptable", it really comes down to:
Are you overclocking?
Can you afford it?
Can you live with the slight increase in noise?
Noise wise, I can't hear it over the PSU or Intel HSF, so I'd be happy to leave it attached. This may change if I was to replace the 120mm fan with a Nexus Real Silent (or a Noctua) fan and the Intel HSF for something like the Thermalright Ultra 120/Extreme (or Scythe Ninja/Mini Ninja).
The S1 may not be for everybody though. It isn't compatible with the 8800GTX/Ultra, 9800GTX/Ultra or older 8800GTS models (G80 GTS's aren't compatible, G92 are compatible) and its rather large. The last point is not going to be a concern for anybody with "gaming" or "enthusiast" size cases (mid or full size towers, or even some larger desktops), but for small form factor cases, it may protrude too far up. Likewise, if you have need of all your PCI/PCIe slots, it turns the single slot 9600GT into a dual slot, while adding the Turbo kit really turns it into a triple slot card.
While not my first smart phone, the HTC p3600i is my first Windows Mobile (WinMo) phone. I put the emphasis on my first WinMo phone, because my mother has an O2 XDA Stealth slider WinMo 5 phone, so I have been exposed to Windows Mobile before.
First, the physical love (p3600i)
It would be unfair to say that I love the p3600i but I certainly don't hate it either. Compared to my mothers phone, its thinner/smaller, lighter, and doesn't get as hot. Compared to the Sony Ericsson m600i (my previous phone), it has a larger/brighter screen, but is larger and heavier. However, unlike the m600i, the p3600i has curved corners, making it fit better into my hand and into my pockets.
One area this phone that suffers (and indeed many of HTC's other models) is tactile input. While it has a good scrolling wheel, and a few side buttons, it lacks a key/number pad. The m600i is/was a horrible phone - the touchscreen was rubbish, the battery life was poor, the software isn't compatible with Vista, and it was sloooow. The only redeeming feature it had (in my eyes), was the QWERTY keyboard input. Adding this to the p3600i however, would either add to the physical dimensions or reduce the screen size, so its one of those undesirable situations: do you make it bulkier, cut down screen size, or leave it as it is? There are other models (such as the TyTN II) that have a slide out keyboard without getting much (if at all) bulkier, but that just adds to cost.
The bottom line is, If you are a heavy SMS'er, or write novels on your phone, steer clear of any phone with just touch screen for input, but if you don't fit that description, it just takes a bit of time getting used to either scribing, or using the on screen keyboard. When I originally started writing this review, I was of the opinion for any text input this phone was a nightmare. HTC's new Touch Diamond phone has an interesting on screen keyboard (in the style of the m600i's keyboard - QWERTY with two letters per key) with much larger buttons (takes up 90% of the screen). It's incredibly usable, and people have hacked it out of the Touch Diamond to work on other phones! While I don't find it as fast as my m600i, I still find it faster than the standard number pad on "dumb phones". For me, this is permanently on now, and I'd recommend it to any WinMo5/6+ owner with a touchscreen only phone!
Battery life isn't too bad, but it isn't too good. It is better than my m600i, but Bluetooth or wifi chew the battery life.
On beating the turtle with a hare (Windows Mobile 6)
(HTC's Home plugin for the Today screen, and the HTC Touch Diamond Keyboard .And yes, I know I spelt Skype wrong, but at least you know these screenshots are from an "actually-in-use" phone)
When choosing my phone, it basically narrowed down to the Nokia N73 (which would have been 'free' on the plan I was going onto), or the HTC p3600i (which is +$10/m on the same plan). While I could have chosen either phone for a variety of reasons, such as the N73 for better battery life, or probably a better camera OR the p3600i for having a touch screen, the decision was made because one phone ran WinMo, and the other didn't. Why go for WinMo? Well, I'm really getting into the .NET stuff, and I use Outlook. That is, .NET CF runs on my phone, and Outlook syncs with my phone (email and contacts, bi-directional) whenever I'm in range of my laptop.
One thing I've heard over the years is that WinMo's greatest flaw is that it is unusably slow, so I was reasonably expecting that the phone would be unpleasant to use, requiring patience to switch between menus/apps. Either that only applied for WinMo 5 and earlier, or the delays were exaggerated. While heavy multitasking (particularly with a large webpage open in IE, and ActiveSync going) does slow down, the phone/OS combo is still faster than my M600i, although not as fast as my wife's Sony Ericsson K850i.
There are a lot of nice things about WinMo, such as "proper" syncing with Outlook or the ability to write my own apps (.NET CF) a lot easier than I would be able to with Java (since my J2ME knowledge is low). Even Sony Ericsson have realised that WinMo is a very good platform for smartphones over their SymbianOS, and will be releasing their own WinMo phone (…ironically made by HTC)
Bottom line
Neither Windows Mobile 6 or the HTC p3600i are flawless, but they're both totally usable, and even enjoyable to use.
I'd prefer a smaller/lighter phone, with a better battery life, higher quality camera phone, and a slide out keyboard, but I'm not willing to spend that much (money or time waiting for it to come into existence!) more to get it. The only complaint about connectivity is that it doesn't use a standard 3.5mm audio jack, but apart from that, it has connections for everything else (wifi, bluetooth, 2/3g, IrDA).
WinMo6 is good (better than what many claim it to be), but the default interface could do with a serious work over. HTC have addressed this on some of their phones (such HTC Touch series), and the interface can be found for other HTC/WinMo6 phones, but it should be improved by Microsoft and be the default settings.
Internet Explorer is useless by todays standards (either mobile or desktop browsers), and needs a serious overhaul. Apparently Internet Explorer in WinMo6.1 at least has a zoom mode, but unfortunately there isn't a WinMo6.1 ROM for the p3600i, so I'm not able to tell.
Want to win a copy of the recently released 
