Boxee the “WD Live TV” killer..

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boxee

I somewhere read about this software a while ago called “Boxee”, it’s a new mediacenter software which can be downloaded for free from http://www.boxee.tv But with so much mediacenter software out there it got lost in the masses.  Anyway, recently I was reminded as D-Link is rattling their sable with the forthcoming release of the Boxee Box (well that is hardly going to be the name but still)..  It looks VERY interesting especially with a full qwerty keyboard being merged into the very neat remote that come with it, and it does seem somewhat more interesting than the WD Live TV (A LOT more apps/widgets) and a more finished design overall.

It does indeed look interesting.  Boxee seem to be based upon XBMC (X-Box Media Center) http://xbmc.org/download (which I btw still use on my old trusty X-Box 1 Classic)

Should you want to preview the experience you can download the free software for your pc/mac here http://www.boxee.tv/box

A few notes though;

  • The box is generally good at recognizing your video and music files (even series etc), BUT if it does not recognize the media file (it does so from the naming of the file) it wont show it :-/  thus you will need to rename it to a naming convention it understands which seem silly and acquad.  From what I can tell it will be getting the data (including photos) from IMDB.
  • I had some issues getting it to accept a share on a Windows 2003 server, I could ‘bypass’ this by mapping the share as a drive letter on my Win 7 machine where I ran Boxee but I am still puzzled as to why it did not seem to accept a simple Windows Share.
  • A further cause of concern is, what data is reported back to the producers of this software!?  Do they get the complete list of my music, video etc. archives?  Sadly I don’t know which concerns me as you have to register to run the software 😐

dlink1boxee-box-remote

A quick look at what formats it recognizes;

Video:

  • Adobe Flash 10.1
  • H.264  (MKV, MOV)
  • VC-1
  • WMV
  • MPEG-1
  • MPEG-2
  • MPEG-4
  • AVI
  • Xvid
  • Divx
  • PCM/LPCM
  • VOB

Lyd:

  • MP3
  • WMA
  • WAV
  • AIFF
  • FLAC
  • AAC
  • DTS
  • Dolby Digital
  • Ogg Vorbis

Billeder:

  • JPEG
  • TIFF
  • BMP
  • PNG
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Adobe Flash Player v.10.1 beta download

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flashlogoSo if you want to be totally up-beat or perhaps are testing out Boxee then you will want to install the latest Adobe Flash Player (Boxee actually seem to require this), but no worries you can get it right here;

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

Among other things this version will add HW acceleration, neat for Netbooks as compatible GFX cards now can assist in playing video and thus perhaps adding HD playback to your otherwise slow Atom processor (however this DO require a compatible GFX card to work like the Nvidia ION and others).

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Start / Stop services via WMI vbs

Here is how to start and stop a service via WMI calls from a .vbs;

'Start Service
strServiceName = "Alerter"
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\cimv2")
Set colListOfServices = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("Select * from Win32_Service Where Name ='" & strServiceName & "'")
For Each objService in colListOfServices
    objService.StartService()
Next

'Stop Service
strServiceName = "Alerter"
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\cimv2")
Set colListOfServices = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Service Where Name ='" & strServiceName & "'")
For Each objService in colListOfServices
    objService.StopService()
Next
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Creating a Delphi 7 application that triggers UAC

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Delphi7If you are still creating Delphi 7 applications, then you may have had problems with UAC in Windows Vista, 7 and 2008, your application launches but is unable to eg. access the HKEY-LOCAL-MACHINE hive of the registry, what you need is to have the application launch with Administrative rights.

You could just rightclick on the application icon and choose “Run as administrator” however this is hardly professional for a program you distribute to others.

Well, it took a bit of Googling and a bit of experimenting, but here’s the recipe to creating UAC aware applications in Delphi 7.

 

 

  • First, create a new application and save the project.
    In the project directory you just created create 2 files;
    .
  • The first file “UAC.MANIFEST” should look like this;
    —————————————————————————–
    <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″ standalone=”yes”?>
    <assembly xmlns=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1″ manifestVersion=”1.0″>
    <assemblyIdentity version=”1.0.0.0″ processorArchitecture=”*” name=”UACAwareApplication” type=”win32″/>
    <trustInfo xmlns=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3″>
    <security>
    <requestedPrivileges>
    <requestedExecutionLevel level=”requireAdministrator”/>
    </requestedPrivileges>
    </security>
    </trustInfo>
    </assembly>
    —————————————————————————–
    .
  • Second file “vistaprog.rc” should look like this;
    —————————————————————————–
    1 24 uac.manifest
    —————————————————————————–
    (yes it’s only one line)
    .
  • Now you need to compile the “vistaprog.rc” file.
    you do this by running the “brcc32.exe” (found in the Delphi Bin directory) with this parameter “brcc32.exe vistaprog.rc“, this will compile a “vistaprog.res” file (this is a bit different/easier on Delphi 2007 etc, see links at the bottom for more details).
    .
  • Now you will need to modify your Delphi project.
    In the “unit1.pas” file find {$R *.dfm} and insert {$R ‘vistaprog.res’} just below it, save the project and compile it.

You application is now Vista/Windows 7/2008 UAC aware, you will also notice that a small shield is added to the application icon.

When you run your application it will look aimilar to this;

uac-unknown-publisher-prompt

Read more here;
http://www.zhou73.cn/index.php/article/zhou73/2009-02-18/195.html
http://www.zhou73.cn/index.php/article/zhou73/2009-02-18/196.html
http://ruminatedrumblings.blogspot.com/2008/03/vista-uac-manifest.html
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Languages/Pascal/Delphi/Q_22755023.html

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Alertbear a nice RSS feed reader

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alertbearI have for a long time been thinking about finding a good RSS reader, I have from time to time stumbled across some good sites with interesting content but the RSS reader in IE does not seem to be quite good enough.  I don’t want to have to go into a special pane of IE to view my feeds, I would like them to pop up by them self.

Anyway, so far I have found this Alertbear (not Alertbar as I first though, but bear as in the animal),  it is quite good – still missing a few customization options (I would like to be able to decide the update interval of EACH feed separately, but Alertbear only offers one update interval for ALL feeds).

thestackAlertbear come preset with a bunch of feeds, and you can add your own feeds quite easily.  Once you have added your feeds you can configure Alertbear to how often it checks for updates (sadly as mentioned only ONE interval, not one per feed) and what should be done once news are received (popup etc).  Mine is set to show headlines for 20sec upon receiving them.

There is also a ‘History’ function, this is more like a regular RSS feed reader but quite a good one (you get it by right clicking the tray icon and clicking “Show history”).

All in all it seem like something very close to what I have been looking for (about 94% of my needs are met I would say), there are some cosmetic and customization issues but they are minor. Anyway, if you know of a better alternative do tell..

.

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Writeprotect your USB devices

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You can quite easily make all USB devices on a machine ReadOnly by adding a key to registry, it is quite easy and painless.

Once the registry key is added and set you may have to wait a bit or eject and reinsert the device but then the device is ReadOnly.  ‘Unlocking’ the drive again is equally easy, you just set the key value to “0” (zero) and everything is back to normal..

Maybe even an ide for a prank on some of your friends 😉

Key to create;
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies\WriteProtect
Value DWORD; “1” = ReadOnly, “0” = Normal mode.

registryhack1

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Extract files/drivers from Install Shield packages

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So you would like to extract some files from an Install Shield (IS) installer package you have, you may as I just need a few driver files from a package.

Well first you try the extract command from Windows (as some of the Install Shield files come as .cab files) however you quickly discover that the IS.cab files are not compatible with the Windows .cab files.  WinRar is often good at extracting all sorts of files, but not the IS files. You can forget all about -e or -x for extract that does not work either.

But there is a way, you need an utility called “ISCabVu.exe”, sadly this utility is not just lying around on the net, so you need to do a bit of fiddling around to get hold of it.. 

1. Download an evaluation copy of Install Shield (any never version will likely do, do go for the latest).
2. Install it (if you don’t want to pollute your system use SandboxIE (requires 32bit os)).
3. Copy the files under “Program Files\InstallShield\2010\System” to a different location.
4. Now just run the “ISCabVu.exe” file.
5. You may be able to thin out this directory (150mb) but this may take some time and may not be worth your time.

Now the extract part is easy, see image below;
hpquickbtn

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Interesting advertisment from Sony

Ha ha, this was cool an advertisement for Sony Vaio – I can’t say if it’s from Sony (but I would not be surprised if it actually were) – well that’s another way of promoting your product – maybe something woman can relate to 😉

sony-vaio-type-p-pantsu-style2

vaio

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S.M.A.R.T hdd self diagnostics

toshibaSo I am looking for a s.m.a.r.t utility to monitor the health of my harddisks..

So far I have come up with;
Drivesitter http://www.otwesten.de/drivesitter/screen.htm
Personal SmartCheck
http://www.urltoy.com/psc.htm
and a open source commandline utility
http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartmontools/

If you know of a better utility maybe even with additional monitoring capabilities do let me know..

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Online DNS tool

I just stumbled across this DNS lookup utility on my way around the net, it seem quite interesting and could provide some valuable info on domain names and ip addresses.

The interface is a bit minimalistic in my view, but the info provided seem good.

Goto this website and enter a domain name in the top left corner then hit ‘I’m lucky’ and watch the magic show 🙂

http://www.robtex.com/

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