For anti-virus I recommend Avast

If your tired of paying for an anti-virus program and want a free one, I recommend Avast. To get the free edition all you have to do is simply download, install and register on Avast.com and they'll email you a key that's good for a year. At the end of the year all you have to do is register for another key. I've been using Avast Anti-virus for several years without any...

Read More

My Xbox is on it's way back!

I got the 3 rings of death and now my Xbox is repaired and on it's way back. I can't wait to get it back. Too bad I didn't get it back before Christm...

Read More

Microsoft Launches 'Deal of the Week' and 'Friendship is Free' Promos

Deck your Marketplace with loads of content: This week Xbox 360 is kicking off two global 30-day specials to bring great deals on select Xbox LIVE content and even free multiplayer for a list of great games.Each week one piece of content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace will get a limited-time only discount in the Deal of the Week. Every Monday this month check out Xbox LIVE Marketplace...

Read More

Xbox 360 revamp is good for the bedroom coder

Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Last week, amid considerable fanfare, Microsoft released a new design for its Xbox 360 interface, allowing gamers to create their own avatars and browse content via a series of intuitive windows, rather than the drab "blade" menu system of old. It was all very exciting for five minutes - I've managed...

Read More

New Xbox Live Experience Intro

Here is for anyone that hasn't seen the new Xbox live experience intro video. It's pretty nea...

Read More

Skyfire - Best Windows Mobile Phone Browser

Here is a great internet browser if you have a cell phone running Windows Mobile. It actually looks the same as a regular website. It's better than Opera Mobil and the i-Phone interface. Check it out.What is it?Skyfire is a free, downloadable mobile web browser that allows you to experience the internet on your phone exactly like on your PC. Now, you can use the full web from your mobile phone with unprecedented speed and simplicity – without the typical restrictions and limitations that current ‘mobile web’ efforts offer. It’s “The Web”, not...

Read More

Pandora - free internet radio - highly recomended

If you listen to music on the PC, I recommend Pandora. It's got to be one of the best online radio services. Best of all it's free and I highly recommend you try it out. Besides being easy and free, it's super easy to setup. It's as easy as entering an artist and it make a station with similar artist. Here is more of an explanation of what it is.When was the last time...

Read More

XM Radio, Sirius unveil new Sirius XM Radio lineups

Sirius XM Radio, the pay-radio marriage of the two former satellite services, formally combined their program lineups Wednesday. Some channels from each service went away in the merger, with Sirius and XM Radio subscribers each getting new channels from the other service. Some channels will be moved and/or re-named. Sirius XM said there will be no increase in the subscription...

Read More

AMD Maui Platform Bundles Hit Newegg

Over the past few months, we have shown you sneak peeks of AMD’s Home Theater PC platform, codenamed Maui, on a couple of different occasions. Essentially, Maui consists of a low-power AMD Phenom or Athlon X2 processor, an AMD 780-series (or higher) IGP, an ATI TV-Tuner and AMD’s Live media center software elements.Currently, MSI’s Media Live DIVA 5.1 motherboard, that has...

Read More

Allio 42-inch HDTV with PC and Blu-ray Player

It use to be that the big buzz word going around the industry was convergence. In the multimedia living room of tomorrow, a melding of the capabilities of various entertainment center components, along with the computer functionalities, is the end goal that will culminate into a more intelligent, connected entertainment center. Or at least it seems to be. Granted,...

Read More

Microsoft Adds SecondLight to its 'Surface'

Over the past couple of years, gadgets have become much more touchy-feely. Apple's iPhone and Microsoft's Surface (an interactive table) are two of the most celebrated examples. Now, Microsoft has added a twist to Surface that makes for an impressive demo. Microsoft announced the upgrade to Surface, called SecondLight, at the company's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday. As the video above demonstrates, in this new version of Surface, a secondary image is projected above the main display. A person views the second...

Read More

Circuit City Files for Bankruptcy

America’s third largest electronics retailer with 721 stores in the U.S. and 770 in Canada, has petitioned for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond. After losing money in five of the last six quarters and announcing last week it would close 155 stores, Circuit City is seeking bankruptcy protection amidst fears that it would not be able to pay its vendors....

Read More

MediaStream v0.97 Released (10/11/2008)

Thanks to everyone for their feedback on the last release and in this release you should find fixes for most of the issues raised. Additionally we've added an Episode Thumb version of the Wall Stream view, better watched/unwatched info to the TV Shows version of Media Preview and an option for more configurable Lyrics script handling as well as other stuff detailed below....

Read More

Windows 7 prebeta (build 6801)

Although Windows 7 won't be available until 2010, a prebeta version is available to developers. At first glance, it appears to be a more advanced iteration of Windows Vista. Windows 7 also seems to be geared more toward the consumer with many more user interface enhancements. Windows 7 builds on the internals of Windows Vista. One immediate benefit is that Windows 7 should have fewer compatibility problems upon release. CNET took a look at Windows 7 Ultimate Build 6801 and found it to be a remarkably stable and feature-rich alpha. See these photos...

Read More

MediaStream v0.96.5 Released (03/11/2008)

As the countdown to the final release of XBMC Atlantis gets closer and closer we thought it would be a good idea to do a small incremental release to fix a couple of issues in the recent v0.96 release.As usual you can download the skin from our website, http://www.teamrazorfish.co.uk/mediastream.htmlThe changes since the last release are as follows:Added: Arial font set options...

Read More

Switch Plus Sound File Conversion Software

Here is a program I recommend if you need to convert audio files or want to fit more music on a mp3 player. It has to be the easiest converter I've ever used.Switch Plus audio file converter is a sound file converter for Windows or Mac. It can convert audio files from many different file formats into mp3, wav and many other file formats. Switch is not a simply mp3 converter,...

Read More

MediaStream v0.96 Released (30/10/2008)

It's been a few weeks since the last release as things have been rather hectic for us but we've still been working away on the skin and have hopefully dealt with a number of the issues that have been raised in feedback since the last release.The biggest noticeable difference in this release is the addition of the new Wall Stream view (which as the name suggests is a wall style...

Read More

Double the viewers, double the TV

Here's a classic dilemma: You are home for the evening. You wish to watch, say, a comedy, on TV, but your family member would rather watch something else.Texas Instruments, the maker of the DLP Cinema chip, is developing technology that might reduce the common problem by allowing two people to simultaneously view two different programs -- on the same TV.The company outlined some of its early developments that use 3-D technology for home entertainment, on Thursday at the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Technical Conference and...

Read More

OWC introduces first external Blu-ray drive with quad interface

It's debatable whether or not Apple is losing its touch with FireWire, but you can rest assured that OWC hasn't. Said outfit has just announced the industry's first Blu-ray external drive with a quad interface, meaning you can link it up to your PC or Mac via FireWire 400, FireWire 800, USB 2.0 or eSATA. The Mercury Pro SW-5583 arrives with the capability to toast BD-Rs at...

Read More

XBMC PC (Atlantis) with Beyond TV demo

Here is a short demo with XBMC PC (Atlantis) with Beyond TV. The skin for XBMC is MediaStream. The skin for Beyond TV is just one I made. Enj...

Read More

Microsoft reportedly ready to ship Xbox 360 Blu-ray drive

Redmond (WA) – Microsoft still denies that it will be offering a Blu-ray extension for its Xbox 360 game console and gave every indication that it might skip the Blu-ray trend altogether and focus on movie downloads. Not so fast, says Xbit Labs, which learned that an external Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360 is ready to ship. Guess which company allegedly manufactures this drive....

Read More

Cooliris web plug-in. Highly recommended.

This is a neat little plug-in for browsers that allow you to quickly scan photos and videos. I've been using it for a little while now and it just keeps getting better. Here is a better description for what it does.Cooliris, formerly known as PicLens, is a web browser plugin made by Cooliris that provides interactive full-screen slideshows of online images. The plugin is...

Read More

My Deviantart.com Wallpapers

Here are some of my popular Deviantart wallpapers. If you want to use any of them, just click on the image and go to the download button on the left. Visit http://dhrandy.deviantart.com/ to view all my wallpape...

Read More

MediaStream v0.94 Released

The major change this week is to switch around the themes in the skin so that the Richer theme is now the default theme and there's a new lite theme which you can use if you're having memory issues running the default one.If you're using the Xbox we highly recommend using the lite theme as it'll be more responsive and will work much better with the tight memory constraints...

Read More

XBMC ‘Atlantis’ Beta 2 released - added Apple TV support

var addthis_pub = 'yuvalt'; Team-XBMC is proud to announce the second cross-platform Beta version of XBMC Media Center for Linux, Mac OS X (Leopard, Tiger, and Apple TV), Windows, and Xbox, in preparation for the upcoming point release of XBMC, code named ‘Atlantis‘. New in this release is multi-core video decoding for Windows users, courtesy of a rebuilt FFmpeg by WiSo...

Read More

View Maximum PC for FREE!

Just in case any of you didn't know, you can view the PDF version of Maximum PC for free on there website. This is great for anyone trying to save a little money. Now maybe you can afford that new upgrade. Enjoy.Link to PDF Arch...

Read More

New blog and website design

If you've been here before you'll notice a change. You were probably like "Did I go to the right site?" I just did a re-design on my webpage and blog. Hopefully it's a big improvement. I'm not able to do a whole lot with the website since I am limited on how much bandwidth it can use in an hour. Something else new for the website is the HTPC section. It has info on my HTPC and the build. Maybe it'll give some of you some ideas. Hopefully I can get a real web address soon. Hope you enjoy the new lo...

Read More

AMD presentation talks about Windows 7 in '09

Could Microsoft release Windows 7 next year? The rumor mill has been grinding away about the possibility these past few weeks, and AMD has just added fuel to the fire. As PC Watch reports, AMD showed an interesting slide during its presentation at the Cutting Edge IT & Electronics Comprehensive Exhibition (CEATEC) event near Tokyo. Under the title, "What to Expect in 2009," the AMD slide lists a number of items: the move to 40nm process technology, the arrival of the OpenCL general-purpose GPU API, widespread use of GDDR5 memory, consumer GPGPU...

Read More

Tutorial: How to use the Hauppauge 45 (or 34) button remote with XBMC or other apps

Here is how to add control for the Hauppauge 45 button remote with remote.ini file. I believe this will also work with the 34 button Hauppauge remote but not tested. This is for Windows only.First you need to locate the remote.ini file in 'C:\Windows' and open it with you text editor of choice. (ie. Notepad) Backup this file.Scroll down until you get to the following:[Applications]Default=WinTV Remote=;Win/TV+=;Win/TV=WinTV32=WinTV32(1)=WinTV32(2)=WinTV32(3)=WinTV32(4)=WinTV32(5)=WinTV32(8)=WinTV32(9)=WinTV32(10)=WinTV32(11)=WinTV32(12)=FullScreen=PVRFullScreen=*task*=;*suspend*=EPGdemo=VTplus=Create...

Read More

XBMC Keyboard Controls

Here are the controls for the keyboard with XBMC PC. I thought these would be helpful for some.p=Playspace=pauseq=Queuex=Stopf=FastForwardr=Rewindperiod=SkipNextcomma=SkipPrevioustab=FullScreenleft=Leftright=Rightup=Updown=Downpageup=PageUppagedown=PageDownreturn=Selectenter=Selectbackspace=ParentDirm=ActivateWindow(PlayerControls)s=ActivateWindow(shutdownmenu)escape=PreviousMenui=Infomenu=ContextMenuc=ContextMenuprintscreen=Screenshotminus=VolumeDownplus=VolumeUp(0-9)=0-9backslash=ToggleFullScreenend=XBMC ShutD...

Read More

MediaStream for XBMC

MediaStream is a skin for the XBMC media center, which means that users of XBMC can download it and use it as an alternative to the default look and feel that comes with the media center. (If you would like to find out more about XBMC please visit xbmc.org). MediaStream has been designed around a central concept that "Media is King", in other words the...

Read More

XBMC 'Atlantis' for PC, Mac and Linux

Team-XBMC is proud to announce the first cross-platform Beta version of XBMC media center for Linux, Mac OS X (Leopard and Tiger), Windows, and Xbox, in preparation for the upcoming stable release of XBMC, code named ‘Atlantis’. There are three important news items associated with this release:1. The first item that is new in this release is the brand new skin “PM3.HD”, a...

Read More

Navigon 2100 max free traffic

The Navigon 2100 max now offers there Traffic Service for free. Just go to the Navigon website to activate. I wish they would have had this before all the trouble I went through to get the 2100 max with free traffic together.http://navigonusa.c...

Read More

HTPC Software Thread - Overclock.net

I posted this over at overclock.net a while back. I thought I would put this here to help people out.PVR, DVR, HTPC, Media PC and Media Box is pretty much all the same thing. Here is a definition from wiki."A home theater PC (HTPC) or media PC is a convergence device that combines the functions of a personal computer and a digital video recorder. It is connected to a television or a television-sized computer display and is often used as a digital photo, music, video player, TV receiver and digital video recorder."All it is is a computer hooked...

Read More

The Right Lighting for Your Home Theater

August 22, 2008 | by Natalie Hope McDonald Audio and video are usually the first two key considerations most people think about when designing a home theater. But a third and no less integral attribute is lighting. The average home theater enthusiast may do a lot less thinking about lighting than they do the size of their screen or even about acoustics, but...

Read More

Comcast’s 250 GB Cap and Some Inside Info on Network Management

Karl Bode at Broadband Reports broke the news this morning (now confirmed) that Comcast will institute a 250GB bandwidth cap starting on October 1st. Nobody likes a cap, but as far as they go, this one’s pretty generous. It’s also far from unprecedented. Time Warner Cable made a lot of (negative) news when it started trialing a 40GB cap earlier in the year. But some of the smaller cable operators have been capping or metering for years. CableOne, for example, limits downloads and uploads during the time period between Noon and Midnight. The base...

Read More

Ad wars: Microsoft takes a bite out of Apple; Hires comedian Jerry Seinfeld to promote Vista - MAC.BLORGE

Tired of taking the beating from Apple in its Mac vs. PC commercials, Microsoft has decided to put on the gloves and fight back. The ad campaign is being created by MDC Partners’ Crispin Porter + Bogusky.According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft, the software giant, has a new 300 million dollar advertising campaign and it has hired comedian Jerry Seinfeld to help it...

Read More

meedioChrome v1.0.7 beta - Added Grid Mode

This is an update to the meedioChrome theme for Meedio. For those of you that don't know, Meedio is a HTPC(Home Theater PC) frontend application. I've been using it for a while now. To me it's the most customizable HTPC frontend out there. meedioChrome v1.0.7 beta--------------------------------------------- added GRID (aka Racedriver GRID) theme mode- added GRID main menu...

Read More

As Long As Today - New Video

"Schizophrenia" - As Long As Today from chris lang on Vimeo.Here is a new video for my friends band. They play around the Charlotte, NC area. Here is a link to there music. www.myspace.com/aslongasto...

Read More

Run Xbox Media Centre from a USB Drive | Lifehacker Australia

Run Xbox Media Centre from a USB Drive We've shown you how to turn your classic Xbox and Mac into a super-powered media centre using Xbox Media Centre, but what about everybody else? Well, if you've got at least a 1 GB USB drive and a computer that can boot from it, you're in luck. LiveXBMC, a blend of the XBMC and Ubuntu Linux, lets you do all the same big-screen...

Read More