I’m sure manu of you have tripped an error when activating one of your Media Center plugins and then received the prompt that allows you to place a check in the box, actively disabling that application.  Am I right?  Well, I’ve seen it asked quite a few times, so I thought I would add to the Google search pile by adding the solution for those of you who want to re-add that application because you accidentally checked that little box and hit “OK”.

This is for Vista, but I assume 7MC is probably pretty much the same:

You can also disable any applications you want using this method simply by removing the check in the box.

Considering the number of screensaver/window minimization issues that the cumulative updates for VMC have given me for the past year (including SP2), I refuse to install this on any of my systems. However, I am interested in hearing how it has impacted any of you.

This update (KB967632) came out yesterday for both 32 and 64-bit systems. The issues resolved by this update, according to Microsoft, are:

Whatever. I never noticed these things, so I don’t want to break my Media Center to fix something that doesn’t exist for me.

If you’ve installed this update, I’d appreciate your feedback, so comment back! Positive and negative appreciated!

So, we have started testing an alpha 2.0.12 release of Media Browser today and minus a few very minor quirks (at least in my experience), it looks to be the beginning of a very exciting release for those of you that use it. The issues in the SVN builds I was using have been resolved and all that I’ve noticed so far are primarily bugs in logic that only affect presentation and do not hamper usability at all.

I don’t have screen shots or anything yet, but the previous post I made including the Diamond theme are pretty much what I’m looking at right now anyway. I’ll honor the ‘private’ designation and hold off giving anymore information until we’re on the eve of a release.

Be patient…it will be soon!

YouTube XL is a new web-based 10 foot interface for all you tubeheads.  Who will be the first to integrate this within Media Center (I have some ideas, but no desire)?

Check it out.

In a couple of weeks, you should all get to try out the latest beta release 12 of Media Browser.  Until then, for those of you who aren’t running SVN builds, I have decided to post a few pre-release screenshots of the current state of one of the new themes that will be included – Diamond.

The new root page:

Activated trailers plugin:

Coverflow:

Detail:

Poster:

Thumb:

Thumbstrip:

TV strip:

Movie info screen:

Top menu (this is hidden until you hit the ‘up’ arrow on your remote, then it drops down…very cool:

Most of these screens won’t do it justice since this is just my test box and I never really run any of the customizations that many users on the Media Browser forums do (custom poster art and backdrops).  I think you get a good idea though.

There’s plenty more to come, but my spoon is small :)

I hadn’t noticed that the studios were removed from the SVN on the ImagesByName project site and I just received a request for where to get them at.  So, I have uploaded the studio images that I have and made them available via the downloads section (the June 3rd base file).

The file is 7.6MB and contains 138 studio images.  I created maybe a half-dozen of those, so I can’t take credit or criticism for most of what’s contained in there.

For real.

mikinho over at TGB has entered another metadata fetcher to the mix.  This one is a little different, however.  It will also provide metadata files that are compatible with Media Browser, the Windows 7 DVD library and even nfo files that XBMC uses.  For the most part, everything else you’d expect in a metadata manager/fetcher is present, with the addition of playlist creation.  I think this is a real plus also.  It can even hide the individual files so that only the playlist file is available…a very unique feature.

You can read more about YAMMM in the long thread at TGB.  A direct download is available here (apparently always the latest version).

Here are a few screen caps:

The title says it all.  I went to copy the new Hulu Desktop application to my NAS drive on my unRAID server yesterday afternoon and was met with a Windows I/O error.  Immediately, I logged into the unRAID web interface and saw the dreaded red button next to the old 320GB Maxtor IDE drive that served as my NAS storage drive.  I then used Putty to log in, started up the included Midnight Commander application and began copying everything over to an empty 500GB drive that was already added and on standby.  Just FYI, a mouse is recognized and usable within Midnight Commander when executed in a Putty session – much easier to work with.

This morning I finished removing the failed drive from the array and noticed that my 30GB cache drive was showing up as unformatted.  Sigh.  I removed it too.  I wondered if maybe that cache drive was failing because there was no NAS assigned to it any longer, but I didn’t want to hurt my head thinking about all that.  I considered the old Promise PCI controller too, but there were errors showing up on the old NAS drive, so I discounted that.  In the end, I don’t really care.  I’m sort of glad to be getting back off the PCI bus, but I can’t add anymore drives now until I can spring for an entire new enclosure.   I do have one picked out that’s considerably less than what I’ve been buying, however.  The ST5X1PM-B at Addonics.com for $189.95 looks pretty good.  It doesn’t have the removable trays, but I honestly haven’t enjoyed their convenience enough to pay an extra $100 for them again.  I think I have enough storage left over until birthday time comes.  I think that Maxtor may have some warranty left on it too 9and they’ve since been bought by Seagate, who I’m pretty loyal to now)…

Anyway, long story short, I encountered my first ‘recongized’ failure with unRAID and it performed 100% as advertised.  No data lost and only a few minutes of downtime.

Yaggs, the author of the SecondRun.tv plugin, has added another addition to the Media Center pluing library – HuluDesktopWMC.

I have not tried it out yet, but basically this is a small plugin that places the Hulu Desktop interface within Media Center.  Since Hulu Desktop works with a remote, it apparently provides a somewhat seemless interaction between the two.

Anyway, reports say it works in both VMC and 7MC, so that’s some good news.  It also requires Hulu Desktop to be installed and there is a coupe of small configurations you have to initiate in order for it to work properly.  You can more info at the TGB thread on it or the official SecondRun.tv site.  Download also available at the latter link.

Yes, I realize I’ve been nonexistent for the past couple of weeks, but the weather is nice and my interests have swayed outdoors.  This leaves me out-of-the-loop when it comes to HTPC-related material.  However,  I did find some time today to take the recently updated ImagesByName Project files and incorporate them with my own personal updates to generate a new base file.

I tried to make a large update, but I couldn’t find a way to discern between the IBN project updates and my own.  I pretty much handle my own image additions and don’t necessarily want the IBN files overwriting my own and vice versa.  So, I decided to just make a new base file available here and start with new updates from that point.  I will leave the old files available also.

I signed up for a new free webhost to serve these files.  It looks pretty good and you may want to check them out if you want a free site of your own, for whatever reason.  Hit up 000Webhost.com and look at their free plan.

Anyway, the new base file is available in the downloads section.  Just download it and overwrite your current files.  Make sure you have the file named IBN_Base_3-29-09.rar.

EDIT:

After seeing several downloads of the old ImagesByName.rar over the past hour, I wanted to make it clear that if you’re starting from scratch or want the latest images, then the IBN_Base-3-29-09.rar file is all that you need! All previous files are older than what is in the May 29th base package.  I’m only leaving those files up until the next update to the May 29th base.

Also, the new base file download is right at 200MB.