Tomorrow marks the pre-release of MyMovies 3.0.  It will probably appear somewhere around the bottom of this page.  I’m sure I’ll test it out by importing my old database (it’s over a year old, so I don’t even know if it will work), but strictly so that I can write up a small review of it.  I’m also curious to its performance.

I’ve been seeing a lot of activity in the Media Browser team as of late…which is a good sign.  I know they have been focusing on bug fixes, but there has also been a resume in the parental control functionality, work on multiple entry points, and compatibility with music libraries.  They have also put a new community tracker which is intended to organize feature requests and bug reports in regards to priority.  So, if you would like to see something or have a bug to report, login and post it there, rather than the forums.

I completed my install and migration over to Windows 7 this weekend.  I decided since the Pro version was RTM, that it was best I started using ASAP, so I did a fresh install of x64 and haven’t looked back.  I can’t say that I’ve encountered any hangups or other other quirks so far.  I haven’t done much with the Media Center side of it either though.  One thing that I am concerned about is my development platform for Media Browser.  I’m not a programmer, but I was working on some additions/changes to the MediaInfo part of it.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue that now or not, so I may have to look into setting up a VM for it.

I also wanted to announce that I have agreed to start posting over at TheMetaBrowser.com (site of the terrific metadata retrieval application for MediaBrowser).  Most content published here will be mirrored there, but due to the popularity of the program, I expect a much larger audience.  I will continue to keep some content exclusive to this site, but if it’s something I feel will benefit the community a great deal, it will be posted over there too.

If you’re a student (or were a student or are going to be a student…they don’t check), you can sign up for the student subscription at ACM.org and opt-in for a provided MSDN AA (Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance) program.  So far I have downloaded approximately 75 software packages including Windows 7 x86/x64, Vista Enterprise x86/x64, Vista Business x86/x64, various Windows Server 2003 versions, SQL Server, System Management Server, Visio, etc.  Just about anything Microsoft has offered over the past 5-6 years is available…with MULTIPLE registration keys!  Right now, I have seven Windows 7 keys (French and German apparently work with English install discs).

I got all of this for $19.  Here is a list of what may be available for you (it has been for me so far, with the exception of Server 2008):

.NET Framework 1.1 SDK
.NET Micro Framework SDK
Access 2003
Access 2003 (Español)
Access 2003 (Francais)
Access 2003 (Italian)
Access 2007
Access 2007 (Francais)
Access 2007 (Japanese)
BizTalk Server 2006 Enterprise Edition
BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Developer Edition (x86 and x64) – DVD
BizTalk Server 2009 Developer Edition (x86 and x64) – DVD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 Enterprise Edition (x86 and x64) – DVD (English)
BizTalk Server 2009 standard Edition (x86 and x64) – DVD (English)
CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008
Commerce Server 2007 Developer Edition
Compute Cluster Pack
Compute Cluster Pack SDK
Customer Care Framework 2008 (v3.0) – CD
Desktop Optimization Pack 2007
Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition
Exchange Server 2007 Standard Edition
Exchange Server 2007 with SP1 Enterprise and Standard Editions (x64) – DVD (English)
Exchange Server 2010 Beta (x64) – DVD (Multilanguage)
Expression Blend
Expression Blend 2
Expression Blend 2 (French)
Expression Blend 2 (Italian)
Expression Design 2
Expression Design 2 (French)
Expression Design 2 (Italian)
Expression Encoder 2
Expression Encoder 2 (French)
Expression Encoder 2 (Italian)
Expression Media 2
Expression Media 2 (French)
Expression Media 2 (Italian)
Expression Studio
Expression Studio (Japanese)
Expression Studio (Spanish)
Expression Studio 2
Expression Studio 2 (French)
Expression Studio 2 (Italian)
Expression Studio 2 (Japanese)
Expression Studio 3 (x86) – DVD (English)
Expression Web
Expression Web 2
Expression Web 2 (French)
Expression Web 2 (Italian)
Forefront Client Security (x86 and x64) – CD
Forefront Security for Exchange Server with Service Pack 1 (x64) – CD
Forefront Security for Exchange Server with Service Pack 1 (x64) – CD (Japanese)
Forefront Security for SharePoint with Service Pack 1 (x64) – CD
Forefront Security for SharePoint with Service Pack 2 (x64) – CD (Japanese)
Forefront Server Security Management Console (x86) – DVD
Forefront Server Security Management Console (x86) – DVD (Japanese)
Host Integration Server 2006
Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 RC (x64) – DVD (Multilanguage)
InfoPath 2003
InfoPath 2007
InfoPath 2007 (Japanese)
ISA Server 2006 Enterprise Edition
IT Academy Course: Database Developer
IT Academy Course: Web Developer
IT Academy Course: Windows Client
IT Academy Course: Windows Developer
IT Academy Course: Windows Server
MapPoint 2009 European Maps (x86) – DVD
MapPoint 2009 North American Maps (x86) DVD
Microsoft CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008 R2 Academic Edition (x86) – (English)
Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 Academic Edition
Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R2 Academic Edition
Microsoft Surface SDK 1.0 SP1 Workstation Edition (x86) – (English)
MSDN Library – April 2007 (DVD)
MSDN Library – December 2006 – (DVD)
MSDN Library – May 2006 – CD1
MSDN Library – May 2006 – CD2
MSDN Library – May 2006 – CD3
MSDN Library – October 2001 (Full)
MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2005 – CD1
MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2005 – CD2
MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2005 – CD3
MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 (x86 and x64 WoW) – DVD
MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 (x86 and x64 WoW) – DVD (Japanese)
MS-DOS 6.0
Office Accounting Professional 2007
Office Accounting Professional 2008
Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005 with SP1
Office Communications Server 2007 Enterprise Edition
Office Communications Server 2007 Enterprise Edition (x86) – CD (Japanese)
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Enterprise Editions (x64) – DVD
Office Communicator 2007 (Japanese)
Office FrontPage 2003
Office Groove 2007
Office Groove 2007 (Japanese)
Office Groove Server 2007
Office Groove Server 2007 (x64) (Japanese)
Office PerformancePoint 2007 Management Reporter (x86) – CD (Japanese)
Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (x64) – CD (Japanese)
Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (x86) – CD (English)
Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (x86) – CD (Japanese)
Office Project Portfolio Server 2007
Office Project Server 2007
Office Project Server 2007 with SP1 (x86 and x64) – CD (Japanese)
Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise
Office SharePoint Server 2007 SE and EE with SP1 (x86 and x64) – DVD (Japanese)
Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard
OneNote 2003
OneNote 2007
OneNote 2007 (Japanese)
Project 2007 SP1
Project Professional 2002 (Single-User)
Project Professional 2003
Project Professional 2007
Project Professional 2007 (Francais)
Project Professional 2007 (Japanese)
Project Server 2003
Search Server 2008 (x86 and x64) – CD (Japanese)
SharePoint Designer 2007
SharePoint Designer 2007 (Japanese)
SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition
SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition
SQL Server 2000 SP3a
SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition – 32-bit – CD1
SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition – 32-bit – CD2
SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition – 64-bit Extended – CD1
SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition – 64-bit Extended – CD2

SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition – 64-bit Itanium – CD1
SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition – 64-bit Itanium – CD2
SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition – DVD
SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition DVD (Japanese)
SQL Server 2005 Express Edition
SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition – 32-bit – CD1
SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition – 32-bit – CD2
SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition – 32-bit – DVD
SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition – 64-bit Extended – CD1
SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition – 64-bit Extended – CD2
SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition – 64-bit Extended – DVD
SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition – 64-bit Itanium – DVD
SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition – 32-bit – DVD
SQL Server 2008 Developer (x86 and x64) – DVD (English)
SQL Server 2008 Enterprise (x86 and x64) – DVD
SQL Server 2008 Enterprise (x86 and x64) – DVD (Japanese)
Streets & Trips 2009 (x86) – DVD
System Center Capacity Planner 2006 with Service Pack 1
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 – DVD
System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 – DVD (Multilanguage)
System Center Essentials 2007 – DVD
System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 (x64) – CD
System Center Operations Manager 2007
System Center Reporting Manager 2006
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 (x86/x64) – DVD
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (x64) – DVD
Systems Management Server 2003 R2
Virtual PC 2004
Virtual PC 2007
Virtual PC 2007 (Japanese)
Virtual PC 2007 64bit
Virtual PC 2007 64bit (Japanese)
Virtual PC for Mac 7.0.2
Visio 2007 SP1
Visio Professional 2002 (Single User)
Visio Professional 2003
Visio Professional 2003 (Español)
Visio Professional 2007
Visio Professional 2007 (Japanese)
Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition
Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition – Disc 1
Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition – Disc 1 (Japanese)
Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition – Disc 2
Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition – Disc 2 (Japanese)
Visual C# 2005 Express Edition
Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
Visual J# .NET
Visual J# 2005 Express Edition
Visual SourceSafe 6.0d
Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional – Full Install
Visual Studio .NET 2005 Professional – Full Install
Visual Studio .NET Academic Student Tools 2003
Visual Studio .NET Academic Teaching Tools 2003
Visual Studio .NET Professional 2002 (Full) (Japanese)
Visual Studio .NET Professional 2003 CD1 ISO
Visual Studio .NET Professional 2003 CD2 ISO
Visual Studio .NET Professional 2003 Prerequisites ISO
Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition CD1
Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition CD2
Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition DVD (Japanese)
Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition CD1
Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition CD2
Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Trial Edition
Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite – CD1
Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite – CD2
Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite – CD3
Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System
Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition with SP1
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition (x86 and x64 WoW) – DVD
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition (x86 and x64 WoW) – DVD (Italian)
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition (x86 and x64 WoW) – DVD (Japanese)
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition (x86) – DVD
Visual Studio 2008 SP1
Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition (x86 and x64 WoW) – DVD
Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition (x86 and x64 WoW) – DVD (Japanese)
Visual Studio 2010 Professional Beta 1 (x86) – DVD
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server SP1
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Standard Edition (x86) – DVD
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition (x86) – DVD
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite (x86 and x64 WoW) – DVD
Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Debugging Symbols (x64) – (English)
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Debugging Symbols Checked Build (x64) – (English)
Windows 7 Beta (x86) – DVD
Windows 7 Beta (x86) – DVD (Japanese)
Windows 7 Debugging Symbols (x86) – (English)
Windows 7 Debugging Symbols Checked Build (x86) – (English)
Windows 7 Language Pack (x64) – DVD (Multilanguage)
Windows 7 Language Pack (x86) – DVD (Multilanguage)
Windows 7 Professional (x64) – DVD (English)
Windows 7 Professional (x86) – DVD (English)
Windows 7 RC Language Pack (x86) – DVD (Multilanguage)
Windows 7 Ultimate RC (x64) – DVD
Windows 7 Ultimate RC (x86) – DVD
Windows Embedded CE 6.0 DVD
Windows Embedded Standard 2009 Academic Edition (x86) – (DVD)
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (Español)
Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition – Disc 1 (Japanese)
Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition – Disc 2 (Japanese)
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
Windows Server 2003 Web Edition
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Standard – DVD
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Standard – DVD (Francais)
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Standard – DVD (Japanese)
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Standard 64bit – DVD
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Standard 64Bit – DVD (Japanese)
Windows Services for UNIX 3.0
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP1
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP1 (x64)
Windows Vista Business 64bit DVD
Windows Vista Business 64bit DVD (Japanese)
Windows Vista Business 64bit DVD with SP1
Windows Vista Business CD1
Windows Vista Business CD2
Windows Vista Business CD3
Windows Vista Business CD4
Windows Vista Business CD5
Windows Vista Business DVD
Windows Vista Business DVD (Japanese)
Windows Vista Business DVD with SP1
Windows Vista Enterprise with SP1 (x64) – DVD
Windows Vista Enterprise with SP1 (x64) – DVD (Spanish)
Windows Vista Enterprise with SP1 (x86) – DVD
Windows Vista Enterprise with SP1 (x86) – DVD (Spanish)
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (32bit, 64bit) – DVD
Windows Vista SP2 (x86) – CD (Multilanguage)
Windows Web Server 2008 – DVD
Windows Web Server 2008 – DVD (Japanese)
Windows Web Server 2008 (x64) – DVD (Japanese)
Windows Web Server 2008 64Bit – DVD
Windows XP Embedded
Windows XP Professional (Single User)
Windows XP Professional (Single User) 64bit Edition
Windows XP Professional (Single User) 64bit Edition (Japanese)
Windows XP Professional (Single User) ISO Image (Español)
Windows XP Professional (Single User) ISO Image (Japanese)
Windows XP Professional with SP1a (Single User) ISO Image
Windows XP Professional with SP2 (Single User) ISO Image
Windows XP Professional with SP2 (Single User) ISO Image (Japanese)
Windows XP Professional with SP3 (Single User) ISO Image
Windows XP Professional with SP3 (Single User) ISO Image (French)
Windows XP Professional with SP3 (Single User) ISO Image (Japanese)
Windows XP Service Pack 3 (x86) – CD (English)
XNA Creators Club Online Academic Subscription
XNA Game Studio 3.0

Here’s what I did to get it:

• Go to the sign-up page for students.
• Fill out all relevant information and make sure you specify the $19 student membership.
• After paying, log in.
• Create a web account.
• Log into web account.
• Go to myACM tab and then click on My Services.
• Click on the link for Access ACM’s Student Academic Initiative (SAI) Programs: Developer Academic Alliance (formerly MSDN AA)
• Check the box to Opt-in.  You will probably get a message or email saying that it will be completed after payment is processed.  This may take up to 24 hours.  Keep checking back by revisiting that link…when you’ve been accepted, you will need to Opt-in again.  You will also be receiving an email from them that could end up in your SPAM folder, so check there too!  Mine came from system_mail@e-academy.com welcoming me to the MSDNAA Software System and it contained my login information.
• Go to the link provided in the email
• Sign in with the credentials sent to you.
• Download tons of free, yet fully functional, Microsoft software!

I don’t know how long this will be available, so hurry!  It’s not joke and I’m not advertising for them.  I signed up late Tuesday night, was able to opt-in last night and was downloading this morning.   This came from Fatwallet and I actually became aware of it over at OCForums.  Enjoy!

Update:

You are required to provide a student ID and your adviser’s name to opt-in now.  I got this notification in an email last week at some point but did not have to add it since I already had received access to Elms.  I went ahead and put it in anyway (I’m a grad student :] )…just in case.

Update 2:

Windows 7 has been pulled from the software list, so if you were looking to grab that, you’ll have to wait for another offering.  There are still plenty of others available, so if you are interested in any server OSes or development tools, it is still well worth $19.  There is also DreamSpark if your university is listed and you have a valid student ID (it’s also completely free, but no Windows 7…just server OSes and a few development packages).

I’m probably not going to do much writing on the release of MyMovies 3 since I haven’t maintained the database for it in about a year, but Ian over at The Digital Lifestyle was able to get some exclusive screenshots of it in action.  You can see them here.

I qualify for download of the beta release on Sept. 1st, but considering none of my files are in a supported format for direct folder import, I’ll be forced to pass.  I remember how much work it was for me to keep up with it, so there’s no way I’ll start from scratch…especially considering that I now have 100x more TV shows than I did when using it.  MyMovies definitely doesn’t do well with individual TV episodes.

Aside from all of that, it does look nice, albeit the resemblance is quite uncanny to another popular plugin.  I guess there are only so many ways to display movie titles though, so I’ll leave it at that.

I am glad that Brian is finally able to get this out the door and do wish him the best of luck with it.  I’m sure it will be a huge hit.

For the most part, I had a pretty fun weekend geeking out a little.  The ESXi 4.0 install that I had planned was a success, with a couple of minor caveats that actually worked out in my favor.

First, My Asus P5B-MX refused to boot from the flash drive I was trying to use.  I didn’t get to go purchase a true flash drive (I was using a SD card with adapter), so that may have been the cause, but I don’t think it should have mattered.  Anyway, I did have an old 10GB Seagate IDE drive that I used instead, so that worked out quite well.  I also could not get the Conexant PCI modem to work, which wasn’t any surprise, but I also could not get the external USR Sportster modem to work.  I was certain that would allow me to use serial pass-through, but VMWare wasn’t having it.  Luckily, I found a driver that worked with 2008 Server x64 and I was able to get YAC working on NETSVR.  I was also a little disappointed that the MegaRAID adapter and SCSI drives would not work.  I didn’t mess with it very long, so I’m not sure why.  I hadn’t used it in probably 6 years or more, so I don’t know…I may try again later.  The only thing left now is to relocate my Dell tape drive.

I was able to setup a new WSUS server as a VM using 2003 Server R2 and it’s working perfectly now.  I did have some issues at first, but found that it was due to a misconfiguration in my DHCP server…name lookups were being passed to live DNS instead of my WINS server, causing anything on DHCP to not find the new WSUS system.  After fixing that, it began working perfectly.

I also setup an XP VM and an XUbuntu VM.  I figure I can use the XP as a guest system (going fullscreen on one of our office systems if company needs to use one over an extended period) and the XUbuntu system is just something I wanted for myself.

I did have a bit of a scare this morning, however.  I had to do a memory swap in my unRAID server and during the boot process, it experienced two spontaneous reboots.  Once I was able to get it back up, all of my drives showed up blue (that is as “New” drives) and my user share configuration was now blank.  Needless to say, I’m sure my heart had at least 2-3 years shaved off right then and there.  After sweating it out for a few minutes, I went ahead and checked off the “Restore” box and hit “Start”.  Everything went back to normal and a parity check ensued…relief!  I did have to downgrade to 2GB since I’m guessing the memory I swapped had a bad module.  Oh well, I don’t think it will impact much.

Even though I’m not a stranger to VMWare and ESXi since I manage it at work, this is the first time I ever tried it at home (ESXi, that is…I’ve run Virtual PC and the old VMWare before).  I’m already trying to figure out ways to take advantage of it, but I think I’ll have to upgrade that server before I’m able to.  I’d like to grab a new board, another quad-core and outfit it with about 8GB of memory, but that will probably be a ways off.

Anyway, I’m happy with what I got accomplished this past weekend and am excited with the possibilities.  If you’ve just upgraded to a new system and have something that still has some kick left over, ESXi may be a very good choice for you (if it works with your hardware).  If you decided to give it a shot, be sure to comment about your experiences!

I was finally able to move some memory around so that I could get 4GB in my VPNSVR.  I had 4 individual 1GB modules laying around, but it only has two slots, so I had to do a little maneuvering, but it worked out.  I backed up my WSUS store and database and hopefully tonight, or tomorrow, I’ll get around to making that box my new VMWare ESXi host.  It’s reported to work on various Asus P5B boards, so I don’t see any reason it shouldn’t work on the MX version.  I know the Attansic (Atheros) gigabit NIC doesn’t work, but  have a Broadcom NetXtreme II PCIe in there that does.  The only problem may be the 946GZ chipset itself, but I’m confident it will be fine.

I’ll redo my WSUS server as a guest and then probably add an Ubuntu or Xubuntu (maybe even one of each).  I also plan on adding a locked down XP image that is automatically RDP’ed into from our spare laptop when logged into with the Guest account.

I also have an old 2-port enterprise-grade MegaRAID card and three (just found a fourth…even better) 18GB 15K Cheetahs that I’m going to throw in there for all the OS drives for these images (probably do a RAID-0 with them).  The 250GB SATA can be the spare datastore to divvy up where needed.  I am going to have to relocate my Tape drive, however.  I guess I can throw it on my NETSVR…as if I have a lot of choices.  I’m pretty sure it has an available slot for the SCSI adapter.

One of the biggest issues I have is with my modem.  It’s an internal PCI Conexant HSF V92 and it’s not going to work anymore.  I can’t remember what all is installed on my NETSVR, so hopefully I have two free PCI slots in it (except I doubt it will work on a 64-bit install of 2008 server).  I’d hate to lose YAC capability, but I’m sure I’d find a way around it.  I do have an ancient USR Sportster Voice 33.6K (not a typo) FAXModem kicking around that has Caller-ID capability, so I may be able to get that to work.

Anyway, this all hinges on whether or not the 2GB flash drive I have works (and can be found).  It’s always given me some issues, but I sort of shrugged it off.  If I have to actually buy one, I probably won’t get around to it until Monday, at best.  Either way, check back soon and hopefully I’ll have something new and interesting to share!