I don’t do much recording, but I setup a series recording for a PBS Kids show that my kids like and decided to go looking for something to remove the commercials.  The first place I looked was at the MCEBuddy site.  I used it a good while back and was impressed, so when revisiting, I found that a new beta was released this past Sunday (1th).

MCEBuddy 1.1 BETA3 for x86 and x64 systems is now available.  Download page is here.

A quick rundown of what’s new (taken directly from the MCEBuddy download page):

(Continue Reading...)

This is more of an update to my Fun with RAMDisks post made nearly a year ago.  With the alpha testing for the upcoming Media Browser Firestorm release going in full swing, I thought I would post a small update that makes this useful (for those of you with little RAM also).

Firestorm will include some experimental SQLite support for some cache-able items, like metadata (no image caching yet, however).  What makes this interesting for those of you with limited memory, is that the database for even my collection (2500+ movies and around 10000 TV episodes) is only about 40MB.  This means you can create a RAMDisk of 50-100MB and still have room to grow.

DataRAM has a new RAMDisk beta release available for Vista and Windows 7 (thanks Jason) here.  It is good for both x86 and x64 systems.  I set mine up to autoload and autosave my disk image on startup/shutdown and also to autosave every 5 minutes.  I chose to create an unformatted disk and then initialized it in the Disk Management Console and formatted it NTFS (DataRAM only gives FAT16/32 options).

I then cut and pasted the cache.db file located in C:\Programdata\MediaBrowser\Cache to my new RAMDrive (R:\, in my case).  This file is created after you enable <EnableExperimentaSqliteSupport> to True in the new Firestorm MediaBrowserXml.config file and then allow Media Browser to run and populate the database with the cached info (can take a while, but it is still very fast).  You will also notice a cache.db-journal file is created.  Don’t bother trying to symlink this file as it will not work.  It is a volatile journal file that SQLite uses and it will just delete and recreate itself over-and-over, removing any symlink attempt.

Next, you want to create your symlink by running the mklink command from the command-line.  I would recommend entering the command interface as Administrator to avoid any ‘gotchas’.  Once open, just run the following commands, assuming your RAMDrive is R:\ and you have already created and moved your cache databases to that drive.

mklink c:\programdata\mediabrowser\cache\cache.db r:\cache.db

That’s it and it should look like this…

Now it’s time to fire up Media Browser and enjoy some lightning fast SQLite/RAMDisk caching!

I do have to admit, however, that I can tell very little performance increase doing this on my system.  The SQLite caching by itself is tremendously faster than the hash files in the directory method, so your mileage may vary.

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 &amp; 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).

It’s well known that, by default, you cannot upgrade your pre-7077 Windows 7 to the recently released Windows 7 RC…at least until now.  If you want to upgrade your pre-7077 copy instead of doing a fresh install (just beware, it’s not supported for a reason), it’s really fairly simple…

• Take your newly downloaded ISO file and extract the entire thing to somewhere (perferably a new folder).
• Browse to your extraction location and find the Sources folder.
• Inside that Sources folder, find the cversion.ini file and open it (in notepad, wordpad or whatever).  The contents will look like this:

[HostBuild]

MinClient=7077.0

MinServer=7000.0

• Simply change the MinClient=7077.0 entry to 7000.0, save and close.
• You can now just run Setup and upgrade to the RC!

Have fun!  I’m going to give the RC a run soon.  My experience with 7000 was not good, so I’m looking for it to get some redemption this time around.

I came across this little add-in a while ago and although it doesn’t pose much of a use for me, I’m sure many of you will find it a godsend.

It’s called PowerPlaylist and was created by Media Center guru Charlie Owen.  So, what does this thing do?  I’ll just give you the CodePlex excerpt explaining it,

“PowerPlaylist adds a custom Start Menu strip with up to five tiles to Windows Media Center in Windows Vista. Each tile represents an audio, slideshow and / or visualization combination which will start when the tile is selected. PowerPlaylist is very customizable by the consumer using the PowerPlaylist Editor, including the title of the custom Start Menu strip and the name, image, audio source, slideshow folder and visualization for each tile.”

If this sounds interesting to you, there are both Vista and Windows 7 versions available in the Releases box to the right on this page.