Windows 7 and Xbox Media Center Extender

I've been tinkering for about a year trying to get my Microsoft Xbox 360's (Yes, more than 1) to be able to stream music and media from my computer to my TV's and this has been a constant struggle with no success and no idea how to get it working. I even tried on the other computers running Windows 7 and had the same issues but I couldn't even get it to work on XP either.

I was convinced at some point along the way that it had to be a network issue because perhaps I didn't have Multicast and Universal Plug and Play (uPnP) working right. I am running a Cisco Pix 501 for my Firewall and Router and a Netgear GS724T for my switch. Those are both non-home devices and maybe they were part of the problem.

After exhausting efforts there I decided to take another look at my computer itself. I am running a licensed business edition of AVG because I am a big fan and most things online point to the problem being a firewall configuration for it. I am however NOT running their firewall because I am running my network behind the strict pix configuration. This means I am running the stock Microsoft Windows Firewall that comes built into Windows. I had been trying to get the communication between the Xbox and the computer to work with it both enabled and disabled with no luck and I kept getting the same error of "Cannot Configure Extender".

I decided to enable the Windows Firewall again and check the program settings for enabled apps which revealed that the "Media Center Extenders" and "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service" was not checked. Checking them and clicking "OK" made communication work instantly and the problem was resolved.



I followed all the instructions I could find and even went to http://www.xbox.com/pcsetup like the Xbox screen says to do but this bit of instructions wasn't mentioned so I am posting it for others in case they are beating their heads in on the same issue.

New Apple iPad

Many people were like me today and glued to their computers all around the world in their respective time zone looking to hear the news of the much rumored iPad. We were not confused as it really was called the iPad and it included many of the heavily rumored features that people were lusting over.. but not all.

Hype!
The hype surrounding this launch and the mystery lead to many rumors such as the ability for the device to bend time and space lead to such insanity as drinking games designed to be played around the launch which detailed out all the features and if included you had to drink.

Arrival Day
I was one of the many glued to my computer and eating at my desk as it occurred at 12:00pm CST. I was frustrated but not mad that I couldn't follow anything at all on www.apple.com or any of their subsidiary sites that I was aware of. Twitter didn't yield much more, no streaming video that I could find other than some silliness going on with the folks at Crunch Gear. I found the best source of information was the blogging which included great pictures and comments from Engadget.

The Device
I am not an Apple, Google, or Microsoft Fanboy and I consider myself omni-tech-ual? I have programing (Shell Scripting, Perl, PHP), Unix (SGI Irix, Sun Solaris), and Microsoft certifications as well as a background using and supporting Macs since 1994 not to mention that I happily own an Android phone. I am just a nerd and use the best tool available for the job at hand.

There are many sites including those names above that will cover in extreme detail what the iPad costs, contains, and promises so I won't get into that. I realize that we as a greedy never satisfied culture are never satisfied but I was not very impressed. In short I feel like this is a huge iPod Touch with a 3G upgrade if you want it. The following list of things are missing and to me are deal breakers that I expected to be fixed before I pull out my wallet (Which I was excited and ready to do).

• No Flash (really? still?)
• No Camera (Barcode reading, video conference, etc)
• No GPS (Isn't the purpose to be mobile?)
• No USB (I can't plug anything in like a GPS or Camera, or Mouse and Keyboard?)
• No SD or Memory Slots? (I can't upload anything via sneaker net?)
• No Multi-tasking? (I am way too ADHD to only be able to do 1 thing at a time)
• Still stuck with AT&T (What is the purpose of defining the iPad as unlocked if it still only works with AT&T?)
  

The Name
The most surprising thing to me was the weak name for this which is being laughed at and jokes are being told at it's expense. Twitter is now trending on several variations on the hash tags to poke fun such as #ipadjokes. My personal favorites are:

• A larger version will be available this summer called the MaxiPad
• Why did they call it the iPad? Because Sham-wow was already taken
• With AT&T and the iPad you know the network will be down at least 5 days a month

Alternatives
As I mentioned above, I am ready to put out my money for something new. I am ready to invest in something that lets me indulge more in my ever increasing content and social addictions. I am extremely interested in the rumored Microsoft Courier but it's still too good to be true and more focused on productivity than the iPad. I already have and still love my original Kindle but for now I might have to just stick with my normal laptop and my Andoid G1 handset.

My coworker Chris (@ebbynezer) wrote a pretty interesting blog post which was optimistic and very forward looking into what the iPad could have meant. After the announcement he acknowledged to me in the hall that he might have reached a bit given the outcome from the announcement.

What did you think about the announcement and will you buy an iPad?

Haiti

I have been very impressed with the world’s response to the Haiti earthquake, with aide coming from all over the globe. Monetary donations have poured in via a wide range of means, but most notably from social media. The Red Cross has their text campaign, where you can send $10 straight to the cause by SMS messaging the word "Haiti" to 90999¹, which I was happy to do.

I was listening to NPR the day after it happened, and I was moved by Bill Clinton's interview about the situation, as he has been going to Haiti doing humanitarian work there with his family for 35 years. I thought to myself, “Wow, he's been going there for 35 years; Haiti gets huge amounts of donations and charity to subsidize them and still they remain that poor with diseases and have such problems.”

At the time of the earthquake, there were an estimated 45,000 Americans in Haiti who were there doing charity work to help the area. I was honestly impressed that so many of my fellow countrymen and women would be doing such work, but I thought perhaps we have been going about it the wrong way.

One thing America is really good at is capitalism, and when it comes to capitalism, we do it better than anyone in the world in the history of the world. Why not take that same skill-set and deploy it to assist Haiti? You can read the Wiki page for Haiti¹ and realize they no longer have any natural resources to help drive their economy due to deforestation. Because the country is so poor, they do not have any realistic source of knowledge power either (fewer than 30% of Haiti’s inhabitants reach 6^th grade¹).

If we can turn the deserts of Las Vegas into a huge thriving vacation and entertainment location that is green and a churning gear in the American economy why not work with Haiti to turn them into a vacation destination which would fuel more than enough jobs, economics, geographic revitalization, and self sustainability for the future? Dubai can build an entire city such as this from their desert and even palm tree-shaped islands so why not this area as well?

The old adage of give a man a fish and he eats for a day (charity) but teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime (education and enterprise) comes to mind. I'm sure I am out of my mind and more research on my part will most likely prove there are plenty of political, economic, geographic, cultural issues which make it not feasible, but I would love to go on vacation to Haiti and help their country recover. I'm willing to bet most of the global world at large would be willing to "help" with a much bigger economic impact. Knowing business and capitalism, if there was a full scale plan laid out, I'm sure the companies of the world would be willing to invest and probably get some good will (and transactions) from their existing client base in the meantime.

What do you think? Am I crazy? Would you go? Would you support companies who invested towards the recovery?

¹http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.94aae335470e233f6cf911df43181aa0/?vgnextoid=15c0c5a210826210VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCRD Retrieved 01-17-2010

²http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti Retrieved 01-17-2010

Welcome to the House of Flamp!

SolarCurve is a term that I first learned in Photoshop which is used to help find blemishes and faults in your pitcures by using extreme variances to detect them. It's pretty nerdy and I know it has other meanings. I was an image re-toucher for a few years in the mid to late nineties so when I was trying to find a gaming name for playing Quake online I used it and it stuck with me. So it's been SolarCurve with everything since.

What in the world is Flamp or Flampy? There are various definitions but I've always used it in a way to mean when something is funny, off, weak, silly, not quite right etc.

In short what the House of Flamp promises to bring you is my thoughts which are not expert nor are they expected to be awesome, credible, or even noteworthy. Ultimately the judging of the content is up to you but at the end of the day you are here reading it and can choose to return or not.