Michael and Charlie are putting together a Media Center Geek dinner at 6pm December 9th at Crossroads Mall in Bellevue.  They'll be wearing Media Center jackets. I think this is a great idea.  Hopefully we can get a few new Media Center PC form-factors there so people can take a look at them.  Chances are slim though with all the work around prepping demo systems for CES right now :).

By the way, Charlie is asking for more suggestions on what to write about re: MCE app development over on his blog. If you have questions, Charlie has answers and a number of good tips on stuff.  Personally, I want someone to write a WSDOT Traffic Cam app so my wife can see how late I'm going to be at a glance. :)

That reminds me...we've been thinking about doing a Media Center App Challenge - identify 2-3 big ideas/categories for app dev't for MCE and offer prizes (cash or products) to those that are voted the best.  I wonder, what should be the challenges?

Just in time for the holidays- a few surprises from the Windows XP Client team. A new Winter Fun Pack has just been released with add-ons for Media Center and more. Of particular interest to Media Center and Media Player 10 users:

Tweak MCE 2005 - A new Media Center 2005 Powertoy and add-on app that enables power users to control settings such as Skip Interval for “Trickplay”, Reaction timings, enable Universal Remote controls, UI timeouts & notifications, and even enable 16:9 support on Windows Media Center Extenders. There's just too much to list!

Whitecap (Holiday Edition) Visualization - From Andy O'Meara, creator of the popular G-Force Viz for MCE, this new viz is very cool and includes a number of holiday shapes and visualizations.

Yule Log Visualization - The classic visualization of a warm fireplace, the fire crackling and flaring to the music.

Winter Ice Storm Visualization - A wintry scene comes alive with snow and ice in this popular viz from years past.

Holiday Auto Playlists - I personally think this is the most under- rated feature in MP10.  These Holiday autoplaylists scour your media library to create music playlists based on a wide set of keywords for popular holidays including Hannukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. Great for taking holiday music on your portable music players or Portable Media Centers too.

Download the new items as a part of the Winter Fun Pack 2004 available today. If there's something you'd like to see in future packs, please let me know and I'll pass it along to the team.

MSN is currently in beta testing with their new blogging service, MSN Spaces.  If you've ever been afraid to blog, not sure where to start or looking to try something new, check it out.

Features include:

- Rich Web-based editing
- Send pictures directly from your Cameraphone (Moblogging)
- Music Playlists - post personal music lists and playlists you can import from WM Player 10 and let people rate your playlists.
- Book Lists - Recent books you're reading or have read and recommend
- Sample for free and download (not for free) music tracks/playlists from MSN Music
- Catgories
- Comments
- Stats
- Trackbacks
- RSS Syndication - noticably absent is an RSS tag but I suspect this will get fixed

I see a number of unique features here.  The servers appear to be a little slow (no doubt due to the number of Slashdotters banging on it right now.  I'm thinking about making my personal blog available on this site. You can check my test site out and a somewhat dated picture at http://spaces.msn.com/members/seanalex

Learn more and download here.

My Movies is a free MCE (Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition) add-on application to function as remote operated DVD index for both your online and offline DVDs. Browse your DVD collection by titles, actors, directors or genres - all with covers and images. Screenshots

Not bad-I've played with prior versions but this looks pretty good for cataloging your DVD collection.

For the Halo 2 fan who REALLY needs to prove what a bad-ass he/she is not just on the Web, in IM, or on Xbox Live but also needs to do it with an Excel spreadsheet, Sam brings us this, the “Halo 2 RSS Excel Workbook”.  A data-driven spreadsheet that uses the Bungie.net website's RSS feeds to offer the ability to:

-Easily view your previous games stats
-Slice and dice your Halo stats by many categories including map and game type
-Chart your stats to visually see how you kick ass
-Calculate overall averages: kills per game, deaths per game, etc... 

Thank you Sam for once again showing me why I suck more at Halo 2. Or maybe I can find a certain Pivot Table combo that proves I really kick ass at something in Halo 2 other than dying. My prediction- we start seeing data-driven Powerpoint slide decks entitled,  “Why I kick your ass in Halo 2”. 

Engadget brings us public word about Alienware's new DHS 2 Living Room PC going toe to toe with the HP Digital Entertainment Center. Looks like a Gyration Keyboard and Mouse round the system out.  I have yet to play with one but I'm sure I will soon. :)

Chris Pirillo notes among other things this holiday season he's thankful to Microsoft and calls out a number of us by name.  For whatever it's worth, we're thankful for Chris for the feedback, both good and what can be better.  Keep it up and I'll see you soon. More thoughts on what I'm thankful for shortly.

Chris Lanier details updates coming to the NVidia NVDVD decoder. Media Center and Portable Media Center users will note a # of improvements including support for ATSC (HDTV) transcode to PMC it looks like.  Get all the details here.

Wow, Popular Science's “Best of What's New“ Grand Award for Gadgets goes to PlaysforSure! Okay, they call it WM DRM 10 but the fact is that PlaysforSure is the consumer logo for the end to end consumer experiences enabled in large part by WM DRM10.

This is also the same technology that enables you to download tracks from MSN Music, transfer them to up to 5 PCs of your choice, burn it up to 7 times, and download as many times as you like to your portable music player.  I'm suprised this doesn't get more air-play.  I think a certain i-music player only supports 3 computers.

Let's see, PlaysforSure devices are showing up in Esquire's Gift Guide, PopSci, and even MCE is showing up in the December issue of Good Housekeeping. You're going to be hearing a lot more about PlaysForSure and cool devices in the coming weeks and months.  Not all ball and chains come in black- some come in white- or others :).

A new update is now available for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 that resolves an issue where the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) may not display indicators that show which programs are scheduled to record.  (KB888316) You can download it from Microsoft.com here. I do not believe a Windows Update version is available at this time.

Much to my wife's glee, I just finished Halo 2.  This game seemed much more epic and cinematic than the original.  Whatever you do, keep watching AFTER the credits.  Without spoilers, what surprised me the most were some of the names in the credits, particularly Ron Perlman, and Orlando Jones.  You didn't see any airtime on the fact that both lended their voices.  I wonder, were they just Halo fans who wanted to be a part of the new installment? 

A friend of mine, let's call him “CP” works on the Bungie team.  Back when he first started, I was able to beat him in the original.  After an evening of H2 the other night, it's clear that he has bested me many times over.  Time to practice I guess. :)

Here's the scenario- a co-worker tells you that ABC's new TV show “Lost“ is great and you need to watch it (which you should, particularly in HD).  But you always forget to set it to record when you get home.  Solution: Set your MCE to record the series directly from your office with the MSN Remote Record Service.  From Mark Salloway's MCE blog (ok, I'm on vacation!):

Some guy called Dark Helmet broke the physics engine in Halo 2 and figured out how to fly. In his new movie appropriately titled, Learning to Fly, he shows us how to do it complete with captions. The video is long but fun especially at the surprise ending. Created with a Dazzle Analog DV Capture Kit and Windows Movie Maker 2.x :)

A new plug-in for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 enables you to control your HomeSeer Home Automation System so you can control your heating/cooling, lighting and more.  Again, I cannot vouch for their system as I don't have this in my own home but this is the third such home automation system I've seen in the past two months for Media Center.  I'm curious what you think- it there a mass-market for home automation?  If technology continues to go wireless for these types of solutions, it just might become easy enough and affordable. For me, a whole-home music/video distribution system would be ideal. What would you like to control with a home automation system?

Last Saturday, I got an email forwarded from Robert Scoble from a Design Producer at ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  They had contacted Microsoft as a “local” company to help a family in Kingston, WA.  After a short 9:30am conf call on Monday, we learned about the family and the team's request for assistance w/ a 24 hour deadline for delivery.

While I'm contractually bound to not discuss details until after the airing (early January and I will write more then), I can say that I'm just so impressed by how in a 24 hour period, a large v-team across multiple groups and companies was able to secure a wide range of donations for the family. One of my favorite memories was of how our team of 10 volunteers did everything from pitching in to assemble and move in furniture, to technology installations.  

I have no idea if you'll actually see any of what we did.  That wasn't the point- it was just a great way to kick off the holiday season and help a neighbor. No one complained, even when we missed the ferries and got home at 3:30am the day of the reveal only to turn around again at 6am. No celeb pictures or autographs.  Everyone was singularly focused on getting the job done in time. The Production team was top-notch, and most importantly, it was for a great cause. The is a “real“ Reality Show and yes, Ty, Preston, Michael, and company are as nice as they seem on TV.

Oh and starting this week and by circumstance, ABC's Extreme Makeover is available in Enhanced TV for Media Center.  Check it out in Online Spotlight- live chats, polls, and facts as you're watching the show. I would like to say this was all connected but it wasn't.  The volunteer work came about directly as a result of accessibility via Robert Scoble's blog.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this holiday a better one for one family.  No more comments until after the show airs :).

Time for some holiday cheer from Dell.  They're doing a blow-out on Media Center 2005 PCs, dropping the price of Media Center OS 50% on a wide range of Dimension PCs including the 3000, 4700, 4700C, 8400, and XPS series. The actual cost of turning a new PC into a Media Center PC is only $19 from Dell ending Monday.  At the low-end, that's a $488 PC + SH.  Admittedly I'd want to put a little more horsepower in my system (which you can configure) but if you're on a budget and looking to get a good deal, you have until Monday. That's a new low price point for Media Centers as far as I know.

Click here for details and be sure to choose, “Start Shopping Desktops” and configure your own - don't pick the “Featured Desktops” as the option doesn't show up there for MCE05.