It appears more CEDIA installers are putting MCE and Xbox 360 into their mix.  Over at AVSForum, there's a headling on the following article detailing an impressive setup involving whole-home distribution, home automation and more.  I'm humbled.

As a budding photo hobbyist (Nikon D200 in-hand), like Thomas Hawk I enjoy taking pictures of architecture when I'm out and about on my travels.  What happened to Thomas when he was snapping from a public venue at 45 Fremont Street in San Francisco is unconscionable.  I wish I could say this was the first time this has happened to him.  Thomas is standing up for all of our rights - photographers or otherwise.

Suggestion for Thomas - consider taking a small portable audio recorder in the future and notify the person at the beginning that this conversation will be recorded. ;)

If you're a beta junkie like me, and have a spare test system laying around, why not give Windows Vista Beta 2 and Office 2007 a whirl? Unlike when XP was in beta, broadband is finally at acceptable speeds for most to able to download.  Just be sure to run the Vista Upgrade Advisor first m'kay?

• Download Windows Vista Beta 2 (or order DVD media)
• Download Office 2007 Beta 2 (or order DVD media)

Wondering what all the fuss is around Vista?  Download the Vista Beta 2 Guide (Word .doc).

Last week an ad popped up on Microsoft.com:

The buzz internally was palpable.  "Coolest MS ad ever!" claimed one person.  Others have asked for more of this kind of thing.  I would love to see it the inspiration for a new wallpaper (which is being discussed).  

So, that got me thinking; I'm going to offer up a brand spankin new 2GB iRiver Clix to the person that creates the coolest WMP11 (XP), iRiver Clix, or WMP11 (Vista) inspired wallpaper.  Post your link in the comments in order to be eligible. In 30 days, the best one wins.  Tell your friends :)

If you've missed the hilariously campy trailers and buzz around Samuel L. Jackson's upcoming movie "Snakes on a Plane" (no, that's not a working title), you'll still appreciate this.  A guy flying his plane at 3000ft found a stow-away- a 4.5ft Black Snake in his instrument panel.  Full story at MSNBC.

Thursday night, our team hosted a small get together with iRiver as a thanks for the hard work between the teams on the Clix.  The highlight of the party was recalling one iRiver employee's first trip to Dixies BBQ in February where he ate an entire fork full of "The Man" after being egged on by our group and owner Gene Porter.  We told him it was insanely hot BBQ sauce. We tried to warn him (imagine three guys in slow motion saying "nooooooooooo" as he gulps the forkful). 

Classic quotes include:

• "No, seriously, when is the burning going to stop?"
• "I can't phfleel my libps"
• "@&#(%&@#%"
• "Come on, seriously, when does it stop?"
• "Can I get some milk?" (upon returning to MSFT, shotgunning two open pints of milk walking down the hall)

We were crying we were laughing so hard.  Two iRiver engineers from Korea were with us and fighting hard not to laugh, then they just gave up. Turns out the poor guy barely puts ketchup on his food. 

In the end, it was a great party and a good time had by all end-capping over six months of hard work. Ironically, this is the same day that PC World named the Clix one of their Top 100 Products of the Year (Why in June?  Their year is a 12 month span; they used to announce these awards at PC Expo which no longer exists).  The criteria is highly subjective but hey, it ranked #90, with the Xbox 360 being #89 - not bad company.  Reportedly sales of the Clix have been brisk - a best-seller on their site at www.iriveramerica.com  and at least one online retailer sold out of their initial allotment very quickly.  All good to hear.  At least two more major retailers are in the process of receiving inventory so that you'll be able to go out and try one in person soon. ;)

Last Thursday, the installers arrived and we're now customers of Comcast Digital Voice service.  Basically the service runs over your existing cable system for phone service. At first I was skeptical, hearing the many stories about features that were missing from VOIP services (e.g. E-911 service).  Despite the fact that three of our neighbors are RNs, and the Eastside Fire Chief lives two doors down, there's a certain peace of mind that comes with this.  The good news is that this doesn't appear to be an issue anymore and with nationwide long-distance, the cost is nearly the same as our local POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) provider for just local calls.  Here's a quick rundown of the good and bad in my opinion. 

The Good

• Good (not great) voice quality.  The average person probably wouldn't notice any difference. 
• E911 service including address reporting
• Battery Backup (in case the power goes out)
• Voice mail support for phone and Web (secured). You can even download as excel spreadsheets all incoming, missed, and outgoing calls.
• Security system integration
• No service contract
• No apparent drop in download speeds (for upload see below)
• One bill for cable and phone

What could be better/Suggestions

• E911 doesn't work during extended outages over several hours; resiliency is a concern often noted regarding network congestion etc.
• My upload speed appears to have gone from close to 384 to 284, unsure if it's related.
• Takes up to 10 days before new customers will start seeing incoming/outgoing calls on the Web system.
• Visual notification when voicemail is waiting & Caller ID. Some sort of auxiliary display would be nice (Sideshow anyone?)
• Windows Live Messenger bot.  I want an agent that notifies me when a call comes in.
• Online personal phone book
• Phone integration (something like this new Philips Windows Live Messenger-enabled phone)

I'll report back after a few weeks of living with the service.

Matt Goyer has a post re: MCE library performance improvements seen when running WMP11.  I may have contributed to this confusion.  Yes, the WMP11 library is wicked-fast compared to WMP10.  Yes, it can search 2 million URGE tracks in an instant.  Unfortunately MCE won't see these benefits in Media Center unless you're running Windows Vista.  Apologies for any confusion.

Tom, I definitely hear your concerns and appreciate that you state up front you're not the normal user.  Most users will see significant performance improvements when using a keyboard and mouse (vs MCE). Not that many customers measure their media library in "terabytes", as you do ;) but you bring up a good point overall on the importance of making sure MCE and WMP11 work well together at final.

Chris Pirillo recently wrote an interesting writeup of feedback on Vista Beta 2. In what could be described as a mashup of bug report and user-experience feedback, he captures the essence of what a super-users and influentials see when they use Beta 2 (note: most users of any beta 2 fall into one of these categories by definition).  While I'm sure certain folks would have preferred a different, more private approach (PR <cough>), this type of feedback is fantastic whether I agree with it all or not. It's structured.  It's digestable.  It comes from a credible source. Bugs can be filed against it. We need more of it.

Microsoft has MANY ways of collecting feedback and usability reports.  During the course of Vista, entire teams dedicated to this practice have been doing an excellent job of rolling the feedback up to management as well as the rest of the Vista org for shared learnings.  It's refreshing to see.  Vista is not perfect, but the team is actively taking notice of feedback and more importantly taking action.

Yes Chris, I see you as a passionate user.  Thank you for taking the time and sharing.

Apparently visitors to the new Apple store in NYC were treated to a special kind of lock-in.  The kind that involves glass elevators, the NYPD, and drained hydraulic fluid.  Perhaps they need to replace it every year but just ran into a defective one?  Maybe the batteries wouldn't keep their charge?  There are just so many puns and innuendos here I'm going to have to bite my knuckle.  Come on now, sometimes you have to laugh.

I've been playing with a few of the gadgets showing up on the Windows Sidebar gallery at http://gallery.microsoft.com.  It's a beta gallery and the SDK just went live but already I'm more productive with the Traffic Map showing flow on the main highways around Seattle.  I just wish there was more detail and an RSS feed available for new gadgets.  Great, now I really need to upgrade to a widescreen monitor at home.  Father's day is coming up...

You know what would make a killer gadget?   Flickr Uploadr.  I've been using the Uploadr to add pictures from my Windows Photo Gallery to Flickr this AM (sorry, they're pics for family).  But, Uploadr still works great with Vista.

Email from my Dad - he's loving Urge's collection of Rolling Stones and Benny Goodman hard to find tracks.  Mom, who I would consider a non-enthused computer user (they mostly frustrate her), just had jaw surgery and I suggested Urge as a diversion.  She says she, "can't stop!".  Now she wants an iriver clix.

For those here in Seattle area, the weather has been complete s*%# for the past week.  My son, (recovered from his cold) was inconsolable yesterday due to being cooped up. So I suggested going outside and splashing in some puddles which was exactly what the Dr. ordered.  The kid is just tired of being cooped up.  I don't blame him.

As for me, here's my Urge playlist for a rainy Sunday:

Chill and Serve: Pop

• Here with Me - Dido
• Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap
• Sail Away - David Gray
• Lazy Lover - Brazilian Girls
• Protection - Massive Attack
• Finally Woken - Jem
• Trouble Sleeping - The Perishers
• Breathe (2AM) - Anna Nalick
• Concrete Sky - Beth Orton
• Home - Zero 7
• Breathe Me - Sia
• Angels - Wax Poetic
• The Sea - Morcheeba

Mental note: Talk to Player team about copy/paste support from library to links in Urge ;).  Send email to a friend does one link per email.  Add playlist to MSN Spaces isn't working.  Grr.

By popular request, I created a video walkthrough of the out of box experience with the iriver clix and syncing Urge playlists using WMP11/Windows Vista.  Sorry for the fumbling, I was straddling a full-sized tripod to do this :).

• Streaming version (350kbps)
• Downloadable version (Uploading; Coming Soon)

The iriver clix should be arriving shortly in major retailers including Best Buy- until then, it can be ordered online at www.iriveramerica.com.

Created the video using Windows Movie Maker in Windows Vista and a Sony HDV Camcorder. Dogfooding Vista Beta 2 E2E.
Apologies in advance for the "one take" lack of polish- but it's the product that matters. 

Update: Another good video demo here: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2006/05/iriver-clix-review.php