Category: Geeky/Programming

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Netflix Watch It Now, Windows Media Center Edition

I have Vista Ultimate, with Media Center Edition. I also have an Xbox 360, which I use as an extender for MCE. I also subscribe to Netflix. They have a “Watch It Now!” feature, which allows you to watch some of their collection online. Well, It just makes sense that you would be able to watch within MCE, but that would just be too easy right? Netflix needs to come out with plugin!!

Anyways, I tried to get it to work. You can actually get it to work in straight MCE, but not using an extender.

First, I did a little Googling and found this, which has some good info on the Watch It Now feature. In the past, I have used MCE Browser, which is a cool little plugin written by Anthony Park. If you install this, then on your MCE box, hit Netflix, login and do the Watch It Now feature, it will first ask you to install a plugin for the Watch It Now (even if you already have it installed). Do that, and then go back to the site. It should work! You can open it full screen, etc.

Next stop, Xbox 360 as the extender. Got to Netflix, Logged in, Got to Watch it Now, hit Play. Starts up, the Netflix banner shows in the media player. MCE Browser locks up. Doh. My guess is it can’t save the stream or something, or something wacky with the plugin (Netflix player).

Maybe Netflix can make a plugin of their own, or maybe MCE Browser can be tweaked, either way, this functionally would be really sweet.

Update: Anthony Park has created the plugin called MyNetflix for MCE that we all want – check it out here – http://www.anpark.com/Software.aspx

Update 2: another plugin lets you watch netflix on your xbox 360 – prayers have been answered! vmcNetflix

Technorati tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Categories
Geeky/Programming

Google Earth, Track My Flight!

ok, for the seriously hardcore geeks out there. Track my flight in Google Earth!

First, if you don’t have it installed, go to http://earth.google.com and install Google Earth.

Then, hit this link

http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geOFNF.aspx?pp=51902740

you will see an live tracking of my flight when it takes off (around 4:10 PM CST)

It will update once a minute. Pretty dang cool if you ask me.

I love it on the site, it says “FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. NOT TO BE USED FOR IN-FLIGHT NAVIGATION.”

Yeah, I’m flying my plane, with a satellite Internet connection, with Google Earth, and using it to track where I am, man, I don’t need the gauges and what not, I have Google to tell me where to go!!……..crash 🙂

Pretty sweet thing, its crazy what you can do these days.

 

Technorati tags: , ,
Categories
Geeky/Programming

No, I did not sign the VB6 petition

VB6, ahh how we love it. Wait, no we don’t. No, no, no. Hate VB6. VB.net – sorry you got a bad rap because you were named after your great grandpa VB6.

VB6 sucks!

I had to code for a while in VB6, and yeah you can get things done, but it just seems archaic, with no OOP, etc. VB.NET doesn’t really do the name justice, It is sad that people still debate that VB.NET isn’t a full fledged language for developing applications. To me, C# and VB.NET are like, US English and Great Britain English, not very different.

But yeah, I don’t want VB (or VBA for that matter) sticking around any longer than it needs to. I wish we could live in a fully managed world 🙂

Technorati tags: , , , , ,
Categories
Geeky/Programming

Can you be too Web 2.0?

Can a site be “too much” Web 2.0? I think so, yes.

I am heading out for the airport here shortly, Seattle, WA, then Portland, OR. I want to create an online trip to upload photos, track things, and there are a few Web 2.0 sites out there, TripWiser, TripTie, TripHub, TripMates, Matador. Of all these sites, I didn’t find one that I particularly liked, so I don?t know what I will do yet, but anyways..

TripWiser – Nice look, seems snazzy. Web 2.0’ish, Ajaxy, the whole nine yards. Thing is, I think they are going overboard on the 2.0 stuff. One thing that struck out with me is, their Ajax is slow. Also, on search results, I could never get past the 1st page!! Something with JavaScript/Ajax I assume.

Should sites give you an option for a “Web 1.0” look, that they can promise will work? One other thing I have noticed on sites is, some stuff works in IE, some in FF, and vice versa. If you want to deliver the best solution to the most people, you better make sure it works in both!

Cut back on the Ajax, get it working first, then tweak it, or make an option to turn on the Ajaxiness. Windows Live Hotmail is kind of doing this. Classic View, and New View. Good idea.

Well, I can always track my trip in notepad, and My Pictures folder 🙂

 

Technorati tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories
Geeky/Programming

New ICQ Version Release – ICQ6

I have been using ICQ for a loooooong time (my original number is in the first 500,000). ICQ as an app though has become bloatware, too many options, features. I have been using Trillian for a while now, except it seems to like to crash. I don’t like GAIM Pidgen, or Miranda, and others just don’t cut it.

Just so happens I looked up ICQ again yesterday, and it was on their site for an ICQ6 beta, well I really wanted to try but it was a limited beta. I went back today by happenstance and I can download ICQ6, so I am going to try it out, see how they have changed it, or lived up to the hype.

 

Technorati tags: , , , , , ,
Categories
Geeky/Programming

GPS Update

Well, If you look at the right side of my blog, I have an update. I have been working all day on getting the GPS stuff to work. I made an app to sync with my Bluetooth GPS, and upload the coordinates in decimal to my website. Then I read it and create a Google Map. There is a lot more to come, but it is pretty good for  2 for 1’s at G Allen’s outside (of course, the GPS works). Check it out!

 

Technorati tags: , ,
Categories
Geeky/Programming Life

T-Mobile Dash + GPS + Mologogo = Debacle

I have my cool new T-Mobile dash, and my Pharos Bluetooth GPS, but I just want more.

Currently I can see where I am on the phone using Windows Live Search Maps,  but I just want more.

I want to be able to post up my coordinates every minute or so, save them or map them or what have you.

Mologogo seems to be the answer to that, but there are always issues. First off, the site can’t seem to stay up for more than 10 minutes at a time. I did some digging and found the IP address, so I added that to my host file

216.127.82.54 www.mologogo.com

Second, the SmartPhone version seems buggy, not feature complete like the other versions, etc. There doesn’t seem to be a place to set up a remote URL feature so I can post up the coordinates to my own server, which is really what I want to do.

Also, I am looking into GPS.Net again. I will play with the trial, #1 because the final version is 250 bucks, and previously I could never get it to work right. Maybe if I get something going I will just use that and forget mologogo.

Hopefully I can get something going here this weekend, I want to be able to track my coordinates as well as take a picture, upload to flickr or some URL and save it with the waypoint. Then I want to create .kml files for Google Earth so I can track where I have been, and photo tag them. Tall order for this weekend , but we will see. I will be on vacation in Seattle/Portland starting middle of next week and I want to track my vacation, like where I go, etc. We will see 🙂

Technorati tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories
Geeky/Programming

Total Computer Experience

There are basically the big three companies, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft. You can install a bunch of applications from each to create an experience on your computer.

Yahoo:

Microsoft:

Google:

 

I could probably keep listing more things as well. As you can see, the “Big 3” have a ton of offerings for you to customize your computer to your liking. For the last month or so I tried to go “all Google”, but today I switched to “All Microsoft”. Using Live search, using all their tools, etc, to see how it goes. Although I still have Google talk installed as it is not interoperable.

Yahoo seems to be lacking out of the three. Also, in all three companies, there isn’t some “unified” experience (I wish there was, it would make it a lot easier). If there are some tools or app’s that you use from the big 3 that I haven’t listed, please shoot me a comment.

Technorati tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories
Geeky/Programming

Change your Default CMD prompt path

Sometimes, your path when you go to start->run, CMD will be something you don’t want. In active directory or on an NT domain, sometimes your default home path might be a network drive. This isn’t so good when you are offline or drop offline after being online. The CMD prompt is set to a place where you can’t get to.

To change the path, you can edit the registry (at your own risk)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftCommand Processor]
“Autorun”=”c:”

 

This will change the path to your c: drive.

Technorati tags: , , ,

Categories
Geeky/Programming Product Reviews

Mobile GPS: Google Maps for Mobile vs. Live Search for Mobile

This evening, I hooked up my Pharos Bluetooth adapter with my Microsoft GPS and synced it to my T-Mobile Dash. I hopped in my Vibe and cruised around town, so I could test out the GPS capabilities. In the past, I have used Pocket Streets and Trips (I don’t think newer versions of Streets and Trips have the Pocket Version anymore though, I have an older version – I have used the laptop version with the GPS, it works well), and Virtual Earth Mobile. As I don’t have those installed currently, I decided to try two new products. Google Maps for Mobile and Live Search for Mobile.

I’ll start off by just saying, that getting the Bluetooth GPS working can be tricky. I paired it with my Dash, then set up a COM port so I could utilize it within applications.

Live Search for Mobile was pretty easy to set up. In the settings, there is a place to pick the COM port, I chose the one I set up, and then went to the maps, and chose an option for “Center on GPS”. In a few seconds, I was watching myself (as a little red arrow) on the screen. The road maps are good, slightly out of date, but the aerial maps are really bad. Black and white even. On to the next test.

Google Maps for Mobile: the maps are nice. The aerial maps are really good for Central MN, but the thing is, as much as I tried, I couldn’t get the GPS to start within the application. There must be something funny with the way it looks for the GPS, so in all reality, I didn’t test much with GMM.

Now that I have my GPS paired, I want to get mologogo working again, but their site is down, something with a DNS issue. Has been down for a week or so. Once I get that up, maybe I will make a page here again or a sidebar widget that shows my current location. The one goofy thing is, the charger for the Bluetooth unit is kind of wacky, if I remember, my PSP charger worked better, I will have to dig into that. My car has 112V plugin, so that is cool.

I can’t wait for the day when you can get 3D GPS like Virtual Earth 3D or Google Earth, or even Bird’s Eye on your mobile, sync’d with GPS, you will never get lost.

Technorati tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,