mHome Power Management Module

This looks interesting.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2008/08/21/1645360.aspx

Thanks Chris.

Xbox 360 controller controls for use with MyMovies

While the movie is playing (I tested this while watching a transcoded movie on my Xbox 360)

Jump Forward - Right Trigger pull and release jumps the movie about 30 seconds forward. Pull and release repeatedly, quickly, and the movie will jump i guess 30 seconds for each pull. Hold the right trigger and the movie will end and return to 0:00 minutes (and will say done).

Jump Back - Left Trigger pull and release and the movie will briefly rewind (very briefly, not even thirty seconds). Pull and release repeatedly to move back more, but it still seems to be about 5 seconds jumps.

Pause & Play - Right Thumb Stick: click it like a button and it pauses the movie. Click it again and the movie will start playing again.

Show Progress Bar - Right or Left Bumper brings up the progress bar for the movie.

Move Back Through Menus - Back (<) button movies you backwards through the menus

Return to Main Menu - Start (>) button brings up the main media center menu

Show Movie Catalog - (B) button brings up the movie catalog

Show Keyboard - (Y) button brings up the keyboard interface

Details Menu - (X) button brings up Video Details, More..., Zoom, and Settings menu

(A) is used to make selections but doesn't seem to do anything while the movie is playing.

Direction Pad doesn't seem to do anything while the movie is playing

If I am missing something please let me know.

Big Surprise...Transcode 360 is still alive and sounds like it's going to be improved!

James Botham has re-emerged from a long disappearance. He's back coding on Transcode 360. Have a look here:
http://www.runtime360.com/forums/read.php?3,5513

It looks like he is encorporating some new methods for encoding and will no longer rely on mencoder. Not that there is anything wrong with mencoder :)

Well, in the time I had on T360 I wrote a new wrapper which allows it to use Microsoft Expression Encoder (or Express which is free) through its SDK. This transcodes video using Expressions SDK using any available codec on the PC/Server, so if your media centre plays the file it should transcode it. (posted July 26, 2008)

I'm really glad to have stumbled on that post. I have been trying to find him and what happened to T360 and the codecreators.co.uk site. Wow. Great news!

Vista Media Center TV Pack

Have you read about this yet? It is REALLY disappointing in my opinion. There are places to read about it online (here for example) so I won't rehash that. But I will mention what I see as a major letdown.

1. no H.264 support or DirecTV support
2. No more commercial skipping using plug-ins like DVRMSToolbox (it is suggested MS broke this on purpose)
3. New WTV file format - no more DVRMS files
4. Update restricted to OEMs and only availabe on new computer purchases

This just sucks. The future just keeps getting worse.

Thanks Microsoft. I'll keep looking for a better solution to HTPC in my home.

Citrix - Wfcrun32 Error Failed to set Event Logging and Open or Save .ica file prompts

Wfcrun32 Error Failed to set Event Logging
This error occurs after updating versions of the Citrix software. To fix this error delete the appsrv.ini file located under the user's profile. On XP the location is:
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\ICAClient
The file will be recreated automatically on the next connection. This should clear up that error message.
Here is a script you can run on a XP machine that will automatically remove the file from each profile. Extract the file and run it on each machine you want cleaned. Appsrv_Cleaner

Open or Save .ica file prompts
Also with Citrix, if when clicking web links that are supposed to initiate a citrix connection you get prompted to open or save the .ica file there are two things you can try. One, with the user logged on run this command from the directory where wfica32.exe is installed wfica32 /setup or from a command prompt run:
"C:\program files\Citrix\ICA Client\wfica32" /setup

Another thing to try is go to Control Panel>Internet Options>Advanced>Under Security check the box for 'do not save encrypted pages to disk'. After checking the box and clicking ok, close out all of your IE windows and try again.

If that doesn't work, try uninstalling citrix and installing the latest software. Or try installing Firefox and see if it will work through Firefox.

Giving a Media Center Extender access to files on another device (NAS, WHS, Computer) through the Media Center using custom username and password

Downloads

• MSI-Installer or Zip of Executable
• Instruction Manual PDF

Description

I started creating instructions similar to:

• Accessing media stored on a Windows Home Server from an extender, with MyMovies and Transcode 360 running on a separate Media Center
• Allowing Media Center extenders to access movies stored on a NAS (public access no password version)

But I decided to try a different route. This time I wrote a program to do the work.



This tool needs to be run on your Media Center PC. Note - You only need to run it once to get everything setup. If at a later time you add another share or device, you can run it again to updated the login scripts.

It can allow your Media Extenders to access other network devices that are sharing files. This includes NAS, Windows Home Server, or another PC (XP or Vista). It works by created login scripts for Media Center Extender accounts on the Media Center that connect to the devices using a different account - one that you specify. Create the account on the other device(s), add it to the shares and then run this tool. This tool works differently than the 2 links above in that it uses a separate account with password to gain access to the shares. The above 2 links describe giving access based on 'all access permissions' like Guest and passwordless public sharing. With this tool, the above two link are somewhat obsolete. Why not just use an account for sharing instead of opening up shares to Guest or Anonymous? This has been tested with MyMovies and Transcode 360.

This tool requires you have .NET Framework version 2 installed for it to work.
Finally, use the tool at your own risk. It is a simple tool. It does not delete anything. It shouldn't mess anything up. But, I don't make any guarantees about this tool.

More Information

Please see the comments section for some questions and answers.

Disconnect VPN hangs

I started noticing problems disconnecting a VPN connection on my Vista SP1 machine. When I choose to disconnect, the disconnecting dialog would not go away. Trying to end task did not work. The system would hang when trying to shutdown. Something clearly had gone wrong with this...

It appears the problem is related to Symantec Endpoint Protection. I had SEP MR2 installed when I noticed this problem. After doing a little reading I confirmed others are having this same problem. It seems the problem is not limited to Vista. I saw reports of users with XP having issues.

Uninstalling SEP resolves the disconnecting VPN problem. So far I am not really liking the new Symantec Endpoint Protection. I am switching over to NOD32.