A couple of weeks ago, I was invited by Media Center Show host Ian Dixon to share the technology side of my Africa trip with him on his show.  We had a great conversation and hit on a lot of topics including Media Center, Zune, Home Server, Movies, Windows 7 and much more.  The show was published today so go have a listen!  My thanks go to Ian for having me on the show.

Click the logo above to link to the show.

I recently discovered that my public library system in Indianapolis is now using a service called OverDrive to distribute digital audio books (as are many other libraries).  After downloading a small Media Console you log onto your local library page and search for books.  Some are available immediately and some you can add to your queue and receive when it’s available. 

The console is clean and self explanatory.  Books are downloaded in parts and stored on your machine.  I chose to store the files on my home server which can be selected in the preferences.  From the console, you can transfer the books to your portable audio device (a Zune in my case).  Some titles can even be burned to CD from the console.

As you can see, I checked out a copy of The Call of the Wild by Jack London and was able to transfer it in under a minute.  I synced my Zune and was off on my bike ride to work listening to a great audio book.  I have 3 weeks to listen to it before I have to renew the item with my library. 

I listen to several podcasts that have Audible.com as an advertiser.  I tried it once as a promotion, but didn’t want to pay for a long term subscription.  OverDrive is a fantastic FREE alternative that may not have the same selection of books, but will certainly keep me occupied for quite some time.    

Dave McCabe asked me to join him and his friends on the home server show podcast again this week.  We had a great time recording this one even though it was 3:30 in the morning for me here in France.  This is show number 45 for Dave and the show seems to keep getting better with time.  I gave an update on how I used my server and netbook during my travels as well as how Windows 7 was received in Kenya.  To listen to the show, click the icon to the left.

This week, Dave McCabe (host of the Home Server Show podcast) and I caught up a bit by Skype to discuss some of the latest home server news.  We did a little recording and you can hear our conversation on show number 41 by clicking below.  I’m not sure how many podcasts have been recorded from Kenya, but it can’t be many. 

After using Windows 7 media center exclusively for the last month, I have decided to return to Vista for the time being. Windows 7 beta Media Center just is not stable enough for me yet. Here are some of the problems that forced my hand.

1) 50% of scheduled recording failed. I have a Hauppauge HVR 1800 that doesn't seem to have drivers to allow it to function properly in Windows 7 64bit Media Center yet.
2) Music and Picture library are SLOW - they have to search for each and every file every time I reboot or even just leave the music library. Very frustrating.
3) Sometimes, the programming guide causes media center to crash.
4) I can't get the machine to wake from sleep in media center mode reliably.
5) VISTA MCE JUST WORKS!

I know this is a beta and I will return to it from time to time to see if the performance returns. I also know that some of these are known problems that may have solutions if I looked hard enough, but I'm not willing to let it use up my time right now.

UPDATE: I almost forgot my frustrations with the Movie Library.  I love that they're adding it to the standard start menu, but I find it less than stable.

1) Stopping a DVD (in a video_ts) folder locks up media center.
2) Movies will not stream to my extender.  Apparently this is by design, but what a strange limitation!

I just figured out how to setup my Pinnacle HDTV Pro stick (801e) on my HP Mini Netbook (1010NR) to watch live TV in Windows 7 Media Center.  It’s pretty simple, but there is a catch.  There is not enough storage on the SSD to store the live TV buffer (needs 6 gigs minimum) so you’ll have to direct it elsewhere via a registry edit (Don’t do this if you don’t know how!).  I am having the netbook put temporary TV files on an 8gig SD card which is working fine.

Step one – Plug in the USB tuner (I had to use the port by the power plug, the other port said it was USB 1 (new to me)).

Step two – Let windows find and install drivers automatically

Step three – Configure the tuner card in Media Center – DO NOT WATCH TV YET!

Step four – Redirect Life TV Buffer and Recorded TV folders to the SD card.

Edit these values in the registry:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MediaCenter\Service\Recording
LastRecordPathSet (Modified to D:\)
RecordPath (Modified to D:\)
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MediaCenter\Service\Video\Tuners\DVR\IO\Writer
DVRDirectory (Modified to D:\)

It worked for me.  Not sure how much I’ll use it, but it’s nice to know it works.

So, I put Windows 7 Beta (64bit) on my main Home Theater PC (an HP m9040n) which seemed ok at first.  Then, I started noticing some problems.  First of all, sleep was a problem.  If Media Center was running (which is always is on my HTPC) when the machine went to sleep, it would wake to a black screen that was unresponsive to the media center remote.  The only way to get back to media center was a Ctrl-Alt-Del on the keyboard then Esc.  Not very user friendly.

I turned off sleep and noticed that scheduled recordings were failing.  I would get a 1 minute long file that was always ‘recording’.  I assumed it had something to do with the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800.

My fix (so far) – I noticed in device manager that my SM Bus controller needed updating (got the driver from intel.com).  Next, I downloaded a new driver from Hauppauge.com.  So far so good!  I’ll post an update if this fixes things.  (No links this time, I’m not exactly sure where I got them! sorry) 

Last weekend, I picked up an HP Mini 1010NR from Staples for an amazing $224.  If I had been looking only at specs, I might have passed this by, but I am glad I went for it.

Here are some thoughts:

OS – I put Windows 7 beta on the mini, and it works great!  I’ll do a post on this later.

Screen - 9 inches is fine for me.  It's a clear bright screen.  As someone who uses my Zune a lot, having a machine with 9x total screen size is more than enough.  In fact, the smaller screen likely saves battery life.

Bluetooth – Bluetooth is not standard on this model, but I had a small form factor USB dongle already (as I'm sure many of you do too) and being able to remove it to save battery life is nice as well.

Hard Drive - Yes, 8 gigs is small, but it's a solid state drive which is fast, silent, cool and again, battery saving (I think).  Yes, it has been a challenge trying to keep my windows 7 install under 7 gigs, but I am making it work. 

RAM – The 1010NR only comes with 512MB ram.  This is fine for XP and Win 7 even runs well.  Let’s face it, RAM is cheap.  I had a compatible 1 gig chip lying around and am glad to have upgraded, but you can buy as much as 2 gigs for less than $30 bucks if you need it and it couldn't be easier to swap memory in these things.  Also, the 1010nr comes with a wierd little 2 gig internal USB memory stick that I"m using for ReadyBoost to give it a bump up which works great.

Storage - If you need more storage, just throw an SD card in the handy slot on the side or use one of the many online storage solutions that are popping up.

Battery Life – Depending on what I’m doing, I get anywhere from 2-3.5 hours from a full charge.  Reading e-mail and browsing the web can be done for hours with no problem.

Bottom Line - The 1010nr is not as powerful as some other netbooks, but it is a great place to start.  It is flexible enough to upgrade to meet my needs and is powerful enough to run the latest OS and software.  I for one, love my HP Mini 1010nr.