Not really, but its Texas… In February… And Its Snowing! Needless to say I am working from the house today.

It used to be that Community server was the end all be all of .net community sites, although this still may be true I will never know because I can’t afford the $5k for the license. Oh yeah, it is no longer Community Server, it’s now Telligent Community and all links to the community generated software from which they grew are now gone. It is a shame that they can’t be bothered to host the same links that helped to build their business among small websites. These are the sites their software helped to grow thus building the brand and allowing Telligent to gain momentum with the large companies they now cater to. To be quite blunt Telligent did not just stop supporting previous versions, they removed all remnants that anything had ever existed.

Did something happen to require you to reinstall CS 2.1, 2007 or 2008.5? Too bad if you did not save the file and did not pay. You, my friend, are done.

I was lucky enough to have a CS 2007 license and was able to email support to obtain a copy to reinstall but those running a free version should be careful to keep a daily backup.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for building a business and making money but I don’t think that you should kill all support for and erase all traces of the software that built your business.

Yesterday the site was updated from Community Server 2.1 to Community Server 2007. Yes, I know, I am behind on the upgrade schedule but CS 2007 is what I had a license for. One of my dogs just had a costly surgery so I wanted to add ad’s to the site so I could possibly break even on the hosting costs. Long story short the site is updated and now has ad’s (Sorry, but help a brother out here).

At CES two new car stereos have been announced that include Pandora streaming radio when connected to your iPhone. I am not going to run out and buy one but think this is a great idea. With new 3 and 4G networks spreading across the country is this going to be the new method to get your radio fix?

The holy grail for many of us Media Center enthusiasts has been to be able to play our DVD’s on an extender. Up until recently this has been a pipe dream because of DRM restrictions. Now, using a combination of programs this is entirely possible and quite painless.

First off here is what you absolutely need – DVD Transcoder

Now here are the other things I will be using in this tutorial that just make things easier – WHS Machine, My Movies for WHS

I know what some of you are thinking, “I have seen the transcoder file for free online, why should I pay $40"? Trust me on this, just pay the money and make your life easier. So on to the tutorial:

First off download and install DVD Transcoder. You should now have the option for DVD Library next to Recorded TV. When you first go in you will not see any movies, you will need to hit “More Info” on your remote and Click “Add Movies”.

After this you can choose to add movies on the Media Center PC or from another computer. I keep all my DVD on my WHS machine so I chose another computer. On my WHS machine the DVD’s are stored in a folder called DVD’s that resides in the Videos folder so on the next screen this is the folder I told DVD Library to watch.

After this your movies you have stored in the location(s) that you have told DVD Library to watch will automatically show up and are available for viewing the only problem is that they do not contain the cover art or metadata about the movie, this is where My Movies comes in.

I downloaded and installed My Movies for WHS on my WHS machine. The nice thing about this program is that it will automatically find and import the album art and metadata for any movie in the folder you specify that it should watch. The one thing to note is that you will have to register for the My Movies Forums to get a username and password to access the online service My Movies uses to retrieve the movie information. Once you have registered and activated your forum username and password simply put them in where the program asks for the “Web Service Account” and click Login. To get to this screen you will need to open your WHS console, click settings and select My Movies in the left hand pane.

Next you will need to enable folder monitoring. While still in the WHS settings screen click My Movies Monitor from the left hand pane. In this screen you can tell My Movies what folder to monitor (Videos\DVD’s in my case) and start the monitoring service. Once you click “Start” and the monitoring service starts you can close out your WHS console, we are done here.

Sweet, so now anything that was already in the folder where your DVD’s are stored will automatically be found and anything that you copy over to the folder will be automatically added. Great stuff, but why is the information not showing up in DVD Library? Well we need to install the My Movies connector on the Media Center PC. To do this open up the Software folder on your WHS machine and navigate to the My Movies folder, there you will see the My Movies connector. Copy this to your desktop (you can’t run it from the WHS folder) and run it. You will have to put in the name of your WHS machine and then choose if you want a local copy of the metadata or if the Media Center PC should look at the WHS machine for it. In my case I told the connector to look to the WHS machine. That’s it, now all your existing movies will have cover art and metadata and any new movies you copy to your DVD folder will also automatically have this information found and added. Pretty slick if you ask me. Except for one thing, the metadata is not yet showing up on the extenders. To fix this we need to create symbolic links. I could explain this but instead I will provide a link where it is already explained, simply follow the following link and scroll down to the section labeled “Automated: Create Symbolic Link(s)”. Thanks to Ian Dixon for explaining this.

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/wikis/mediacenter/dvd-library-on-extenders-using-vader-s-transcoder.aspx

Now after all our hard work (not really, but you can make your significant other think so and get some lovin) we end up with this on our extenders, and the best thing is when you click play the movie will actually play!

This is kind of a test post to see if Windows Live Writer with the CS Gallery plugin plays nice with CS… If you are reading this and can see the picture below I guess it does.

Sometimes you have a problem tuner other times you may just be bored and curious, but either way here is how you can pull up "debugging" info on your tuners in VMC or Windows 7 MC.

While at your computer and watching live TV simply hit the "H" key.

While watching live TV through an extender or when you don't have access to a keyboard type in the sequence "4, 1, 1, More Info Button" on your remote.

Either way you can then go left or right to see all the various debugging info, very useful for troubleshooting a particular tuner.

I was given a laptop from work today so I can acomplish things from home. I was a bit worried about adding my home printer to it because the laptop is on the work domain, the home printer is a network printer on a workgroup.

It turned out to be easier than I thought with one glitch. I ran the driver setup for the printer but when I got to the part asking what port to use (USB, File or New TCP IP Port) the option for the new TCP IP port was greyed out. I first tried to tell it the printer was USB but of course being the smart program that it is it tried to detect it, which of course it never would because it was not connected via USB. I then re-ran setup and told it to use File as the port. Good deal printer installed.

Next I went to the properties for the printer and added the TCP IP port using the add new port wizzard and viola, I can now waste my own ink and paper instead of my employers'.

One thing I was really disappointed in when I picked up my Cable Card Vista Media Center system was the fact that when you use the ATI DCT's FM Radio in MCE no longer worked. TV Pack fixed this so if you have a DCT machine and miss FM install the TV pack, slap an old analog tuner with a FM input in the machine and get ready to be able to Rock & Roll again.

I picked up an ASUS Combo 210e tuner card for $38. Out of the box it does not support Clear Qam in MCE but all you need to do is use the VistaView drivers and patch available at the following link:

http://www.vistaview.tv/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=33&Itemid=46

Sweet! I can pick up 4 of these for the price of a HD Homerun.

There have been many people not happy with this release but in my opinion it is a nice incremental release.

First off QAM is big. Add to that the ability for MCE to FINALLY realize that Fox through my DCT is the same thing as Fox through ATSC is the same thing as Fox through QAM and map them all to the same channel. Now instead of having Fox as channel 4, 804 and 1004 and having to set a recording to one of those channels only if I wanted it to be in HD I only have channel 4 and I can even set the tuner preference so it uses QAM before using one of my DCT's.

Speaking of HD I love the "HD Only" and "HD preferred" options when setting a series recording. I always set to HD preferred because then if I am setting a series recording on a channel that I currently only get in SD and my cable co. adds a HD version it will automagically switch over.

Finally FM Radio works again. When I set up cable card tuners before the TV Pack it broke FM but it is back!

Is there some "missing pieces"... Yes, but I still firmly believe that MCE is the best DVR out there.

If you do not yet have a Windows Home Server you need one. Why, you ask? Simple, because it does almost everything you might need in a home environment, it runs automated backups, acts as a central place to store all your digital media and even acts as a print server. It is headless (no monitor) so it can be put about anywhere and the amount of storage is unlimited, simply pop in another internal or external hard drive.

What is that you say? You are already running Small Business Server on your network? Great, me too. WHS integrates seamlessly with SBS and can even be used to back up the SBS server. If you are like me and use Media Center Extenders it is a better place to store your media than the SBS machine because then your Extenders can access the media seamlessly.

You can buy one direct from HP or build one from an old machine.

So... When are you going to start running Windows Home Server on your network?

Here is a writeup about installing my old Diamond Hex speakers in the CL. I could not find much info on what would fit so I decided to wing it and it turned out ok. For those that are interested these are the old Eton made first generation 6.5" (Really closer to 7 as they are over-sized) speakers with the silk tweeters.

 I first followed the instructions at http://www.acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=335272 to remove the door panels.

Next I had to run the wires through the grommet into the door. This was a real pain because I was running two 14 gauge wires, one for the tweeter and one for the mid. I pulled the grommet out of the door and the body first and then taped the wires to a short piece of clothes hanger wire that I had rolled over on one end so as not to puncture the grommet. I then used some Vaseline to lube the coat hanger and the wires. After about 15 minutes of pure hell per door the wires were finally through and could be pulled through into the door.

The next challenge was to run the wires through the body into the car. This is a pain because there is so much electronics stuffed under the dash and also the fact that the hole where the grommet meets up with the body does not meet up with where the wires eventually feed into the car. You will need to try and angle the wires toward the rear of the car while pushing them through the hole where the grommet meets the body and then hope your hand is small enough to reach around all the electronics and find the wires.

Once the wires had been pulled into the car, the grommets reattached and the wires ran along the passenger side to the trunk it was time to fit the speakers. Id wanted a stock look so I decided to mount the mids in the stock location in the door and the tweeters in the stock location in the sail panels. To properly fit the mids I had to cut out some of the sheet-metal where the stock speaker was, I was lucky in that I was able to cut enough metal but still leave the three places where the stock speaker was mounted so it could be put back in at a later date if needed. Below is a picture of the metal that was cut out.

I then made spacers out of 3/4" MDF that allowed the speaker magnet to clear the window glass but did not interfere with the door panels. I drilled 4 holes in the MDF spacer for self tapping sheet-metal screws and then tapered the holes a bit so the screws would be flush with the MDF when installed so as not to interfere with the speaker mounting. I used some short wood screws to mount the speaker to the spacers.

For the tweeters I had to dremmel out a larger hole in the sail panel and also dremmel out some of the plastic on behind the fabric cover piece for clearance.

The finished product looks stock and sounds much better. Up next mounting the amps and building the sub enclosure.

My speakers for the Billiards Room finally arrived so I figured I would do a write up about installing them. I had previously installed in-walls in the living room for a surround sound setup so I knew what would be involved in this project.

First I already had wired jacks into the wall for the TV, CAT5 and RCA's to run to a receiver so that portion was already good to go. The way this will run is that I am using an Xbox as a Media Center Extender and the audio out from it will run to a receiver in the closet to be amplified and sent to the speakers.

Next I had to position the templates for the holes to be cut for the speakers and draw around them.

I cut out the holes using an air saw (Highly recommended, very maneuverable and lightweight).

The next hurdle was that I wanted to build BackBoxes to improve the sound of the speakers. Without them they would have been in an infinite baffle arrangement with their rear's to the Attic, this is not ideal for sound reproduction. I used 3/4" MDF and some 2x2s to make end pieces that fit between the studs above and below where the speaker cutouts were, I attached these by screwing through the 2x2 in the the studs. I then cut out more 3/4' MDF to form the rear of the box and screwed this into the end pieces and the studs.

After this I moved over to the closet where I would be installing the receiver to power the speakers. In here I needed to install a power outlet and a plate to hold the speaker terminals and the RCA's coming from the TV in the Billiards Room.

With the receiver and RCA's wired up and speaker wire ran it was now time to install the speakers. Before I installed them in the wall I stuffed the boxes I had made with acoustic stuffing to improve the sound.

Now all that was left to do was mount the speakers and enjoy! All and all this was a fairly easy project but one that required some time and planning.

More pictures of the buildup are in the Photo Gallery.