Section: Blogs

Amazon Unbox on Tivo…

Mar 12, 2007 1 min.

I like this idea… I’d like it more on a Media Center box, but I still like the idea

Zune Guest Hack, no more ‘guest mode’

Mar 12, 2007 1 min.

Marshillboy from Zuneboards.com has posted a utility that lets you connect your Zune up to multiple PCs as if they were all the ‘home’ PC. Personally I like the idea, although the main benefit for me would be if it didn’t show any UI… right now, the ‘hack’ pops up its own dialog in place of the Zune one… so I have to click ‘Next’ either way. Why would I want that?

Capturing 360 video with AV input to a DV camera

Mar 7, 2007 1 min.

I captured some footage of Viva Piñata to test the quality of capturing the analog video out from the 360 into a miniDV camera… worked out pretty good I think. Video: Testing video capture from 360

Rory gives us the inside scoop on the Microsoft Research TechFest

Mar 6, 2007 1 min.

Microsoft Research TechFest – Intro, DynaVis, and FastDash _… In this, the first video in what will be a series covering this event, we get a nice introduction to TechFest, some info about Microsoft Research (MSR), and two projects: DynaVis and FastDash. When you watch this video, hopefully you get an idea of why I’m so excited right now. Once I have the whole series online, you’ll be able to see the amazing work being done in MSR – and this only represents a few projects.

Connor tries his hand at tournament Chess

Mar 5, 2007 1 min.

My son, Connor (6 years old), has been playing chess against me for the past year or so… but not very often really, maybe one or two games a month at the most. A local chess club held a chess tournament on February 24th at a nearby elementary school and Connor thought that would be pretty cool, so he entered. I have to admit, I was pretty worried that this would turn him off of chess, because he was really set on winning a trophy.

Have people forgotten how to use HTML?

Mar 5, 2007 1 min.

This keeps happening to me on Microsoft sites, and it really bugs me… I go to view a product on one of our sites, Xbox.com and Zune.net most recently I click on some image to see a larger view… I right-click on the image with the intent of saving it to my machine, only to get the standard Flash context menu (Zoom, etc…) I get the appeal of Flash, I really do… but these pages are just a gallery of images with a back and next button.

Ran my first 5K race today…

Feb 12, 2007 2 min.

Back in the summer I jumped back into fitness by signing up for the 20⁄20 program at the Pro Club. 20⁄20 is a serious weight loss program that involves both diet change (I’d characterize it as South Beach in style) and five workouts a week (including three with a personal trainer). Well, it has been quite successful so far, bringing my weight down from around 189 to about 160 over the past 5 months, and it has had the side affect of getting me back into running.

Universal HD (relatively new channel) is awesome

Feb 10, 2007 1 min.

If you have digital cable from Comcast, including HD service, then go up into the 600’s and try to find the new Universal HD channel. Repeats of shows like Firefly, Battlestar Galatica (new series, not old), The Equalizer, Knight Rider… and tons more, all in HD. I watched an episode of Firefly last night in HD and it was wonderful!