Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Windows Vista Ultimate Usb Edition

Windows Vista Ultimate combines the best of work and play, into a single easy-to-use operating system. It’s easier than ever to find, manage, and share information — and it’s safer than ever to connect, enjoy personal media and sync up personal devices.

Fully designed for life on the go, you’ll have all the features of Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Home Premium in one package. Download cutting edge software and services exclusively through Windows Ultimate Extras, and enjoy entertainment on TVs throughout your home with Xbox 360 and other devices.

It’s the best way to enjoy work and play, with its easy connection to home and school networks. Accomplishing more each day has never been easier. Use your Windows Media Center to enjoy your favorite photos, music, TV, and movies on your PC and share them throughout the home of compatible device — including your Xbox 360.

Enhanced backup and restore — Special safeguards help protect against hardware failure, user error and other causes of lost data Get a better tablet PC experience with enhanced handwriting recognition and precise pen navigation Connect to a company network or access your PC remotely from home Get up and running with existing data and applications — fast and easy PC migration, even without dedicated IT support Supports Windows ReadyDrive technology for improved battery performance

for more on Windows Hack vist UK Support

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

List of Vista Media Center bugs

Here are my list of complaints. Feel free to add to them or comment :)

1. ATSC Subchannels. Considering we are capable of recieving many more channels than Media center will show you this is a huge problem. FYI with High Definition over the air channels, they are subdivided so that each channels can play up to 5 streams on the same channel. For example Channel 8 actually is sent digitally as Channel 8.1 , Channel 8.2 and so on. Vista Media Center not only is hard coded to use channel 8.1. In addition to missing channels, it messes up the guide listing on some channels because it uses the wrong listing source from some channels most notably PBS. There is a workaround (hack), but to me this is an embarrassing one for media center.

2. DVD Resolution. Whenever you play a DVD, my media center changes resolution down while watching the video. This seems OK (well not really I wish it would be scaling it up using the ridiculously powerful hardware I have) but when the DVD is over and it returns to the menu it is still at the low resolution. It doesn't return to high resolution until I select a high resolution video. This makes the Video Preview Icons unreadable and look sloppy.

3. DVD Library. For whatever reason I have still not been able to get my ripped DVD collection to show up. I have tried numerous suggestions but to no avail. I suspect the part of media center that scans for new media hangs on my system for whatever reason or the part of vista that tracks the library is corrupted (It also shows things That are not in My Library configured directories). It is almost annoying enough to reinstall Vista at the cost of losing everything.

4. Netflix streaming media Plugin (HD DRM issue). According to what i have read this is because the (Microsoft) DRM that netflix uses to stream the movies does not allow some HD hardware? This seems crazy but alas I cannot get the videos to work (even without the plugin straight off the website) due to DRM issues. This pluging would be such an awesome selling point to Vista Media center PCs but instead it is a thorn.

5. Sound / TV / On Off Integration. This is something Tivo got right but most PC Media Centers didn't including Vista. With Tivo, you got one remote and you programmed that remote to learn your TV on/off and volume buttons. Then your Tivo remote would turn off and on the TV and control the volume. The media center green button remote that I have just simulates the TV going dim and turning off. I am not stupid, the TV is still on. I have to manually turn the TV off with another remote. Theres a thousand workarounds including having a universal remote, using a IR Blaster, etc, etc but none of those options are out of the box. I'm OK with configuring winlirc or girder but my Mom couldn't. Maybe I just bought the "wrong" Vista media center Green button remote.

6. Video Icons for Network Shares. I watch TV shows often from a network share. The strange thing is how slow it seems to be to generate the preview Icons "first frame picture" from the share. I thought these icons were saved as hidden files in the directory so it didn't have to generate them again every time so its strange how slow it is.

7. Magical Integration of multiple vista media centers is unclear. I am hoping to eventually have a media center in every room in my house, and perhaps more than one room will be running VMC on a computer instead of an extender. The problem is I don't really know much about how to integrate two VMC computers together and I am having trouble finding it on the web. Does one computer become the server and the other is a client? Can I have distributed tuners? How does VMC choose the tuner if they are distributed? Do shows save only locally, or do they save to the main VMC share? Perhaps I am just using the wrong keywords to search.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Windows Vista - Which Version to go with?

After deciding to shift to a Windows Vista OS, you need to decide on which Windows Vista version you should pick. Before you consider shelling out for a Windows Vista Ultimate license, you really should ask yourself exactly what features you need and want so you can decide whether the price is right.

Windows Vista Home Basic

This is the most rudimentary version of Vista available. It has the more secure IE 7, the firewall, the quick search functionality, and easier connectivity. When it comes to the features that distinguish Vista from previous versions of the Windows OS, though, Home Basic is somewhat lacking, though it does offer parental control.

Windows Vista Home Basic is a good choice only if you use your computer solely for web surfing and basic document processing, or if your computer is just barely powerful enough to run Windows Vista.

Windows Vista Home Premium

For an extra, you can get much more out of Windows Vista. Aside from including all the features of the Home Basic version, Home Premium offers all of the window-dressing that makes Vista look like Vista. You will have pre-packaged games and Aero interface capability. Aero gives your windows and icons a 3D appearance and smoother transitions, as well as allowing you to add transparency effects to window borders. Home Premium offers tablet PC functionality, document collaboration, and scheduled backups. Home Premium also offers the fully integrated Windows Media Center for all your home entertainment needs, plus a moviemaker which is HD format-capable.

Windows Vista Home Premium is designed for the user who uses the computer for PC and network gaming, since Premium supports DirectX 10, with its advanced graphics technologies incredible graphics rendering. Premium is also designed for watching High Definition movie, editing/making video clips, burning DVD copies, and interfacing with the Xbox 360, which Home Premium edition automatically detects to allow for Video, Audio, and Picture sharing.

Windows Vista Business

Windows Vista Business drops Parental controls, Media Center features, and pre-installed games for obvious reasons. Vista Business does have the rest of the Home Premium features plus support for business applications and business data security (fax, remote desktop connectivity, file encryption, and complete shadow incremental backup). This version of Windows Vista is, as the name implies, strictly for business purposes.

Windows Vista Enterprise

Windows Vista Enterprise adds Microsoft’s BitLocker encryption technology to the feature set found in Windows Vista Business, but this version of Windows is only offered to businesses participating in Microsoft’s Software Assurance program.

Windows Vista Ultimate

This edition has everything that is included in the Home Premium and Business editions. Vista Ultimate also adds Enterprise’s BitLocker encryption technology for the computer’s hard drives, protecting the drives so that only authorized users can boot up the OS or view the files contained in the drives.

Because of its full complement of features, Vista Ultimate is perfect for people who use the PC for fun and business in equal parts, as well as users who want to be protected from data loss and PC theft.