Category: Uncategorized

I noticed that Sean Alexander said that Windows Media Connect 2.0 has been released – very nice for those with MCE PCs or those thinking about purchasing one, especially when it will work with some of the slickest devices out there including Media Center Extenders, the very slick Roku Soundbridge (created by the equally bright Anthony Wood, who founded ReplayTV) and talented and the coming-soon Xbox 360). With Windows Media Connect, you can stream music, photos and video from a Windows XP PC to lite digital media receivers. Coupled with the Windows Media Center 2005 software release, I may soon retire my old analogue Replay TV 3000s.

That is, if I successfully upgrade my current Media Center PC to WMC2005: that may prove to be a challenge.

All well and good, but what’s really fantastic is that the update avoids the isues that sometime affects next releases: loss of speed and agility. Sean notes that version 2 is faster and has a smaller memory footprint. More info on the products that support this architecture is available at windows media connect.

Hopefully, it will also work with another very cool device: the new roku Soundbridge Radio. I now know what I want for Christmas. Note that I just saw this on roku’s site:

Q: Are protected WMA files supported?
A: Protected WMA files purchased from a PlaysForSure music service (http://www.playsforsure.com) are playable when using the Windows Media Connect server.

Last week in an EWeek article on phishing, it was noted that screen scraping attacks are becoming more common in scammer’s schemes to subvert sophisticated security systems. (Say that five times fast.) MSN has a page with more info on battling phishing.

In Canada, screen scraping is what we do to the front storm door after a major snowfall. But I digress.

And talk about safe: look at what’s coming in Hotmail (beyond the headers on my mails today noting that the various “official comminications” I receive from eBay and PayPal are actually from some phisher in far-off-I-don’t-know-where): Kahuna. Techweb reported last week that the beta test program for the new Hotmail had been expanded to the general public, which provides a new GUI and features for Hotmail users. (More on this “Mail Beta” is available on this MSN Site.) Imran’s blog with a reference to Kahuna was also mentioned in the Techweb article.

I spoke with Jeff Sandquist (http://www.jeffsandquist.com/) last week on Channel 9 and some of the new features. Yesterday I saw that Channel 9 launched Clipster, which introduces personal video recorder for video blogs on Channel 9, allowing users to define the most interesting points of the videos uploaded to the site and compile their own videos. With it, you can then create a link to “watch this particular segment of a video.”  You’ll now see a red record button in the embedded video player on Channel 9. Very cool – a great way for viewers to create a set of favorite clips, each with their own unique URL.

Although I use this space as a look at customer and partner satisfaction, a quick “good luck” to Sara and her husband on their way to Waveland. I heard from several people at the office that her bake sale was a success. Here’s more info about her quest to Waveland and how to support their effort.

As noted, this is just the tip of the iceberg in the ways we’ve heard of employees, our customers and partners helping those in need. It’s refreshing to see the incredible support going to help the people in the affected areas: I hope that there is a similar outporing when the next earthquake hits Seattle.

Donation info: You can also designate donations to help those affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita at Americares (which has an astonishing 98.9% program efficiency, and disclosed that each $100 in cash contributions enabled AmeriCare to deliver more than $3,000 in emergency relief). And don’t forget the Red Cross.