The Windows SideShow Team has announced that the final version of the Windows Media Center Gadgets for Windows SideShow is now available for download on Windows Live Gallery in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors!
The Windows Media Center Gadgets for Windows SideShow package is made up of the following 4 Gadgets for your Windows SideShow device:
Now Playing: View what is currently playing in Windows Media Center (includes playback controls)
Pictures + Video: Browse your Photos and Videos folders
Music: Browse your Music folder and play any song
TV: Look at what is on TV via the Windows Media Center Guide, Schedule Recordings, and View Recordings (in a Thumbnail view)
If you are a heavy Windows Media Center user and have a Windows SideShow device – these gadgets are a must-have. My main desktop PC is a Dell XPS 420 which comes with a built-in Windows SideShow display on the top of the system. It is great being able to walk up to the system to check and schedule TV recordings especially if I’m in a hurry and don’t want to sit down at my desk and fire up Windows Media Center. Quick access is awesome.
Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Developer Division, has announced the final release of Silverlight 2.0. Scott runs the teams responsible for Silverlight, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), ASP.NET, and IIS 7.0. Silverlight 2.0 is a major release for Microsoft’s Developer Division and allows developers to utilize the benefits of .NET within any browser. Scott also lets us know of several high-profile websites that are jumping onboard in utilizing Silverlight 2.0 such as CBS College Sports Network to broadcast 20,000 hours of live games, AOL with their new AOL Mail, and Blockbuster with their new MovieLink subscription service.
My favorite example of the capability of Silverlight 2.0 is the Hard Rock Memorabilia website using Deep Zoom. This impressive site, designed built by the awesome folks at Vertigo, showcases tons of music memorabilia of historic value such as The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour Bus which is my personal favorite since I got to see it in person several years ago at the Hard Rock in Universal Studios Orlando.
CORRECTION: The Hard Rock Memorabilia website (including the embeddable "widget" that you can share on your website as mentioned below) was actually conceived and designed by the creative geniuses at the San Francisco-based advertising and design firm Duncan/Channon. You can read about the new widget capabilities in the Hard Rock Memorabilia website in this Duncan/Channon blog post. They also have a post up about the Hard Rock Memorabilia website for you to read as well.
They have enabled a super cool widget feature on the Hard Rock Memorabilia website where you can zoom in to a specific object in the collection and choose to share it by embedding it on your blog! As you can see above, I embedded the Magical Mystery Tour Bus Widget for you to see here. Special thanks to OffBeatMammal for the heads up on the sharing functionality in the Hard Rock Memorabilia.
The Deep Zoom Composer Team tells us that this release is mostly an “under-the-hood” release focusing on reliability. In the near future, expect the Deep Zoom Composer Team to talk more about the changes as they polish the V1 release of Deep Zoom Composer. For those not sure what Deep Zoom Composer is: Deep Zoom Composer is an application that lets users very easily compose their very own Deep Zoom collections, similar (but not as complex) to the Hard Rock Memorabilia website I mentioned above. After composing a Deep Zoom collection in Deep Zoom Composer – you are then given the ability to upload your collection to the Microsoft Live Labs PhotoZoom website. Developers can use this tool to develop their own Deep Zoom collections as well for their own websites. You can check out my Deep Zoom collections on PhotoZoom here. I plan on adding many more collections
Congrats to the Silverlight Team on their Silverlight 2.0 release!
To go with your Life Without Walls Wallpapers for your PC, you can now download the “I’m A PC” Windows Live Messenger Theme Pack that gives you a variety of Display Pictures and Backgrounds for your IM conversation window.
Click above to download the “I’m A PC” Messenger Theme Pack. I’ve got it installed on my PCs and it works just fine with the latest Windows Live Messenger Beta available for download at download.live.com.
Several weeks ago I had blogged about HP’s all-in-one PC with amazing touch capabilities – the HP TouchSmart PC. Specifically, I discussed the IQ500 series HP TouchSmart PC models (the IQ504 and IQ506). The IQ500 series HP TouchSmart PCs were considered the 2nd generation HP TouchSmart PCs. The original HP TouchSmart PC made its debut in January of 2007. Just recently, HP has announced the IQ800 series HP TouchSmart PCs – the IQ804 and IQ816.
So what’s new with the IQ800 series HP TouchSmart PCs? The IQ800 series HP TouchSmart PC is 25 ½” versus the IQ500 series models which were 22”. Just like the IQ500 series HP TouchSmart PCs, the IQ800 series sports ambient lighting that shines on your keyboard. This can be very useful in low lighting. However the IQ800 series allows you to change the color of the ambient lighting. The IQ800 series also comes with a pocket media drive bay for user’s portable media (the HP MediaSmart Connect has a pocket media drive bay so you can take media between the two devices). The IQ800 series (both the IQ804 and IQ816) come with built-in TV Tuners for Windows Media Center awesomeness.
The IQ800 series HP TouchSmart PC is also wall-mountable as well!
There are some differences between the IQ804 and IQ816 HP TouchSmart PC models. The IQ816 comes with a Blu-ray drive for HD movies. The IQ804 comes with a 500GB harddrive while the IQ816 comes with a 750GB harddrive. The chipset and graphics for the IQ816 is a bit higher than the IQ804. If you’re looking to maximize your investment in the HP TouchSmart PC – the IQ816 is top-of-the-line.
The IQ800 series makes a worthy addition to the HP TouchSmart PC Family. I hope to blog more about the HP TouchSmart PC this fall!
Under the TV + Movies menu in Windows Media Center, you may have noticed a new tile: MSNBC News Beta. The MSNBC News Beta tile will begin appearing in Windows Media Center for users in the United States and Canada running Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. Users don’t need to download anything to enable MSNBC News Beta in Windows Media Center. MSNBC News Beta gives users quick access to the latest election news, top stories and weather all from one screen.
Directly within Windows Media Center, users can browse Editor Picks and Most Popular videos (which are selected by viewers). I discovered that when I click on a specific video, a “+” icon appears. When this “+” icon is clicked, it gets added to a custom news video playlist. There are quite a few videos to choose from which is nice.
I was able to quickly browser through a bunch of MSNBC’s Decision ’08 videos and add them to a custom news video playlist to watch all at once.
I was also able to browse other categories such as Business, Sports, and Entertainment which all have videos I can either watch as I go or add to a custom news video playlist. MSNBC News Beta also sports some pretty neat search functionality that lets me search for stories with specific keywords.
And the 5-day weather forecast (available for any ZIP code in the United States) is impressive too!
As a heavy Windows Media Center user myself, I for one will be using MSNBC News Beta to stay on top of not only the upcoming U.S. Election but all the latest news.
For more on MSNBC News Beta and Windows Media Center – click here!
Esther is back with a brand new demo focusing on another cool feature in Windows Vista - Snipping Tool. Snipping Tool is really handy for anyone who needs to capture and/or send an image of their screen, a web page or document - really any time where the visual explains more than a description.
We've heard great things about the other videos we did (on Previous Versions, Live Icons and Instant Search), so our plan is to continue providing content like this. Leave a comment and let us know what you think of the video, and if you have suggestions for tips and tricks we should cover in future videos!
Also, just a reminder that you can still get the Windows Vista Product Guide - a great resource on all things Windows Vista - for FREE in paperback. All you have to do is pay for shipping. Order your copy here! The paperback guide doesn't include the new stuff in Windows Vista SP1, but you can download all of that information here
