Alex Harries's diary

(Click pic to enlarge)

Ok, so the Media Center (a bit like Sky+, but it does DVDs and videos, downloads movies off the internet, records Sky - or freeview, or cable, plays and organises music, burns recorded TV to DVD, and a fair bit more, too) is up and running. I can log into it from anywhere in the world and run Azureus (err, to download non-copyrighted stuff, obviously), and it's got just over 1.25 Terabytes (1,250-ish Gigabytes) of recorded TV, videos and music on it.

But one thing I - or anyone else - couldn't do was schedule TV recordings and watch recorded TV over the interweb.

Until now.

I'm trying out WebGuide4, a program which adds a website to your Media Center to let you view the TV listings on your Media Center, schedule recordings (or change them), cancel recordings, etc etc yada yada yada.

Basically, it's like the Sky+ Remote Record service with knobs on (and, in my case, a bit of a knob operating it...).

Another really handy feature is that you can set up users with different privileges; I've set up an account for me that can add and delete recordings and administer the Media Center remotely, and another one for everybody else in the house that can only add and cancel recordings to prevent any, err, "accidents".

You can also watch live TV streamed over the web to your PC, wherever you are (as long as you have a fairly fast broadband connection). 

Two other very good features are the remote control function - which lets you control your media center over t'interweb (I guess in case your remote dies, or you just want to annoy your housemates?) and the option to watch your videos over the internet. They're both features which are only available in the full version of the program though, so I can't comment on how well they work just yet.

True, it takes someone a bit geeky to set it up, but once it's running it looks like it's going to be a helluva cool toy.

The program is free to use for up to 30 days, and costs $18 to buy a license for. I think I'm going to buy it - and that's really, *really* rare for me, but I'm so impressed with it it's only fair to support the programmer(s) who are working so hard on this excellent toy.

There aren't really any downsides at all to this program - the set-up process was a breeze (it even tried to configure my BT Home Hub's firewall for me - after politely asking for my permission - but thanks to the Home Hub's in-built "I don't want to play nicely with anything" system, it didn't work, but that's probably not the fault of the WebGuide program).

All in all, it's a very well-designed program. It installed very easily, and kept me informed about what it was doing - and why - all the way through. Setting it up as a subdirectory on my home webserver was as simple as a few clicks of the mouse, so I didn't have to remember any complicated web addresses, and it hasn't slowed my system to a crawl or crashed (yet - touch wood).

It's also an ASP.NET website application, so even more credit should go to the creators who have obviously achieved a hell of a lot with this program. The fact that they've beaten Microsoft - who have invested millions if not billions of dollars into Windows Vista Media Center - shows they've probably missed a trick on this one. Hopefully, in a couple of years' time we'll see it as a fully ...

(Further off-topic than a snowmobile in the desert. Or something...)

If you're interested in trying out Windows Vista, you can now download the RC1 version of Vista straight from Microsoft.

Because it's version RC1, it means Microsoft reckon it's almost finished - there are probably some bugs, but it's largely well-behaved. That said, you shouldn't really be thinking about replacing your working copy of Windows just yet, and there are some programs that probably won't work, but if you're curious ... ok, let's call a spade a spade here: if you're as much of a geek as I am - then you'll probably want to give this a go.

A couple of important things to remember:

• It's not a "final" release - things will crash, break, not work, misbehave... Basically, if your sanity hangs in the balance at the moment, this will probably tip you over the edge. Don't say you haven't been warned...
• You should install and run the Microsoft Upgrade Advisor before you try installing Vista - this tells you what software and hardware you have that won't work under Vista, and what software and hardware will probably misbehave.
• You can upgrade an existing copy of Windows (2000 or XP I think), but you can't uninstall Vista - again, if you use your PC for work, or have irreplaceable stuff - photos, music, videos, etc - you shouldn't do it, just in case it all goes horribly wrong.
• This version of Vista will work until May 31st 2007 - you'll then need to get the release version of Vista, or re-install an older copy of Windows.
• You'll need a "passport" sign in - if you use MSN Messenger, you can sign in with that e-mail address and password. Otherwise, you'll need to sign up for one.
  
• You will be given a working product key once you have signed in at the link, above. Remember to save the key - it'll also be e-mailed to you.

So far, I'm really impressed with Vista - it's actually faster than XP, has a lot of nice user interface touches, like the Launchy-style search in the start menu, and a search bar on every Explorer window. The sidebar is also a nice toy, and the gadgets actually work, which is always nice. It's probably a bit unfair to say Microsoft simply "borrowed" a stack of ideas from Apple's OS X operating system, but there's certainly a lot of inspiration there.

More information on this release of Vista can be found here.