Around 2003/04, I bought a used original xbox from a friend of mine.  In the moment it probably seemed like a pretty foolish investment, considering the Xbox 360 was ready to, or had already hit the open market.  I purchased this aging piece of hardware without regard to its product shelf-life, because I had other more nefarious plans for it.  For weeks it sat in my office, no games to play on it, no Television hooked up to it, it just sat, and waited.  During that time I was reading, printing, compiling and testing, collecting all the information I would need to take this aged “game console” from a single purpose appliance to one of the most robust and powerful media hubs known in existence.  To this day even I have not found a more powerful and flexible media center on which to play my multitudes of media types.  From this single box, I can watch all my PVR’d television shows, video podcasts, and DVD rips.  As well as and extensive number of codecs/formats: mp3, mp4, avi, mkv, ogg, thm, divx, xvid, and the list goes on and on.  It will even play media that has been compressed and RAR’d into archives right from within the RAR file itself.

The Media Center for Xbox, or xbmc has taken the original hardware to it’s limits and is no longer developed for that platform.  Thankfully the developers saw “outside the box” and have moved the concept onto a more universal platform that has continued to grow and mature.  It makes an excellent replacement to the media center editions of Windows, linux installs, or AppleTV reloads as well as a liveCD/USB installation.

Recently the project has gained some traction with some sponsorships from IPTV startups Boxee and 9×9 Networks.  This is a major win for an open source project.  With active and interested subscription services using and supporting the platform, there is no place to go but up.  While XBMC in it’s current iteration has no peer (especially in the private “closed source” sector) it appears that it will continue to exceed expectations for some time to come.

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So there is this article about Windows 7. It goes on at length about the naming process for the Windows line. Then there is the follow up article, that is the explanation for the naming scheme. Now all I can think of is the Animaniacs singing about Windows Versions.

FIIIIIRRRRSSSSST There was Dos,
That Bill Gates bought
really a steal,
or so we though

Then Apple’s “Lisa”
Showed us a mouse
and soon after
Windows one came out

But it was just and overlay
’cause DOS still ran everything anyway.
And so it was with Windows 3
and 3.11 respectively.

Then came Windows 95 and we all thought that to survive
We must upgrade immediately or we’ll be left behind the scene.
And so we all clambered aboard and purchased Windows number 4
Only to find that right behind would be Windows 98.

Nine-teee-eight!
Oh how we thought that that was great.
Windows Nine-teee-Eight!
We thought it was divine!

But there were bugs and Billy thought
Lets march a new release on out
and so “SE” became the norm
with patches flying like a storm.

The internet was the new big thing
and IE 4 had us on a string,
Outlook express kept our email
And everything seemed good and well.

But Bill would not settle for millions and millions
He really wanted trillion billions
so two os’s came the same year,
but with different names.

We watched the trick of ME with surprise
as it crashed and crumbled before our eyes
But 2000 seemed rather stable and stayed alive,
So they called it Windows 5!

Then came XP! “Just a point release” or so they say,
Win-dows EEECKS-PEEEE! Really saved Old Billy’s day.
We’ll make More MonEEYY! If we put two versions out,
One for work and one for Home!

And so this OS ran and ran
everything working according to plan
but the longevity of the silly thing
screwed up Bills releasing scheme
For Another OS to take it’s place
and boost profits into outer space.

So Bill killed XP, he pulled the plug
and rolled out Windows Vista.
No one knew that Windows 6
would go right down the Shitstah!

Now all eyes look forward to going back
to all that vista seemed to lack
And we can Only hope that Windows 7
Is not “MS Bob Centennial Edition!”

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When Angels and Serpents Dance, the new release from POD, hits stores on April 8th, I’ll be in line with my saved pennies to pick it up. That is if I can save enough pop cans between now and then. POD is one of my favorite “Christian Rock” bands. I don’t know if that is what you are supposed to call them, but I know what I like, and they are one of the few bands where I can listen to anything out of their entire discography without bias. I don’t think that the label “Christian Rock” is completely appropriate for the musical boundaries that POD hurdles, but it will have to do.

I downloaded the title track from their website and judging by the download, their new venture will not disappoint. It is most definitely POD, keeping true to what works and what their fans (or at least this fan) like.

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