Media Browser is a fantastic and free (ahh, the magic word!) plugin for Windows Media Center that takes your video, music, and other media files and displays them in a visually appealing user friendly interface.
Media Browser can be easily configured to display images, information, and other metadata automatically pulled from the Internet. This has quickly become a must have addition to my Windows Media Center setups in Windows 7.
Preparing for Media Browser
Assuming you want to take advantage of Media Browser's ability to automatically pull info and images, you'll want to have your movies and and TV shows properly titled ahead of time. This means you’ll need to have movie files named exactly the same as the movie title. If you aren't sure of the exact title, check with a website like IMDB.com. You can, however, change them later if you find some aren't properly titled.
The new Windows Media Center in Windows 7 presents some great new features, but lacks any built-in integration with Hulu, the king of Internet streaming TV. (At least in the United States)
Hulu Labs has developed and released Hulu Desktop, a slick desktop application designed to work with standard Windows Media Center Remotes. Another application, Hulu Desktop Integration 1.0 adds Hulu Desktop to your Windows 7 Media Center interface for easy access.
Although it does not work with extenders, if you are looking for a way to control Windows 7 Media Center and Hulu from your couch with a Windows Media Center remote, this may be your perfect solution.
Windows 7 comes with the built-in ability of being able to create an “image” of your hard drive. Previously you needed a third party commercial application like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image to create a hard drive, or system image.
The wonderful thing about a hard drive image is it makes system recovery essentially a one step process. An image is an exact “snapshot” of your system, including all drivers, files, settings, and installed software. Thus, if you ever suffer a system crash, or need to restore your operating system, you just need to restore system from the image. There's no longer a need to run the Windows install, download drivers, re-install software, etc. It's all part of the image.
Is your hard drive bursting at the seams with digital video? Or maybe you've got video you'd like to upload to your favorite social networking site but the file size is just too big? Compressing your video files is an ideal way to free up hard drive space or make for quicker more efficient uploads to sites like YouTube or Facebook.
The term "Codec" is short for “compression/decompression” and is used to compress a file for streaming and decompress a file for playback. Divx and Xvid are two of the best and most preferred “codecs” used today. The free application Auto Gordian Knot is an excellent choice for compressing .avi, .mpeg, and other file formats using Xvid or Divx.
There are few things I enjoy more than a good cup of coffee and mobile computing. A lot of coffee shops offer free Wi-Fi for their customers. And now, so does Starbucks. Sort of.
It just requires using and registering a Starbucks card. And hey, if you are going to drink one or more cups of coffee at Starbucks each month, it doesn't cost you a cent.
Plus, you won't have to carry around any change!
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