The problem with the XBox 360

Why is it when you have a great product, say an Xbox 360 , which is great by the way, the games, XBox live arcade, need i go on... Theres always a drawback / something which makes you feel robbed... That's right the Media settings, why is it that you can either use the Windows Media Extender functionality or pair it to a Windows PC with the Media Sharing setup. This in my opinion sucks. So ok the Media Center extender functionality is tied to Media Center / Vista, that's bearable but why make it so that a remote device has to be a windows pc! Some of us in the world have Network attached storage, some of us even manage to get their NAS device, which in my case is a nice Linksys NLU2, which ill post about another time, to run an iTunes Media server... Sweet but oh no the XBox 360 does not count this as a device. Which means I'm still unable to play my beloved music collection downstairs with out my laptop. It's even worse when you think I have purchased a fiar few albums and tracks on iTunes, including the The The Hoosier's The Trick To Life and New Young Pony Club's Fantastic Playroom albums recently as part of a birthday gift. and I can't play them anywhere I need to :(

So whats the solution?

Well for one Microsoft will allow the XBox to connect to a normal network share, its not even a complicated Apple or Linux only share, its SAMBA! This will at least allow me to play my MP3s and CD's I have ripped into my computer. The next stage would be for the XBox to connect to a iTunes music share. Now I know Apple are keeping their DRM tech under wraps but for the good of the consumer media devices, which the 360 definitely is, must be able to talk to others and not be tied in to specific brands and technologies. I think we as consumers put up with far too much of this "tied in" attitude. I'm not going to go into the whole DRM debate as this will turn into an essay and not a blog post, but things need to be better supported, cross-platform.

Ideas

One Idea I have had is to write an add on to Media Center, which you can do in Vista although I'm not sure if this then shows up on the XBox? Any know for sure? Which accesses your iTunes and allows you to change its tracks / see whats on, you could then in theory stream your directx output from iTunes to your XBox. This as a concept sucks as your then tying up your PC but it may be a temp solution. Of course getting your XBox to talk to a network share or even an iTunes server would be truly amazing but we will wait and see on that one.

Doing that mobile thing..... revisited

A few months ago I wrote a post about how I was finding the "mobile Internet". At the time I found it to be very good and was very happy with it. On the bus today I had a chance to chance to ponder over my usage since then and if any thing had changed. Now I must say that I use my mobile Internet daily, sometimes I'm on it more than I am on my Internet at home. It really is great on the whole, Opera Mini web browser allows you to view practically any site, MSN means I'm always in touch with people and again the Google Apps, GMail and Maps are always useful when on the move however I have found one gripe. My gripe is how intermittent mobile Internet is on the move. For example when on the bus your be lucky to be able to run msn let alone browse the web. The fact is when your on the move, for 3 anyway, the 3G signal just fades out and your Internet ability suffers. This is vastly magnified when your trying to read your blog feed on Google Reader as every time you loose Internet connectivity your session resets and you have to relogin !?! This annoyed the hell out of me. I'm now thinking when will someone or even Google release an offline rss reader for Google Reader for the mobile device. Now Google already have an offline mode for Google Reader in the form of Gears so I beg the question wheres the mobile edition? I suppose this will come in the form of some Java app which I don't mind about, i just hope you can use the app online, and then download you top 100 or even 50 unread. This would then allow many mobile commuters to catch up with their blog feeds whilst on the move. Here's hoping this happends sooner rather than later.....

Del.icio.us Links For 28/09/2007

CSSVista is a free Windows application for web developers which lets you edit your CSS code live in both Internet Explorer and Firefox simultaneously. - 15 September, 2007

CSSVista is a free Windows application for web developers which lets you edit your CSS code live in both Internet Explorer and Firefox simultaneously.
Link: http://litmusapp.com/cssvista

Creating Drop Caps Using CSS - 7 September, 2007

An interesting article on how you should spend more time than simply looking at the first letter when doing Drop Caps
Link: http://www.safalra.com/hypertext/html/web-typography/css-drop-caps/