A while ago, I bought an Xbox 360. I actually bought it in Barcelona during ITForum 2006 because I did not win one from the Windows Server Virtualization guys during one of their contests. Maybe for the better because they gave away Xbox 360 Core and I really wanted a Premium version.

Anyway, the Xbox 360 can also be used as a Media Center Extender. Because I run Windows Vista Ultimate on my laptop, I can use it with that.

Technically, it all works but there are some serious issues with Xbox 360 as an extender. First of all, the Xbox is way to noisy. Compared to my Pinnacle ShowCenter 200, which is completely silent, it does not stand a chance. Secondly, and even more annoying, is the fact that the Xbox does not support streaming DivX and Xvid to it. There are some solutions to fix that and one of those with support for Vista is Transcode 360. It is still in beta but I tried it and it works fine.

Be aware of the fact that a solution like Transcode 360 actually converts the video from DivX/Xvid format to a format that the Xbox understands. On my laptop (HP nw8000) this results in 70%-90% CPU load. When you stop watching a transcoded video on the Xbox, the transcoding process keeps running on the media center. You need to kill that with Task Manager to stop it.

For these two reasons (noise and lack of DivX/Xvid support), it will not replace my ShowCenter any time soon.

In my car, I have an auxiliary input to connect an audio device such as an iPod to the car stereo. The auxiliary input is located under the arm rest together with a cigarette lighter. That makes it easy to put the iPod out of sight and still power it while connected to the car stereo.

To power the iPod, I use the Monster iCarCharger for iPod. It also provides a 3,5mm jack to connect the iPod to the car stereo’s auxiliary input. That provides better sound than connecting the iPod to the car stereo using the headphones connection.

Of course, it’s a bit inconvenient to have to open the arm rest to change tracks so I also bought a Griffin AirClick. The AirClick allows you to change tracks, pause, play, and so on. Because it uses RF signals, the iPod can stay neatly under the arm rest.

When the car is turned off, the iPod automatically pauses. When the car is turned on, playback can be resumed by using the AirClick’s play button. Naturally, you have to change playlists on the iPod itself.

It is of course much better to have the iPod integrated with the car stereo so you can change tracks from the radio or steering wheel, change playlists, view track names and so on. I can get that for my car from BMW itself but then I would have to pay something like 400 euros. Other solutions such as Dension’s ice>Link Plus are usually cheaper but there are some problems with the new BMW 3–series E90 model. I decided not to wait until they got that fixed. The solution described here works well, is cheap and above all, the sound quality is good!

Go over to weeklyradioaddress.com and listen to a few of them. Great parody on George W. Especially this one is funny.

You will probably know them from the single Warning Shots. It’s played a lot on StuBru. The cd is called The Cosmic Game.

It’s great stuff, one of their better ones to date. Relaxing…

More info about the cd on Amazon.

I am listening to their cd Speak. It was released in 2004 but I only learned about their existence from seeing them on TMF Cafe.

Reminds me of PJ Harvey at times. If you like alternative music, you really need to check it out.

Listen to some of their music @ http://www.monsoon.be.

Great stuff. Check it out at Amazon.