XBMC

Today I want to share with you guys a very cool program that you could be using to display your media on your media center TV or PC. I recently switched my media rig to this setup and am very impressed with its look, speed, extensibility, and ease of use.

XBMC Media Center (formerly named Xbox Media Center) is a free and open source cross-platform media player and home entertainment system software designed for the living-room TV. The graphical user interface allows the user to easily manage video, photos, podcasts, and music from a computer, optical disk, local network, and the internet using a remote control or keyboard and mouse. I like to use the Mobile Air Mouse application for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it works great!

It is a popular alternative to Microsoft's Windows Media Center and Apple's Front Row, similar to MediaPortal and MythTV, it also has a skinnable and user-configurable interface and plugin support.

XBMC was originally created for the first-generation Xbox game console but has since evolved as a native application for Linux, Mac OS X (Snow Leopard, Leopard, Tiger, Apple TV), and Microsoft Windows operating systems. There is also a bootable Live CD and Live USB version referred to as "XBMC Live". In addition, source code from XBMC is used as a application framework platform for others projects to base their media center software on, and today at least Boxee, MediaPortal, Plex, and Voddler are separate derivative products that are all known to initially have forked (copied) the GUI (Graphical User Interface) and media player part of their software from XBMC's source code.

To install XBMC visit their website and pick which version you need for your system. You will then download the .exe file and install it like any other program. The recommended settings are fine. You do have the option of installing all files to one location for a portable solution, but then you have to grant admin rights every time. If you do want a portable solution you should download the "Live" version of the software to a CD, DVD, or flash drive.

Once you have installed XBMC you can then launch the software and set the weather application to display your local weather information by entering your zip code. Then you can go to photos, music, and videos and add a source location that XBMC should look for your media. In most cases it will be on a networked location so be sure to share the drives holding your media on your computer. If you don't know how to share your network drive just google it (it's very easy).

Below are some screenshots and a video showing what XBMC looks like and is capable of. Try it out, it's free, easy, and you can have it up and running in less than 20 minutes. Enjoy!

Windows 7 Review

So I finally decided that it was time to give Windows 7 a try... After using Windows XP faithfully for what seemed to be an eternity I was really looking forward to using a good next-gen Windows OS. Having installed Vista two years prior and uninstalling it a few hours afterward I was a bit skeptical of Windows 7 to say the least.

Being in the IT industry and the "go-to" computer guy in my community, I have to stay ahead of the curve to be able to handle the inquiries and repairs as they start to come in. However this time learning from my past experience with Vista, I decided I would first run Windows 7 from within a virtual machine (VirtualBox) this way if I decided it wasn't for me I could delete it from the virtual machine in seconds and lose nothing from my beloved Windows XP Pro.

For those of you unfamiliar with what a virtual machine does... it is just a program that runs in your current operating system that allows you to install another operating system from within it in a "sandbox" that isolates it from everything else in your computer. You allocate a portion of your hard drive to it, and then just install your new operating system as usual. You can install several OS's from a virtual machine simultaneously. Whenever you want to uninstall an OS from within a virtual machine you just delete it and have nothing else to worry about... it only takes a few seconds and you have yourself a clean slate. VirtualBox is a free program, give it a try.

When Vista was first release I was working for a Microsoft Partner in Mentor, OH and received a free copy of Vista a few weeks before it was released to the general public. I couldn't wait to get home, backup my files, and perform a clean install of the new Vista. I saw all the cool looking screen shots on various sites, read a few early reviews and I just knew Vista was going to be a great platform to work on... right? Wrong!!! I had Vista on my computer for roughly 3-4 hours before I kicked the computer, punched the wall and uninstalled it swearing to never have anything to do with this horrible operating system Microsoft had just put out. As you can see I was more than disappointed in Vista. This time I had no expectations for Windows 7, lets just try it out and see. If it sucks, I still have my trusty XP Pro to fall back on.

Here goes nothing... I load up VirtualBox, drop in the Windows 7 install DVD and proceed to install. Nothing special here, it installs like any other OS. You select which drive to install to, select your time-zone, language, same ole same ole.

Then it begins... The first thing that caught my attention was the newly designed taskbar. It's about double the width of the XP taskbar and transparent. The icons are bigger and there is no quicklaunch present. The start menu looks familiar and very similar to the XP/Vista start menu. Next I right-click on the desktop and get the familiar options menu and go to personalize to see what options I'm going to have at my disposal. The menus do have a short learning curve to them but as you will find out with a little time playing with them that they do make sense and are very easy to work with. The included wallpapers are very nicely done and update your desktop as you select them for preview. There are various sound schemes available and you can change the color of the transparent taskbar and windows.

From within the personalize menu you can also access desktop gadgets, screen resolution, ease of access center and more. So far so good. Not an annoying popup yet... but I have not installed anything yet, so lets do that now.

One of my least favorite things to do when performing an install of an OS is getting all my must-have programs installed and setup all over again. I have stumbled across a very nice site that will help you with this step. Ninite is a site that has the most common must-have free applications listed on their site with check boxes next to them. You go through and select which programs you want and then you go to the bottom and click "Get Installer" Ninite then creates one installer of all the programs you selected so you can install all of the program with one installer. Its genius really and saves lots of time.

Ok, so now I have programs to install. I install them and upon installing them I get a security popup asking if I really want to install these programs. I don't so much mind this type of popup as I do like to be notified when there is a program trying to install itself on my system so no problems... The programs all installed and worked without issue, that's good. Then I install Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2, again - no problems. I also checked the device manager and all devices had their most recent drivers already installed with no input from me, that is also a huge time saver.

I go out on the web using Firefox, I open up Windows Explorer, iTunes, and Photoshop. I'm curious as to how it handles multi-tasking... again - no problem. This is where the taskbar truly shines. All windows from within a certain program only creates one icon in the taskbar. You hover your mouse over that icon and a preview of all the windows that program is running fly out to show you their content even if that content is live video, nice! If you have lots of windows open at the same time you can grab the bar at the top of the window, give it a shake, and all other windows minimize. Do it again and they reappear.

Windows 7 now makes it much easier to share files on your network with other systems that are also running Windows 7 with the new "Homegroup" feature. You can also choose "Play to" which will send multimedia to another computer on your network or your Xbox 360. You can also share files with any other OS you are using by sharing the drive as you could with XP and just about any other OS.

After having Windows 7 installed for a few hours in the virtual machine, I went ahead and installed it as the primary OS on my main desktop, my HTPC, and my Dell Mini 9 netbook. I've tested and ran them extensively for four days now and they all perform magically. I have to give this latest Microsoft offering the official stamp of approval. Great job Microsoft!

Watch this CNET video review for live Windows 7 footage! Also, get an awesome Windows 7 shortcut PDF file.

FTP Server

This is a tutorial for setting up FTP Server on Windows XP Pro. There are many different operating systems available and I'm obviously not going to cover them all so I chose an operating system I feel most people are using. Even if you are not running XP Pro, you should still be able to get some understanding of FTP Server and it's setup. There are many standalone FTP Server programs available for free online that are very well documented. With a search on google for "free standalone FTP Server" you will find some with no problem, then you can read and decide which one you would like to try.

In the next paragraph I'm just going to go ahead and get into the tutorial without too much extra babbling so you can follow along a little easier. Like I've said before, if you have any questions please feel free to comment on this post. So without further a due, lets get into setting up your very own FTP server!

Start>Control Panel>Add or Remove Programs>Add/Remove Windows Components


This will bring up the "Windows Components Wizard". Scroll down the list and check Internet Information Services (IIS), with IIS selected, click the Details Button. Another IIS box will pop up, you need to place a check next to Common Files, (FTP)Service, and IIS Snap-In. Make sure those are selected then click the OK Button. You are now back to the Windows Component Wizard, click the Next Button to continue.

At this point you will likely need your Windows XP Pro CD to put in your CD drive. If prompted to do so, put your disc in and follow the wizard until the necessary files are successfully transferred. Wait a minute or two until this operation completes then continue on.

Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Internet Information Services


Click the "+" to expand the menu's. Where my FTP Server is named "GaLiNd3z FTP Site" yours will be "Default FTP Site". Right-click on your default ftp site and then select properties. Here you can change the name if you wish. Note that TCP port 21 is the default port that will need to be opened for FTP communication to occur. However, you will also need to open port 20 on your router later, but for now leave this as is.

Select the Security Accounts tab and then place a check next to "Allow only anonymous connections" and "Allow IIS to control password". You don't have to do this if you don't want to, but if you use your windows account to log into your FTP site across the internet just know that your account can be compromised as your username and password will not be encrypted unless you are tunneling through a VPN. If you don't know what I just said, just trust me... it is much safer to only allow anonymous access. This access will only allow users to view the files you place in your FTP Site directory which we will be covering next.

Select the Home Directory tab. Here you can select which folder you want to make available to your FTP site. The default folder is c:\inetpub\ftproot. I like to keep it that way, but you can change it to whatever you choose. Here you can also select which privileges you want to give users (e.g. Read, Write, and Log visits).

If you want to make a message appear whenever anyone connects to your site you can do so by selecting the Messages tab and filling in the appropriate spaces provided. When you are done with these steps, click apply, then OK.

An FTP site is no good without any files so lets go and add some files. If you changed the default location, then you need to go to that location to add files, otherwise go to c:\inetpub\ftproot and add whatever files you wish to make available, then "Restart" your computer.

At this point you are half way done. You need to configure your router to forward TCP ports 20 and 21 to the machine that is running the FTP site. To access your router you will need to know your "Default Gateway". Press the windows key on your keyboard + R at the same time to bring up the "run" box. Type CMD in the run box to bring up a command box. In the command box type in "ipconfig" without the quotations. This will give you your IP address, subnet mask and default gateway. It will look something like this:


Now that you have your default gateway you need to open up your web browser (IE, or Firefox), in the address bar where you usually type in www.whatever.com you need to type in your default gateway, so in my example I would type in 192.168.1.1 then hit enter. This takes you to your router administration. You will need your username and password to access this information. If you have never changed it or have never been here before you can try username: admin or administrator and leave the password blank. If that does not work you need to find the documentation for your router. You can do this easily with a google search. You need to get the make and model number you can find them on the bottom of the router. I'm not going to spend too much time on this step, if you need more help... ask.

Once you are in you need to go through your menus and find the area that will let you forward ports or "Port Range Forward" it is usually a sub menu of "Applications & Gaming" of course all routers are different, but it should be something similar to this. Now what you want to do is create a rule that forwards TCP port 20 and 21 to the IP address of the FTP server (notice I said the IP address, not the default gateway). So again in my example I would forward TCP port 20 and 21 to 192.168.1.103, then save your changes and close the browser.

If you have any firewalls running other than the Windows Firewall, you also need to allow access through it. That's pretty much it. You now have a working FTP site that you can access your files from. If you only need access from within your home, then you have nothing else to do. Just open up a web browser and type in ftp://youripaddress (where youripaddress is the IP address you got from the command prompt) such as ftp://192.168.1.103 and you will see the files in your shared FTP folder.

Now that you got this far and you can share files throughout your home network, why not take the next step and make them available throughout the internet so that you can have access anywhere?

To do this you need a static IP address, if you don't know what I'm talking about then you probably do not have one. If you do have one then you are done, just use that IP address from any computer with ftp:// in the front of it and you are in there like swimwear. However, if you have a dynamic IP address like most people do, then you need to use a service that will control DNS information for you so that when your IP address changes you can still keep using one name and not have to worry about it.

This may not be making much sense right now... Its really quite simple but all you have to do is go to DynDNS and register for a free Dynamic DNS account. Choose a name you would like to use and click add. You will need to create a free account there and also you will need to find your "public IP address" they have a tool on their site that will show you what it is and then match the name you chose to it. You can also go to myipaddress.com to get your public IP address.

Please don't get confused with the different IP addresses. You basically have two of them. One is private (the one you got from the command prompt) and one is public. The private IP is good for you to use within your own home network and the public one you need to go onto the internet and is also the one your ISP uses to identify you.

Dynamic public IP address change every couple of days and what DynDNS does is track these changes and link them to one name that you choose. Therefore giving you what appears to be one static address. Again I don't want to go too much into this and if you have any questions... ask.

Once you have this set up you are done! Go share some files and make sure you aren't using this for something illegal. Use at your own risk, I'm not liable for any trouble you get yourself into. I showed you how to do it, now be safe out there and use it for a good cause.

Congratulations, you now have your very own FTP Server. More tech how-to's coming soon! :D

Ready for some Tech How-to's?

I know I haven't posted anything recently, but it gets difficult finding new things to share that can really help someone without talking too much about nothing. Also, it takes a lot of time and effort to put into something that isn't really making any $$$ and lets face it... time is money! However, I do like to share with the community I get so much help from.

That being said, I just want to let you guys know that I will posting several new articles in the days ahead related to the Tech field. You don't have to be in the field or be a "techie" to get something from these articles, and I will write them as if you have very little computing know-how.

With the assortment of gadgets, services, and media online... just about everyone has music, pictures, and videos they would like to share, not only throughout your home, but maybe also with your neighbors and possibly family and friends all over the world!

There are very easy ways to accomplish this, as I will share. There are services you can add to your computer and there are also some websites that can help you with this. I will probably start with FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and how you can set up your own FTP server to share your media or any files with others. An average user can get this setup and rockin' within 30-45 minutes if that. I don't claim to be an expert in anything, but I have been tinkering with computers and electronics in general for over two decades and consider myself pretty knowledgeable with technology. If there are articles you would like to see, or questions you may have - you can feel free to comment on these articles and I will see you.

As a Computer Field Technician I am always traveling from site to site fixing all sorts of computer related issues from Wal-Mart and Home Depot to your mamas house :P Having an FTP server I can pull programs and files from that I may need in the field is invaluable to me, and saves me lots of time. The files are sitting at home, why shouldn't I be able to access them from anywhere? I can, and you can too!

I'll show you how to set a free service that will make your dynamic IP address seem more like a static IP address, how to get your own domain name attached to that IP for free, how to setup your router, keep yourself secure, and of course how to log in for the first time. Maybe next week I can sow you how you can stream your movies and videos just like the big cable companies do with VLC player... then you can let your family and friends log in and watch with you... and yes, it's all free. Stay tuned!