Media Browser for Vista Media Center

I came across this useful Media Center plugin recently. As well as providing an alternate interface to browse media files it also includes an RSS reader which I’ve successfully configured to watch some interesting video podcasts:

• dnrTV - .NET Rocks TV
• 10-4 – New features of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0
• TED – Talks from the annual Technology, Entertainment, Design conferences
• Scrap Time – A Scrapbooking video podcast for Narelle

It is free, and is being actively developed on Google Code.

Podcasts I'm listening to

For a long time now I’ve been listening to podcasts – first on on the iPAQ rw6828, then a HTC TyTN II, and more recently my iPod Shuffle.

My original subscriptions were:

• .NET Rocks – Carl and Richard talk about .NET stuff
• Hanselminutes – Scott interviews interesting people
• Dr Karl on Triple J – Dr Karl’s Science Talkback from Triple J Radio
• RunAs Radio – The IT Professional version of .NET Rocks

At the suggestion of Ben and Nigel I added:

• ALT.NET Podcast – ALT.NET things – nothing new recently
• Stack Overflow – Joel and Jeff talk about Stack Overflow
• Herding Code -
• Pixel8 – Craig Shoemaker on user experience
• Polymorphic Podcast – Craig Shoemaker on .NET
• Software Engineering Radio – Interviews on broad range of computer science topics

And I’ve also added:

• Radio TFS – Team Foundation Server
• SQL Down Under – Greg Low’s interviews with SQL experts
• SQL Snapshots (broken link, was originally www.sqlsnapshots.com/SQLSnapshotsMP3Feed.xml) (coming soon) – Also from Greg Low, I found out about this via Rob after mentioning to him the idea of a podcast for a “Talking Books” version of the SQL Books Online.

The best way I’ve found so far to get the podcasts onto the Shuffle is to use WinAmp and the ml_ipod plugin. WinAmp does come with an built-in iPod plugin, but I’ve found ml_ipod provides superior support, including synchronising podcasts – something iTunes won’t do for a Shuffle at all.

Ouch again

I’m a sorry and sore case again. My back gave out a few minutes into the first half of a game of Basketball on Saturday. Despite initial cries of “foul” from my teammates I quickly realised that the only reason I’d fallen to the floor in pain was an all too familiar but dreaded feeling in my lower back. One I’d hoped I’d never have to endure again. It’s so annoying as I’d been trying really hard to keep up the stretching and strengthening exercises given to me since the last incident. I realise this also doesn’t just impact me - it messed up the rest of the weekend for my whole family, which is extremely frustrating. Maybe it’s an indicator that I need to think about other forms of exercise, and my body isn’t as young and flexible as it once might have been? Or maybe the timing is appropriate for me to make the transition from player to supportive parent. We’ll see.