Category: consoles

I love the Xbox, and everything it does.  However, there’s one annoying little thing that you simply can’t do, turn it on and off remotely.  Yes, I know this makes me supreme of lazy, but since it’s so tied into my Home Theater setup, it would be extremely nice if I could operate its powerstate like I do all the other components in my system. 

If you visit Xbox-Scene, there is a tutorial on how to do it, but it requires you to find a specific chip and then program it.  Since I don’t have a programmer, that was kind of out of my league.  Of course, someone figured this would be an easy way to make a few bucks.  Welcome the XIR from CheapLPC. 

I purchased the Pro version, because I’m ok with spending less and having to do one solder connection.  Installation was a snap; simply slide some wires into the motherboard molex connector, and solder the one point.  Granted, the one solder point was a bit awkward because of it’s location, but definitely not that hard by any stretch.  I had to reprogram the Pronto last night with the xbox remote configuration, since I currently don’t have an xbox remote.  This, unfortunately, took the vast majority of my time because I pretty much redid my whole configuration since so much had changed (no more DVD player, Colleen’s, no more Digital Cable Box).  However, the XIR preformed flawlessly, just as advertised.  I slipped the IR Receiver so it just pokes out on the front display and now when there’s a commercial or nothing on TV worth watching, I can easily flip to the xbox without having to get up to turn it on.  The thing can even turn on and off my modchip via the remote.  I just have to install a (not included) wire from it to the dreaded d0 point.  Granted, for me, there’s no real reason to have the modchip off, but who knows.

Now all I need is some Wireless Controllers, and I’m all set.  Granted, they are already on my Amazon.com Wishlist, so here’s wishing.

So, I officially sank to a new low of nerd this week.  As everyone probably knows, Halo 2 came out yesterday.  Well, since I’m such an Xbox fanboy, I snagged it.  Now, granted, I own very few xbox games, but I figured, Halo was so quality that I had to give props to Bungie and Microsoft and make the purchase.

Now, the reason that this has made me reach a new level of nerd, is because I didn’t just wait to get it on Tuesday or pre-order it.  Oh no, I was out on Monday night at midnight picking it up.  First stop was the EBGames on campus.  Wow, that was mistake.  I got there around 11:30 to find a line that stretched from EBGames to Follett’s (for those of you unaware, that’s about a block).  However, being the resourceful person I am, I hadn’t gone on this Halo 2 journey alone.  Instead, a coworker went to Meijers, while I went to EB.  Turns out he was the line at Meijers.  Needless to say, out to Meijers I went. 

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Wow, he is a nerd,” but just wait, because the story isn’t done.  I then headed back to my apt and played till about 3am. 

“Damn, 3am, what about work the next day?”

Already taken care of, since I took Tuesday off to play with some friends and coworkers.  We had a projector for 2 of us, and a large screen tv for the other 2.  We also ordered a Jimmy John’s sub platter and had a good ol’ time.  It was crazy how fast the day actually passed.

Overall, I’m very impressed with the game.  The graphics are top notch, and they added a bunch of cool stuff (like throwing someone out of a vehicle while it’s going, weilding two guns at the same time, etc).  It has definitely lived up to the hype.  Now I just need to take the time to beat it and watch all the cutscenes, since we weren’t really watching the cutscenes while playing co-op.

Yet another game that I need to beat on the Xbox.  This past weekend, I really got into Fable as I waited on stuff being reconfigured on my server.  Good times indeed.

I normally keep fairly up to date with releases of Xbox Media Center (xbmc), but lately I haven’t been because I found a version (the build released on January 5th) that was stable, and did everything I wanted to.  All I can say, is, DAMN!  I downloaded the latest release as of 2 days ago (the May 9th release I believe).

First of all, they’ve gotten rid of the same skin they’ve been using as the default for a long time.  It’s not that I wasn’t a fan of the old skin, but this new one is so much more polished. 

Second of all, the smb streaming is absolutely perfect for me.  However, that may be because of the new router that actually doesn’t reduce the speeds to the xbox to 1Mbps.  I’ll talk about my new router a little later though, because I don’t want to give it intensely glowing reviews, and then have something stupid happen a day later 🙂

And finally, the greatest feature I think they ever could’ve added, is the addition of an http server.  Now, you may be thinking, why the hell would they do that?  Well, all I can say is, this http server allows you to control whatever xbmc is playing.  Yes, that’s right, you could essentially hook up your xbox to a reciever, speakers, and a network connection.  Granted, not all features are currently supported via the website, but you can easily add things to your queue, etc. 

Now, the reason I think this is so damn cool, is that in my office, ever since we moved out the noisy rack, we contemplated getting some sort of jukebox setup that we could all connect to and add tracks to, etc.  This way we don’t all have to wear headphones, or have 5 different songs playing in the background.  A modded xbox is now a possible solution to our problem.  We could all add whatever songs you want to listen to to the playlist.  There are still a few things that would need to be tweaked (like deleting stuff that’s currently in the playlist, etc).  This is the exact sort of solution that I was thinking about for the office.  In fact, I had seen a similar thing at a party I had gone to a few years back at Presidential Towers.  I can’t remember the name of the company that was having the party, but they do a lot of training, and web developement.  Needless to say, they had a webapp that you could browse their music collection, and then add to the current playlist.  It was one of the cooler ideas I’ve seen for a small business/office.

And now that xbox’s are $150, this means you can get a awesome little media center for around $200 (if you mod it yourself).  To all those with xbox’s, I say go for it because it’s so easy, and you can get so much more out of your black and green box.