Keith’s Amusing Musings

Read about how a fire destroyed my beloved Vista Media Center and the saga and expense of rebuilding it the last few weeks.

If I had hair I would have pulled it all out.

Not cool.

I just published a write-up I have been working on for a few weeks about my experience building a top-of-the-line Vista Media Center (VMC) home theater PC (HTPC) to replace our TiVo Series3. Only true PC geeks and gadget nerds are allowed unless you are just curious to see a real-world example of how much premium retail electronics get marked up. Here is an actual shot of our Sony flat panel displaying the new machine in action.

TB is still on the fence so it’s not clear whether the HTPC meets the WAF. She loves TiVo so the VMC interface has to be demonstrably better and the HTPC hardware very reliable to meet her bar. I’ve already removed the safety net by disconnecting the TiVo from the main TV. We’ll put it in the bedroom at least until our one-year prepaid service expires in July. My mother-in-law will be here in a couple weeks which will be a good “guest test” as well. The only potential problem is she loves TiVo too.

Flexing its social networking muscle, the Zune experience now includes customizable Zune Cards that let you to share your music preferences and listening habits with the world (or a restricted group of your friends). Here is an example of an actual Zune Card in action (try navigating the list and clicking the links):

To create your own Zune Card, visit the Zune Card Generator created by Dan Grossman. It generates the code necessary to put either a small or large badge on your blog or site. All you have to do is copy & paste.

Those of you big into the social networking craze may find Zune Cards natural. I already share enough of my life on the Internets and haven’t enabled this feature in the Zune software just yet. We’ll see…

If you have purchased a Zune Original, like me, you probably want to preserve the laser engraved artwork as long as possible. The solution: use protection.

While the price is kinda steep, the BodyGuardz for Microsoft Zune 80GB ($24.95 shipped) works exactly as advertised. The BodyGuardz products are precisely tailored to protect the most popular mobile devices without adding any noticeable bulk like other protective cases. The Zune kit includes 2 complete (front and back) sets of protective covers and everything needed to attach the covers to a device.

After following the manual and watching the online instructional video, my “installation” went smoothly. While it is a time-consuming, detail-oriented process, if done correctly, the result speaks for itself.

It’s not worth attaching a picture as the protective film is meant to be unobtrusive and practically invisible. Visit http://www.bodyguardz.com or watch the BodyGuardz product demonstration videos on YouTube to get a better idea of how the products work.

If you and a family member, friend or significant other have matching iPods, Zunes or other portable devices, you should check them out and take advantage of their 2-in-1 packaging.

I am writing this in the event someone else encounters this problem installing Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1).

I’m running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 and was getting error code 78F whenever I attempted to install this service pack via either Windows Update or running the installer independently.

The solution is even more bizarre than the error: Place any data (i.e., non-music) CD in your computer’s disc drive and try again. You don’t need to actually run anything off the CD, just make sure it contains some files…a Vista or Office 2007 installation CD should work fine. Yes, it really works.

See the screen shot below showing the three failures and final success. Weird.