Posts By: Jon Scaife

0Images by Name Studios LogoResurrected: Collaborative ImagesByName Project

Published by & filed under Media Browser. Last updated .

With the sad loss of TheHTPC.net there no longer appears to be a home for the Col­lab­or­at­ive Images­By­Name Pro­ject (know as CiP or IBN at vari­ous times).  Whilst devel­op­ment on these seems to have hal­ted some time back, the resources them­selves are still sub­stan­tial and will be sorely missed.  As I still had down­loaded cop­ies avail­able, and could­n’t find them any­where else of the net, I’ve decided to host them here so that oth­ers may con­tin­ue to enjoy the pre­vi­ous hard work inves­ted in cre­at­ing them.

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0Few new articles, lots of new design work

Published by & filed under Web Technologies. Last updated .

For the last 2–3 months I’ve been too busy to write much new con­tent for the site.  This has­n’t been helped by a drop in things to write about  — most of my art­icles are about tech­no­logy fixes or excit­ing new HTPC related devel­op­ments.  There haven’t been too many new devel­op­ments, and I haven’t fixed much tech­no­logy because I’ve been too busy.  That does­n’t mean the site has been entirely ignored however…

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0windows 8 logoWindows 8250 consumer preview: Traditional start menu

Posted by & filed under Windows.

Win­dows 8 looks to have many nice new fea­tures, but unfor­tu­nately, as I men­tioned in a pre­vi­ous post, Microsoft has decided to cre­ate a phone/tablet user inter­face and foist it upon desktop users as well.  This would­n’t be such a prob­lem if Microsoft had left an option to turn the excel­lent and well estab­lished tra­di­tion­al inter­face back on, but in their infin­ite wis­dom Microsoft has­n’t provided any such option.  For­tu­nately there are 2 options for get­ting the tra­di­tion­al start but­ton and menu back.

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0HTC Desire Android LogoSense 3.5 on HTC Desire

Published by & filed under Android. Last updated .

I’ve pre­vi­ously writ­ten about using [int­link id=“1841” type=“post”]an altern­at­ive ROM on my HTC Desire[/intlink] thanks to AceSMod007, but things have moved on a fair bit since then.  I’ve finally got round to updat­ing my Desire again, and decided I’d go with anoth­er “007 Mod”, spe­cific­ally RunnymedeMod007 which fea­tures Sense 3.5.  I’ve actu­ally been run­ning release 7 for a few weeks, but it has been a mixed exper­i­ence.  Hav­ing updated to release 21 a couple of days ago I’m now much hap­pi­er.  If you have a Desire and want the latest eye candy without com­prom­ising on per­form­ance I highly recom­mend giv­ing it a try.  Happy modding.

19windows 8 logoWindows 8: Horrible Horrible Horrible Metro UI

Published by & filed under Windows. Last updated .

OK, I sus­pect the title is going to give it away.  I down­loaded Win­dows 8 8250 con­sumer pre­view today, and almost imme­di­ately real­ised that as it stands I am going to avoid Win­dows 8 like the plague.  As far as I’m con­cerned the UI changes cur­rently make Win­dows 8 the worst release of Win­dows ever (even worse than Win­dows ME!)

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0BlackGold BGT3600 DVB-T2 & DVB-S2 tunerBlackgold 3600: The new ultimate TV Card

Published by & filed under Media PC Hardware. Last updated .

I’ve recently moved house, but now that I’ve restored inter­net access (always the first pri­or­ity) I’ve been tasked with fully sort­ing out TV in the house.  The pre­vi­ous setup isn’t bad — with a Media Serv­er (includ­ing TV cards) tucked away, and a HTPC in the lounge.  These both run Media Cen­ter and DVBLink.  This way I can also get TV on my desktop PC and laptop.  In the near future I’ll be build­ing anoth­er HTPC for the bed­room TV so we can watch recor­ded pro­grammes in bed.  All these poten­tial record­ings and watch­ing are bey­ond the cap­ab­il­ity of my cur­rent tuner setup — a Black­Gold BGT3620 and a Compro S350.  … Read Full Article