Big Screen Blog

Launched : Big Screen Headlines v2

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:46:18 GMT

(April 2 - not April fools day anymore down here)

Big Screen Headlines v2 has now been officially launched on the bigscreenglobal.com website - and is available for 30 day trial and online purchase (and retails for just USD$24.95).

Headlines v2 (which for those new to this product - is a RSS + Rich Media viewer for Vista Media Center) - is pretty much a complete rewrite of v1 - and contains a truckload of new features and enhancements from the original release (many of which have been detailed on this blog in the past).

You can check out the full product details online (which includes detailed feature list and loads of screenshots) - with some pictures below to wet your appetite.

What's New :-

Apart from the core functionality provided by v1 (such as RSS Browsing and Content viewing, IE7 Subscriber Feed System support, Parsing of RSS HTML content to Media Center friendly text) - some of the major enhancements in v2 include :

- new main menu system - with direct access to all your content via the left/right sliding panels (which reveal several menu items when selected) - and direct viewing of 'latest' updated items and feeds without further menus. The main menu system is similar to that found on Big Screen Weather v2 - however has been enhanced to better support and accommodate mouse/touch control.

- loads of new presets with substantially updated video and audio section of new Web Media designed for Media Center (WMV Video etc).

- Enhanced Parsing of RSS based blogs / HTML Content (with Inline Image support - allowing you to view images contained with the content)

- Enhanced support for latest variants of RSS 2 Media (and other new formats such as OPML 2) with ability to drill down on multiple content attachments (where made available) - and comments feeds. When browsing items - additional content such as item and feed thumbnails are also displayed.

- Supports and recognizes and watch a whole range of new content types (where 3rd party codec support is available) - and even caters for the additional codecs on the new PIKA 2.0 Extenders (by allowing you to watch MPEG4, H264, DivX based content). For media center PC's - you can install additional Directshow compliant video filters and add support for numerous popular codecs (such as Apple Quicktime, Flash FLV Video, DivX/XVid, MPEG4 etc).

- Highly customizable viewing/browsing experience for RSS Feeds, presets and Articles with sorting, filtering, text size control and view styles. Your settings are also automatically saved (per user).

- Full Media Center Extender Support - with auto device detection/configuration for PIKA 2 (Linksys, DLink etc) extenders + XBox 360's - with customizable display/usage options (such as filtering out codecs etc). Display options can also be adjusted - such as disabling background animations for slower/lower powered machines) manually.

- Includes the Feed Synchronization Tool (which runs as a scheduled task) - which preprocesses and summarizes your Subscribed feeds (incorporating any recent updates made) - so they are ready for instant viewing when you load Headlines 2. The synchronized feeds (and any auto downloaded enclosures) are also then made available to extender users via the synchronization tool. The synchronization tool also creates 'best of' style feeds internally so you can quickly view lists of 'latest' items from the main menu - without substantial processing time (by media type or online/offline status).

- User Interface is available in 5 languages : English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.

Headlines v2 also features the new Activation/Trial/Unlock system found on the other v2 products (Weather v2 and Photos v2) - and allows you to upsize your existing trial to a full version if you decide to buy it.

Take it for a spin :-

If you want to try Big Screen Headlines v2 out for yourself - download a free 30 day trial version or purchase the full version - at these links below. Please note that you will need to sign up for a free account on bigscreenglobal.com if you don't already have one.

Trial + Download page : http://bigscreenglobal.com/bgproductdownload.aspx?PID=BSHV2
Product Purchase page : http://bigscreenglobal.com/bgproductpurchase.aspx?PID=BSHV2

More screenshots : http://bigscreenglobal.com/bgproductscreens.aspx?PID=BSHV2

Silverlight 2 Beta 1 + Expression 2.5 Preview Now Available

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:53:57 GMT

As mentioned over past couple of blog posts - Silverlight v2 Beta 1 is being launched at Mix 08.

I just noticed that the downloads have now been launched to the public - and are available at the following links :

- Install Microsoft® Silverlight™ 2 Beta

- Microsoft® Silverlight™ 2 SDK Beta 1

- Source Code for Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Controls

- Microsoft® Silverlight™ 2 SDK Beta 1 Documentation

or you can download the following pack (which includes the Silverlight 2 Beta 1 + SDK + a KB for VS2008)

- Silverlight Tools for VS2008

The new Beta/Preview version of the Expression Products (which has the bits required to create/edit Silverlight 2.0 projects) is also available at :

- Microsoft Expression Blend 2.5 March 2008 Preview

- Expression Web 2 Beta

- Expression Studio 2 Beta

but wait there's more...

- Deep Zoom Composer (Prepare Images for use with the Deep Zoom feature in Silverlight 2 Beta 1

These are of course previews/beta's so expect lot's of pain (and crashing) whilst test driving these new tools and SDK's.

Silverlight announced for Nokia S40/S60 mobile phones (and Internet Devices)

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:16:09 GMT

In the lead up to Mix'08 - Nokia announced last night that they were going to making Silverlight available for their Series 40, Series 60 mobile phones and Internet Tablets (via Sean Alexanders Blog). Please see here for the press release . This also means other Series 40/60 licensees (which includes LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Siemens and many more) will also reap the benefits at some time in the future.

This is quite an interesting (and exciting) development - and hopefully means there's a commitment to get Silverlight into a whole lot of new devices in the future (I'm really hoping it makes it to some set top boxes / or media players). I'm quite surprised that there wasn't an announcement yet for Silverlight on Windows Mobile devices (or even Zune or XBox360) - as one would think that Microsoft's own mobile/pda platform would have been not only a priority - but a far simpler option allowing for a much faster time to market (given that it already runs CF.NET - a more feature rich version of the framework offered in Silverlight 2).

Nokia have mentioned that the first S60 devices with Silverlight will be available 'late 2008' and Series 40 + Internet Devices to be available after that (2009?).

There's a few challenges, caveats and unknowns with the announcement and how it would actually be deployed/usable on the mobile phones - although the press release hints that it will be rolled out/available via the Web Browser. I personally would have liked an option that gave it a 1st class citizen treatment on the device (as non browser hosted standalone apps) - and directly launchable from the devices main menu/display (similar to how J2me Midlets worked - but more directly accessible to end users without all the sub-menus/hoops in between currently found in j2me). Given the extensibility/customization available on Series60 (which is a more complete 'O/S' than S40) - it's probably going to be possible to expose it via shortcuts on the phone's menus - but unlikely to be the same on S40. One of the big problems in the past with J2me (apart from the challenging development aspect), was that it was too difficult for consumers to actually find the applications on their phones once they had been installed (and hence they never really took off 'en masse - despite the capabilities and power offered over standard mobile web browser sites and Flash lite).

Another big issue, and a reason why it might really be 2009/2010 by the time we can actually expect anyone to have Silverlight on their Mobile Phones (and even then it would generally be early adopters only) - is that the runtime needs to be deployed to the phone's O/S (which generally equals firmware). This means that users need to purchase brand new phones (once they become available) - update their O/S if possible (if Series 60) - or at bare minimum update their firmwares if such a thing is offered (given the cost/downtime/hassle of this process - which generally involves visiting a phone repair place - it's a highly unlikely scenario).

Given that Flash Lite (now at v2.1) - is already available in many of these devices - Silverlight has a lot of catching up to do. (and hopefully it has some success out on the web so that Nokia doesn't have a change of heart). Given this - I would predict its more likely 2010/2011 timeframe that we'd see Silverlight enabled devices in the hands of an average consumer. (who generally have the less powerful Series40 based devices).

Apart from these above mentioned 'reality checks' - it is indeed an exciting announcement - and hopefully means Silverlight is here to stay (and will be taken more seriously out in the real world with a chance of survival).

I'm looking forward to seeing what other Silverlight announcements appear over the next few days at Mix. (and playing with the Beta if that appears as hinted).

Silverlight 2.0 is coming... (and Microsoft isn't just 'listening to your feedback')

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:56:40 GMT

Although this news is a little old (announced last week) - it's hard not to get really excited by the new developments happening over in the Silverlight camp at Microsoft for the upcoming Beta 1 release of Silverlight 2.0. (which I believe is being scheduled for launch at Mix '08 next week).

Silverlight 2.0 (formerly known as Silverlight 1.1) is essentially the cross platform technology trying to give Flash a run for it's money in the RIA space - but leverages the 'developer' focused tools, technologies and audience that Microsoft has by using .NET and XAML - which in turn means you get great tools like Visual Studio 2008 to work with coupled with design tools like Expression Blend (which are starting to take shape - although still quite a way to go there).

While a lot of 'designers' out there will just say Microsoft are simply playing 'catch up' with Adobe - I think Adobe never quite understood the whole 'developer IDE' thing (and I know I was pretty put off Flash everytime I had to do any project work involving more than 10 lines of code - as the ActionScript etc experience is really quite disturbing for anyone spoilt by Visual Studio - or just about any other Developer IDE such as Borland's, Eclipse etc etc).

What's so good about Silverlight 2.0 - didn't 1.0 tank?

While Silverlight 1.0 didn't get a lot of traction against Flash last year (and the fact that most of the Microsoft sites still use Flash instead of Silverlight is proof of that) - it was a great 'start' and a sign of MS moving forward from WPF/.NETv3 (which 'sported' a pretty buggy, incompatible and clunky runtime platform - and made it pretty unusable/un-deployable in the vast majority of scenarios). After WPF - Silverlight 1.0 came back - reduced the feature set (substantially) - but offered a mean/lean runtime which was (sortof) cross platform - and actually made it a serious contender in the RIA space.

The really promising thing with Silverlight 2.0 (and the team behind it) - is that after initially announcing 1.1 (which was essentially the addition of a cross platform version of .NET - but not much else - where 1.0 used javascript from the HTML layer) - they appear to have 'reinvented' themselves and added a whole bunch of things developers were asking for. (well according to this post at least) - including some of these things :

controls, controls, controls... (with SL 1.0 you had to reinvent the wheel from primatives - ie. not even a scroller, listbox or flow layout panel was provided)
reduced cross domain security restrictions (SL 1.0 was massively restrictive in that everything had to come from the same domain- which was I guess a great big misunderstanding of how Web 2.0 actually worked.) - and true support for a raft of commonly used webservice models and even socket support.
Styles, Templating and more. (aka. Some of the great features that made initially WPF a fantastic 'specification' are back - and this time *hopefully* they don't perform like a bucket-of-crap).

Although not directly mentioned - I really do hope some of these other things get improved/sorted (either for this BETA 1 release or at least for the full release) :

Full 64 bit compatibility (ie. so we can use Silverlight in 64bit containers - ie. Vista Sidebar and Vista on 64bit machines). Same goes for Windows CE and other mobile platforms - which is really a must to sway people away from Flash.
Full Key Focus/Handling behavior (and x 2 for full screen mode) - so Remote Controls + 10 foot can be properly supported too.
Support for more Video codecs + IPTV protocols (SL 1.0 was WMV only). Moving forward - for any video playback technology to be treated seriously - support for codecs like H264, MPEG2/MPEG4 is an absolute must (DVR-MS, Divx/XVid etc would be nice too). I think Flash can do all (or some of) this already.
Protection of IP (thats NOT just DRM on Video/Audio). Hopefully there's some serious thought given to how BOTH developers and content owners can protect their assets when deploying them via Silverlight 2.0 (as obfuscators etc are somewhat less useful the smaller the codebase). Silverlight 1.0 didn't offer any form of protection whatsoever (except for dynamic XAML being generated by a back-end server) - so developers were essentially serving up their IP on a silver platter (to anyone who wanted to take a look).

Why I (personally) am excited about what I see coming with 2.0...

While it's still early days - the really great thing about Silverlight is that it's a sign the team (and thinking) behind it are :

Adapting : Moving forward and adding the features that the market wants.. (In a very short time frame / release cycle as well..). We don't need to 'wait until Windows 7' etc etc to get the new goodies.
Doing (not just 'listening') : v1.1 wasn't going to win them too many new friends - so they took a good look at themselves, canned 1.1 - and focused on 2.0 which incorporated a what a lot of developers were asking for.
Talking + Showing : Even though the BETA hasn't been launched yet (if you exclude SL 1.1 Beta - which has been around for 12 months now) - guys like Scott Guthrie are out there telling the market what's to come - and there's that element of transparency going on all the way with Silverlight (by screenshots and feature lists being detailed before it's even available to developers).

And the winner will be..(not the public just yet) ?

So - it's going to be an interesting time over the next couple of years in the world of Web 2.0/3.0/RIA/IPTV etc. Microsoft are currently really suffering from the 'self inflicted' fragmentation caused by offering a lot of different developer platforms to the public - Silverlight for the Web, WPF + WinForms for desktops, CF.NET + XHTML for Mobiles, XNA for XBox360 + Zune, MCPL for MediaCenter - and the list goes on and on (and most of these are reliant on Windows being used for the development and proprietary devices/platforms being used for the runtime).

There's simply no unifying technology (other than .NET) in the Microsoft camp just yet - so makes it quite a poor value proposition for companies who want to invest in this new world. (and want some reuse across platforms with their investment)

In this respect - companies like Adobe and Apple are clearly winning - and via their 'lack of options' on offer - they are making the choices a lot simpler and clearer for both companies and consumers.

Hopefully technologies like Silverlight 2 (which are more developer friendly) can make it's mark and get some inroads on Flash. (and it's looking like the best bet so far out of all the Microsoft technologies on offer). All we need now is a release date for the full version (which is the real date when it can start to make this traction).

Windows Live Spaces - Comment Spam Issues..

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:37:03 GMT

I know it's an age old problem - but my blog has been severely targeted of late by spammers leaving their crap as comments.

Unfortunately - the Spaces system/team doesn't seem to be doing anything to prevent this from happening (even though it seems to the same 3 or 4 people repeatedly leaving the same stupid messages) - and to make things even more difficult - it takes about 3-4 clicks to get to the point where I can actually start to delete the unwanted comments from a single post. (and have to to do that 'per post' - rather than being able to go to one place and delete all the unwanted comments across posts).

There doesn't seem to be any 'moderated' comment system on Spaces - and the only option seems to be either to not allow comments - or prevent anonymous comments (which won't work either as these spammers seem to actually have 'hidden' spaces accounts/profiles). None of the common options provided on other blogging systems - such as typing in 'the code' (where an image is displayed containing rendered letters/numbers) seem to be offered either - and combined with developer SDK's - make it really too easy for people to abuse the system.

Just to top it off - the spaces terms/conditions also states that I as a blog writer am 'responsible' for anything posted in the comments section- which is really ludicrous given it's their own security holes and lack of implementation of what is standard on other blog systems that's allowing this to happen in the first place.

If I can find the time I will (try to) send an email to the spaces team explaining these problems - and how every other blogging system has dealt with it. (but given previous experience of having my blog delisted for the wrong reasons and then not being able to get it reinstated via leaving comments to the team - without pulling MVP strings - this might be a real waste of time).

I'm yet to find any 3rd party tools to assist with this spam removal (hopefully there's something out there). If I have to go to the effort of making my own tool (or trying to raise a response from a automated reply system here) - I might as well use that effort to move my space to another system (or host it myself).

Anyone with a spaces blog with any good ideas?

HDDVD Format officially discontinued by Toshiba

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:49:13 GMT

via Missing Remote : Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses

As per this article - the main backer of the HD-DVD format Toshiba has officially pronounced the format dead - and will immediately wind down shipments of players/recorders (and start carving up some of the IP created for other future technologies.)

Although there was only ever going to be one winner out of the BluRay vs HDDVD format war - I think this is a real pity for consumers - as I always preferred what HDDVD had to offer in terms of affordability (much cheaper recordable media) , extensibility (XML based interactivity layer instead of reliance on Java) plus the intention to allow for managed copies.

A bunch of early adopters who invested in the format already (either via purchasing the Toshiba players, the cheaper XBox360 addin drive, or the movies themselves) are going to be pretty disappointed. (and will be stacking these up near their Laser discs)...

Off Topic: Reconciliation at last for the Aboriginal people of Australia

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:37:21 GMT

I'm really happy to see the positive (and actual) steps being taken by the new Rudd (Labour) government today to finally apologize - and officially acknowledge to the Aboriginal people of Australia the immense wrong that was done to them.

The recently ousted Liberal government's 10 year refusal to say 'Sorry' has been one of many embarrassing things of late - where I sometimes feel 'ashamed' to be an Australian (along with the involvement in the Iraq invasion, the refusal to agree to environmental pacts like Kyoto - and the appalling treatment of asylum seekers and political refugees).

If you're a reader from overseas (and have never heard of this matter before) - for some more information - please see this article from news.com.au - Kevin Rudd Apologises to Stolen Generations

(the caption below from their front page sums it up quite well.)

" Sorry ... Kevin Rudd has apologised for the "profound grief, suffering and loss" inflicted on generations of indigenous Australians"

Also for some more context - an award winning movie called Rabit Proof Fence (made in 2002) touches on some of what went on (from the perspective of 3 young aboriginal children) - and might be available in your country. (and worth a watch to understand just how shocking the treatment of Aboriginals was in the past - and most shockingly occurred right up until about 25 years ago).

Hopefully - it's a sign of good/better things to come in Australia - and that we didn't trade-off our economy - to get this privilege (by voting Labour in - who are not known to be the best at managing the financial state of the country).

Big Screen Support Forum on www.xpmediacentre.com.au

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 05:36:57 GMT

Mike from www.xpmediacentre.com.au has generously setup a subforum for the "Big Screen" product range - on his popular Vista Media Center focused community forum.

The direct URL for this subforum is at : http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/big-screen-software/

The main idea of setting this subforum up - is to allow a discussion area for end users (and new users) to come in and provide feedback, ask questions and interact with me (and other community users) on the product range in general. (and I may even do some special promotions/offers/competitions for xpmediacentre.com.au users sometime in the future via this forum).

I'm really grateful for what Mike has provided - and hope this can also give users a more direct channel of communication/reply with myself (and other users) - and help continue shape the Big Screen Products to be better than ever - via their passion and great ideas (and the direct emails users have sent me - and previous discussions on this site on v1 products has played a huge part in driving the v2 products released over past couple of weeks - so here's proof already that it's been and continue to be worthwhile participating! And my thanks to everyone who did contribute).

Mike imported some of the previous threads/discussions to get things rolling (from the existing Vista Plugins & Addons section) - some of which became a little heated/passionate - myself a prime offender (and to be expected - since after all - we all love+hate our Media Centers - and the addins we either make or use - so some of these threads may not be for the feint hearted).

I'm going to also fix up the bigscreenglobal.com website (in some of the support/faq sections) + this blog over the weekend - to point at this new subforum - so please patient on that.

Also - a couple of quick items of interest (if you are a Big Screen User) - while I'm still in the middle of this 'support' migration :

Be sure to also check out some late breaking Big Screen Weather v2 support notes - if you were affected by the missing forecast data over past few days - if you were from one of Seattle, Salem, Olympia or Portland (which has now been fixed) - /or/ you are a European user that uses commas ',' instead of periods '.' for your Decimal Symbols (which I believe is the case for Finland and Belgium) - and results in most of the onscreen values being multiplied by x10. Support notes like this will most likely be migrated (or noted in one spot) on this new subforum as well (I'm still deciding on best placement of this sort of dynamic information).

Also note - the Discount Code offered in this post is also due to be removed (and disabled online) in about 24 hours (as mentioned - this was only being made available for 3-4 days to help test the new payment system - and things have run ultra smoothly so far without issues/errors) - so if you want to take up this extra special offer - there's not much time left. (although some other great MediaCenter sites such as thedigitallifestyle.com (+ MediaCenter Show Podcast) may be offering something along these lines soon (or even now.. 8)... keep an eye out there as well).

Big Screen v2 products now available for online/instant purchase.

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:35:26 GMT

After a few hiccups this week (which I'm assured won't happen again) - I'm happy to announce that the http://bigscreenglobal.com online payment system (and activation services) - are now live - and accessible to the general public!.

This means that you can purchase the "Big Screen v2" products right now (if you so desire) - otherwise as per past few days/weeks - and you're also welcome (and very much encouraged) to give them a test run for 30 days first (just to make sure you're 100% happy/comfortable with it)!

The currently available titles (more to come over next few weeks/months) - include :

Big Screen Photos v2 (USD$24.95 for full/unlimited version)
- instant access to hundreds of millions of online photos from Yahoo!® flickr™ - via your remote control.

Big Screen Weather v2 (USD$19.95 for full unlocked version with 2 yr data subscription).
- latest global weather observations, forecasts (3-7 day), imagery and loads more - with fast/efficient startup/download.

Please also note these products are 32 + 64 bit Vista Media Center compatible (no one is excluded!) - and is tested/working and optimized for not only XBox360 extenders - but also compliant with the new PIKA 2.0 extenders (and auto detects models from Linksys, D-Link etc)..

Please note that - in order to purchase a product - you will need to first sign up for a free account on bigscreenglobal.com (this is mainly to ensure we can contact you - if any problems occur in payments - or if we need to inform you about any product updates etc). Note that the signup process requires that we have a valid email address - (that can be confirmed via us issuing your initial password there) - a first name / country (you can make something up if you feel paranoid about us knowing how to 'address you' in the emails... ie. your welcome to call yourself 'fffdsfkjhdf' and say you're from Antarctica if you so desire).

Please note - that for your safety/security (and our 'legal peace of mind') - the bigscreenglobal.com system does not receive or record your credit card or paypal account details - (and is handled solely by Paypal). We do however receive a notification (while you're still on the paypal site - and funds have been confirmed) - where your serial number will be issued/upsized - and appropriate emails sent out to your registered address. As per above - Invoicing details etc - are sent via Paypal (and if you do have a Paypal account - which is not actually required - you can view the purchase details at a later date via the Paypal account management features on their site).

Once you have registered - you can start the 'Purchase Wizard' by clicking the icon - and going to the appropriate purchase page (here for Big Screen Weather v2 or here for Big Screen Photos v2). After you receive the confirmation page (which shows you the final price / allows for discount codes / and displays additional/important information) - you will then be taken accross to Paypal to complete the payment

/or/

For those of you who have already download/installed a trial version (or do so in future) - you can actually upsize/pay for the 'existing serial number' to be unlocked - and then using the inbuilt 'reverify/reactive function' (built into Big Screen v2 Media Center addins - inside the actual 10 foot UI) - you can unlock your existing installed version. (nice and easy!).. This also works if you're trial version has expired (so you can decide at a much later date to upsize / unlock the existing installed version if you haven't removed it yet - or still have your existing download/serial number saved locally).

Please also note (as highlighted on purchase page/site) - there's still some crossing of t's and and dotting of i's to do with some of the content/support literature on the site (and of course the products + site will always be a 'work in progress'). Given the Web 2.0/3.0? nature of these products (and reliance on numerous 'moving targets' such as 3rd party webservices / feeds etc) - the products offer a huge amount of functionality to offset any issues (so it's never intended they will be 100% working at all times - but rather 80%-99% operational - with features being improved with free/incremental updates as time progresses).

Anyhow - please enjoy - and again - I highly recommend you take the products for a 30 day spin to ensure you like them. (and appreciate the amount of work/effort that's gone into them - and the very low prices they are offered at!).

Media Center Show Awards 2007 - Streaming Live Wednesday (or Thurs. if you're an Aussie)..

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:15:55 GMT

As per Ian Dixon's Post (Media Center Show/ TheDigitalLifestyle.com) the 2007 Media Center show awards are going to be streamed LIVE on ustream.tv at on Wednesday 6th 8pm GMT (12pm PST). This will be the first Live Awards show that Ian's done (normally the podcasts are pre-recorded - although he's recently had some video's go out live in this manner) - and it's a really great idea! (and hope to see more content done like this).

Hopefully Ian's not going to be involving any "small children or animals" - given the live nature of the show (although I hear some developers and the like might make an appearance - so 'expect the unexpected'... ).

Please see this link below for more information...

The Media Center Show Awards - Live Wednesday!

For any Australian + New Zealand listeners/readers - this is somewhere between 4-9am Thursday (7th) Morning (depending on where you live - given the vast distances... and I think it's maybe around 7-8am for Melbournians + Sydneysiders..) - as unfortunately Ian has to cater for everyone across the globe...(and us poor deprived Australians are only a small % of listeners).... However I'm sure if Ian can make it at a more 'Australian friendly' time next year - we might be able to 'rustle up' some 'cricket' coaching for his fellow countrymen in return... 8)

Ouch my website (worst outages in 6 years).. please be patient...

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:04:59 GMT

*** UPDATE ************************************************************************************
Services seem to have been resumed to bigscreenglobal.com (and has been stable for at last past 1.5 hrs) - so hopefully everything is fixed (am yet to receive confirmation that It's not on a backup link). Please also note that the US National Weather Service also appears to be suffering from some issues today - potentially from same root cause (and few of the US forecasts - such as 'Seattle' - don't currently have forecast data) - so please be patient there - or select a nearby city until the data is returned to normal (as it appears only a small % of the US locations have been affected by this).
**********************************************************************************************

For anyone trying to access the bigscreenglobal.com and/or mobilewares.net websites today (or trying to use the Big Screen Weather v2 product) - there's been an almost a continuous outage for past 12 hours (with small patches of uptime) - and I'm 'told' may continue for a few more hours yet. I do apologize for this - however unfortunately it's completely beyond my control from all the way 'down under' ..

This is without doubt the longest downtime I've seen in 6 years with hosting at this company (Brinkster.com - a very large/well known webhost providor) - so I imagine it's currently affecting 100,000's of sites at the moment. (so at least I'm not alone). I'm told that the cause is that their Phoenix hosting facility (where these sites live) is serviced by a backbone providor 'Level 3' - which is where the problem lies - and is trying to fix this issue (and are switching traffic on/off backup links in the meantime - hence the sparodic bursts of the site working). In the past - the odd website outages I've experienced have generally lasted at most 5-10 minutes or so (and worst case scenarios I've had to contact Brinkster tech support and get them to reboot a server/router etc to fix the issues).

So please be patient if you are trying to signup for accounts/access the site or are trying to use Big Screen Weather 2 - or 'activate' any of the v2 products. (and is just rotten timing for me and users with the new brand/domain/product launch over the past few days). Luckily I didn't yet flick the 'on' switch for payments / and the various online ad/banner campaigns were not yet active (and due to start over next few days).

The good news however is that the live payment system is ready (which uses Paypal Merchant Services - to ensure security + safety of payments) - and some last minute testing was finalized yesterday (just a few hours shy of the outages). As soon as I can confirm that the Backbone problems are fixed (and temporary routes are no longer in place) - I will be enabling payments - and will offer a temporary 'Discount' code on this blog for Weather v2 and Photos v2 for those of you who are 'ready to make a purchase' - and brave enough to 'crash test' the payment system. (and provide any feedback on the payment process in general). So keep your eye out here for the code (which will be active for a 2-3 day window).

Also .. luckily - it appears that email services for these sites are 'mostly' in tact (albeit some delays might occur in sending) - and am not sure if this is due to them running from a different facility / or priority being given to emails over web services (with the limited backup links being used)... Also - luckily I still have this blog here (on Live! Spaces - not connected to my actual websites) - to notify/inform everyone what is going on... <phew>..

Over the next few weeks - one thing I'm going to be looking at - is ways to make some of these online services redundant (such as the Weather2 backend and activation services) - so the products are able to switch over to alternative servers/domains if problems like this ever exist in the future.

Launched: bigscreenglobal.com + v2 products..

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:46:34 GMT

As of a few minutes ago - I flicked the 'proverbial off switch' on mobilewares.net - and started redirecting traffic to the new brand + website - http://bigscreenglobal.com .

Along with this new site - comes the official "final" / public releases of Big Screen Photos v2 and Big Screen Weather v2 (previously made available to some brave souls/testers earlier this month) - which everyone can now download and try without requiring any special 'Invitation' codes. (or requiring me to do any 'manual' activations etc from my end... in fact I'll be lying on a beach in Tahiti till further notice... - just kidding...).

In order to download the new products - users are required to first create an account on bigscreenglobal.com (and provide a valid email address so the site can send you a default password) - which only takes a couple of moments. Once you're registered - accessing/downloading the full products is really quick - and serial numbers / download links are issued on the fly. There's also a bunch of 'smarts' on the site - so you can do things like retrieve lost passwords, and have product registration links/downloads sent to your email address. (if you so desire).

In some of the initial testing performed over past month - there's been the odd email server that decided to reject emails from my new domain (hence the initial email verification as part of signup) - so if you're having any problems signing up (and you don't receive your initial welcome/password email within a few moments/minutes) - try to use a different email address and see if that solves the problem.

How do I buy the full versions of Big Screen ......?

Although the online payment/activation system is now functioning/working (using Paypal's Merchant Services) - I'm yet to enable this for the general public - as I'm still making 1000% sure that there isn't any glitches with some of the non-standard payment methods supported by Paypal (that could be complex to undo - depending on how/where payment was made). Note that it's not actually required that you have a Paypal account (and you will be able to do credit card payments without signing up to PayPal) - however having one may allow you to better manage your invoices/transactions with bigscreenglobal and other purchases you may make with other providors.

Note however - due to the funky - 'reverify registration' features built into the v2 products - if you do decide to take the splash and purchase the full products - you won't need to reinstall anything at all (and you can unlock/upsize your 'trial' product from inside the Media Center UI - using your remote control - once payment has been completed/confirmed online...)

Where's Big Screen ......?

- Big Screen Headlines v2 isn't quite ready for public consumption (due to some behind the scenes requirements/deals being finalized - which currently impacts what the final installer will look like) - so please be patient - and I hope to have this available online shortly as well.

- Big Screen Contacts (v2) - Coming Soon! I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot and provide any dates on this - but promise it will be soon..

- Big Screen Movies / TV Series - as before - please don't ask where these are (and are still *not* anywhere near the top of the to-do list). Once you see the new products/website and amount of work gone into these new v2 products - I hope you'll understand and appreciate where the effort has gone over the past few months - and understand that in order to make the Big Screen range fly - the 'specialist/enthusiast' products (which require lots of behind the scenes licensing to be sorted out) - are not the current priority. (and it's the broader/family + legal friendly products which are the focus).

Still a "Work In Progress" . . . .

Please note that there's still some work to be done on the new site - and some of content you see is 'temporary' (ie. full online support/documentation is still being finalized) - and as such - users may experience a few 'server resource is unavailable' messages if I'm right in the middle of uploading a page. (and if you see this - please wait a couple of moments and refresh the page).

The current banner ads are also very temporary (and I think even contain some horrid spelling + grammatical mistakes designed to make any English professor walk off in disgust) - so expect to see these being recycled/changed over the coming weeks.

Similarly - some of the multi-lingual translations offered in the v2 products will be a continuous - "work in progress" (and are definitely not considered 100%) - and the main aim of providing these translations is to enable non English / non Technical members of the family to enjoy/use these products as well (once installed by someone in the family that can cope with some English/Technical information - which would be 'you'...).

Anyhow - I hope you enjoy the new sites and products - and those of you who are seeing/using these for the first time (and were patiently waiting) - appreciate all the hard work that's gone into these... (and maybe even decide to buy one of them..)..

As before - stay tuned for more information + product announcements on here - or on http://bigscreenglobal.com ...

Big Screen Updates and other News..

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:02:05 GMT

I've been neglecting this blog again - so thought I'd post some brief news bits about some of the action going on here at the moment ..

Big Screen Weather 2 + Photos 2 have both been locked down for commercial release - and are now considered 'final releases'. Big Screen Headlines 2 will follow shortly. These will be the first 3 titles launched under the new 'v2' range of Big Screen titles.
A new website + brand combined with online membership system, registration/license management, and online purchasing have been deployed. About 100 brave (site) beta testers have already been giving this system (and final releases) a workout since Tuesday - and so far so good and there's been no problems at all. It was important for me to stagger the influx of users in this manner - rather then having to fix something when the users register en masse. This was due to me completely writing the entire online system from scratch with .NET and SQL Server (and I didn't use any of the portal kits like DNN, Community Server etc as none met my requirements and most perform appallingly under heavy load).

The actual site content (product sites, updated screenshots, faq's, support docs etc) - are still being finished - however since this the 'easy' bit (and no 'sensitive' functionality is being carried out) - the main focus of testing has been all the above account related functionality. (like end to end trial registration, purchase and upgrade - which can be done without reinstalling the addin)

The new site address etc will be revealed soon - I'm hoping mid next week for the official launch (keep in mind EVERYTHING has to be deployed/enabled simultaneously - so this makes it a little more challenging)... If you're adventurous - there's been some leaks already -(however you need special invite codes to register for anything)
The above Big Screen products are tested with one of the popular new PIKA 2.0 Extender reference designs (which is similar/same for Linksys, Dlink, Samsung, HP etc) - and 'automatically configure' themselves so they are not tripped up by the various 'documented' and 'undocument' MCPL rendering ~~bugs~~ issues. This is done both on a 'high level' (ie. on/off switches for things like 3d and animations accessible to the end user - so they can override auto detect settings if fw/vmc updates are made in future) - and 'low level' (numerous changes made to the MCML to avoid situations where these 'issues' would arise). The auto detect/configure features are designed to work silently (user doesn't need to click through any additional configuration - or even understand these settings) - and it's been thoroughly tested with multiple extenders at once (and 'per device' settings are maintained).

This 'extender' compliance/detection excercise threw me sideways for at least 2 weeks (since just before XMas) - and there was little to no accurate information available to help out - so I think the new Big Screen products could quite possibly be one of very few (or only) VMC 3rd party apps which are truely extender friendly/working.
The 'MCPL' online showcase has also been updated to reflect new titles being offered. If your a developer 'purist'- you'll appreciate that I'm actually now dynamically generating the MCML online showcase content off the same underlying .NET code/data that drives the new website (which is HTML). A similar experience to the MCPL online showcase is also being made in Silverlight - so when underlying content is changed - all Front ends will change immediately - which will be sortof a .NET tripple-play (same .NET CMS driving the 10 foot and Rich/Static Web experiences offered by Silverlight and HTML). It will of course allow new products to be added into the catalog quickly and easily (without disrupting online users and making deployment a lot easier).
Big Screen Weather v1 (which was freeware and only useful for Australians) was officially 'discontinued' yesterday. The handfull of users that made 'donations' to this product have all been awarded full versions (and some are already up and running - and are the first guys in the world to have the full unlocked versions of weather 2).
OEM Enquiries. I should also mention - that if any OEM Dealers are interested in immediately purchasing licenses (and preinstalling these products on their systems) - these are available right now for bulk purchase / and serial numbers can be issued (if you are comfortable with the new site not being online for a few more days). OEM Discounts/Bundles are currently available in '10 unit packs' (minimum purchase per title) - so suit small through to very large companies. (And substantial discount scale is available the larger the volumes). If you want to know more (before new site is launched) - please contact me.

Also in other Media Center news -

CES 08 is done... There's some great coverage/opinions/videos (and more) on both Ian Dixon's and Chris Laniers blogs - so check those out. Unfortunately - there wasn't a whole lot of news on the Media Center front (mainly MediaRoom news - which is essentially the 'ip based paytv' version of MediaCenter offered via set top box) - however a couple of new extenders (not previously shown at digital life last year) - were revealed - one from HP (a standalone version of their TV Extender which has removable storage capabilities) - and another from Samsung.

Samsung's extender looks really nice (without doubt the nicest form factor out of the lot) - but there's a problem - "Not Everyone's Invited" (sorry couldnt resist) - and it only works on Samsung TV's (as all remote control input is handled by the Samsung TV and then passed back to the extender). If I owned a Samsung TV right now (nope I don't) - I'd probably be feeling pretty smug right now as it looks to be a nice option.

Like many VMC users - I'm still very keen on the idea of an extender with Blu-Ray or HD-DVD capabilities - so hopefully does one of these soon! (however HDDVD received an almighty blow at CES - so it's looking really shakey for that standard right now).
I've been very slack in terms of reporting on other 3rd party VMC software releases of late (I can barely keep up with my own news) - so thought I'd mention a couple of products that have appeared over past couple of months :
- Media Center 'Health Monitor' from Ian Dixon is a really innovative new addin/website/service combination - which essentially allows you to monitor the status of VMC locally and from remote. (No need to rush home anymore to see if VMC crashed while recording your favorite show). If you want to check it out head here for more info.
- MC Organizer for Vista Media Center (Double B Computers) - which is a hot new front end to playing media/dvd's/movies - and has the ability to work with external metadata . I'm yet to give this one a workout - but I love the fact (from the screenshots) that the author is trying to do something different with the UI and Layout (looks really nice too!) - and not just basing it on the usual suspect templates ("Z", "MCMLLookalike"/"PivotSample" etc).

Anyhow - back to the grindstone .. keep your eyes peeled for the impending announcements/launch of the Big Screen v2 range.

Media Center happenings at CES 08...

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 02:31:06 GMT

CES 08 is alive and kicking and there's sure to be a lot of Media Center related news and announcements over the next few days (some of which have already been leaked..).

I was really hoping to make it this year - but a number of things kept it from happening this year (including health, busy workload and the obscene prices of traveling from AU to Vega in early January) .

It looks like the Media Center action will happen mainly around showing off the new extenders (Linksys, Dlink and HP) - and you can probably expect a large dose of MediaRoom related news (is this where the focus of the Microsoft TV Platform team went in 07?). Bill Gates upcoming keynote will set the pace as always - and will be his last appearance in his current role.

If you want to keep in check of the news as it happens - be sure to keep an eye on - Ian Dixon/Digital Lifestyle Blog. Ian's just landed in Vegas (all the way from UK) - and will be reporting on the spot from CES08. I'm also looking forward to checking out the Digital Lifestyle Video Show segments (which will feature some of the CES action and MediaCenter related interviews/previews).

Seasons Greetings to all readers...

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:56:02 GMT

Well it's that time of year again - and I wanted to extend my 'seasons greetings' to everyone out there (and you families too). I wanted to also thank readers out there for all the fantastic support + feedback on this blog throughout the year - and while I've been unable to blog as much as I'd have liked this year (due to heavy work load) - user participation has kept it going. (and have had over 200,000 views since this time last year).

The big screen guy unfortunately doesn't get to take break these holidays - but he still found some time to do a number with those elves - and showed that whilst there's still lot's of coding to do - he's still got some swift moves.

Click Here to Check it out >>>>

Launched (well nearly) : Big Screen Photos v2 Final Version

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:50:46 GMT

As of this morning - Big Screen Photos v2 'Final Version' (aka R10) was finished from a 'functional' point of view.

The current release has been fully tested with Vista 32bit, Vista 64bit and XBox360 Extenders - and works for both Widescreen (16:9, 16:10 etc) - and Letterbox displays (Widescreen is highly recommend for the optimal experience).

There's still a couple of changes outstanding (before I will make it completely public) - namely :

- Refining the non-english languages for the new MultiLingual UI (the English is perfect - translations are still very incomplete in some areas and being 'looked at' still by some very helpful folk). The language files can easily/quickly inserted into the current version once these are ready (so no code changes to be had).

- testing on new 'PIKA' extender devices (no - I <sob> don't have one yet - other than a XBox360 - and aren't completely sure when one will arrive..). If you've been following some of the news about extenders - you'll know that although they are 'equal' - some are 'more equal' in regards to how they handle things like Animations and 3D (and have a number of other differences from the XBox360). Just how 'unequal' they are remains to be seen - and I've included some new 'device' specific settings in the addins to try to handle this 'in advance' (and at least give XBox360 users the chance to make use of all the glorious 3D/Animation they have to offer - rather than 'disabling it' on all extenders).

How Much... When...

Ok - as you'll see from a screen below - the full version of Big Screen Photos 2 will be a measly USD$24.95. how cheap is that..8). Unless any bugs are spotted in the next few days - those who actually want to purchase a copy (and don't have a new extender - or want perfect multilingual translations) - will be able to do so in the next couple of weeks (and of course will be able to upgrade to any new versions which address these issues).

A 30 Day Trial period will be offered for those not yet wishing to make a purchase (and are at the 'just checking it out - seeing if it fits their needs' phase).

In the very short term - I will simply rig up the paypal system for payments - and in the next few weeks - will have a much better solution in place (with fully automated license activations etc - initially I may need to go in and flick a switch on my website after a purchase is made).

Can I have it now?...

Ok - one other thing of mention is that there is a whole new (sophisticated?) membership/registration system on my website (currently hidden from the public). So this is also being given a workout over next few days (before everything launches).

So if you're willing to be a 'crash test dummy' - and want to help simultaneously test the online registration/signup process (which might be wobbly too!) - and get access to the final release of Photos 2 (and the other new v2 titles very soon) - please do the following - and I'll hopefully send you an email in next couple of days with the info/links -

- Send me a direct email (if you have my email address) - or use the Spaces Messing system here to send me online mail.
- Please ensure you include a 'valid reply email address' (and the same one you want to sign up with) - so I don't have to email you back on Spaces - and can recognize who you are when you've logged in (and maybe even give you some discounts, freebies if you're well behaved).

Whats new for the final Release

I've added a bunch of new things (there was a huge amount of really great - 'can you add feature x' requests - which have fed into this) - and hope to continue to add some of the more complex requests in future (like local content support with full metadata/geotagging capabilities). So a big thanks to everyone who participated/contributed to this. (and hope to reward you with early access, discounts, freebies - well lets see what I can do there..)..

Some New features/fixes/enhancements that made it to the R10 release :

Multi Lingual Support. Currently 5 languages are supported (rather poorly right at this moment ... but will be substantially improved for release). Please keep in mind that I'm only "MonoLingual" - so this is a pretty challenging task - and would appreciate patience from end users (that's if you don't include 'geek' plus the 40 or more programming dialects I've picked up over the years).

Screenshots below show some different screens in different languages. The Keyboard has an alternate charset toggle (like a symbol mode) - which brings up all the latin/euro letters you could possibly need (until I add the Scandinavian languages that is).. Of course a lot of content on flickr is in English (titles, tags, descriptions won't be translated of course) - but there's still lots of multilingual content (apart from your own) that you can look at.

5 x Slideshow Effects. Horizontal/Vertical Slides, Fade, Continuous Zoom and 3d Flip. I need to actually make a video (or you need to try it out) to see what they look like. (pictured below is the options screen).

Enhanced GeoBrowser and Digital Frames with 2D support (Extender Friendly). Via the new device settings menu - you can disable the 3d panning in the geobrowser (and it adjusts the UX to provide 2d zooming/scaling/panning instead).

The screenshots below show some of this in action. The Config page allows you to quickly set these parameters (those no way yet to auto detect this information as yet - but I'm still hunting..). The digital photo frames below is almost identical - except you don't get the rotating carousel (the small thumbnails) without 3D enabled (the rest is actually 2d 'dressed' as 3d so isn't impacted).

When you disable 3d support - the Geo Browser uses 2d mode instead (screenshot on right).

Lots of Usability fixes. Namely anything to do with scrollers/browsing of lists, changing sizes/groups etc has now been sorted. Before - if you were at end of a list and you made it smaller (by changing the tile size) - it would scroll of screen. I've now sorted out proper management - and made work a whole lot better (and not have this issue).
Registration/VersionCheck/Upgrade/More.. Wizards built in. Similar to new UX found in Big Screen Headlines2/Weather2 - instead of the crappy click through boxes in R9 - this provides a much nicer experience for configuration.

The screens below show off a couple of these wizards. The Reverification Wizard also allows you to instantly update the registration details on your current version (without any reinstallation). This is useful for users who are using a trial version and purchase the full release.

There's even a lovely Nag screen that will randomly appear on some loads - to remind you to purchase the full version (while you are a trial user). You might find this amusing the first couple of times - but trust me - it might in fact be an 'annoying nag screen' by the time you've been using the trial for a while (what better encouragement huh).

Unfortunately - I can't yet accept any transactions via the MCE interface (and am not clear whether users would feel comfortable entering sensitive payment information in MediaCenter anyhow - and not using a trusted providor). However if you pay online- you can quickly 'reverify' your current install (nothing to do) - and it will transform into the full release.

Supports up to 5 flicker user accounts (I may even remove the limitation completely).
Fast Loading/Bootup time (no OK dialogs / Clickable splash screens anymore). The first time you boot you will be taken directly to language selection and the activation wizard. Once you're done - loading the addin and getting to the main menu is very fast (a couple of seconds normally if the DLL has been preloaded). If you're a trial user - as mentioned above the nag screen will bug you every few boots.

Nice quite/subtle Splash Screen (no more loud productions or vertigo at the start) and is only visible for a second or two.

Faster/Easier installation. Combined with the simplicity of registration from the new mobilewares online site - things like entering the serial number are done during the MSI Setup phase (rather than the user needing to launch it afterwards in R9). There's also some new smarts which allow you to perform activation and other startup tasks directly from the extender (without needing to first run it on the console due to security issues).
Lots of other minor bug fixes. (Too many to mention)

I will make some more announcements over the coming days - and hopefully open up the online registration/trial system to everyone.

Stay tuned...

"Ten HD" launching this Saturday..

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 04:32:38 GMT

As mentioned previously on this blog - the Australian TV Networks are starting to launch breakaway 'HD' channels (rather than just simulcasting HD + upconverted SD content) - and this Saturday the 16th Network Ten (10) will be launching their own channel.

Some details were released about a week ago (sample Guide included) - and it's looking like this new offering from Ten will be really worthwhile for Australian viewers. (with over 50+ hours of unique HD content per week)

Some of the highlights include :

- Time shifted News from 5:00pm to 5:30pm (this is actually really useful for me as we quite often eat at 5:30pm - and have to wait until 6pm otherwise).

- Breakaway programming during the weekday afternoons (HD documentries) at 10:30pm each night - HD movies plus drama series like Veronica Mars (previously taken off air down here) - Over There and The Shield.

- Sci Fi Thursdays (was going to be Saturday initially). This includes new episodes of Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood, The 4400, etc.. Breakaway viewing will start at 7:30pm on this night (normally 10:30pm). Hopefully the HD Movie they show on Thursdays will also be Sci Fi as well...

- When simulcasting - TEN HD claims to have HD versions of nearly all the latest US/Imported shows - plus will simulcasting all home/away footy matches next year in HD.

As with previous HD transmissions - shows will be broadcast in 1080i (with 5.1 DD).

Rival network Seven's HD channel (already launched a couple of months ago) hasn't been too impressive so far (for some reason HDTV has meant showing a whole bunch of episodes of 'The Grid' and 'That 70s Show' - which isn't even widescreen - and the odd matinee movie). This channel however seems to be evolving - and by looking at this weeks guide - they seem to be adding a lot of extra content. (maybe now that there's some impending competition).

Channel Nine ("Me Too" HD) are still yet to reveal their hand - but promise it will be "everything everyone else's is and then better" - (ok these weren't the exact words but was something vaguely along those lines)... no known launch date for this one as yet. If Channel 9 actually pulled all those really great shows they are sitting on out of the closet (as TEN are doing) - and treated viewers with respect for a change (so they have some comfort that the show won't suddenly be pulled, shown 2 hours late without warning, or moved to 3:00am etc) - they could actually have a winner.

Work In Progress : Big Screen Weather 2 (global)

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 05:36:25 GMT

A new product that's been keeping me busy is an update to Big Screen Weather for Vista Media Center ('v2') - and this time around - it's been designed with global users in mind. (The past 2 incarnations of this product : Big Screen Weather v1 + Big Screen Portal were for Australians only).

As with the other 'v2' products from the 'Big Screen' Range - Weather v2 started off as a simple update - and then as it developed - turned into something completely new (with most of the original v1 code being 'shown the door')..

A quick summary of what 'Big Screen Weather v2' provides :

Latest Detailed Global Weather Observations (for over 5000 locations worldwide - including Europe, Asia, Africa, N/S America, Australasia)
Forecasts (3-7 day) for over 4000 locations worldwide
Satellite Imagery, Animated Radar Loops (US + Australia only) and Charts - with a preset catalog of over 1400 images.
'TV Weather' style Geo Browsing of worldwide observations - with panning and zooming to locations (Continent, Region, Country and State levels).
MultiLingual UI and Weather data (9 languages) : English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish + Danish. (DBCS + RTL Language support such as Hebrew + Japanese are planned for Q1 next year).

Since a picture tells a thousand words - here's some screenshots (and a thousand words)..

click on these to zoom to large versions >>

The main menu (below x2 screenshots) - features a similar main menu system to Big Screen Headlines 2 - and allows you to scroll left/right to reveal different data (without leaving the main menu) - and then click through to more information. (if desired). As with 'TV Style' weather reports - the animations and various transitions are a highlight (but I really need to do a videocast of this so you can see how this looks) - and in the main menu below the waves/clouds appear to be rolling towards you (and looks like a video is being played).

Clicking through to the Observation (below left) or Forecast (below right) reveals much more detailed information. The actual data/sections and # days displayed in these screens is determined by the source/type of the data (some locations may only provide 3+1 days forecast).

Big Screen weather displays both Imperial (US) and Metric (SI) measurements (your choice) - and this includes not only temperatures (Celcius <> Fahrenheit) - but all other types of measurements that get displayed (ie. HectoPascals <> Inches/Mercury, MPH<>KPH<>KNTS etc ).

There's lots of new imagery available for global users (in form of charts/satellites etc). However - US + Australian users also get a bunch more to look at - such as animated radar loops (rainfall and more).

The 'Geo Browsing' features allow you fly/zoom/pan around the world to view latest observations - to create a 'TV Style' experience. This is similar to the one found in Big Screen Photos 2 - except that its Content/Region/Country/Zone/State based selection/zooming rather than being a grid system).

As you zoom in and out more/less locations are revealed (so that you don't get a screen full of clutter). This part took quite a significant amount of effort to get going (ie. in some counties like US there was 2000+ locations - so some various algorithms, and a manual editor was used to refine the lists down to know at what point to reveal what location - and to know how to position/rotate the label so it didn't overlap with other locations).

One of the big new features was support for 9 different languages. Initially - just a basic translation of the UX was intended (ie. Buttons/Headings) - but as things progressed - it was clear more was needed. In case of Weather v2 - the actual descriptions of Conditions (for Observations + Forecasts) needed to be translated - as did the names of continents, countries, states and Cities (which all have different variations depending on where you are). There's still a little bit of work to be done on the translations - but most of it is now sorted (Thanks to some help from some friends/associates around the globe - plus some really great resources/databases on the internet).

The pictures below show off the Translations in action (UX, PlaceNames, Descriptions) :

Weather Data

In terms of data/backends etc - one signficant change to Big Screen Weather 2 (in comparison to other Big Screen Products) - is that I am generating/processing/hosting the raw weather data on the mobilewares server. This allows end users to quickly download huge amounts of data in a fraction of the time/effort/data normally required (and the addin does this on each load or preset schedule - rather than continuously needing to load data).

For example - the entire dataset for 'latest' global forecasts/observations is less than 40k (after being compressed/encrypted - its about the size of a small jpg) - and is derived from over 100mb's of raw data (which would be quite a headache for an end user to download/process). The backend processing from the raw numerical data (rather than getting some weather.com xml feed etc) - also gives me the opportunity to easily translate / isolate all sorts of data (which wouldn't be possible if I just had entire descriptions of conditions).

The other benefit of this is that it serves as a buffer to any backend data sources changing (as happened with some of the image sources in Big Screen Weather v1) - as the backend site in the middle will know about/monitor and adapt quickly to these sort of issues (without any updates for the end user). This mobilewares backend will also be made redundant (so that any outages can be handled by another website hosted in a different location - again without the user noticing/caring).

This part of the project was pretty interesting (and complex) - but I now know how weather forecasts/observations that I see on the telly are made (and now know all sorts of terms/structures such as METARS, TAFS, GRIB etc etc and how to turn raw data into human readable weather information).

Availability

So you're probably wondering - when can I play with/have this (and the other v2 products)? As with the previous v2 product beta's - I'll just be keeping it to a very small handful of testers until it's ready for the public.

There's a lot of hard work going on down here at the moment - and part of the grand plan is that these v2 products (weather2, photos2 and headlines2) will be launched at same time (early Jan 2008) - and be available for purchase from the mobilewares site. (and trial versions will also be offered to the general public at that point).

There's some good (commercial) reasons behind these dates (and why multilingual translations are being done) - and hopefully will be able to reveal all this in the coming weeks too.

Off-Topic: Ouch - my leg..

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:31:28 GMT

I've been hobbling around in pain like an invalid for the past few days (with the calf on my left leg swollen like a watermelon). I initially assumed it was most likely a muscle injury - or at worst some sort of reaction to a spider/insect bite - but after 4 days it seemed to be getting worse not better- and I finally ended up going and seeing a local GP (Doctor) to make sure.

Luckily I chose to see a GP - and not a Physiotherapist (as originally planned) - as after a quick inspection - it turned out I had a suspected case of 'DVT' (Deep Vein Thrombosis - the blot clotting problem traditionally linked with going on long flights etc). After the GP spent a few frantic minutes on the phone trying to get me in for some urgent treatment (and some ultrasound scans) - I was quickly sent to my local hospital - where I received a couple of DVT injections 'just in case' (as ultrasound dept was already closed for the day). The Doc looked pretty worried and basically said if it was DVT - without immediate treatment - there was a very high chance of the clot going to my lungs/heart (which would be potentially fatal).

Today - I went back in first thing for the Ultrasound and it was confirmed I did in fact have DVT (and a nice big clot just below my left knee). Noone is quite sure how it occured (as I hadn't been on any flights or long journeys for at least 3.5 months) - and the only possible cause is the amount of time I spend at my desk working (and not moving much). Although I do try to take a short break every hour or so - I sometimes get lost in what I am doing and the hours can really fly past unnoticed.

So as of lunchtime today - I was officially 'checked' in as a patient to the local hospital for the next week and a bit... however luckily for me - I actually get out of staying there - as a nurse will be coming to my house/office daily to give me my 'shots' - and perform blood tests etc on me whilst here (so they can monitor my progress). The initial round of treatments will be for approx 7-10 days - however if the clot hasn't gone after that - I'm told this daily treatment will be extended for another 3 months..and then 8 months... and then.. (well hopefully it's well and truely gone before then)..

DVT is apparently reasonably common for elderly people - but at my age (34) - its quite unusual - and is a bit of a wake up call for me to get myself healthy (ie. currently I'm a smoker, I work very very long hours, only sleep 5/6 hrs, am underweight etc )..

So this NYE I think there will need to be some resolutions and some lifestyle changes to be made... and luckily I'm still here to make them...