Details are still sparse regarding device support, and they aren't giving an exact date, but finally we'll have a decent Internet-delivered content option around these parts. Of course, expect Canada's ridiculous content rules to be applied.

Read more at the Financial Post, and sign-up to be informed when the service goes live.

Personally, I can hardly wait to get my own WP7 device. My iPhone is starting to look a little weak by comparison...

Although Microsoft is poised to release Windows Phone 7 -- essentially a clean break from their legacy smart phone line-up, based on new technology, such as Silverlight and XNA -- the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS shares lineage with Windows Embedded CE, the OS at the core of many hand-held devices such as those used in POS scanners, or by, say, courier services.

It is time for Microsoft to re-think their smart phone offering to better compete with iPhone and Android, but they practically own the market on embedded devices, and neither need to, nor should, step away from it, or even re-think it drastically. Fortunately, Windows Mobile 6.5 has a new life as Windows Embedded Handheld.

Windows Embedded itself has been re-aligned significantly as well, and it should be noted that much of the product line is now, essentially, the full Windows -- customized for a compartmentalized install: Windows Embedded Standard is really just Windows 7, while Windows Embedded Server is really Windows Server 2008.
Windows Embedded Handheld, however, remains based on the CE core, and traditional Windows CE and Windows Mobile apps can live on, and continue development, on this technology. Meanwhile new technology layers, including Silverlight, are being added to Windows Embedded Handheld to keep the platform evolving -- much as Windows Phone 7 evolves the core with new technologies.

If this is all confusing, don't be concerned -- its taken awhile for the roadmap to resolve itself. Microsoft, however, is finally in a position to execute on each of its competencies in multiple categories of portable and embedded devices -- from simple scanners, through next-gen smart phones, to multi-touch Slates. Here's a quick chart to clarify:

OS X + AppleTV

To start with, the Apple TV is a good iTunes Store device. If you're happy consuming only the content Apple offers through their store, and want a way to get it on your TV, its a good solution.
No one gets all their content through iTunes, though, so enter the Patchstick. With it you can unlock Apple TV's OS X potential, allowing SMB or AFS file sharing with your computer, run an app called Sapphire to put a pretty face on your media library, and even install Boxee to get access to a number of additional Internet-delivered content providers.

Hacked, the Apple TV is a very useful device, and as long as you don't mind trailing Apple's updates by a couple weeks to a couple months, using it along-side a Mac and an iPhone/iPod touch its a elegant and cohesive solution -- most of the time. Add an Airport Express or two in some other rooms, and you have a whole-home music and video set-up.

The biggest complaint I had is that the FrontRow experience pales compared to the Apple TV. In our set-up the computer doubled as the bedroom media center, and while it was nice that both the home theater and our bedroom could share the same media, the experience lost cohesiveness at the computer...

On the Mac -- the more powerful device -- we'd frequently be switching between FrontRow, the Finder and iTunes to manage content. I couldn't imagine using a Mac as a home-theater-only device; you constantly need to pick up the keyboard and mouse. The Mac itself was essentially unaware of the AppleTV, save for syncing content. And FrontRow is essentially unaware of the iTunes Store. Its like Apple isn't really sure where an actual computer fits into the scenario.
I used a Rube-Goldberg device of RSS > Google Reader > Google Reader Notifier > Transmission BitTorrent client to get my subscription-delivered content -- a fragile chain that broke not infrequently -- and an AppleScript scheduled via iCal to keep the file system clear of stale content.

Updates on the Apple TV became a management nightmare -- the device is under-powered to begin with, so every couple months it would need a wipe and restore. When that happens, expect to carve out a couple hours to get the hacks back into place. On top of that, the stinking device doesn't have an On/Off switch, so I had to co-ordinate timers and CRON jobs to keep it healthy and prevent it from sucking through my power bill.

Don't get me wrong. Its workable. Its lightyears ahead of what your cable company offers. And it is pretty slick when its all working - no one can accuse Apple of making ugly UIs. It looks good. If you already have a Mac, you can pick up an AppleTV for pretty cheap, and get started at a reasonably low cost. But since you can't do much without hacking, this isn't a solution I'd expect my parents to use.

WMC 7 + XBox Media Center Extender

The reason I've stayed away from Windows Media Center, and its Extenders, in the past, is that I'd constantly hit a brick wall trying to use content not natively supported. It felt cludgy, and its use of what was essentially Remote Desktop Protocol just seemed like a half-hearted attempt.

A lot has changed in Windows 7. It natively supports MP4, and DivX AVIs, so right out of the box it plays almost anything you throw at it -- no hacking needed. Its still pretty much RDP under the hood, but that technology has matured to the point where you don't even notice it any more. In fact, because it ensures a consistent experience between the Extender and the PC, its actually a good thing.

The approach is different than the Apple TV -- the Extender is a function of the computer. While the AppleTV can do things that FrontRow can't do, in the Microsoft scenario, the Extender is somewhat dumb. Turns out, this is fine. I expect my PC to be more powerful than my TV. But there's not a whole lot of compromise. Some of the Extras don't appear on my TV, and a few menu options are left out when shown on the Extender. Otherwise, the experience is the same.

The two most important things about Windows Media Center are that it's consistent across devices, and it's extensible across devices:

• It's so consistent that I can pause a movie downstairs on the big TV, go upstairs and resume the show where I left off from the bedroom.
• It's so extensible that I don't have to hack it to add plug-ins, or new functionality -- I just run an installer on my PC, and both it, and my Extender device are instantly upgraded.

A low-end XBox costs less than an Apple TV, is way more powerful and responsive, has an Off switch, and oh ya... it plays great games too. Everything "just works" together: you plug it in, follow a pairing process no more complicated than the Apple TV requires, and within seconds all your content -- regardless of source -- is available. There are dozens of online content providers built right into Windows Media Center, and others can be added on simply by even a novice computer user.

I use a uTorrent on the PC with the RSS functionality built-in for my subscribed content, which shows up in the "Pictures + Videos" section of WMC instantly. And best of all, I put the keyboard and mouse away, because I can do pretty much all common media management tasks on the PC right from my remote.

Not a Fair Fight

Apple really only has their toes in the water here, and Microsoft has been working up to Windows 7 for quite awhile. But while Apple has the iTunes Store and the devices, Microsoft's only real asset in this arena is the XBox. Apple could, if they chose, offer a cohesive PC/TV/Mobile media acquisition and consumption strategy, but I think they're genuinely unsure of where the computer should fit into the picture -- they prefer a locked-down environment, but a full computer gives the user more control than they're comfortable with -- so they've moved timidly into the living room.

Microsoft has chosen a more open path, with any number of Extender devices, (you don't have to buy an XBox -- other devices will do the same job) a broader array of native media types, and extensibility offered to other content providers besides their own store. Windows 7 is really good, and Windows 7 Media Center trumps everything else out there, hands down.

Full Disclosure

Despite being a Microsoft employee, my job has nothing to do with Windows Media Center or XBox. Aside from employee pricing in the company store, there's no perk for me to use the Microsoft offering over anyone elses, and no job expectation that I will do so. I choose freely what technology goes into my home, and I have a very heterogenerous network, with Macs, PCs and other devices playing happily on my WiFi -- check out my tag cloud: I like Apple stuff!

For a long time I stuck with the Apple TV because, once hacked, it was the best solution out there -- regardless of who I work for. That is no longer the case. Windows Media Center 7 with an Extender is a better, more elegant, more flexible and more cohesive solution. Don't believe me? Try it out -- I think you'll see, as I did, that in this round, Windows is the clear winner.

Here's a Pippin booting to the classic Bungie game, Marathon...

This is booting off a PowerMac 7600/66 AV, but connected to a Dell LCD monitor so you don't have to see the refresh. It boots to the "Z Theme" which was a little silly. During start-up you can see a very unique splash animation, and various hardware being identified and initialized.

Copland was to contain a "blue box" emulation layer for classic Mac apps -- a concept that would later be re-used as "Classic" in Mac OS X -- while next-generation apps would be optimized for the PowerPC CPU.

Basically all this does is provides you with a quick way to start and stop Gadgets on your computer. Save it as a batch file called "gadgets.cmd" in your %PATH% and you can Windows + R and type 'gadgets' to quickly toggle them on and off.
Another cool idea is to download WinHotKey and map the batch file to a Windows keyboard shortcut.

Windows + G brings gadgets to the front
Try mapping Windows + Alt + G to show/hide gadgets entirely!

The script loops through running processes, looks for the sidebar process (outputting to a variable, which is more elegant than most solutions I could find) and either starts it or stops it as necessary.


@echo off
setlocal enableextensions

:end
endlocal


Update: Combine with this tip for hiding Desktop icons for a more thorough desktop de-clutterer.
Update 2: And here's an app for togglilng auto-hide on the Taskbar.

Nonetheless, what amounts to an experiment: Rhapsody, essentially the NeXTStep/OpenStep OS with Mac interface elements bolted onto it (sometimes), was incredibly interesting. Yellowbox was to represent the new app platform (with built-in multi-architecture support) while the Bluebox, for compatibility with Classic Mac apps was to be added before release.

Shortly I will outline instructions here for getting Rhapsody DR2 (x86) up and running in VMWare. OK, it turns out this process is exactly the same as for installing NextStep. In case it wasn't obvious, these two OSes are very closely related.

The Multipoint Mouse SDK allows you to use multiple pointing devices on one desktop. This would be a great way to develop for multitouch environments, without having to invest in multitouch development workstations.

And Microsoft's new Multipoint Server allows a single Windows Server to function as a complete desktop for multiple users.

“Many have asked ‘Why are you doing this? There’s not much demand for new VIC-20 software.’ It was the challenge of creating a bridge between the past and present. It’s amazing how far technology has progressed in the past 30 years. The software runs from a cassette tape on an unexpanded VIC-20 with only 5 KB of RAM and a processor that runs at 1 MHz,” commented Syd Bolton, Curator of the Personal Computer Museum.

To put this in perspective, an average PC today runs at 3000 MHz and contains 2,097,152 KB. That means the average computer today has 419,430 times the memory power and 3000 times the speed of a personal computer from the 80’s.
The museum created a software platform for many vintage computers to be able to "tweet" (called "TweetVER" which is short for Tweeting from a Vintage ComputER). For those who would like a copy of the software program, visit the museum’s website http://www.pcmuseum.ca for information.