Michael Creasy's Blog

It's pretty easy to run your custom applications on an Xbox 360. Here's how you do it...

First you're going to need a Windows Media Center PC. Next you are going to need the Media Center SDK.

OK, now you're all set up to start writing applications to run on an Xbox 360. You'll just need to set up the Xbox 360 to be a Media Center Extender. Once registered with Media Center your application will be accessible from the Extender.

There are some limits to what you can do though. UI is limited to HTML and ActiveX controls (think Flash), if you try and create other UI you'll find your session gets disconnected, but that should stop a talented individual from creating a rich application. You can't access the Xbox 360 at all as the application runs in a environment similar to Remote Desktop - the app runs entirely on the Media Center PC and the UI is displayed on the Xbox 360.

There you have it, custom applications on an Xbox 360 (well sort of any way).

I've had the Xbox 360 for a week now and I'm loving it. I've played Project Gotham Racing 3 almost to completion (although I mostly have silver medals) and I'm slowly working my way through Kameo.

Kameo is growing on me. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I'm enjoying the puzzles and how to use each of the characters in the best way. The game has clealy been influenced by Zelda and there are a number of puzzles that Zelda players will find familiar. Having to use multiple characters to solve puzzles and progress is interesting. You have to think how to tackle each situation instead of just blindly attacking everything that comes near you. Should it look like you're stuck or just walking around in circles with no clue what to do next the game reminds you how to get hints. I've tried to avoid using the hints, but I confess I've used them a couple of times. Normally after reading hint I'll feel like an idiot for not working that out myself. Getting a hint is better than just getting annoyed and frustrated with the game though.

The graphics on the game are impressive. The environment is detailed and immersive with minimal loading times. The sheer number of sprites that can be displayed at once is a good indication of the 360's power. Take for example an entire hillside of trolls being scattered as you plow through them on horse back.

There are some nice comical elements to the game and I'm enjoying playing it. It's not a game I'm going to be rushing through as I want to enjoy it as much as I can.

The Xbox 360 Premium includes (for a "limited" time) a remote control which is smaller than the Universal Media Remote and doesn't include any number buttons. This makes text input to Media Center applications when using the Xbox 360 as an Extender rather difficult. Normally you'd use the number buttons to triple tap in text, but with no number buttons you can't do that. The solution is to press the 'Y' button on a controller which will display an on-screen keyboard that you can use for text entry. Note that pressing the 'Y' button on the remote brings up the TV guide.

I'm taking a short break from playing games on my 360 to watch some TV. As I type I'm watching an episode of Las Vegas that I recorded on my Media Center PC.

Setting up the 360 as a Media Center Extender was easy. I went into the dashboard, selected the Media blade, clicked on Media Center and then followed the instructions. I had to install some software on my Media Center PC and followed the simple instructions again. Seconds later the 360 connected to the PC and launched the Media Center shell. The included remote control in the Premium Xbox 360 package works to control the Media Center experience. The quality is identical to using Media Center on a PC and it's so easy to get set up.

The Xbox 360 is quite simply the best Media Center Extender available.

It seems like the launch madness for the Xbox 360 has started. Lines are forming all over the country outside any store that will Xbox 360s for sale tomorrow. The line for the Bellevue Best Buy started on Friday! That's an exception though as Bill Gates is going to be there to hand out the first one. Now there are apparently hundreds of people there and I don't envy any of them, it's cold and foggy around here tonight.

The fountains around the Microsoft campus were full of green water today.

I won't be going to EB Games until much later this evening to pick up my Xbox 360. There's only supposed to be 60 people there so it shouldn't take long. I paid for it on Saturday and picked up a copy of Project Gotham Racing 3 which will keep me busy for a while.

I've heard that plugging in a USB keyboard will help you set up Xbox Live much quicker on a new box.

This is the best Xbox 360 ad so far (you may need to turn off your pop-up blocker and reload the page to get it to play).

What's your plan for getting an Xbox 360 tomorrow?

I went to my local EB Games at around 10:45 and was surprised by how few people were already there. There were perhaps 10 people in front of me in the line. A few Xbox people showed up and threw out some swag. I got a frisbee, a baseball cap and a water bottle. Pretty nice. I wished they'd brought coffee or other hot drinks though as it was pretty cold out there - around 37F I think. Right on midnight the doors opened and we got to enter the store a couple at a time. Finally my turn arrived, I'd already paid for the system so all I had to do was buy an extra controller and decline the offered warranty. EB Games wanted $40 for a one year warranty. There was an offer in the box for a two year warranty for $59.90 which seems like a much better deal and one that I'll take up just in case. I did the same for my Xbox and never used it, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Once I'd picked up the console (which is very heavy) there was some more swag to collect - an Xbox Live t-shirt, a small, soft Xbox Live American football and an EB Games Xbox 360 launch event bracelet (similar to the Livestrong bracelets, but in white). I left the store around 00:14 (one minute earlier than I had for the Xbox launch in 2001) and got home shortly afterwards.

Everything was neatly packed in the box and setting it up was easy. The wireless controller connected easily with the Xbox and I transfered by Xbox Live account to the box using the wizard. If you've linked your Gamertag to you Passport account on Xbox.com this is quick process. If you plug in a USB keyboard you can type in your email address and password which is much quicker than using the controller.

Once everything was configured I popped in my copy of Project Gotham Racing 3 and played for a little over an hour. That game is awesome. The graphics are incredible and it's just as much fun as the previous versions. It's a lot of fun and I'll be playing it a lot. The first tracks to play are set in London and I was impressed with the level of detail as I sped through the streets in a Jaguar XKR (in British Racing Green of course!). It looked gorgeous in 1080i on my HDTV, really very impressive.

The controller is pleasant to use, but I found myself knocking the left shoulder button by accident a couple of times. I think I'll just need to get used to there being a button there and then I won't do it any more, but it did come as a surprise for the view to suddenly change when I was racing after pressing the button.

The box sounded quite loud, but it is early the morning and silent where I live. I didn't notice it while playing, just when I was on the menus and waiting for the game to load.

I don't have much to say, but in short, I'm impressed with the quality of the system. It feels simple and elegant and my first gaming experience was a good one.

If you're on Xbox Live look me up, here's my Gamercard on Xbox.com. The integration is impressive, you can see a lot of detail about what people are playing and what they've achieved.

OK, time for bed.

The Royal Chitwan National Park in Nepal is a incredible place to visit. The park is home to a wide variety of wildlife from the infamous Nepalese wild chicken to tigers. A hike through the jungle in the middle of the day is not the best way to see the wildlife, but starting the day with an early morning dug out canoe ride down the river was memorable. As we floated past the crocodiles and watched the monkeys on the bank nothing spoilt our silent entry to the jungle...

I very rarely go in to a branch on my bank any more. I do most of my banking online and get cash and make deposits at ATMs. I probably make no more than one visit to a physical branch a year now. I wonder if that's the norm now. I was talking to a friend last night and I realised that I do all my finacial activities online. Statements and communications from various institutions are sent to electronical and compiled in Microsoft Money. Money keeps track of everything for me and in an age where identity theft is commonplace checking statements daily seems like a sensible thing to do. There are never any surprises though.

Last night I needed to deposit some cash into my savings account. I went to my local branch and used the ATM to do that. I inserted the envelope when prompted and the machine swallowed it as expected and then it did nothing for a while. Then it started beeping and said I hadn't inserted an envelope in time and said it had cancelled the transaction. I stood and looked at the machine for a minute, my cash was inside the machine, but it didn't think it was. I wasn't really worried though, a phone call this morning sorted the problem out and I'm confident the money will get credited to my account today or tomorrow.

In Taiwan earlier this year I tried using an ATM inside McDonalds. OK, OK, perhaps trying to use an ATM in a fast food estabilishment wasn't such a good idea, but I had very little money on me and was rather hungry. I inserted my card in the machine and when prompted pressed the English button on the screen. Bang. Blue screen of death! I'd just crashed an ATM! Panic. My card was still in the machine, I had no money and I had no idea what to do next. Even if I could work out which number to call for help, there's little chance anyone would have spoken English and I wouldn't have got my card back before my flight back to Seattle. I watched the machine reboot and then during the reboot process it spat my card back out. I was so happy. I didn't try again, but instead found a real bank and used one of their ATMs without incident. That was a scary couple of minutes though.

Dodgy things these ATMs.

A while ago Ian Dixon interviewed me for The Media Center Show, Ian's podcast about all things Media Center.

I haven't listened to it yet, but we talk about Media Center development and I hope you'll find it interesting. If that's not enough, I was on The .NET Show a few months ago with Charlie.

This is one of my favourite photos. I took it last year (2004) while visiting China. This shows a close up of the ranks of restored warriors. The photo was taken with a Canon 10D and has had no editing other than reversing the image. In the original the warrior were facing to the left, however I much prefered the mirror image. I have a 18" x 12" print of this hanging in my office just above my monitor and look it at every day. I've yet to get tired of it and it's a great reminded of a fabulous trip. Click the image for the full size version.

Akimbo for Media Center popped up in Online Spotlight recently and over the weekend I took it for a test drive...

Akimbo is a subscription service offering video downloads, mostly of TV shows. Once you subscrible you can download the content and watch it from within Media Center. Most of the content is free although there are some "premium" shows available and there's also content from MLB.com that requires a separate subscription.

Installation and registration was straightforward and I was able to complete it from my sofa using my Media Center Keyboard. There's a month long free trial when you sign up and after that there's a fee of $9.99 a month charged to the credit card needed to sign up.

Once I was signed up I was able to browse the channels available and discovered content from A&E, BBC, The History Channel, National Geographic, iFilm and lots more. Browsing through the channels is easy with the remote control. Shows are organised into categories and selecting a show gives you a textual description and sometimes a video preview. If the show looks interesting you can click "Get" to have it start downloading. The shows are DRM protected and can only be watched for a limited time which seems to be either 30 days or 7 days depending on the content.

I started off by downloading some classic BBC comedy. I was surprised by how quickly the content downloaded. By the time I was finished browsing through the channels the first show was downloaded and so I hit play. I expected the quality not to be that great, but it was surprisingly good, certainly on par with the quality I get through analog cable. I was able to pause and resume the show just like I would with regular TV and when the show ended I was back on the Akimbo page with an option to delete the show or keep it. If I'd chosen to keep it I could have watched it again.

I'm pretty impressed with the service and I've found at least one show that I'd like to watch on a channel that isn't included in my cable package. I found the application easy to navigate and it was easy to download new shows. They could improve the service by using a Media Center add-in to do the downloading and then they could use New For Me to alert you to new content in More Programs once the download was complete.

I don't know if I'll continue to subscribe once the free trial ends, that will ultimately depend on how often new content appears on the service, but for now it's looking pretty good and it's well worth trying for the free trial period.