*Xbox/XBMC Its hard to know how to summarize this little ditty, so lets go back in time...I purchased an Xbox years ago and was excited to enjoy many hours of great console gaming. Then predictably after defeating Halo and Halo 2 countless times the Xbox sat lonely and dust covered for months. A coworker and friend decided I need to go and behold his new modded Xbox with XBMC (Xbox Media Center). I was awe struck that so much beautiful functionality was waiting to be unleashed from my enslaved, ignored, and now dirty stock Xbox. So I set to work straight away. I begged forgiveness, cleaned, and modded the Xbox. Now rare is the day that goes by that it doesn't see action. I listen to music from my network, stream videos, watch upcoming movie trailers, get weather updates and so very much more. If your Xbox is in its stock unmodded condition, please act quickly and responsibly and update it to the glory of that is XBMC, you'll be glad you did. Special thanks to the whole XBMC community, keep up the great work!!
*Sansa Clip This is a fantastic wearable mp3 player that's packed full of features at a very reasonable price. It features a built on clip to easily attach it to your person (hence the name Clip, deep I know), OLED screen, built in FM tuner and voice recorder. The sound quality is excellent, and it comes in capacities ranging from 1 to 4 GB and a variety of colors. If your in the market for a high value mp3 player (or can't stand to fall in with that iPod crowd) give it a close look. This gets an OS 'Highly Recommended Crap' award.
*Mitsubishi HC1500 720p DLP Projector. At under $1,000 street price this little guy turns any room into a HD theatre in no time. It packs serious specs and its a very bright unit with low operating noise so it adds no distractions as it Wows your friends and neighbors (especially the Jones family who opted to finance a much pricier big screen TV). I have one setup in a bonus room of about 12'x10' projecting on a wide screen (16x9) 92'' diagonal pull down screen. This room also doubles as a play place for my two kids, so with it ceiling mounted and out of the way the equipment stays pretty safe. This allowed me the flexibility to create such a mixed use room. I have my amp, Xbox, 400 disc DVD changer (yeah that's right I said 400, and yes its almost full) mounted on a shelf in the rear of the room just below the projector. I wired the speakers through the crawl space and the walls to where the 6 satellite speakers are mounted and a sub that hides under a table below the screen. So on a tight budget the HC1500 helped me create a getaway play room for big and little kids. *Update, I'll post more pics and a separate article on the theatre setup
*Linksys NSLU2 AKA 'The Slug'. This Linux based 2 port USB network storage adapter is all that and then some, and a half. I have 2 Desktop PCs, 1 laptop, and an Xbox on my network at home. The NSLU2 allows me to share gigs and gigs of goodies as well as backup my data to a secondary USB HDD. A lot of users don't use the auto backup feature but after a recent event before owning one of these beauties I lost 16GB of data and swore it would never happen to me again. The little NAS adapter keeps my files shared and at the ready while consuming a max of 10 watts of power. On top of those standard features the Linux OS is open source so as you might imagine there are a lot of folks out there dedicate to modding the unit to perform even more amazing things like host websites and function as a torrent downloading device (mind your copyright manners now). Stock or modded the Slug answers the call for any small network.
As the old Christmas song goes "these are a few of my favorite things" and I hope it either allows you to discover new devices to simplify and enrich your daily lives or at the very least spark a reaction of interest or disgust, if that's the way you roll. But hey this is a blog, so post a comment.
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