I'm sure many of you have heard of boxee, if not you should check out their website(
link). A little background on the project. It's a social media entertainment system that is on Apple TV, Linux (there's a repository specifically for Ubuntu but you can download packages for other distros), OS X, and Windows. The project is a fork of the pretty popular XBMC system. The system integrates nicely with Twitter and will tweet what you're listening to or what you're watching. This feature can be disabled very easily, in your boxee account online. You can also have it tweet your rating of a song/movie. It also integrates with podcasts, NPR, Hulu, with the OS X version there's Netflix, and Last.FM just to name a few of the features.
My boxee rigThis essentially was my computer from college
- AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (1.8Ghz) Venice core
- 1 Gb dual channel DDR 400
- Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard
- ATI x800XT video card connected to a Sony 53" rear projection TV with a DVI cable
- Using on-board sound, I'll probably use my Audigy 2 when I get around to setting it up. connected to a Sony 5.1 receiver by SPDIF.
- Trendnet PCI wireless 802.11g network card
- Stripped RAID 160 Gb (2 Seagate Barracudas using SATA)
- 500 Gb SATA drive
- 1 Tb SATA drive (new purchase)
- Windows XP Pro
- Wireless keyboard with trackball. It's something awesome that I picked up on a for sale/trade forum that I post to regularly. It uses IR so it's line of sight only.
- DVD+/-R DL 16x internal.
Areas to change-
Get more RAM, get a dual-core processor.
My thoughtsIt's an awesome project but there are a few things that I hope that they add to it. What I found to be very interesting is that the developers are using a system called GetSatisfaction to crowd source their changes to the project. A user can post a problem or feature request such as a shuffle -play all feature and other users can vote on it to show that the community of users is interested in this feature. A few things that I'd like to see besides the shuffle -play all feature is
- Netflix instant playback in Windows,
- file mangement within the program,
- pod cast downloader type functionality-ability to subscribe
- Have the weather gadget be much larger
After bunch of comparisons I decided to get a Spotify Premium membership about a week ago. So far I like it. I guess this means I can finally delete all the questionable music I've acquired. The library is pretty good though they don't have a lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers or other major bands but I like how it integrates with Facebook and my Android phone for offline listening of playlists. Also the music has a 320 kbps so it's really high quality.
There are a lot of tiny things that I've noticed. In Win7, you can see how far into a track you are by looking at the icon in the taskbar.