Turning Your Wii Into a Streaming Media Center

After you win the Wii at the 1E booth (311) at MMS and you have made Pro on all the sports, have made all your family members and friends into Wii peeps, the next logical step is to stream all your music and videos with it from your PC upstairs to your Wii downstairs in your media room.  XBox does this out of the box (no pun intended) from what I have heard, since my daughter is only in second grade and my son is just in junior high they aren’t quite ready for an XBox, plus I suck at video games so I am not a gamer.  The Wii doesn’t have a whole suite of additional features, and streaming music and video is not one of them.  It does come with a built in wireless adapter so you can get it on your home wireless pretty easy.  It also uses Opera for a web browser.  I mention both of these because you will need them for streaming.

I was first introduced to Orb several years ago when I got my first Netgear wireless router, it was 802.11B, so that should give you some idea on how many years ago.  The Orb CD came in the box and I checked it out to see what it was.  Set it up, showed it off at work a few times and then I didn’t use it much again.  Back when I was still working at ESRI I played Classical music in my office all day and it was local plus I didn’t want to use up the bandwidth needlessly.  I looked at it again when I started to travel with my last employer (Hey everyone!) I even bought a tuner card, but I don’t really like TV, and really don’t like 99.99% of movies for a list of reasons so I didn’t really end up using Orb or the tuner card. 

But now that I have a home office upstairs, and my wife’s art studio is downstairs when I am at home and the kids are in school and I am not on the phone I will play music, but I have to play music we both like and loud enough for her to hear.  So this is not ideal.  But our Wii is hooked up to the surround sound system and LCD downstairs, so if she could play music from it and choose her own music, and what level that would just about be perfect!

So what you will need:

1. Wii
2. The Opera browser installed on your Wii (500 Wii points or $5)
3. Your Wii connected to your LAN
4. Orb
5. Wake-On-LAN (if you are going to use Orb on a laptop)
6. A computer with music, videos, pictures, files…! 

Download Orb here.

Get additional addons for Orb from their MyExtras here.

extras include video mail, watching Internet videos on your mobile device, and watching you video content on your TV instead of in Flash in the Wii’s Opera browser.

You can get version 1.0 of Orb here.

Once you have Orb installed you will have to create an account.  Next specify what folders you want to include in the different categories.  Keep in mind that any folder you put on there you and your family will be able to access from the Wii console.

After you have Orb configured you will need to get the browser installed on your Wii if you haven’t got it already.  Once it is just go to orb.com, put in your account info and you will be listening and viewing in just a few seconds. 

In Orb you can search by artist, title, genre, playlist, resume a playlist, shuffle your search results, it’s pretty nice.

And if you have bluetooth in your car, a phone with an unlimited data plan and bluetooth…

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

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More MMS Goodness

This is from the 1E site, but down towards the bottom you can see the schedule for demos at the 1E stand.  I will be presenting at least a couple times.  Brian Tucker and Neil Kimberly will also be presenting at the stand on other topics.  If you think I know SMS/ConfigMgr then you haven’t spent much time talking to Brian and Neil these guys are AMZAZING!

1E MMS Focus

1E will be exhibiting as a Gold Sponsor at the Microsoft Management Summit at the Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas from April 28 to May 2, 2008.

With a focus on System Center Success and ‘green’ IT, we will be highlighting:

• Expertise in deploying System Center solutions
• Automation solutions that dramatically reduce cost and complexity
• PC power management
• Self-service provisioning with licence control
• Content distribution and OS migration/deployment for distributed environments
• Actual customer experiences with proven ROI

SPEAKER SLOT: Real-world System Center success including PC power management: Significantly lower your PC and server management costs

Speaker: Sumir Karayi, CEO 1E

Date/Time: Tuesday 29, 11.45 – 13.00

Location: F-Veronese 2402-2503

Sumir Karayi, CEO 1E, will be speaking following Bill Anderson’s “ConfigMgr - State of the Nation” session. Sumir will talk about System Center and PC power management customer success stories.

1E has been providing robust integrated Windows systems management solutions for over 10 years. Come and listen to Sumir talk about real-world experiences of System Center success and PC power management implementations in large, complex, distributed environments. In this session you will learn how to address universal time and cost-saving initiatives such as:

• PC power and patch management including client health and energy usage reporting
• Automated self-service application provisioning with license management and control
• Optimization of software and OS deployments to bandwidth-constrained complex branch environments

Visit the 1E Stand 311

MMS provides us with a great opportunity to see friends – old and new. Please drop by the 1E stand to say hello, collect ‘green’ giveaways, enter our competition to win a Nintendo Wii, and attend ‘live’ technical demo sessions.

‘Live’ Theatre Demonstrations and Presentations

Tuesday April 29

1:10 - 1:30 PM PC Power Management: Go Green Overview Presentation Simon Francis

2:00 - 2:20 PM Self-Service Provisioning and License Control Anthony Clendenen

3:30 - 3:50 PM Fully Automated OS Deployment/Migrations Neil Kimberley

Wednesday April 30

1:10 - 1:30 PM PC Power Management, WOL and Client Health Brian Tucker

2:00 - 2:20 PM Fully Automated OS Deployment/Migrations Neil Kimberley

3:00 - 3:20 PM Self-Service Provisioning and License Control Anthony Clendenen

3:30 - 3:50 PM Bandwidth Optimization for Complex/Branch Environments Brian Tucker

Thursday May 1

1:10 - 1:30 PM Bandwidth Optimization for Complex/Branch Environments Brian Tucker

2:00 - 2:20 PM PC Power Management & Energy Usage Reporting Brian Tucker

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

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Attending MMS 2008? Yes I Am - We Are

I have gotten a ton of emails asking me if I am going to be at MMS this year and when and up until now I have held off because I was waiting for some things to finalize.  But today 1E sent out an email to customer letting them know the booth number, and when Sumir, one of the founders of 1E, was going to speak.  Which is right after the State of the Union, and also at the same time as Paul Thomsen is presenting his session on ConfigMgr Client Health.  So yes, I will be there from Sunday to Friday afternoon.  And we are trying to get my wife to be able to attend at least a day or more as well, I know some of you look forward to seeing her more than me - but I won’t mention any names, you know who you are! Not that I can really blame you…

I will be doing my best to blog live or very close to it when I am there but this year I will have to actually work so it may be more hit and miss regarding coverage of the sessions for those who can’t attend or those who use my posts for your justification to attend. 

We will be having demos at the booth of the different 1e products and most of us can also do an impromptu demo if you want to see something that isn’t on the schedule.  Just hunt me down and I can arrange it. 

There is more info on the 1E presence below, our booth is in the second row right as you walk in the doors. I am finalizing some plans to hold a special session in one of our conference rooms and when that it finalized I will publish the detail of it.

I look forward to meeting up with a bunch of you again I am sure there will be quite a few people from the myITforum.com list, Microsoft, and Dimension Data that I haven’t seen in at least a few months, people like Omar it has been since last MMS. 

Dear Colleague,

1E will be exhibiting at the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) in Las Vegas from
April 28 - May 2, 2008. Please come and visit us on Stand 311, where you can:

· Find out how to dramatically reduce the cost of running Windows infrastructures

· See ‘live’ technical demos of our core solutions

· Discover how you can quickly & easily save $45 per PC per year

· Find out how Dell is saving $1.8 million a year across 50k PCs

· Enter our competition to win a Nintendo Wii

Come and listen to 1E CEO Sumir Karayi speak, following Bill Anderson’s "ConfigMgr - State
of the Nation" session.  Sumir will talk about real customer System Center and PC power management success stories.

Speaker: Sumir Karayi, CEO 1E

Date/Time: Tuesday 29, 11.45 – 13.00

Location: F-Veronese 2402-2503

1E has been providing robust integrated Windows systems management solutions for over 10 years. Join us as we detail real-world experiences of System Center success and PC power management implementations in large, complex, distributed environments.

» Book a 1:1 meeting
Use this opportunity to book a pre-arranged 1:1 meeting with 1E while you are at MMS. This
will give you the chance of discussing your requirements with us at an agreed date and time, and make sure that you maximize your attendance at the event.

For more information, please visit the 1E website.

We look forward to seeing you at MMS 2008.

Best regards,
1E Events Team

www.1e.com

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

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MMS 2008 Session Details is Live

If you haven’t seen it already you can get a list of the MMS 2008 sessions details here, or browse/search from here.  No days yet but at least you know what is planned.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

no comments yet.

MMS 2008 Registration Now Open

Run - don’t walk, hand carry that training request through management for registration!  If you need assistance with the justification check here.

Back by popular demand MMS returns to Vegas this year, some of you may recall the Sea World party that Microsoft threw for my birthday two years ago, on April 27th, well this year MMS starts the day after my birthday on April 28th.  If you book your hotel through registration you can get a room at the Venetian for only $239/night for four nights, I went to the Venetian’s web site and a room for the cheapest room for the same dates is $399/night, it also where the conference is being held, so if you may have over indulged the night before it is not too far to the sessions or if you really over indulged it’s not too far back to your room.

I really enjoy this event, it is very nice to actually talk to everyone and meet some of the people you only see in the mailing lists and forums, and of course to catch up with old friends as well.  But it is by far the BEST training you can get for ConfigMgr and you can actually talk to Wally, you will have to bring two friends to hold him still while you talk, but you can really talk to the Microsoft people that work day-in and day-out on ConfigMgr and the other management products, not just an email but really discuss things with them and learn a tremendous amount and get a deeper understanding of the products, their features, and what is being planned.  Oh yeah, and the other vendors are there too like myITforum, so you can grill them talk to them.

Some useful links:

MMS 2008 home page

MMS 2008 Registration page (Prices go up after March 18th)

MMS 2008 Group Registration page, for those companies sending multiple people.

MMS Alum send email with your email address in the subject line

MMS 2008 Agenda page

MMS 2008 Hands On Lab page (will have content in Feb)

MMS 2008 Content Survey page where you can help determine what is included at MMS!

Official email contents:

Event Overview

In the past year Microsoft has released a range of new management products and technologies, including seven new System Center suite releases alone.  MMS 2008 provides the best way to learn how to apply these solutions in your organization, fueling productivity and building growth.

With sessions by technical experts, opportunities to try out new products and meetings to discuss them with leading Industry experts and peers, MMS 2008 remains the premiere technical event of the year for IT professionals and the IT community.

Event Theme

The theme of this year’s Microsoft Management Summit is Integrate IT, reflecting the increasingly complex world of IT Management and the key role integration has to play in reducing complexity while maximizing flexibility, availability and performance.  Sessions from Microsoft speakers and industry experts during MMS 2008 will focus on how the latest wave of management solutions support:

• Integration with your business objectives
• Integration across your IT disciplines
• Integration between your management products and technologies
• Integration across platforms and vendor boundaries

Event Agenda

MMS 2008 will offer more deep technical breakout sessions than ever before, covering a broad range of Management topics and technologies. Daily Q&A slots also allow attendees to meet the presenters and discuss specific session content informally in a 1:1 format. In addition, the event will provide over 9,000 Hands-On Lab places during the week, including more Instructor-led Labs than in previous years and a “walk-in” self-paced lab area.  All of Microsoft’s Management solutions, together with those provided by Partners, will be on show at the MMS 2008 Expo where you’ll have the opportunity to review the solutions and discuss your specific requirements with company experts.

Attending MMS 2008 will enable you to harness the power of System Center by Integrating IT with your business goals.  Visit the conference web site at www.mms-2008.com for more details of the overall agenda and registration information.

Event Content

Recent Microsoft product releases which will be covered in detail during MMS 2008 include:

• System Center Operations Manager 2007
• System Center Configuration Manager 2007
• System Center Data Protection Manager 2007
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007
• System Center Essentials 2007
• System Center Remote Operations Manager 2007
• System Center Capacity Planner 2007
• Desktop Optimization Pack for SA
• Windows Server Update Services 3.0

In addition during the event there will be early looks at some releases due to ship during the coming year, including:

• System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1
• System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2
• System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1
• System Center Mobile Device Manager

MMS 2008 is the ideal opportunity to come listen to the product teams describe these new releases, try out the new products and discuss real-world deployment experiences with leading industry experts and your peers within the IT industry.

Content Survey

If you’d like to help in the content selection process for MMS 2008, we invite you to complete the MMS 2008 Content Survey. By taking a few minutes to tell us about your experience and information needs, you’ll help ensure the topics and labs presented at the event are relevant to you and your organization. The survey can be accessed here and should take no more than 10 minutes to complete.  When the survey closes we will draw four entries from amongst the responses and will send a Portable Media Player to those respondents.

Registration

This year the summit will be returning to The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Two different registration options are available for MMS 2008 attendees - you may either purchase your MMS 2008 registration and hotel accommodation separately, or as a package.

If you choose to register using the “Package” option, your registration fee includes accommodation for the nights of April 28^th – May 1^st 2008 at the Venetian Hotel. This is adjacent to the event venue, a short walk from the Conference venue.  Alternatively you may choose to purchase accommodation separately from your registration or during the registration process.  The MMS 2008 Event Team has negotiated a special rate at the Venetian Hotel, available only through the registration web site. Details of the accommodation on offer are provided at the MMS 2008 web site.

Hope to see you all there.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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