A few days late, but here you have it, time to push Firestorm out the door. Special thanks to ebr and all the testers for giving this release a huge amount of testing.

An annoucement

Media Browser, as is, will remain free. We are still looking for ways to monetize, be it bundling of a plugin, an app store, affiliates or a value added product. But, the plain old Media Browser you are using today is remaining free. I will shortly be adding a donation page if anyone feels like helping out the project with a few dollars.

We need your help

Recently I posted about a bit of free advertising we got. If you are a designer and can design a better ad (targeted at developers) PLEASE post a pic, if you are a developer follow the links.

This release is huge

This release contains a massive amount of bug fixes and completed feature request, I would like to highlight a few:

• Performance: Firestorm is faster, much faster. Startup is faster, navigating around the home screen is faster, threading is much more constrained and we even ship with experimental sqlite support which is really fast.
• Stability: Firestorm is generally more stable, we fixed issues around video playback in windows 7 and quite a few other areas. We also made it much easier to set up security for extenders.
• Extensibility: With the Firestorm release, thanks to ebrs hard work, we now support UI plugins. This means themes can ship as plugins, in fact Vanilla is no longer shipped with the base Media Browser installer, instead you download it from throgs site. This allow UI plugin developers to ship upgrades to their plugins without having to update the core media browser product. We also support extensible “Item Actions” which means a developer can add additional behavior that can be applied to items in the collection. An example is ebrs find similar movies plugin.

A short list of the changes with more than 1 wish

• Fixed external playback.
• Fixed playback for ripped tv episodes in ISO or VOB format.
• New Images By Name supports common sub folders
• Fixed Error message – “We can not maximise the window for some reason! object…”
• Fixed Extensible Config Page doesn’t work
• New Extensible Item Menu
• Fixed Media Browser Hangs in Full Screen when the clock is enabled
• New display media info icon for 4:3 movies
• Fixed View by Year – Years are not in correct order

What you need to know

• In order to speed up the startup process I rewrote the way we handle configuration files, your current config files for MB are no longer valid, after the upgrade it will be backed up and a fresh one will pop up.
• All the plugins you have need to be upgraded, go to the configuration tool and click the upgrade button.
• Vanilla new home is http://www.throgsoft.com/, there are detailed installation instructions there.
• The images by name folder has been split in to something more rational. To migrate your old images use our migration tool. Or just use this as an excuse to update your images by name files http://www.thehtpc.net/archives/1345

A full list of fixed items in firestorm is available here: http://community.mediabrowser.tv/topics?tag=firestorm

As always a copy of the binary is available at: http://code.google.com/p/videobrowser/downloads/list?saved=1&ts=1261603233

The storm of speculation, rumour and flim-flam surrounding the Google Phone (”Nexus One” if you like, although there are legal rumblings surrounding that name) is pretty spectacular. From the moment TechCrunch first asserted that a device from Google was definitely on the way, the amount of yaying, naying and speculation has been nothing short of incredible. So what to make of the assertion that we’ll see the phone hit shelves as early as January 5th?

Where’s this coming from?

The January 5th release date originated with Reuters – and they were quoting the ever-present and always reliable Mr. Source Familiar With The Matter. According to Reuters, Mr. Matter claimed that the device could be available through the Google website by January 5th.

How likely is this?

There are a lot of claims surrounding the Google Phone – which is all we’re going to get because Google isn’t saying anything. Amongst some of the more interesting ones are:
- the device will be sold SIM free by Google so that buyers can choose whatever network they like
- it will support quad-band GSM/Edge AND UMTS/HDSPA
- Google will be showcasing it at CES next month
- it is powered by a 1Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon
- it runs on Unicorn giggles and fairy spit

I may have made one of those up.

What we think?

Looking at the sheer amount of hype surrounding the Nexus One, it’s hard not to imagine a shadowy master of viral marketing sitting in a tower in Google HQ, rubbing his hands together and cackling in glee at all he has accomplished. Considering there’s basically no information available at this time, the phone sure is generating a lot of heat.

When it comes to releases like this, we’ve all seen companies say that will definitely do one thing and then unashamedly do something completely other. So I will believe announcements about Google Phone release dates when I hear them from Google and no sooner – and even then I’ll take it with a pinch salt.

I’m sure you’ve seen the DROID commercials on TV about what the iPhone can’t do. Though I still think the iPhone is the best smart phone on the market, Android based handsets are quickly closing the gap. In my opinion the Android phones still have a long way to go from a design standpoint but they definitely seem to be improving with each attempt.

For more pictures visit http://www.boygeniusreport.com/gallery/handsets/motorola-droid/

Long awaited support for Netflix Watch Instantly is here. In addition to the recent update to the Internet TV feature in Windows Media Center it appears that Microsoft has also added support for Netflix. I stumbled upon the update this evening when I noticed a new version of the Internet TV icon in the WMC menu. I’ve attached a few screenshots.

Update: Netflix is also accessible through the Movies strip in Windows 7 Media Center.

Google Voice

Google purchased GrandCentral in 2007. Not much has changed since. Today I found a login page for the new Google Voice service (https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=grandcentral). Though I have a Gmail account as well as a GrandCentral account, neither of my logins worked. There are a few screenshots of the new Google Voice service, which appears to be an overhaul of GrandCentral, on the TechCrunch website.

This afternoon I tried out Google’s new browser and was extremely impressed. The focus of Chrome appears to be on simplicity and efficiency. 15 minutes of browsing made it clear that Chrome is vastly superior when it comes to speed. The ability to search in the address bar is a nice feature that also speeds up the browsing process. The home screen is also a nice feature that displays thumbnails of recently/most visited pages.

If you’ve ever used a web statistics programming to analyze and track traffic to your website, you know how frustrating it can be to try to figure out how to improve your site. Google has addressed most user’s frustrations with their Google Analytics product. With a slick interface and powerful data analyzation tools it is among the top solutions and best of all, it’s free. To find out more visit analytics.google.com

Part of the ScreenBurn arcade at SXSW 2007 included a Toyota Yaris pimped out with a PS2 running Guitar Hero in the trunk.