Drop it in the Box.

So I'm sitting here watching A Perfect Getaway on a Saturday night in January. Nice right, as I sit here in the cold of winter, I'm watching a "thriller/horror" that takes place in warm sunny Hawaii. But I am also playing around more with the great online storage program called Drop Box. If you haven't heard about it, or don't have it, or hate carrying around a flash drive, I highly suggest getting it.

The best way I can describe this program is, an online flash drive. The free storage space is only 2 gigs, but you can pay for more space at a monthly fee. This is the basic function of this program.

Once you download the program and install it, all it does is add a file to your documents (or where ever you want it to go)that syncs up with your personal storage space on their server. It's pretty neat, as soon as you put it into the folder, it will sync those files to the online space (if you're connected to the net) and you don't have to do anything else, it's that simple!

The real great thing here is you can access these files you've put in your drop box from any other computer, without having to re-download the program. All you have to do is go to the Drop Box website (here) and login. It's truly amazing how simple they have made this.

But there's more! Like a flash drive, there is so much extra you can do, to really make your life very easy. If you want to sync up all your music (need to pay for more space though), run your firefox with all the same bookmarks, store ALL your passwords and access them on any computer, and much more. Want to read some, click here.

Also, I forgot to mention that you should add me to your friends on Boxee if you are, or did sign up. My username is Rusty486.

Boxee continued...

So, After a full days use of Boxee I figured out a few problems I was having.

First, the media folders I had my videos in were not being found from the scans I was running for video. Weird... Considering they were (testing phase) both AVI video files which are supported, I couldn't figure it out. After some deep research, it turns out you have to name your files under their specific formats (I'm sure there is a way to make it work to your format, but I haven't had time to look into that). So it turns out I had to make the format from rambo-firstbloodII(1985) to rambo.first.blood.part.II.(1985).avi. This allowed Boxee to find the avi and collect the data from IMDB, which is a cool perk too. Minus the pain in the ass to eventually have to change all my movies (well over 200 on my hard drive, it's really nice to get a description about the movie I'm going to watch, and then get the IMDB rating on it too.

Second, I was having a problem with playing local video files (only AVI). So I read on the forums of Boxee some fixes, turns out I had to update my directX player. So I got the link to the updater (download here) and ran it, updated it, and without even having to restart Boxee, it worked. I've heard stories about it still not working for some people, but it seems to work more so than not.

So this is more so a guide for you following my blog and have tried out Boxee on my recommendation, as it's still in beta and is not perfect, and could have run into the same problems as me.

Now it's dinner time for me, I might post about another free program tonight, and I hope I helped you out!

A must have program, that's free.

As I sit here watching Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott's Dude, Where's My Car? (nothing too good on TV obviously) I am setting up the beta of a newer social media center. Boxee is:

a social media center. With Boxee you can play videos, music and pictures from your computer, local network, and the Internet. You can also share with your friends what albums you're listening to, what movies and TV shows you're watching, send recommendations and more. Since we do not want to bore you with too much text, we have decided to let our users show you what Boxee is, in their own words, so watch these short clips to better understand what the fuss is all about. You can also read a little bit more on what's boxee in this great New York Times piece or in another one by the New York Post. (From their website)

Here are a few features available at the moment.

• Boxee gives you access to thousands of free TV shows and Movies (popular ones at that).
• It also supports many applications.(Netflix, Pandora, Youtube, CNN, etc)
• It plays tons of video formats. (AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV, MOV, MP4, etc)
• It plays physical media formats. (CDs, DVDs, Video CDs)
• It even supports subtitle formats.

Basically what I'm saying is, this free program (download at www.boxee.com) is very cool for people who haven't connected their entertainment systems to their computers and internet. It even works through Apple TV.

Since this social media center program is only in beta, I'm hoping to see a lot more out of it.