4:53:00 PM   []

ISF RL certification will guide consumers to the very best hardware for their home’s entertainment systems running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. These products must be designed for artifact free film and sports viewing, superb color fidelity, quiet operation and other home entertainment based quality parameters. ISF RL services include detailed measurement of video processing for TV, DVD, and high definition content to ensure it meets the most demanding consumer expectations.

It's a sweet MCE and likely very expensive.
3:50:30 PM   []

Now the user experience expert in me should be complaining that the ports on the back will be poorly labelled because it looks like they have 2 PCI slots and an AGP slot and PCI/AGP cards are never well labelled. However I think this is mitigated by the fact that only experienced users will be buying Shuttle Barebones Kits and don't need to be guided on where to plug in their cables.

Anyone have details on price?

Update: AnandTech has better (photo) coverage on the Sonoma Media Center XPC from Shuttle.
3:46:36 PM   []

It seems that upon installation, a file called TweakMCE.mcl is placed in the directory %allusersprofile%\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\Media Center\Media Center Programs which makes the TweakMCE icon appear in the "More Programs" section of MCE. It appears, however, that this file (basically just a MCE shortcut, as far as I can tell) is hard-coded to point to C:\Program Files\Microsoft\TweakMCE\TweakMCE.exe. While this might work for most users, anyone who has installed to a different drive or uses a different Program Files directory will not be able to start TweakMCE from within MCE. For example, on my Media Center box, the Program Files directory is D:\Programs. I was able to modify the .mcl file myself to point to the appropriate location so it's working now, but this could probably be easily fixed if you plan for a V2 release.

3:24:02 PM   []

Apple lost the PC desktop because it refused to license its Graphical User Interface and now they're going to lose the Consumer Electronics market because they've failed to license their FairPlay DRM technology.

Russell is no fan of Microsoft so when he writes a lengthy article detailing Microsoft's CE endgame, which isn't some pie in the sky endgame, but is actually being played out right now with no real competitors in sight, you need to take notice.
1:53:51 PM   []