Bus error: Jake Billo’s weblog

With school, exams and other random nonsense popping up fairly frequently, I haven’t done much in the way updating here. I’ve tweaked and updated a few minor pages this morning, and some of my programming adventures in Visual Basic 2005 are approaching a point where I can make them public.

Lately I’ve been spending more time with my Xbox console than the 360, specifically due to my purchase of a KF42E200A LCD projection HDTV. I’ve wanted one of these for about six months now, or at least something comparable to it. One thing I can say for Sony is that despite their media division’s monkeying with DRM, and SCEA’s FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE US DOLLAR PlayStation 3, they still make beautiful displays and televisions. You know exactly what you’re getting when you buy a Sony TV.

In any event, while the Xbox 360 has some nice downloadable 720p content and plays games in HD natively, the Xbox still has XBMC to take names and basically be a slimmed-down Kaleidescape unit for the basement. It upscales DVD’s, reads XviD and DivX files in packed RAR format over the network, and there’s a new upgrade pretty much every two weeks. For the non tech-nerds out there, just trust me that it’s really decent.

Unfortunately to run this sort of setup, you need an Xbox capable of booting unsigned code. I ended up buying a used unit off eBay and using the XboxHDM tutorial on Xbox-Scene to complete the process. At the time, EB wasn’t carrying any used systems; I’m debating going there and picking up another console since I saw about three on the shelf last week.

There are a few things you have to do if you want the console to run properly once it’s been modded, or set it up as an entertainment center. I’ll follow up sometime this week on the “post-installation” tasks that new users might want to consider, such as setting the system up for HD and installing Xbox Media Center as the default startup dashboard.

Along with the TV, a new Yamaha amp (RXV559) has graced the basement’s presence with a reasonably-decent sounding 3.1 surround setup (for now, at least.) Center channel and woofer are Paradigms, and the stereo L&R channels are Advent-branded speakers rescued from upstairs. I’ve ordered a set of cabling from Monoprice for the various components here, and it’ll be interesting to see how soon it arrives in the mailbox.

Apart from media entertainment: last month, I broke down and started playing World of Warcraft to see what the game was like. After being roundly harassed by several good friends for partaking in such a travesty, I’m still undecided as to whether I’m going to pony up for another month of playtime - perhaps during the workterm. Maybe I should get a real hobby?

Now that I have a copy of Vista Business available to play around with, as well as the requisite KVM for my VX2025wm to work properly, I figured I’d get things installed and post my first impressions.

Acquiring the Software

If you’re a UW student, like I mentioned before, you can check out the MSDNAA version of Windows Vista Business at the CHIP (basement of the MC, room 1052.) You’ll need a valid WatCard to check out the CD’s on 24-hour loan, as well as a QUEST/ADS login to access the various software packages available from UW’s IST department and get the serial number.

Vista comes on five CD-R’s (yes, they’re just CD-R’s with the UW and MSDNAA logos on them), with no option for a DVD at this point. You’re only able to get one serial number issued, which is allegedly good for installation on two of your workstations - after that, you’ve got to call in and reactivate. Instead of slogging through the five-CD install and swapping out discs, I obtained a DVD image (LRMCFRE_EN_DVD.iso) and burned it to a blank. You could also combine the contents of CD’s 1-5 and the bootsector from CD1 to homebrew your own DVD, but that would have been counterproductive for me.

Installation was relatively painless, although the “analyzing system performance” phase immediately after install is sort of useless, especially considering there’ll be updated video drivers on the first run to Windows Update.

Tasks to Perform

For my installation, I performed the following tasks immediately after the usual updates and drivers were installed:

• Changed the Start Menu preferences: one, two, three, four.
• Start/Run/secpol.msc, expand Local Policies/Security Options. In Security Options, set “User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation” to Disabled to avoid the annoying flash when User Account Control activates a window.

  Yes, this means that I’m living with UAC turned on; it’s much less annoying without the Secure Desktop turning my screen black and making me lose my place in an application.

• If you’re going to install a network printer, leave UAC on and do it. There’s a bug in the Add Network Printer wizard that prevents installation of the driver if UAC is off.
• Changed the settings for SMB file sharing for Xbox Media Center: in secpol.msc, expand Local Policies/Security Options, then set “Network security: LAN Manager authentication level” to “Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated”. OS X 10.4.9 seems to have fixed the NTLMv2 problem, but Xbox Media Center sure hasn’t.

I’ve finally gotten the chance to deploy the new security-related fixes for WordPress. I’m not a huge fan of any mass-market weblog packages, or for that matter any heavily popularized software for managing a website. In fact, I plan to use a stable version of Ethanol or Aerosol to maintain this site once I get some time to hammer out some of the installation bugs that have crept in since its first release. It’s difficult enough maintaining “stable” and “development” branches as an sole, independent developer, let alone backporting usability and security fixes.

One of the reasons I feel so strongly about managing my own content is due to some of the security problems that have plagued phpBB; the popular bulletin board system had attracted a significant number of exploits and remote abuse abilities. The exploits were to such an extent that the developers removed the version number of the software from the default footer, since many scripts keyed on this version number in order to facilitate the crack.

I’m not sure of the current state of security for the phpBB project, but frankly I wouldn’t trust it running on a server without mod_security and Hardened PHP. Ideally, you’d run the package in a BSD jail, but that’s not an option for many low-cost web hosts.

While I was in the upgrading mood, I also managed to download the latest Subversion build of Xbox Media Center. For those of you who might not know, XBMC is an open-source application that runs on modified Xbox consoles, allowing it to effectively act as a media library for your TV. The best part about XBMC is its native networking support, so you can stream music and video files from your home network and play them on your TV. It also offers native archive support, so you can view the contents of RAR and ZIP files and play media stored within them.

Unfortunately, the incredible features and functionality of this software (I’ve personally not seen an open-source project as useful as XBMC since Firefox) are all muddled up in the great debate about console modification. Ozymandias (Andre Vrignaud) of the Xbox team goes over the three main reasons to modifying a console in his post, and attempts to debunk them:

• To play pirated games (Andre’s reasoning: “[A]t the end of the day every game not legally purchased is simply stealing money from the creators.”)
• To play imported/region-locked games (Andre says: “[S]ometimes companies have good reasons to either not release a title into a region or release it at different dates. It may be because of the time and cost of localization, marketing plans, ad buys, cultural considerations, or perhaps even because of the impact of piracy in the region. Whatever the case, it’s safe to assume the publisher has thought about it.”
• The desire to run “homebrew”, or non-licensed applications on the console. Effectively, console manufacturers like Microsoft and Sony sell their boxes at a loss, hoping that (over time) their attach rate, or number of games sold per console, will be high enough that they can recoup profit from the games. Andre indicates that he can’t condone running homebrew applications on consoles, because “[a]t the end of the day, the cost difference needs to be made up somewhere, and that’s why we need to you buy those razor blades.”

I personally can’t agree with Andre’s third argument against homebrew modifications. In my experience with marketing, I fit into one of the key demographics for being an early adopter of game consoles and peripherals. I have a significant amount of disposable income (well, as much as a student can have - but I’m not supporting anybody other than myself); I’m interested in the latest games, peripherals and systems that come out; and I understand the business model.
For the original Xbox, which was effectively a set of commodity PC parts in a black box, some attach rates for 2003 were quoted at 5.3 and 5.8 games sold per console. Dean Takahashi mentioned in his book Opening the Xbox that the expected attach rate for profitability on Xbox would have been 9.0 games sold per console, with at least three of those games as first-party, Microsoft-produced titles.

Personally, I can’t feel guilty about running a software modification on my system, because I’m well over the attach rate myself. I have purchased over twelve Xbox titles at full retail value, as well as several controllers, an Xbox Live subscription ($80/year) with headset, and some Halo 2-branded merchandise. I no longer even use my original Xbox to play games or sign on to Xbox Live; that’s reserved for my Xbox 360, which has fairly compelling media features of its own.

I understand Andre’s perspective - that console manufacturers are out to make a profit, and modifying systems cuts into their bottom line - but looking at the required attach rate, you can calculate this out: assuming a break even point on the system and software:

Xbox Console: Assume $299 (first price drop, Canadian funds)
First-Party Games: Assuming three required for break even point at $60 apiece: $180
Third-Party Games: Assuming six required for break even point at $7-$9 licensing fee: $42 - $54
Total Cost: $299 + $180 + $54 = $533

I would gladly pay $600 for a completely “unlocked” system, which allowed me to play games as well as run homebrew software. However, this idea doesn’t hold water, as it has no mass-market appeal. What’s more, the unlocked system would effectively be a development kit - which sells to developers for about a $10,000 US licensing fee. No thanks.
I think what Microsoft is doing with the XNA Game Studio and Creator’s Club on the Xbox 360 is interesting, but it doesn’t offer anything close to what the XBMC team is capable of.