Call me a child of the Sixties, but I always liked the visualizations included with Windows Media Player. Sadly, the default selection with Windows Media Player 11 hasn’t been updated in years and looks pretty crappy under Vista.

So you can imagine how pleased I was to find the Psychedelia Viz Pack available as a free download at WMPlugins.com (Microsoft’s official Media Player add-ins site). Here’s a screen shot of the Gigertron 3D Blacklight effect:

Before you download and install, make sure you have a decent graphics card. The comments on this download suggest that popular motherboard-based graphics solutions and older video cards with weak shader support will choke on this add-in.

I haven’t tested it extensively, but it’s running fine on one system here with an Nvidia GeForce 8400GS card.

I got in touch with folks at Linksys and D-Link today about their delayed v2 Media Center extenders. The latest word is that Linksys should have product available for sale “very soon” (perhaps even before New year’s) whereas the D-Link devices won’t be publicly available until after CES.

I’ve just gone through a round of LCD upgrades here. On my main desktop, I now have a 24-inch Westinghouse monitor running at 1920 x 1200 (1080p) and an older, 4:3 aspect 21″ Samsung SyncMaster 214T running at 1600 x 1200. Both monitors are being driven by a Radeon HD 2600 XT video card.

I’ve got a second 24-inch monitor (from DCL) on the test bench, connected to systems running digital cable tuners and Blu-ray and HD DVD drives for testing 1080p performance. And I just replaced the nearly five-year-old SD television with a much lighter 32-inch LCD from Olevia. The 50-inch Sony in the living room and the new Olevia are both connected to Media Center extenders.

The price of 24-inch monitors has now dropped to the $350-400 level if you shop carefully. Running Vista Ultimate x64 on a quad-core Intel system with this display configuration is a real pleasure.

If you’re planning any LCD upgrades, I recommend checking. AnandTech’s LCD Thread before you buy anything. This is a huge and regularly updated resource that is a geek’s dream, doing an excellent job of demystifying and explaining how this technology works and what you should look for. Here’s a snippet from the introduction by author xtknight, who also runs the LCD Resource site :

In the confusing market of LCD monitors, The LCD Thread was created as a resource to assist users in choosing the right display for themselves. In the guide you will find a comprehensive description of the inner workings of LCD monitors, as well as recommendations for each usage category. Participation in the thread and discussion is encouraged, as is posting daily LCD headlines. Feel free to ask for LCD recommendations in the thread if you are unsure or have specific criteria. Questions about LCDs or general display technologies are also welcome. My goal is to personally respond to each one of you, and thus far I have met that goal. Thank you for taking the time to visit. I hope you enjoy your time here and I hope to keep this resource updated as much as possible.

My ZDNet colleague George Ou also has an interesting post up today on what you have to know about manufacturer’s specs for LCD viewing angles.

I do realize that my configuration is over the top for most people (and I’m planning to add a third and possibly a fourth display as soon as my new PCI HD 2400 video card arrives). If you just need one monitor and you and your eyes are over 40, the sweet spot these days might be a 22-inch monitor, which runs at a 1680 x 1050 native resolution and is much easier to read than a 20-inch monitor at the same resolution or a 24-inch display at 1920 x 1200.

Mackie is one happy dog.

More frozen stuff on the way tonight.

The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available for download. It’s an official release, not a beta:

The 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 1 delivers important customer-requested stability and performance improvements, while incorporating further enhancements to user security. This service pack also includes all of the updates released for the 2007 Office suite prior to December of 2007. You can get a more complete description of SP1, including a list of issues that were fixed, in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 936982: Description of the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 1.

I’ve installed it on two machines here and so far nothing has blown up. And my favorite OneNote bug is fixed: I can now use the wheel on my Bluetooth mouse to scroll through OneNote pages. Yea!

By the standards of most modern downloads, it’s practically svelte at 218MB. And it should be available via Microsoft Update shortly One major caveat: This service pack cannot, repeat cannot, be uninstalled. So be certain (or snap a good backup) if you’re the least bit concerned.

Note that this download applies to every member of the Office 2007 family except Project, Visio, SharePoint Designer, and the Office Language Pack, each of which has its own service pack (links are at the bottom of the main download page).

Paul Thurrott is not happy:

At the risk of sounding dramatic, is the  2007 Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard Update a complete  nightmare for anyone else, or is it just me? I’ve installed it now on three Xbox 360s, and the results are the same: All three now perform horribly, with frequent pauses in games and in the blade UI. On the Xbox 360 in the living room, which we use as a TV interface via Media Center Extender, it’s even more exasperating: You click on something and then just have to wait, often for up to a minute. This is particularly bad when you want to do something like rewind TV just a few seconds because you missed something. It just freezes up.

Surely I’m not alone on this one. Is anyone else having these issues? Why haven’t I seen anything about this??

I haven’t noticed any problems here, but I never (well, almost never) use the Xbox 360 native interface. We just go straight into Media Center, connected to a Dell XPS 410 in the other room. Haven’t seen any problems since that update appeared earlier this week.

Any other Xbox owners have a report to share?

It breaks my heart to report that Marc Orchant passed away today, after being hospitalized since suffering a massive heart attack exactly one week ago. Sue Orchant sent this message this morning:

If the outpouring of love, support and caring could heal Marc, he would be with us telling stories right now. Today we are going to make Marc more comfortable. Friends came by all day yesterday with continued prayers and love. Today just our family will be with him. I know you are all still there for him and us. Thank you for all you have done.

Heartfelt Love,

Sue and Family

Marc’s colleague Oliver Starr, who has helped keep his many friends informed with daily updates, posted the sad news this afternoon:

It is with great sadness that I report that Marc Orchant, Husband to Sue, Father to Rebecca and Jason, and friend to so many, passed away just a short time ago. I was notified by Marc’s brother Craig.

His family and closest friends were at his side and his favorite music was playing. Craig said that Marc’s passing was as peaceful and easy as anyone could have hoped and he left this world surrounded by love from so many people that he couldn’t possibly have failed to know how many people cared for, appreciated and respected him.

Anyone that knew Marc also knew how much he loved music; especially the Grateful Dead. The excerpt below is from one of the songs that helped the family say goodbye to Marc and helped Marc move on to the next world. I talked to Marc almost every single day for the past couple of years. I’m sure that I’m not alone when I say that I am going to miss him so, so much.

To allow for people that may need to travel and take time of work, services are most likely going to be held this coming Wednesday afternoon at the Temple where the Orchants are members. I will provide more specific details as soon as they have been provided to me. Marc’s family expressed once again their gratitude for the outpouring of love and support that the technology community has shown in this very difficult time. Your warmth, concern and friendship will not be forgotten.

River gonna take me
Sing me sweet and sleepy
Sing me sweet and sleepy
all the way back home
It’s a far gone lullaby
sung many years ago
Mama, Mama, many worlds I’ve come
since I first left home

Goin home, goin home
by the waterside I will rest my bones
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul

Update: Oliver Starr has posted a heartfelt memorial to Marc; he has also established a fund to assist Marc’s family.

Marc and Sue are dear friends who have touched many lives. Marc’s loss is just a terrible blow to everyone who knew him and to those who will never get the chance.

This is an image of Sue and Marc from happier days:

Judy and I send our deepest condolences to Sue, Becca, Jason, and the rest of Marc’s family. We’ll miss you, old friend, but we will never forget you.

My blogging buddy Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, aka the PC Doctor, offers a fairly complicated set of steps in response to a reader who asks for an easy way to disable User Account Control in Windows Vista:

To completely disable UAC go to Administrative Tools in Control Panel and select System Configuration and click on the Tools tab.  Scroll down to the bottom of the list of tools, select Disable UAC: Disable User Account Control, and click the Launch button.  Then close the command window that pops up, and reboot your PC to disable UAC.

To re-enable UAC at a later date, follow the same steps, but this time launch Enable UAC: Enable User Account Control instead.

Yes, that’s one way to do it. But there’s a much easier way.

1. Click Start and then click the picture at the top of the right column on the Start menu. This opens the User Accounts Control Panel.

2. Click Turn User Account Control on or off. You will, of course, have to respond to a UAC prompt to complete this action.

3. Clear the Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer check box and click OK.

4. Click Restart Now when prompted. After your computer restarts, UAC will be off.

You can repeat these steps to re-enable UAC. Just click to select the check box in Step 3.

Now that I’ve told you how to do this, let me reiterate that I think disabling UAC is a bad idea for most people. But if you understand the issues involved and feel confident that you don’t need it, this is the easiest way to ditch UAC.

I notice that Dell and HP are now selling desktop PCs with 3GB of RAM as a standard configuration (2 1GB sticks and 2 512MB sticks).

This is a neat way to avoid having to deal with the common question: “Hey, how come I bought this PC with 4GB but I can only see 3GB or thereabouts?”

Answers here and here, but it is truly smart to avoid the issue in the first place. And of course it becomes a non-issue in a few years when we achieve x64 Nirvana.

Well, sort of. Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista is still a beta, nearly a year after it was first previewed at CES 2007 (and months after I wondered out loud why it was taking so long). An incomplete beta, no less.

Long Zheng has some screen shots and sharp analysis. No doubt he will do a pixel-by-pixel analysis of the icons in the Messenger window. I bow to his superior knowledge and this critique:

The major disappointment is the lack of voice, video and sharing capabilities which were widely fanfared and demonstrated at CES. These features simply don’t exist in this version which leaves this client nothing more than just a fancy text instant messenger. The official blog states explains these features and more are coming in future releases which I hope isn’t on a 12-month cycle.

I will, nonetheless, give it a try.

Update: The How-To Geek has more and whizzier screen shots but concludes: “They are supposed to be adding a lot more features over the next year, but I think I’ll stick with Pidgin or Adium since I don’t really use Yahoo messenger anyway…”