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Its an often overlooked feature of Windows Media Center, the Radio, but most likely everyone has at least one FM tuner available in their Media Center machine. If youre one of those people who frequently uses Media Centers Radio feature youre likely interested in backing up your lineup of Radio presets. There currently arent any programs available that incorporate Radio presets as part of their backup process so well need to do it by hand. No worries though, the process isnt difficult.

The first step is to open up the Registry Editor by bringing up the start menu and entering regedit in the search box and pressing enter. This should launch the built-in Windows registry editor. Once inside navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionMedia CenterSettingsRadiopresets

Right-click the presets entry and select the Export option. Save the file someplace safe. Now each time youd like to restore your Radio presets youll simply need to double-click this new .reg file to restore the registry entries. Confirm the addition of the data to the registry in the pop-up dialog and you should be all set.

For those of you who arent taking advantage of the Radio section of Windows Media Center due to a lack of good AM/FM radio antenna this can make a good DIY project. There are several guide to making your very own radio antenna available online, an antenna is just a length of properly sized conductive metal after all. You can find a few good guides to creating a radio antenna here in pdf form, from eHow, or in this more complete guide to everything youd possibly want to know about antenna.

Otherwise, just sit back and enjoy Windows Media Center knowing that your personal Radio presets are backed up for posterity. Thanks to Joe Hecht for sending us this handy little tip and thanks to all for reading Hack7MC. Have a tip youd like to share? Send it to us here on our Contact Page!

Windows Media Center is a nice piece of high-functionality software from Microsoft. While it is aesthetically pleasing and convenient, one issue that users with dual or multiple displays face is the restriction of mouse to only the WMC window, especially when maximized. Maxifier is a free tool that answers this problem, freeing mouse movement even when Windows Media Center is itself running full screen mode.

Note: Maxifier is only useful if you have two displays or more. On a single display most of the features are not even noticeable.

Once installed, the utility will sit in your system tray and show two different menus depending on whether Media Center is running or not.

If WMC is not running, you will get this menu.

Here, clicking Start Media Center will start the Media Center application, or you can click one of the page names shown to go directly to that page.

If WMC is already running, then you get the full menu.

Here, you get five additional options. Full Screen will maximize Media Center to the secondary display, but unlike standard maximize, the mouse will not be captured by WMC so you can easily move it between the two displays and continue to work on your primary display. Fit to Screen will also maximize to the secondary display but retain windows borders. Minimize is self-explanatory, while Fit Screen on Main Screen and Full Screen on Main Screen will utilize the primary monitor for these functions rather than the secondary one.

Clicking Options will bring the preferences dialog, where you can tweak the application settings.

You can also select HotKeys from the menu to configure hotkeys for various actions.

Maxifier is an essential accompanying tool for Windows Media Center if you are running your PC on a dual display setup. It is free and lightweight, and although the developers website claims it to be stable on Windows Vista yet, we found it to be working perfectly fine with Windows 7 as well.

Download Maxifier

If you are a big fan of the Windows Media Center and want it to run smoothly then you should schedule the optimization. The Windows Media Center performs optimization itself to make it run more smoothly, please note that during the time it is performing optimizations, you can not use it.

Type Windows Media Center in Start Search and hit Enter to launch it. No head over to the Settings.

Under the General Category, choose the Optimization Option.

Now Check the Perform optimization checkbox and set the desired Optimization schedule time.

Yesterday, Dell officially announced availability of the Dell Inspiron Zino HD.

The Inspiron Zino HD is a small PC that packs quite a punch in an 8 by 8 square. Hip to be square, right? Ok enough Huey Lewis, lets talk about what this PC comes (and can be configured) with:

• It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit or Windows 7 Professional 64-bit*.
• You can customize the PC with 7 solid colors.
• You can customize the PC with 3 designs.
• The Inspiron Zino HD uses AMDs Athlon processor (single or dual core).
• The base configuration is 3GB of RAM, but can be configured with 4, 6, and 8GB of RAM with 8GB being the max.
• Storage shouldnt be a problem with your choice of 500GB, 640GB, 750GB, or 1TB 7200rpm SATA hard drives.
• You can choose either a DVD +/- RW drive or Blu-ray drive.
• For graphics, you can choose either an integrated ATI Radeon HD3200 or discrete ATI Radeon HD 4330 with 512MB of dedicated memory.
• It has HDMI and VGA ports.
• A 4-in-1 media card reader and integrated gigabit Ethernet are both standard.
• It has integrated 2.1 High Definition audio with the choice of going with a Sound Blaster X-Fi High Definition audio from Creative.
• For your wireless needs, you can choose either a Dell 1397 802.11 b/g wireless card or Dell 1520 802.11 b/g/n wireless card.

This little PC starts at just $229 and can be customized to support a variety of configurations depending on your needs.

Matter a fact, Dells Lionel Menchaca talks about a perfect use for the Inspiron Mino HD a Windows Media Center hub with Windows 7. You can connect this PC up to your HDTV via HDMI and play HD Blu-ray movies. You can buy a USB TV tuner to watch and record live TV in Windows Media Center and also stream video content via Internet TV and Netflix.

For a powerful Windows Media Center setup with Windows 7, it is recommended when ordering your Inspiron Zino HD you choose the discrete graphics option (the ATI Radeon HD 4330) for the best experience. With with the storage options you get with the Inspiron Mino HD, you can literally make this PC the centralized hub on your network for all your digital media. And of course HomeGroup in Windows 7 makes it easier than ever to share that content with the rest of your PCs on your network too.

In the coming months Im hoping to pick one of these up and deploy it in my home as my own Windows Media Center hub.

* Base model comes with Windows Vista Home Basic SP1 32-bit.

Photos credit: Dell. See the full set of Inspiron Zino HD photos from Dells official Flickr page.

Continuing on the last article covering an assortment of movie and audio plugins you need to try with Windows 7 Media Center, weve got even more plugins you need to give a try. These plugins cover features that should be included in any decent ten-foot media application in this day and age of widespread internet access, Weather and Social Media. Be sure to check back again soon for the third installment where well cover several programs that lend themselves to an even better Media Center experience as well.

Weather

Vista4Cast

Misleading name aside, Vista4Cast is the perfect addition to Windows 7 Media Center. This handy plugin allows you to get a quick view of the weather forecast for the next few days right from the Start Menu as well as dig deeper into future weather patterns using the main plugin. The short forecast display is very configurable including fonts, colors and more. The main plugin supports multiple cities and includes very extensive details gleaned from The Weather Channels forecast. Be sure to give this fantastic plugin a try today!

Heatwave

Heatwave is a wonderful weather plugin thats incredibly stylish to boot. Allowing you to access a number of city locations you can set from inside Media Center through a convenient and easy to use configuration panel. The newest version, which also updates the plugin to work with Windows 7 RTM, even includes a built in on-screen keyboard (though currently not functioning). Now that this plugin has been updated to work with the latest version of Windows 7 Media Center its sure to return to many a Media Center thanks to it beautiful interface styling allowing for a full five day forecast to be viewing at a glance with easy to understand icons.

Social Media

Media Center Mail

Want to read those forwarded joke mails and other assorted spam on your ten-foot interface? No problem! Media Center Mail can bring you all that and more. This plugin supports multiple users and an easy to use configuration plugin to manage your email account settings. Each user can have multiple accounts and accessing email from each account is fairly easy from inside Media Center as well. If youre looking for an email solution for Media Center, look no further.

TwitterMCE

Twitter addicts fear not, you can tweet from your couch while watching movies and TV! TwitterMCE allows you to not only check tweets from friends while away from the PC but you can even make tweets right from Media Center. Use the full on screen keyboard, complete with character countdown, to tweet about whatever it is you just saw on TV or the movie your watching. You can even browse through a complete list of your friends and followers. This is a must have app for movie loving Twitter users.

Media Center Status Application

Looking for a more hands-free method of updating your Facebook and Twitter friends to what your currently listening to or watching inside Windows 7 Media Center? Media Center Status Application has got just what you need. This little plugin lets you establish a series of rules to automatically update your status on either social network whenever you begin playing media inside Windows Media Center. With advanced rules to determine exactly what types of media to update for and exclusion rules for specific files you can even avoid being overly annoying to your social media buddies (or letting them know about that embarrassing Justin Timberlake obsession).

Be sure to stick around for the next part in the series where well cover a few more plugins that take care of some of the missing features in the background of Windows 7 Media Center as well as a hand full of must-have programs that make your Media Center interface even better. Want to know as soon as its posted? Sign for one of our completely free subscription methods and be one of the first to find out!

Since the plugin is in beta stage of development, there are a few bugs that needs to be sorted out. According to the developer, only shows from Hulu will open in full screen while others wont. But in my case, some shows

Charlie Owen, who works on Windows Media Center and is one of my favorite Microsoft bloggers, has posted a very in-depth blog post on Windows Media Center in the Windows 7 Pre-Beta build PDC attendees will be getting their hands on today. If youre heavy into Windows Media Center you NEED to check this post out.

Under the TV + Movies menu in Windows Media Center, you may have noticed a new tile: MSNBC News Beta. The MSNBC News Beta tile will begin appearing in Windows Media Center for users in the United States and Canada running Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. Users dont need to download anything to enable MSNBC News Beta in Windows Media Center. MSNBC News Beta gives users quick access to the latest election news, top stories and weather all from one screen.

Directly within Windows Media Center, users can browse Editor Picks and Most Popular videos (which are selected by viewers). I discovered that when I click on a specific video, a + icon appears. When this + icon is clicked, it gets added to a custom news video playlist. There are quite a few videos to choose from which is nice.

I was able to quickly browser through a bunch of MSNBCs Decision 08 videos and add them to a custom news video playlist to watch all at once.

I was also able to browse other categories such as Business, Sports, and Entertainment which all have videos I can either watch as I go or add to a custom news video playlist. MSNBC News Beta also sports some pretty neat search functionality that lets me search for stories with specific keywords.

And the 5-day weather forecast (available for any ZIP code in the United States) is impressive too!

As a heavy Windows Media Center user myself, I for one will be using MSNBC News Beta to stay on top of not only the upcoming U.S. Election but all the latest news.

For more on MSNBC News Beta and Windows Media Center click here!

• THE WBO SUPER FEATHERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP- Alex ArthurVS Nicky Cook


• COMMONWEALTH LIGHTWEIGHT TITLE- Amir KhanVS Breidis Prescott


• THE ENGLISH SUPER FEATHERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP- Femi FehintolaVS Stephen Foster Jr

The Queensberry Fight Network is a UK-based free Windows Media Center channel available with quite a bit of content for boxing fans to enjoy – not only with fights but press conferences and interviews as well.

To add QFN to Windows Media Center, browse to Online Media and Explore. Under Showcase, you will find The Queensberry Fight Network listed as a tile.

When you click on the tile – you will be taken to QFN in Windows Media Center where you will be required to download the free application to enable the QFN channel and its content. When you click the “Download” button you will be asked by Windows Media Center to open the website.

Download the application and enjoy all the QFN content and Saturday’s live fights!

NOTE to Windows Vista 64-bit users: The QFN application required to enable QFN in Windows Media Center should run on 64-bit systems.

This is just the first of possibly many exclusive video content available through Windows Media Center!

(UK users please check your local listings for broadcasts of these fights.)