After seeing Brad Brooks’ demo of Play To in Windows 7 a couple weeks ago at the New York City Windows 7 Launch Party, I decided immediately that I must use Play To in my home. I went out a picked up a Linksys DMP100 Wireless-N Music Extender by Cisco. This device is on the market today with firmware that is currently compatible with Play To for Windows 7.

Future releases of firmware for the DMP100 will enable it to be logo’d for Windows 7 which means it will have passed all of Microsoft’s internal tests and has complete functionality in Windows 7 such being see it in Devices & Printers, ability to name the device, and easier setup with wireless networks.

What you do with this device is connect it to a stereo system and/or a set of speakers and then to your network. You then can play your music to this device over your network.

The Linksys DMP100 supports Draft Dual-Band 802.11n, 802.11g, 802.11b (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and WEP, WPA, WPA2 for security. If a physical network connection is needed, it also has an Ethernet port. For connecting to a stereo or speakers, it has a RCA L/R Input, a RCA L/R Output, an S/PDIF Output, and a 3.5mm Stereo Headphone Output.

I set up the Linksys DMP100 on a shelf in my office (please pardon the Star Trek DVDs) and connected some Altec Lansing speakers to it via the 3.5mm Stereo Headphone Output.

 

With my D-Link DIR-655 Router, I was able to easily connect the Linksys DMP100 to my wireless network as it supports Windows Connect Now.

On my Windows 7 PC, I fired up Windows Media Player and I have a playlist for the entire Beatles catalog (I purchased ALL of their remastered albums a few months ago). To “play to” the Linksys DMP100, all I needed to do was right-click on my Beatles playlist and chose “Play To” and select “Cisco Player”. I was then able to start playing the playlist.

And while I was playing music to the Linksys DMP100, I was also able to play music and video to other PCs on my network and videos to my Xbox 360.

I will also be talking about other devices that support Play To in Windows 7 – stay tuned!

Note: this content originally from http://mygreenpaste.blogspot.com. If you are reading it from some other site, please take the time to visit My Green Paste, Inc. Thank you.

Twice now in as many months I have been the proud recipient of a BSOD on XP. The crashes were identical to each other with only various addresses being different (modules loaded into a different location and the like). They appear to have been caused by a bug in w29n51.sys; the crashes are of the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (a) variety. w29n51.sys is the "Intel® Wireless LAN Driver". Admittedly, I'm running a version that is likely not the latest. But it is interesting that googling the relevant stack entries (w29n51+0x1291, w29n51+0xa6af) turns up no hits. Also of interest is that the driver file is larger than 3 MB - more than 3 times the size of the next largest driver file in %systemroot%\system32\drivers... Strings does show a large number of verbose log-type messages that one can presumably cause to be logged via some configuration setting, as well as "tabular" data.

Of course, it is also disturbing that at the time of these crashes, the wireless hardware was disabled on this laptop...

A couple of days ago, my old wireless desktop set (mouse and keyboard) had its receiver die on me. So I had to go out and grab another wireless desktop set for my PC. Microsoft offers some great wireless desktop sets but I decided to go with Logitech's Cordless Desktop S 510.

The Logitech Cordless Desktop S 510 is Certified for Windows Vista and has some great features:

• Fast 27 MHz wireless performance.
• Programmable F-Keys that can be set to open favorite applications, websites, or files.
• One-Touch Controls that let you access music, video, volume, email, and the Internet.
• Power Management lets you go longer with a low-battery light and auto-off.
• Tilt Wheel plus Zoom allows you to go side to side or in and out on photos, websites or even spreadsheets.

I took some Unboxing shots to share.

The design of the keyboard is light, thin and simple which is really great.

I see a lot of keyboards with their One-Touch Controls on the top of the keyboard - the S 510 keyboard has the One-Touch Controls on the sides. Volume (music) controls are on the right and on the left is the zoom, internet and sleep/hibernate controls.

The mouse is pretty basic but has the great Tilt Wheel plus Zoom feature that lets me scroll side-to-side instead of just up and down. This is really useful. The Wireless Receiver for the S 510 is made in semi-transparent plastic giving a really interesting effect as you can see inside to the circuit board.

Overall, I'm really happy with my decision to go with Logitech's Cordless Desktop S 510. Logitech also has a really neat website for their Certified for Windows Vista products worth checking out.

If Windows ever notifies you about a weak signal, it probably means your connection isn’t as fast or as reliable as it could be. Worse, you might lose your connection entirely in some parts of your home. If you’re looking to improve the signal for your wireless network, try some of these tips for extending your wireless range and improving your wireless network performance.

1. Position your wireless router (or wireless access point) in a central location

When possible, place your wireless router in a central location in your home. If your wireless router is against an outside wall of your home, the signal will be weak on the other side of your home. Don’t worry if you can’t move your wireless router, because there are many other ways to improve your connection. (more…)

broadband, computer, Guide, Hardware, howto, Internet, microsoft, transferring files, Wi Fi, wifi, wireless, wireless network, wireless router, wireless signals

Improve your experience in Windows Vista with PCWizKid’s TOP 10 free recommended downloads.
1. MZ Vista Force is a system tweaker. Use it to accelerate performance, juice your browsing speed, clean…

[Learn More]