Java Home Media Option

I continually marvel at the energy, creativity, and productivity of the open source community.

I use Mozilla.org's Firefox and Thunderbird at home, and not just because I'm a Netscape alumni: they really are superior products. You can join in too. (At work, we recently switched to Outlook/Exchange, and I calculate a daily half hour loss in productivity due to the terrible interface for following threaded conversations and the even worse search tool.)

I stumbled on today's gem, the Java Home Media Option for Tivo while trying to solve a problem playing music on my Tivo. With the old Tivo Desktop (1.x), I had a plugin that would convert Windows Media Audio files to MP3 on the fly, so I could play them via the Tivo's wireless connection. The upgrade to 2.0 (which features the must-have Tivo-To-Go) seems to have broken the plugin -- no more playing Windows Media Audio files on my Tivo (I prefer WMA over MP3 because it yield better audio quality for a given file size).

While Googling around, I stumbled across an open-source implementation of the Tivo Desktop that goes beyond Tivo's own product. While it hasn't solved my WMA problem, it lets me do much more from my Tivo, including:

• Get local weather
• See what's playing my nearby movie theaters
• See what's on my computer desktop
• Browse my MP3s using their ID tags (e.g., genre, artist, album, etc.)
• View RSS feeds -- like this blog
  
• Stream radio stations via Shoutcast

It installed seamlessly, and I was up and running in minutes. Amazing. While not as pretty as Tivo Desktop, it has many more useful features, and really showcases the creativity of the open source community. Since it's written in Java, it should run on a Mac, too. One of my friends has been impatiently waiting for Tivo to release its Desktop 2.0 product on the Mac. I emailed the download link to him, so we'll see if it works. If it does, he won't have to wait until Tivo gets around to porting Tivo Desktop 2.0 to MacOS.

Think about it: here is a group of volunteer programmers who are out-developing the professionals at Tivo! So here's my heartfelt "thanks" and "hats off" to:

• The open source community in general
  
• Mitchell Baker, Brian Behlendorf, Brendan Eich, Chris Blizzard, Mitch Kapor, and the dozens of fantastic developers at the Mozilla Foundation. (Mitchell: it's been a long winding road from the days of trusted root Certificate Authorities!)
  
• Leon Nicholls and the many other hard-working volunteers working on Java HMO in particular.