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Andy Pennell's Blog

See me blather about software development, Gadgets, Technology, Fatherhood, plus anything else that gets me going.

Now Available: HD DVD Emulator for Xbox 360

As of this morning the product I have been focused on for much the last year or so has at last been...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 12/13/2007

Vote for HD DVD

Its November and its time to place your vote. No, not for US Presidential candidates, but for the...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 11/15/2007

Tide is turning: Paramount declare HD DVD only

An important day in the next-gen DVD format war: Paramount have announced that they are going HD DVD...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 08/20/2007

Vista Compatibility: My Personal List

Following the travails of my Vista install at home (and subsequent success), I will be listing my...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 08/03/2007

My First Program (circa 1980)

I recently discovered my first real program(*): from 1980, it was my attempt at Space Invaders for...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 07/30/2007

Installing Vista: From Hell to Heaven

I am pleased to announce that I am typing this on a freshly installed Vista64 installation, on the...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 06/29/2007

Living With Vista: My First Few Weeks

Well I finally switched to Vista on my main dev machine at work. Its a Dell Optiplex 745 (detailed...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 06/19/2007

HD DVD: Audio Mixing, and why you don't need HDMI

There has been much confusion over multi-channel audio and HD DVD, so I thought I would try and...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 06/14/2007

Fixing Letterboxed Widescreen content on HD DVDs

HD DVD obviously rocks on HD content, but the SD content on the discs often grates me as it is...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 05/16/2007

Xbox 360 HD DVD Update Now Available

[Player version list now moved to separate post] As of 2am this morning, the latest software for the...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 05/12/2007

Matrix coming to HD DVD (only)

At last: on May 22 we get the Matrix on HD DVD, according to...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 03/21/2007

Sonos: The Perfect Network Music Player?

I have posted a review of the Sonos network music player on my personal site. If you have any...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 02/21/2007

Xbox 360 HD DVD drive now in black

We just got some goodies on our team: Xbox 360 HD DVD drives in black! These limited-edition drives...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 02/16/2007

See my early work: X-Debug from 1992

I recently discovered a floppy containing the source to a program I wrote in 1992: X-Debug, a...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 08/31/2006

Detecting over-Releasing on COM objects

I am in Refcount Hell right now, trying to fix a new chunk of our codebase for COM refcounting...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 07/21/2006

An Inconvenient Truth: You Must See This Movie

I have literally just returned from watching this, and am compelled to ask everyone I can to go and...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 06/15/2006

Wanted: Power Strip with Switches

It shouldn't be this hard, but all I want is a power strip with switches on each outlet. In my...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 06/13/2006

Firmware Upgrade Available for Toshiba HD DVD Player

Last night, on a whim, I asked my Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD Player to see if there was a firmware update...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 06/08/2006

Gas IS Cheap: It's Official

As a Brit living in the USA I've always been amused by Americans complaining about gas (aka petrol)...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 05/09/2006

Authoring iHD apps for HD DVD

My team has just created a new forum for programmers and content creators who wish to make great HD...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 04/26/2006

Being an Audio/Visual Early Adoptor is getting cheaper

Since the late 90s I have been something of an early adoptor for AV gear. With the imminent [I hope]...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 04/19/2006

HD DVD is available in the USA!

Yesterday the first HD DVD players from Toshiba became available (from Best Buy mostly by the looks...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 04/18/2006

Autoexp.dat not working in Visual Studio 2005?

As this was reported twice in the space of a week internally, I figured that external users may be...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 03/28/2006

Property Grids Suck

I couldn't put it better myself than Avery does in his VirtualBlog - Property Grids Suck. Not only...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 03/20/2006

Find new music with Pandora

I am very bad about finding new music: I'll buy new albums from artists I know I love, but that's...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 03/18/2006

Making DVDs Kid-Proof

Our newer childrens' DVDs are not lasting long these days, so I was very pleased to discover D-Skins...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 01/06/2006

HD-DVD News from CES

I watched the Bill Gates keynote at CES tonight (via the web, I'm not in Vegas or anything) and it...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 01/05/2006

A Better Way to Search MSDN

I have previously ranted about the Search capabilities of MSDN, so I decided to try and do something...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 12/18/2005

What does "pdb is obsolete" really mean?

If your Visual Studio debugger says this to you, it either means Your PDB really is obsolete Your...

Author: Andy-Pennell Date: 12/09/2005

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