MyNetflix has been in beta testing for over two months. Since that time, I have added features and fixed many bugs. It is now time for MyNetflix to come out of beta! The official (non-beta) version can be downloaded from my Software page. If you were using one of the beta versions, they are set to expire soon. I put a “time-bomb” in the beta versions so I could make sure people weren’t reporting issues from older versions of MyNetflix. The official version that is now on my Software page does not have any expirations built in.

As always, I appreciate any feedback you might have about this version. I will be working on the next version soon, and would like to incorporate any any feedback you might have into that version.

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix

I just finished working on a few new features for MyNetflix, so I wanted to get this out there in public beta. The new version can be downloaded from my Software page, and includes the following new features:

Enhancements:

• New Search feature. This allows you to search for all movies, or only watchnow movies. There is an on-screen keyboard for use with the remote control, and MyNetflix also suggests searches to you as you type.
• Added the ability to select which bitrate you want to use for movie streaming. The default is “auto”, but now it can be overridden in the configuration application. This will be useful for those with slower connections who may have had problems with watchnow in the past.
• Sped up the video playback process when selecting to watch a movie

Bug fixes:

• None

Screenshots

New Search Feature (Upper-right corner)

Searching

Search Results

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix

Since I posted version 2.1 of MyNetflix, I have received some great feedback. I just released another minor update today which resolves some problems which were reported to me. The new release is version 2.1.0.2 beta, and can be downloaded from my Software page.

Changes since version 2.1.0.1 beta
Enhancements:

• None

Bug fixes:

• Fixed the “Test” button in the configuration app. This was not working.
• With accounts that did not have WatchNow capabilities, MyNetflix would show the watchnow features and display an error if they were used. The configuration application now correctly tests for this, and MyNetflix will not show the watchnow categories if the feature is not enabled on your account
• Fixed episode selection screen, which broke due to changes to Netflix’s website
• Corrected problem with some configuration options (filtered genres, category order) not flowing through to the extender
• Corrected problems if the location of the Temp directory was changed (by changing the TEMP or TMP environment variables)

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix

I have completed development on the next version of MyNetflix (v2.1). This new version has been in private beta for about a week, and now it is ready for public beta. One of the features you will probably be most interested in is the ability to play WatchNow movies in full screen, and use the remote control for pause/resume commands.

Changes since version 2.0 beta
Enhancements:

• Enhanced the “Watch Now” feature to play the media in full screen mode
• Added support for pause/play remote control buttons during “Watch Now” playback
• Added a “select episode” screen when selecting “Watch Now” on a TV series
• Redesigned gallery and movie details UI to remove dependency on third-party libraries (modified license agreement and about screen to reflect these changes)
• Added a busy indicator while looking up data
• Added new category – “Watch now in queue”
• Removed numbers from movie descriptions in the gallery
• Changed movie ratings to graphical stars on Movie Details screen
• Changed to navigate back to queue after adding, removing, or moving an item to the top of the queue
• Added the movie caption to the gallery thumbnails while images are loading. If an image cannot be loaded, a “broken image” graphic displays, as well as the title of the movie.
• Added the ability to reorder categories, hide categories, and hide genres

Bug fixes:

• Fixed problems with using special characters in username/password
• Fixed navigation issue when navigating to the end of a large set of movies (ex: Top 100) and then navigating to a small set of movies (ex: Queue) causes no movies to be displayed.
• Changed image cache location from %TEMP% to %TEMP%\MyNetflix
• Added refresh to queue after removing or moving to top
• Added an error message when trying to “watch now” on an extender, now says “Watch now is not supported on an extender.”
• Resolved issues with Netflix player (in Internet Explorer) and MyNetflix being treated as two seperate computers (reduces the likeliness of the “more than 4 computers” error)
• Removed MyNetflixBrowser icon from the Program Library

Public Beta Program
The public beta version of MyNetflix 2.1 can be downloaded from my Software page. Please send any feedback you might have about this version to mynetflix@anpark.com, or use my Feedback Page.

Public Beta Update – 02/28/2008 @ 8:58P MST
I just posted a new version of MyNetflix which resolves two issues. The first issue was that the “Test” button in the configuration app was not working. This has been fixed. The second issue was that with accounts that did not have WatchNow capabilities, MyNetflix would show the watchnow features and display an error if they were used. The configuration application now correctly tests for this, and MyNetflix will not show the watchnow categories if the feature is not enabled on your account. Thanks for the great feedback so far, and keep it coming!

Public Beta Update – 03/01/2008 @ 9:43A MST
It looks like Netflix upgraded their website last night, and the Episode list in MyNetflix stopped working. Unfortunately, this is simply one of the risks that comes with parsing the watchnow data from their web pages. I have corrected this issue and posted a new version of MyNetflix on my software page. Thanks!

Screenshots

Browsing your queue

Movie Details (in queue)

Browsing genres

Browsing genres

Movie Details (not in queue)

Browsing “Watch Now” movies

Browsing “Watch Now” movies

Movie Details (Watch Now)

Select Episode (Watch Now)

About

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix

A friend of mine, Roger Whiting, designed a logo for the MyNetflix plug-in I have been working on. This logo will appear in the “More Programs” screen in Media Center.

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix

Whew! I’ve been pretty busy responding to all of the emails and feedback for MyNetflix, and I wanted to take a moment to say “thanks” to a few people who helped indirectly with the development efforts on this project.

I mentioned in my previous post that “I’ve kept this pretty quiet” up until now, and that’s true. I have to say, though, that even though these people did not know I was working on this project, their contributions to the Media Center development community have both accelerated and encouraged my development of this project.

Ryan Hurst. Ryan wrote the original version of MyNetflix that was designed to run within Media Center 2005. His version was the inspiration for this new version, which was written using the Media Center Markup Language (MCML) for Windows Vista. Ryan has also been very helpful in getting the word out about this new version, and in providing feedback about features/issues.

Steven Harding. Steven worked on a open-source (LGPL) library for MCML developers called MCMLookalike. This library allows developers to easily get started writing add-ins which have similar pivot menus to those found in Media Center. MyNetflix uses this library for the categories at the top of the main page. Steven has also been a contributing community member on the MediaCenterSandbox forum, which is a helpful resource for MCML developers. I found several of his posts to be helpful during the development process.

Niall Ginsbourg. Niall has several of his own add-ins for Media Center, is a fellow Media Center MVP, and has been very active in the MCML development community. Niall also worked on MCMLookalike with Steven. In addition, he has provided sample code/images for a Vista MC Style GelButton, which is used in MyNetflix for the buttons on the “Movie Details” page. Niall has also been a helpful community member on the MediaCenterSandbox forum, where he has shared his knowledge about MCML development.

In appreciation of their community efforts, I have also added a “special thanks” section on the About page in MyNetflix.

It was also brought to my attention (thankfully) that MyNetflix was unintentionally violating some of the terms of the LGPL license under which MCMLookalike was published. I have addressed these issues this evening and have posted a new version of MyNetflix which is now available for download on my Software page. No bug fixes or enhancements to this version, but if you are beta testing please take the time to check out the new version and make sure I didn’t break something.

I am still compiling all of the emails and feedback I am receiving, and will hopefully be able to address some more of the issues and feature requests in the coming days. Keep the feedback coming!

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix

I’ve kept this pretty quiet, but I’ve been working on a new Media Center plugin for a little while now. It is now ready for beta testing, and I’ve decided to run a public beta for this one.

MyNetflix features

• View your Netflix queue
• Browse movies by genre, top 100, new titles, etc.
• View your history and recommendations
• Add movies to your queue
• Remove movies from your queue
• Move movies to the top of your queue
• Browse “watch now” movies
• Play “watch now” movies

Public Beta Program
The public beta version of MyNetflix can be downloaded from my Software page. Please send any feedback you might have about this version to mynetflix@anpark.com, or use my Feedback Page.

Public Beta Update – 02/10/2008 @ 8:35P MST
I got some very good initial feedback from a few people and apparently there were problems with UAC both during the running of the configuration application and the running of the plugin. I have updated the version on the Software page to resolve these issues. I’m going to try not to make this thing too much of a moving target for beta testers, so I probably won’t do another build for at least a few days unless I find something major. In the meantime, please keep the feedback coming!

Public Beta Update 2 – 02/11/2008 @ 9:22P MST
There was a problem with the previously posted version that occurred in some cases during the configuration. An error: “System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.” would occur when launching the configuration application. Since this was affecting quite a few people, I fixed the issue and did another build. I overwrote the previous version on my Software page with this new version. If you experienced the issue and did not get around it, please download the new version.

Screenshots

Browsing your queue

Movie Details (in queue)

Browsing genres

Browsing genres

Movie Details (not in queue)

Browsing “Watch Now” movies

Browsing “Watch Now” movies

Movie Details (Watch Now)

About

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix

I just posted the final pictures of the Girl’s Maple Dresser on my Woodworking page.

I’ll be compiling the posts I have made on my website into a set of plans, and I should have those available soon in PDF format.

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tags: woodworking, dresser, maple

This is a continuation of the Girl’s Maple Dresser project.

Time estimate for this step: 4 hours.

The tenth and final step in making this dresser is to assemble the dresser, drawers, and drawer faces.

Step 10a: Install drawers

The drawers of the dresser were installed in step 7. So, reassembly should be quick and easy. First, install the drawer slides in the cabinet of the dresser using the screws provided. Next, install the drawer slides on the drawers using the screws provided. At this point, I like to mark numbers on back of the drawers for future installation.

Step 10b: Drawer Faces

Once the drawers are installed in the dresser, the drawer faces can be installed. Depending on what drawer handles you have chosen, you will need to drill holes in the appropriate places on the drawer faces.

I chose Vintage Floral 64mm Vintage Bail Pull in Antique Nickel drawer handles from knobs4less.com. I ordered 9 of these, which allows for 1 on each of the small drawers and 2 on each of the large drawers.

Make a template out of carboard or thin wood to mark the location of the holes for the drawer handles, and drill the holes using a drill press.

Once the holes have been drilled for the drawer handles, place the drawer faces into the dresser and align and separate them using small shims.

Using a handheld drill, drill through the holes in the drawer faces into the drawer. The screws to hold the handles on will come from inside the drawer and hold the handles on the outside of the drawer faces. These screws will also hold the drawer faces in place.

Screw the drawer handles onto the drawers, starting with the bottom drawer and working upward. This will allow you to align the top drawer with the drawer face below it.

Once the drawer faces have been installed, the dresser is complete! Here are a few pictures of the completed dresser.

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tags: woodworking, dresser, maple

Today I was working on a very simple HTML application which was targeting a Windows Mobile 5 device. One of the key elements of the application was a small form which had a few fields the user could fill out and submit.

For example, consider the following code:

which generates this page:

The problem is: If you have more than one input field in a form, Pocket Internet Explorer WILL NOT submit the form when the user presses the enter key in one of the input fields. For example: if the users enters data into “Field 1″ and wants to submit the form, they must tab to the “Submit” button and press enter.

First of all, this isn’t really a new problem. Some browsers have behaved this way for a long time, and the solution is pretty well-known in the industry. All you need to do to solve this problem on most browsers is to add an onkeydown event to all of the fields, check for the enter key (code 13), and submit the form using javascript. However, Pocket Internet Explorer doesn’t support the ONKEYDOWN attribute of an INPUT element. So, now what do you do?

Well, it took me a little while to figure out a solution, but the following works quite well. According to the HTML Reference for Pocket Internet Explorer, the FORM HTML Element does support the ONSUBMIT attribute. So, we can divide the single form up into three forms (one for each input) and sync up the values when the user submits the form. Consider the following HTML:

In this example, the fields are divided up into three forms (one field per form). Each form contains it’s primary field, as well as hidden fields for the other values. All of the forms have the same ACTION attribute, and all of the forms have an ONSUBMIT attirbute which points to the getOtherFields() JavaScript method. In the getOtherFields method, we populate the hidden fields on each form with the actual fields the user sees. After populating the hidden fields, we return true so the form will now be submitted.

This solution presents the same page to the user, but now allows the enter button to be pressed in any of the fields to submit the form.

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tags: HTML, MVP, Windows Mobile