Those of you on my Facebook or Twitter may have recently noticed updates on Movies and TV Shows coming from Boxee. I know you’ve all been staying up at night wondering what on Earth Boxee is and how does it work, sleep easy my friends as I’m about to tell you about my latest project.

If you’re a dedicated follower then you’ll remember my last project, XBMC, well Boxee is a fork project off the back off XBMC and is my new HTPC replacement (or should I say addition as the XBMC XBOX is now running in the bedroom). Boxee Beta (I was using the Alpha but it wasn’t nearly as good) is running on my Samsung laptop which I have connected to my new LG HDTV via a HDMI cable. The draw card for Boxee is its online content partners and social media integration but for me it’s biggest feature is the media lookup service. This indexes your TV shows and movies and downloads cover art, titles and descriptions from IMDB and TVRage.

Another feature I’m slowly getting into is the online content I previously mentioned. With Boxee you can browse through their App collection and add online content providers such as Joost, Justin.tv, YouTube and even BBC iPlayer. These come from the default Boxee repository but you can easily add more app repositories from users with custom built apps and feeds.

My next project is to build a NAS (Network Attached Storage) for my media and backups. My current 1Tb drive and laptop HDD are about 95% full so I need to look into something a little better. With media centres in multiple rooms, the laptop and 2 iPhones in the house means media on the network has become a must.

Download Boxee Beta here: http://www.boxee.tv/

Check out the new Boxee Box by D-Link: here & here

On Saturday Neil and I got up at 5am and headed to Wales to meet Alex and watch some rally at the Wyedean Forest Rally. It was about a 2 hr drive in the M5 but we got there nice and early and saw all the cars run through on the first stage. The event was much more professional than the previous Tempest Rallies I’ve been too but there wasn’t too many risk takers so not a lot happened on the day. The highlight was the above video where a Metro 6R4 took out a fence and got stuck in a ditch – Neil ran off to help and I filmed the rescue.

Andy Burton and his famous Peugeot Cosworth

Number 211 - pink poker-dots

Alex said the rally was amazing in 3D!

Neil bleeds orange and blue in his 2 Sign-Up.to tees

Overall a great day and my first time to Wales (admittedly not very far in) however next time I’ll heed Neil’s advise and actually wear two pairs of socks because it was absolutely freezing in the Forest, in fact I’ll just double everything I wear next time.

Last Wednesday was Australia Day and instead of heading into London and going to a Walkabout like I did last year I thought I’d bring the festivities to Woking, Surrey.

Even though it was a balmy zero degrees on the walk to work I proudly wore my green and golds in the form of an Australian beach Cricket shirt my younger brother William gave me and my tacky green Australian $100 note board shorts, all topped off with my Aussie flag thongs.

I brought in a couple of other tops for the team and was pleasantly surprised to see a few had brought in their own.

I hooked up the office ghetto blaster and cranked out my Australian classic playlist reminding the English of Aussie greats such as AC/DC, Cold Chisel, Australian Crawl and even a little Regurgitator.

For lunch I’d organised a BBQ outside, Stuart brought in a couple of disposable BBQ’s, Neil some sausages and bread so I ducked down to the local Co-Op (Bottle-O) for a case of… Fosters!
Given the mercury had only lifted a single degree we installed the assistance of Mr Geogre Foreman to help pre-cook our sangaas.

That said we only lasted outside for about 25mins before it become clear that the BBQ’s weren’t going to light and everything seemed to be getting colder than then cooking. We took Mr Foreman back inside and finished off cooking in our office kitchen with a combination of microwave, toastie machine, and George Foreman.

Everyone appeared to enjoy the food and hopefully had an enjoyable first Australia Day.

Below is a photo at about 1am after the snow had stopped, settled and actually started to fall back from the trees.

Some more information on the photo here on Flickr

The original size (post-Photoshop exposure) here on SmugMug

Our hotel for the trip - Lake House

As Neil said we packed up yesterday and headed off to The Lake District. Emily and I have been quite ill over Christmas (caught the flu from work) so it’s good to get out of the house and go exploring. We had a good drive up with not much traffic and ‘True Lies’ on in the car. I didn’t get a photo but seeing my first Northerner driving his car with a crash helmet on was definitely a highlight. We are staying 4 nights in a place called the Lake House, the rooms are a decent size and there’s free WiFi so Neil and I are pretty happy. For the first night we put in some ale at a local free house and enjoyed a nice meal at a little place called Stampers.

The following day we geared up and walked from Skelwith Bridge to Elterwater in the snow and frozen over sheep paddocks. This would give me a chance to try the new walking poles Neil and Di bought me for Christmas and stomp around in some snow.

Showing off my new walking poles

I was actually pretty worried about slipping in at this point

Diane - Photographer Extraordinaire

Too many mince pies to cross this

One of the fantastic icy lakes

Once at Elterwater we had lunch at the locally renowned Britannia Inn and then made our way back to the car at Skelwith Bridge. For the following few hours we drove around The Lake District trying to get to Wasdale Head, however all the access roads were frozen over and pretty dangerous, so we headed back.

 

Mad Hatters - Italian restaurant on the 2nd night

On the second day we were up early again and off to climb Mt Hellvellyn. We didn’t have all the right gear on with the walking poles breaking but the new Camelbak from Neil and Di also got me for Christmas was nice. Given Em was still feeling under the weather I’m impressed we made it up at all but I think at the half way point we had to give in. The snow, wind and incline was rapidly increasing and with little left to hold on to it was certainly time to turn around. A great suggestion from Neil and now I really want to come back again and give it another go, perhaps without as much snow (or just more climbing gear).

Em looking at how far we've come

The view from halfway up Mt Hellvellyn

Neil in a bit of a snow storm

Once we made it back down Mt Hellvellyn we drove into Keswick for some lunch (and tea). Whilst wandering around the outdoor stores looking for crampons we found a good deal on walking sticks so I replaced my newly broken ones and Em and Di also picked up a pair.

NYE count down in Keswick

You're a goose!

That night we went back to the free house for a couple more ales and a whiskey before heading over to the ‘China Cottage’ for some extremely average Chinese dinner. The  next day we decided to go for another walk and try out new walking poles.

An old slate mine cave

Keeping up my fluids with the new Camelbak Neil & Di got me for Xmas

Di found another Robin that likes ginger biscuits

A little waterfall at the end of our walk

After our walk we drove over to Bowness-On-Windermere for a pub lunch and a little shopping. Another quaint little Lakes village with slate buildings and little boutique shops.

With this being our last night we went to the award winning ‘Log House Restaurant‘ for a fantastic 3 course meal and lovely wine.

Finally on Thursday we got up nice and early, had breakfast, paid our bill and headed home before light. The roads were fantastic and Neil got us back to Woking by 12:15, plently of time for some rest before the Mukerji’s big NYE party that night.

A fantastic trip and enjoyable way to spend the Christmas break, I can’t wait to go back.

_B

]]> http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/2009/12/28/the-lakes-district/feed/ 0 http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/2009/12/17/paris/ http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/2009/12/17/paris/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:19:53 +0000 Brenden http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/?p=782 About a month ago now I went to Paris for the weekend with Emily, her sister and her Mum as Emily’s Mum was flying out of Paris back to Australia.

Although I’d been to Paris before it was nice to be back in Autumn when it was so damn cold. This time we got to do more exploring and managed to get up the Eiffel tower as it was fogged out last time.

After tracking our way to the hotel we found out that Emily had made up the address. So I used my trusty iPhone to find the actual hotel and GPS navigated our way there. That day we ventured out to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur (Basilica of the Sacred Heart) which was amazing inside and out and then got a little lost (again) on the way back to the hotel. The first night we were booked into the Moulin Rouge and I must say it was fantastic and not *just* because of the topless dancers.

On the second day we went to the Eiffel tower and decided to walk to the second floor than take the lift, this wasn’t too bad but it was 701 steps altogether. The view from the top was amazing and I’m really glad we did it, the crowds however got a little much so we didn’t stick around up there too long.

On the last night we had a really nice dinner at a small café next door to the very place I spent New Year’s Eve last year. Fantastic service, very reasonably priced (for Paris) and I finally got to try escargot.

After dinner we walked back through the main street in Paris, the Champs-Élysées. This is where I found a mega Nespresso store (my new coffee machine).

On the last day it ended up pouring down rain which was fine as we were going to spend the day shopping. Unfortunately Paris closes down on Sunday’s and the shopping districts become homeless motels so we changed our Eurostar tickets and went home early.

It was good to see Emily’s Mum off back to Australia and finally use our free Eurostar tickets.

Where to next?

_B

Unboxing

Dry ice - "Ice to see you!"

Private Reserve

The Queen's meat!

The finest of the fine

No no, thank you!

Individually wrapped parcels of love (meat)

Medium rare please

With salad and mash.

Now with a special Chinese beer - complete!

]]> http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/2009/10/18/donald-russell/feed/ 6 http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/2009/10/07/life-in-woking/ http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/2009/10/07/life-in-woking/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:46:46 +0000 Brenden http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/?p=745 I’ve been back in Woking, UK for a couple of weeks now and settling back into routine nicely.
Everyone from work came out on the Friday I flew in and we all had a blinder, which despite the crazy hangover I had the next day was really nice.

I’ve had a massive couple of weeks at work, catching up on things, going to seminars and putting new features live. There’s so much happening lately so it’s really good to be back in the office with my team.

Planning another trip to France soon but still not sure what we’re doing for Xmas and NYE, I was thinking Thailand but we’re going to keep an eye out for packages.

Finally a couple of photos of English/European things that make me laugh.

Between my recent projects at work, staying up all night working, a really bad flu that lasted for weeks and being too tired to care about other things I haven’t blogged.

I’ve really enjoyed my time here and I guess having my Visa declined once and the entire process really drawn out has given me more time with my friends and family that I wouldn’t have got, which ultimately makes me feel better about heading back to the UK again.

Below are some photos of camping trips and drinking nights out with some  friends. I’m going to miss everyone and will hold you all to the promises of visits to London in the next couple of years.

_B

A big mud crab I caught with my Dad

Stubbie Coolers

Sunset on the river

Leyton & Blacky at the Vic

Cheese

Murder? What Murder?

The Big Pineapple!

After our night of absolute debauchery we rose to “wake up you bunch of fuck heads” in a thick German accent and beer cans being tossed at our tents. It would seem one of us had taught a rather large German these phrase the night before.
For those of us that didn’t wake up it was certainly inevitable once the Swiss started repeatedly banging on the race course armco with two hammers. It was like someone smashing saucepans together inside your head!

Once moving we all slowly made our way down to get some curry wurst for breakfast, this was perhaps one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Once back most of us got some more sleep and then finally we decided to make our way up to the festival, this is of course why we had crossed 5 Countries to get here.

After sussing out the grounds Neil, the Ben’s and I headed back to the camp for some rest while the others rocked on. After semi-recovering and putting on more clothes we ventured back for the night but not without finding ourselves a fantastic jungle shortcut.

The following day we were getting back on track however it absolutely bucketed down during the night and didnt stop until the early afternoon. So after an unsuccessful attempt at a gas burner breakfast we packed up and headed for town to look for more supplies and a hot meal. After ages in a local store laughing at all things German (and buying more sleeping bags and wet weather gear) we ventured over to Neil’s favourite hotel the ‘On-Road Cafe’ for a meal. A few beers, a massive schnitzel and a much needed toilet break we were ready to leave however not before Neil and I organised ourselves the next 2 nights and the rest of the guys the last night in their lovely warm and dry establishment.

That night we were all charged up again and made our way over to the festival (via our shortcut) but not without first getting a photo with some of our German friends.

The Gang

The shortcut

This evening we saw Machine “Fucking” Head and got down and dirty in the mosh pits for The Prodigy and Slipknot. After thank Neil and I snuck away and headed back to our warm hotel.
Once we got there I had a shower and meet Neil downstairs where a shot (of some Dutch drink) and a cold beer were waiting, it was fantastic. I think we sat downstairs talking to the owner and his wife until almost 2am again getting quite drunk.

Machine "Fucking" Head

Save on smoke machines, have your festival in the clouds

Slipknot tried warming things up

The On-Road Cafe

On the last day we spent the day at the hotel/cafe drinking and then went out for a fantastic steak on a stone, a local dish apparently. The first place we went to was closed because they were worried about the drunken festival goer coming in however the Taxi driver knew another place that served the dish so we all piled back in the cab and went there.

Steak on a Stone

Dig in

After walking back to the hotel (to burn off some of that protein) we pretty much settled in and decided to watch the last day of the festival on MTV in the warm bar. All except the determined Pete who layered up and set out on his own.

The last day we said our good byes and high tailed it to the French coast, all in all a fantastic trip, one I’ll never forget.

_B

]]> http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/2009/07/25/rock-am-ring-the-festival/feed/ 0 http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/2009/07/02/update-back-in-australia/ http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/2009/07/02/update-back-in-australia/#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:42:23 +0000 Brenden http://www.urbanseven.com/blog/2009/07/02/update-back-in-australia/ A quick update to say I’m back in Australia for the next 6 weeks or so sorting out my new VISA. I have been working my ass off lately on Seal.com so I have yet to finish my travel blogs.

Hopefully things will die down in the next week and I’ll be able to catch up. I haven’t even spoken about Barcelona or Hong Kong yet.

_B

Ben Hughes was taking Polly, Pete and Jonny in the Shaguar but they weren’t leaving til 2, so they had come catching up to do.
After a short drive and a movie we had arrived in Dover, however we just missed the early ferry and had an hour and a half to wait, luckily that’s just enough time to watch Rambo 4 whilst sitting in the queue. The ferry ride across the channel was breif and as soon as we hit French soil we floored it all the way to Aachen in Germany passing through Belguim and The Netherlands without stopping once.

We caught up with the others at our first stop, the Ibus in Aachen and went out ‘to where all the crazy kids go’ for some pizza and Bitburger. We found the pizza and beer but there was no sign of any crazy kids.

Outside the Ibus in Aachen, Germany

After a decent nights sleep at the Ibus we packed up again and made a B-Line for the Nurburgring so we could find a place and pitch our tents.

The Jag coming up the rear.

The road to the Nurburgring

After driving around the ring and not finding a single place to stop we headed back to the entrance to start again in the opposite direction when a guy came running over saying “Do you guys speak English? Come with me, we have a place for you to camp, we hate the Germans too”.
A little odd and quite frankly worrying being that we are in Germany at a festival surrounded by Germans, but we needed a place so off we went. Turns out it was a great space on the 3Km mark, we immediately erected our tents, had some ciders and instantly made friends with the Germans across the track….the Swiss were not impressed!

Finished erecting tents, time for a cider

…stay tuned, more to come!

Will do a full report back next week.

_B

On Saturday I ventured out of Woking again and this time I ended up at Thorpe Park with Emily.

It’s a lot like Dreamworld on the Gold Coast but probably more rides, and a absolute load more people. After standing in a huge queue to get in I had to stand in a security queue so I could be searched and then went to stand in the Saw: The Ride queue. That queue was taking ages (1hr 90mins according to the sign??) so we went and stood in the queue to get fast track tickets to queue faster…there was a lot of queuing.

Anyway the Saw fast track was sold out and I just couldn’t wait 2.5hrs so we got an ultimate fast track that allows you quick queuing on 4 different rides. One of them being ‘Tidal’ and considering it was already raining I didn’t like the thought of being soaked completely. After we went on a few of the rides we stopped for some Corona’s and it cleared up a little but this being England the moment we went back out it started raining heavier!

After the ‘Nemesis’ I felt quite sick and thought we should leave but after a tweet from Gavin I thought “we’re here now, we may as well go on the Saw ride”. The sign said 70mins so I thought why not, 1.5hr and some routine maintenance later we got on and I’m really glad we decided to wait because it was definitely the best ride of the day.

I don’t think I will go back to Thorpe Park, as it was mainly full of teenage chavs and mingas so I think I will give Alton Towers a go next.

_B

Stone Henge - From the fence as you have to be a hippy to get in.

Cattle on the roads everywhere, this one posed for a photo.

Neil's BMW 330d that we went down in.

Stopped for Coffee at a hotel in Dartmoor

Then we went underground in a local Slate mine.

Safety first, they were mining slate after all.

The next couple of days we went venturing around Cornwall as the weather was holding up, beautiful landscapes.

The most southern point of England

They've had a security problem down here for awhile now.

Beautiful landcapes & old castles

May day celebrations

Boscastle - Great little place, with lovely cream teas, a witch museum & freezing temperatures!

All in all I had a great weekend, saw so many places and really got to experience some of the more English parts of the UK.

Next trip Germany for the mighty ‘Rock Am Ring‘ roadtrip in June, stay tuned!

_B

Look forward to exploring some of Englands South-West, in fact just looking forward to getting away for a little bit.
Taking my big camera too so will take plenty of photos.

_B

Last night we went out for work drinks as it was Stuarts last day as he is heading off to London to work for Yahoo. After a few beers at a local pub Enzo’s Karen joined us as we were also celebrating her Birthday.

It didn’t take long before we all ended up at our favorite place in Woking, Bed Bar and that only means one thing …Jäger Bombs!

The building from the street

Last Thursday I finally moved house from Willesden Green, North London out to Woking, Surrey where I work and I couldn’t be happier.

A friend from work helped me moved most my stuff in his car but I had to take a suitcase on the train (where did all this junk come from?) so on Thursday I managed to get the new keys and after work moved in.

A proper sized fridge and a FREEZER!!!

My new SECURE front door

2 x Comfortable couch and a slightly bigger TV

So much better having carpet in the house and not just in the bathroom. The place even has Sky TV…working….and free!

Possibly the best part of the new place

The bedroom, plenty of space, might have to do something about the duvet

A decent bathroom where my elbows don't touch the walls

Plenty of green

Shared sun room and balcony

So after some exporing, a couple of nights of drinking and an overall very relaxing long weekend it’s back to work today. Luckily it’s only a few minutes down the street now. What will I do will the 3hrs a day extra I now have???

The other weekend was Matt from work’s Stag-do weekend and we headed out to sunny Santiago.

There is only one flight in and one out so I had to be up at the sparrows fart hour of 3:30 Friday morning to get ready, get a cab and then catch the hour long bus out to Stansted airport.
Once there I caught up with Neil, Matt, Paxton, Chris and John and a Weatherspoons breakfast and beers were in order.

The flight was pretty good and once the hatch door opened I could feel that magical heat I haven’t felt in almost a year.  After some negotiations we got a 7 seater bus but with luggage it was really only a 5 seater, so John ended up squashed in the back…top marks.   With that sorted we headed into town for some lunch and to meet up with Rupert. The tapas and beers along with the warmth made for a relaxing afternoon.

However that was all to change when the 7 of us piled into the car and headed out for some paintball action. We meet up with a young girl running the show and then ended up the the wood just outside a nearby village, it was great as it was only the 7 of us playing and asides from the basic safety stuff there were no rules.

After we had sufficently shot the shit out of each other we jammed back in the car and headed out to Ruperts villa to clean up and unpack.
The place was magnificant in all aspects but it was the shower that did it for me, ‘Best Shower Ever!’

Once cleaned up and a few more beers later in we headed out to a local restaurant for some home-made style local cusine. After a mix of stews, seafood, pork and devine cheesecakes we finished off with a local spirit (much like a scnapps) and then back for more pool at the villa.

Go Karting was first thing Saturday morning after a much needed sleep in. Rupert even snuck in a few quick laps before his wife noticed him missing.   John was kind enough to sit this one out and document the race for us. Neil was unsupprisingly the course leader but Chris and Paxton faught quite a battle for secon place, I clearly had a weight disadvantage but countered that with some thrilling drifting. 

Now Matt on the other hand was playing it very safe (either him just getting his licence or trying to protect his body for the wedding) but this didn’t last, 5mins or so in and a rouge tyre rolls past Neil, we look over and Matt has managed to park his kart on top of a tyre barrier right on the hairpin! He narrowly avoided being staked so we can be happy about that but I think if he just gave it a little more gas he could have launched the kart and created a course shortcut.

All that excitement had built up a hunger (which was surprising after the 7 meal bonanza from Friday) so we (eventually) made our way to the supermarket for more supplies for our big last night feast.

The rest of the day/night went pretty much as expected, plenty of drinking, loads of food, trying the swimming pool but not getting past my toes. After dinner and many more drinks there was some discussion and with some self help from Matt I threw him in the pool at about midnight

Sunday it wax time to leave and with only one flight in and one out it was important we packed up and left early, so it was really great when the GPS/ Matt/Paxton got us lost on the highway and we started heading in the wrong direction! I had resided to spending another day there but some tactical driving from Paxton and a spot of airport running meant we made the flight and were on our way back to the UK.

Congratulations Matt and Nikki! I can’t wait to see the wedding photos.  I look forward to seeing all the guys again sometime, I had a great weekend away.

_B