Slower with domain

I just realized that ever since my office machine (DELL M6400) joined the office domain, it starts up slower than it used to be. Not that I am extremely complain, but it's just my observation.

Boxee supports ISO playback, but ....

At first I was delighted that the ISO that didn't play (with proper audio) on O!Play plays properly on Boxee. However, here's the problem:

• There's no keyboard access to easy navigate the DVD menu and the DVD time line.
• Getting out of the ISO playback proved to be troublesome.

So eventually, I found out that the best way to watch ISO on my S12 media center PC is by use Daemon Tool, mount the ISO, and the playback using Windows Media Player. In fact, even KMPlayer doesn't do as great the job because something the playback will hang up. WMP on the other hand, allows me navigate the timeline, and also switch to another audio track.

Boxee on Windows: so much better now, but why ...

It's so irritating to see a product that is so close to be awesome, and yet still have some minor problem here and there.

I am talking about Boxee, the media center appliaction. I had it running on my media center machine and tried to see if it could surpass Windows Media Center. On certain area, it does, including:

• The user interface seem speedier.
• History is an awesome feature. Not only it remembers where I left off on the video, but there's a whole history list that can access so that I don't have to remember what I watched yesterday.
• Old school .mov files that didn't work on Windows Media Center work nice on Boxee.
• Very pretty UI.
  

However, I encountered the following problems:

• Updating video file list in TV Show area takes forever.
• There's duplication in the music list after I imported all my iTune music.
• There seems to be problem running .mkv file.

Still, it's awesome to have competition, and multiple media center app allows me to mix and match setting to fit my need.

Bluetooth mouse failed to work,and how to fix it

Somehow the blue tooth mouse stopped working (after I unplugged all the USB cables from the Mac Mini, which is where the Windows 7) is running on. Even though the system said that the mouse is connected, it's obvious not working. So I had to delete the device form the list, and let the system recognized the device again. How it's working OK again.

Tablet button stops working, and my workaround

Recently, I found out that the buttons right underneath the tablet screen stops working. I tried reinstalling the Tablet button software, but that didn't seem to solve the problem. After some experimentation, I found out that:

- If I logout or temporary lock the machine, the "Rotate screen" button will WORK. But once I logged in, these buttons will stop working again.
- Pressing the "Rotate screen" button on my stripped down giant font "TV" environment, the "Rotate screen" button was once crashed the display driver.

I start to think that maybe it was the Group Policy setting that I did a while ago for the sake of fixing the Tablet Flicking problem that kept the Tablet Button from working. Meanwhile, I guess I can work around the problem by first temporarily lock the screen, press button to rotate, and then log back in again.

By the way, after using multiple keyboard, I still found my Lenovo X60T having the best keyboard among all the keyboard I use daily. It just feel right.