The Zune is great for watching movies, TV shows and YouTube clips of cute kittens, but sometimes it can take a good chunk of time and a bit of magic getting your videos ready and loaded on the Zune. There’s nothing worse than having spent a good 30 minutes transcoding an axxo-ripped XVID movie (yes you know what I’m talking about) into WMV, added to the Zune library for it to spend another 30 minutes transcoding it again because it wasn’t the particular type of WMV it was fond of.

I’ve tried this and I’ve tried that, Encode360 was good up and until a few video formats it just had difficulties with.

Just recently, I’ve finally found the perfect codec settings for the free MediaCoder software to transcode just about any video I throw at it and would sync without a second conversion. Do try this at home.

Step 1: Download and install the latest version of MediaCoder. There’s a new version of this app almost every other week so it’s good to get the latest version whenever possible.

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This is probably the best use of a Windows desktop clone ever. Colenso BBDO, a New Zealand advertising agency (who have done some really spectacular work) came up with this innovative idea to disguise literature as PowerPoint presentations to encourage people reading at work (without being told off) on behalf of the New Zealand Book Council.

The result, is a Windows XP clone presented in a fullscreen Flash application complete with a login screen, start menu, folders and windows. After you’ve browsed the titles available categorized by genre as folders, double clicking on them will launch a full-screen slideshow in the style of a PowerPoint presentation. Here’s where it takes it to the next level. The text is divided amongst the headings, subheadings, paragraphs, bullet points and even diagrams. Everyone around you would be none the wiser.

Even if you’re not at work, take a quick look at “Read at Work“. Where this concept falls short is if your workplace uses Windows Vista, the fake Windows XP desktop would be a dead giveaway, but apparently none do anyway.

The marketing idea needed to be big enough to matter to our broadest group; but feel genuine and authentic to our core. At the center of the Halo universe is a simple story focused on a hero, Master Chief. As his story unfolds through the trilogy, it is full of tales of bravery, duty, sacrifice, friendship, and selflessness. These themes are consistent with the qualities of real heroes and classic storytelling throughout history, they are universal and timeless – they speak to all of us.

On par with a drum-beating gorilla, Microsoft and its advertising agency McCann Worldgroup is sharing the glory by winning not one but two Grand Prix (better than Gold) awards at the prestigious Cannes Lions 2008 international advertising festival for the Halo 3 advertising campaign “Believe”. One was for film, and the other for integrated marketing. Considering the film category had over 4600 entries, this recognition is well deserved. Now we just need a similar campaign for Windows.

If you had doubts whether or not it is worthwhile to submit your feedback to the Windows UX Taskforce, then have a read of this comment left by an anonymous Microsoft Windows developer/designer.

… Just know that this website HAS gained attention in the WEX org, bugs are being filed as new suggestions are posted, and many are even being FIXED for beta. I’ve been surprised at how many good, detailed bugs have been found; even features I own had bugs from Vista I wasn’t aware of. Keep submitting posts everyone! Screenshots are really helpful too. There are “real” ways MS takes customer feedback, including newsgroups and MVP forums, but this is one of the few “everyday user” sites I’ve seen that is really simple and straightforward. Great work, Long!

Keep up the votes and good submissions everybody!

Update: Whilst the authenticity of the author is disputable, the message and spirit can be confirmed by several other Microsoft employees.

I know what you’re thinking, “has it really come down to this”.

No doubts you’ve all seen the “Computer” icon in Windows Vista. Some of you might have even clicked on it and few of you probably have a shortcut on your desktop. But has it ever occurred to you it’s facing the wrong direction – away from you? At least one guy did, and this is just one of the minor details under scrutiny at the Windows UX Taskforce that is particularly fascinating, to me at least.

The problem is, by default, Windows displays icons from left to right. Assuming the user sits in the middle of the monitor, the icons should in fact face right towards you and not the edge of the monitor. The only icon in Vista off the top of my head which does this correctly are the “folders” icon which open up towards the right. This actually conflicts with the official user experience guidelines suggesting the perspective of icons face left.

If this isn’t weird enough, the Windows XP’s icons and even conceptual Vista icons designed by Iconfactory faced the right (pun) way. For some unknown reason, Microsoft designers decided to flip them. FYI: Mac OSX icons face directly at you – probably the best solution.

Of course I understand that this is not a make-or-break issue and probably won’t be addressed in Windows 7 – just flipping the icons won’t actually work since the lighting and symbols on the icons will be different – but this raises an interesting discussion around the “psychology” of design. Could this explain why so many people are turned off by Vista? On the same note, facing left also implies “looking back” as opposed to right – “looking forward”. You get the drift.

In spite of the serious discussion at hand, this comment by “Turge” had me giggling inside. He writes, “My computer is to the right of me, so the icon is facing the right way. Please don’t change this otherwise I’ll have to move my PC.” Can’t argue with that.

Update: Ged from Iconfactory confirms the icons are facing “the wrong way”.

The Windows UX Taskforce is now feature complete. In the past 7 days, I’ve implemented all the features I had originally planned (and much more) to facilitate the community Windows user experience feedback site I require for world domination. If you haven’t already checked it out, then head over to www.istartedsomething.com/taskforce.

For those who like numbers, here’s some interesting stats from the past 7 days.

• 18,128 votes casted (average 100 per hour)
• 449 submissions posted
• 1,633 comments written
• 573 registered users
• 159,000 hits since its launch

The amount of quality submissions received so far is pretty amazing. There’s a few submissions entirely off-topic and the occasional “Save XP” banter, but I must admit I’m really impressed by how much attention to detail some users pay to the Windows user interface. And I thought I was picky. Of course, all of this wouldn’t mean much if none of these are ever addressed by Microsoft.

Speaking of that, I’ve heard some encouraging words from in and around Microsoft that none of this is going by unnoticed. The details are sketchy but apparently people in the Windows Experience group who are responsible for the Windows user experience are well aware of the site and have even browsed through the list of feedback thoroughly. This leads me to the next step.

Ideally, I want Microsoft designers and developers to be a part of the conversation. I’ve already implemented the necessary functionality to allow them to ‘respond’ to the feedback via a status update and explanation (in a very cool AJAX manner I might add). Knowing the situation at Microsoft, this will probably take some effort but I’m going to try to get them involved in some way or form. Until then, keep those submissions coming and know that it isn’t a lost cause. And if you are a Microsoft employee (or Steven Sinofsky), my email is in the profile page.

On a side note, I’ve received tremendous feedback on the PHP application as well. In case you were wondering, I didn’t use any frameworks – all coded from a blank file. I’ve implemented a number of optimizations in the past few days so it should feel a little snappier than it was 7 days ago. I’ve also had a number of requests to deploy the same website/application for other Microsoft softwares and even Mac OSX. All of which are under consideration, but I might need some extra incentives. 😉

P.S. If anyone tells you not to edit code live on a production server, tell them they haven’t lived life on the edge. Having said that, if you’ve edited your profile on the Windows UX Taskforce in the past 12 hours and haven’t been able to login, that would have been my fault. Please proceed to reset your password. 🙂