This past Memorial Day Weekend, my wife and I decided to try something new.  The weather was perfect so we decided to take our infamous Rock Band equipment and set it up outside in our backyard.  Now this was a pretty spur of the moment type of decision and we did not have the “perfect” setup, but we were quite pleased with the overall look.

We had used a 8′ bedsheet as our projector screen.  Our projector was hooked up using XBOX’s VGA breakout cord and the XBOX audio was hooked into my OLD but still kick-ass, Sony receiver.  I set up 4 speakers and the sound was almost louder the the squadron of F-18 Blue Angels that kept flying over my house.

Once the sun started to set, we fired up the systems and before you knew it, 4 people were playing Rock Band and it sounded awesome!  I have a few pics I need to post up here to show you our set up and a few of our coolest friends playing Rock Band!

In another cool piece of developer news, Windows IIS 7.0 is supposed to support PHP or at least make PHP easier to work with on IIS 7.0. I have toyed with PHP on IIS 6.0, it will run but most webhosts will not support any issues that should arise when developing web applications.

Here is a great set of articles from IIS.net that covers IIS 7.0 new features in detail and offers an IIS 6.0 to IIS 7.0 Migration guide

Microsoft has released an update to the Windows Live suite. My favorite IM tool has always been Messenger because it is easy to set up and use immediately. I recommend it to family in particular for remote troubleshooting purposes.

The new installation was simple and offered the ability to load specific integration opportunities such as mail, photos etc…I loaded the mail and photo sharing tool to see how it holds up to other solutions from Google and Yahoo.  More to follow.

The clever folks at NordicTrack offer a mid-level Elliptical that you can actually play games on while you burn some calories. If I was going to spend any time on an elliptical, the machine better have some other form of entertainment versus watching my heart ping out of control.

This elliptical has a bunch of Bells and Whistles including, the ability to play your Ipod through the built-in speaker, it has iFit technology which are little SD sticks that can help you with your workouts. Built in gaming with Tetris and Space Invaders, old school classics that you can play while losing weight.

I really do like the way this machine feels after two solid months of usage. The little mini-games help the time pass while I am struggling to burn off some calories. I have hooked up my stereo and I used my Slingbox to set up a laptop so I can watch TV and listen to the audio over the ellipticals speakers.

Not a bad way to shed some weight!

Ever want something for a really long time? Well I did, and it was the Slingbox by Sling Media. If you don’t know what it does, here is the quick version. It let’s you watch your home TV from anywhere.

Anyway, I saved up enough Best Buy gift cards to splurge on a Slingbox Solo and the Slingbox Turbo 1 Port and dammit I was good to go.

After messing with my Cable Box and re-arranging some wires (hardest part of the job for me) I was ready to connect the Slingbox to my network. Not so fast! I needed a quick firmware patch for my OLD router, right after I was connected and watching TV on my PC in HD, Go Me!

Granted, you do need a decent internet connection to get the most out of the Slingbox. Various optimizations exist to help you find the right quality for your connection. I particularly enjoyed how you can set the Slingbox to the top right of the screen letting you work in a really comfortable way.

If you’re a sports fan, no more blacked out games or watching a corny flashcast of the game…Watch the game in all of its glory, from any internet enabled PC.

You need a 50MB software download to install the viewer on each machine you want to access your Slingbox.

Bottom Line - It works! I tested it thoroughly while I was in Germany. In my hotel room I was able to watch a DVR of the Superbowl on my Vaio. I also use my laptop to watch TV when I eat dinner at my kitchen table. I thought I liked TV before!