The Xbox setup works well enough, but it's the second one I've had. It has stopped playing DVDs and while it still streams on the home network, the day is coming when it will just not turn on one day.

Carol, I'm digging into a very weirdly written manual for the TV to see what it can do. It's a 32 inch Bravia but I'm pretty certain it nothing fancy based on what I paid for it.

I realize I missed the mark in my previous comment. I need a consumer's guide to file formats. People keep giving me things to watch and they all play well on my gear but roughly half of the folks I pass the stuff on to, aren't able to play them on their gear.  I`d like to understand why and how I can correct this.

It`s not a pressing matter though. I should probably just watch the convo and follow any references provided.

4wd, I like the idea of the network media player, but I find myself with an embarrassment of riches at the moment, in that, I have spare computer gear I`d like to use if it would improve on the Xbox setup. In the meantime, thanks for the reference on container formats.  A lot to digest and I`m finding a lot of it inexplicably difficult to grok.

I am still using the original Air based TweetDeck. I upgraded to a new computer just after the product was bought out by Twitter and got stuck with the new TweetDeck app, which is about as close to a tragedy you can get in comparision.

I tried a BUNCH of other clients - Sobees and Seesmic came close to doing the job - but none of them did as good a job as Air TweetDeck.  I can't seem to find the Air installation program for the last Air release of TweetDeck, so when at home, I'm now stuck to using two computers at the same time, if I want to Tweet - my laptop still has the old TweetDeck installed.

I'm, no programmer, but I'd certainly support someone's effort to rebuild the original TweetDeck or to build a client with the same look and feel.  If you are familiar with the Air version, compare it to Sobees and Seesmic to see how you can get close and then totally fark it up with inscrutible interface design.

If fact, that's the major problem with almost all Twitter clients out there.  They are made by people who haven't got an effing clue about interface design. I think they saw how perfect TweetDeck was and decided the only way they could compete was with a different look and feel.

They were horribly wrong.

Twitter is the only social site for which I use an app.  I'm on Google+ regularly, but their web interface is quite good.  I also have a Facebook account, but only use that to stay in touch with friends who only use Facebook.  When the next ice age comes, I will ensure they are sent to the leading edge of the glacier to stand there and hold it back - neanderthals that they are.

I use several others, but that might take the track of this discussion too far afield.

No. Don't do it, even for a month or a week or a day.

I swear, if there are ads on this website, I will NEVER come back and all my friends (which is about 99 percent of your subscribers) will never come back either cuz I'll tell them not to!  And I'll bad mouth you all over the intertubes and NO ONE will ever visit again!  And if you KEEP advertising, I'll launch my lEEt haxor-skilz and THEN you'll be sorry - quite possibly more sorry than you are reading this now...lol!

Okay, so there is the radically opposed and most defionitely insane opposition vote, cuz you know, so far everyone has been accepting of the experiment ;) and that's not right!  Every discussion needs an out of bounds, frivolous and slightly crazy response to a reasonable approach.

After all, it's the Internet dammit! (and I have to live up to my Bryon James avatar pic)

I look forward to the result of the experiment (and so do my haxor-skilz).