Lifehacker - Customize XBMC with These Five Awesome Skins - XBox Media Center
http://lifehacker.com/5198009/customize-xbmc-with-these-five-awesome-skins

Windows/Mac/Linux/Xbox: What could make the already awesome Xbox Media Center even better? An infusion of eye candy, of course. Read on to see some awesome XBMC skins and learn how to install them.

Customize XBMC with These Five Awesome Skins

Acer AspireRevo

You won't find a better media center than the open-source XBMC, but most people don't have the space or desire to plug a noisy PC into their TV. Instead, I converted a cheap nettop into a standalone XBMC set-top box. Here's how.

ers in pretty close detail one method for putting together a dedicated, quiet XBMC media center without breaking the bank, but it's certainly not your only option. If you've gone down this road before, offer your tips and suggestions in the comments. For my part: I'm com

TheTVDB.com

We give a lot of attention to XBMC here, and with just cause. It's an open-source, cross-platform, highly-customizable media center solution that outperforms just about every commercial option out there. Here's how you can make it even better.

Media center tools

good hacks

How to turn an old PC into a media centre Play media on your TV with an old PC and XBMC : TechRadar UK

I love messing with settings and geeky file-sharing programs. My spouse doesn't, but digs Hulu and appreciates free. So I set up a media center that satisfies my geek cravings but is actually easy-to-use for non-nerds. Here's what I pieced together.

Set Up a Geeky Media Center that Non-Geeks Can Actually Use - Media Center - Lifehacker

Media centers like XBMC and Boxee are excellent tools for playing local media on your big screen, but many new (and even experienced) users run into one big stumbling block: How do you get them to correctly identify your media? Here's how.

to get around to doing but find time for. Ever since I switched from using the classic Xbox to using a PC running XBMC, I missed the games. My old Xbox was set up with emulators and I had

XBMC is an award winning media center for Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, Apple TV and Xbox. The ultimate hub for all your media.

XBMC is award winning media center for Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, Apple TV and Xbox. The ultimate hub for all your media.

Of course, the whole point of this is to turn your media center into a game console—you don't want to sit and play games on your TV with a keyboard (or maybe you do, in which case you can skip this section). If you have a gamepad already, you can configure that—if not, though, I highly recommend an Xbox 360 controller, which is USB and has drivers available for Windows direct from Microsoft. For Mac and Linux users, I know this third party driver worked well on my Mac in the past, and the xpad kernel driver or this third party Linux driver should work in Linux (though I have not tested either myself).

A guide on playing roms through xmbc

We love XBMC media centers for watching movies and TV, but if you like video games, they can do so much more. With a simple plug-in, some configuration, and a USB gamepad, you can play video games straight from your set-top box.

We've featured a fully automated media center set-up before, but Lifehacker reader Andre has improved on these methods, allowing you to download torrents to your media center while still seeding them to others. The basis for this guide was this fantastic guide written by Alex Ward. Kudos for alerting me to the existence of The Episode Downloader and The Renamer which integral to this setup. Following the instructions in the guide above, however, does not allow you to continue seeding a new torrent. The Renamer moves the file into a new location. By following this guide it will be possible to continue seeding your torrents for as long as you like while still getting your files added to the media centre as soon as they become available. This guide is written with Windows users in mind. It should be relatively simple to adapt for other operating systems. Also, the XBMC installation described here is a stand-alone Linux version.

We've featured a fully automated media center set-up before, but Lifehacker reader Andre has improved on these methods, allowing you to download torrents to your media center while still seeding them to others.