Jake Ludington's Digital Lifestyle

Every year about this time I take a look at some of the most popular articles of the past year. A few of the top 10 were written in 2005, but remain among the most popular for 2006. My photo comparison of an iPod and Zune came in at #1 for the year in spite of having only 2 months to generate interest.

1) The Zune and iPod Photo Comparison remains one of the more popular posts. I'm hopeful Microsoft will announce something cool like the ability to share video downloads from Xbox Live Video Marketplace with your Zune to actually differentiate the Zune from other players. As it stands, the wireless sharing feature they tout so highly hasn't shown much interest. I've never been anywhere to see another Zune in range. A friend of mine ran into another Zune owner in a public place, asked him if he could share a song, and ultimately freaked the guy out because he thought he might get a virus.

2) How to Copy Songs from Your iPod to Windows remains a popular topic. Third-party software remains the easiest way to accomplish this task.

3) How to Change the Windows XP Boot Screen is one of those customizations everyone wants to try at least once.

4)If you want to Sync Your iPod with Windows Media Player 10 (or now Windows Media Player 11) you need third party software to make it work.

5)Easy DivX to Xbox 360 Streaming is still a bit elusive. I think the Zune software makes this easier, even if you don't have a Zune, but the best experience for all media sharing with an Xbox 360 remains via Windows Media Center Edition.

6)How to Play RMVB Files is a question on many minds. This format is growing in popularity thanks to open source Helix project. While many people in the U.S. continue to have mistrust for RealNetworks, people outside the U.S. are finding thier file formats to be among the most efficient.

7)How to Convert RMVB Files is closely related to How to Play RMVB.

8)Convert Movies for your Sony PSP remains a question on many minds. I wrote this article ages ago. The method I describe for converting PAL DVDs for PC Playback is easier for all DVDs at this point, but the PSP article has been around longer and remains more popular.

9)Easy Xbox 360 Wireless Networking is something we all need. It's easy enough to put an Xbox 360 on your wireless network. The real trick is to have enough bandwidth to stream files to the Xbox 360 while performing other wireless tasks throughout the house.

10)How to Sync Google Calendar with Outlook is one of my personal favorite finds for the year. CompanionLink for Google Calendar is a better solution than the original free method I described.