Streaming iTunes to Xbox 360

Our family has a Mac Mini and we put all our media in iTunes. We also have an Xbox 360. While iTunes is great for streaming media to another Apple device, I was also looking for a way to stream it to the Xbox, so that we can listen to our music and watch our home videos on our TV.

All the solutions I found on the web requires either installing another piece of software (Connect360) or hooking up another device (AppleTV), neither of which is very attractive to me.

As it happens, I also run Parallels on the Mac in order to run some Windows applications, and I hit upon this solution, which I did not see described elsewhere.

On Windows in Parallels, follow these steps:

1. With Windows shut down, make sure that Parallels's networking is configured as a "Bridge Network" using the "Default Adapter".
2. Start Windows and then start Windows Media Player (WMP).
3. In WMP, select View > Library from the menu. Then, under the Stream secondary toolbar menu, select "Turn on home media streaming". If it is already turned on, be sure that "Automatically allow devices to play my media" is checked.
4. In WMP, right click Music and select "Organize Music Library". Ensure that your Mac's Music folder has been added. This will be "\\psf\Home\Music". Do the same for Videos and Pictures. For Videos, you may also want to add your iTunes Media, which is located in "\\psf\Home\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media".

On the Xbox, follow these steps:

1. Turn on the console.
2. After the console starts, press the "Guide" button on your controller. The "Guide" button is the silver button with the lighted X on it.
3. When the dialog box shows up, use the left "Stick" to select the "Media" pane. Wait a few moment for it to find your computer, then select your computer.
4. Pick "System Video Player" or "System Music Player" depending on the type of media you want to play.
5. Navigate to the video or music and select to play.

Note that I have only tried this with Windows 7 and Windows Media Player 12. I am running Parallels with 2 GB  RAM on a Mac Mini with a 2.3 GHz i5 and 8 GB of physical memory. With this configuration, everything seems to stream smoothly with no stutter.

Reference

• Stream Media Using Zune or Windows Media Player, Microsoft, 

Moving Offscreen App Back to Primary Workspace

Note: This trick applies to Windows OS only.

Most people using a notebook PC with two monitors will often move some applications off to the external monitor for various reasons. And just as often, when they detach their notebooks, they will forget to move the applications back to the primary monitor as I do.

If not written smartly, those applications will continue to reside in the now illusory monitor when the notebook is re-awaken without the external monitor attached. Rebooting does not always help, thus making those applications inaccessible for use. (Smart applications will detect that the previous location on screen is untenable and will pop back into the main monitor.)

To bring an errant application back to the primary monitor, following these steps:

1. Alt-tab to the errant application.
2. Alt-space to bring up the errant application's Windows menu and select Move.
3. Use left or right cursor as appropriate repeatedly to move the application back to where you can see it.