Introducing the all new XKCD app for Boxee. With the Boxee remote in hand you can now sit on your couch and flick through XKCD comics.

In this first version you can navigate left and right through comics one by one and hit the select key to show the alt text for the comic. Features like, jumping to first/latest comic and random comic are on their way.

The new app came about because the XKCD app from the Great Boxee repository has been broken in the Boxee Box for a while now. There was no information in the logs as to why, it just didn’t load, which left me stuck (btw in 1.5 it just started working again! typical). So I have re-written the app from the ground up as a html5 type app. It’s available now in the Boxee app library (not via Great Boxee’s repositoty). As well as a Boxee app, it’s also available outside of Boxee at http://xkcd.greatboxee.com, allowing a lot more people to reach the app.

This marks the beginning of the end for the Great Boxee repository.  It seems there isn’t much love for them at Boxee and problems in the past have made them unworkable. I will keep it open for the time being for those still on Boxee 0.9.x as the new XKCD app, being a html5 type one, only works in Boxee v1.0 and above. The current app works fine in the 0.9.x clients.

Enjoy and I welcome your feedback.

For more about the technology behind it on my personal blog.

Introducing the latest app coming out of the Great Boxee stables.

The DSP Project is all about music production and technology in the studio and on the stage.

Host Rupert Brown reviews audio gear, gives tips & tutorials on electronic music production with Ableton Live as well as interviewing a range of music producers, audio engineers and other interesting people.

Check out the videos in the app, there’s a wealth of music production information contained within. I love the music just wish I could get the technical side of it. It’s available now in the Boxee App Library.

Enjoy!

Need an app? Get in touch.

I’m very proud to announce Great Boxee’s first commissioned app, made by Great Boxee for TheSurfNetwork.com. Available now in the Boxee App Library.

If you love surfing or are more of an armchair surfer, then this app is for you. Now you can sit on your couch, remote in hand and watch surf videos through Boxee. TheSurfNetwork.com offers the largest collection of premium surf videos for your viewing pleasure.

TheSurfNetwork.com already supports an impressive number of platforms and devices, such as iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, iPod, Android, Apple TV, Computer/Browser, providing a range of differing ways to watch your surfing videos (one of the best I’ve seen for a video streaming site) and now they have added Boxee to that list.

If you have an account with TheSurfNetwork.com, you will find the app in the App Library (No need for our GB repository).

Login with your account details. You only have to do this the first time you open the app.

Browse through all your purchases, ones you’ve recently watched and favourites.

View the details and watch.

Enjoy! and of course feedback is always welcome.

Version 2.0 of the XKCD app brings only one new feature and it’s a great big one. This release brings the xkcd ‘Archive’, the entire back catalogue of over 700 comics, going right back to the 1st one ‘Barrel – Part 1‘. Now you can view every comic that was ever made, on your TV.

Feature Rundown

• Using left and right on your remote/keyboard you can flick through all the comics one by one.
• As there’s over 700 comics, these don’t all get downloaded all at once (you’ll be glad to know). The comics get downloaded in batches of 10, so you’ll notice a small pause, and the working dialog appear, every 10 comics viewed.
• There’s 2 buttons in the top right that allow you to skip to the very 1st or very latest comic.
• It’s in beta for now as there’s a few kinks and improvements required.

Now the bad news, for those of you that already have the xkcd app. There’s a bug in Boxee that means that this update wont appear for you automatically. The good-ish news, is there’s a workaround. If you already have the app in ‘My Apps’ in Boxee, remove it from ‘My Apps’ and then re-add it. For anyone that is new to the xkcd app, you’ll just get this version 2.0 of app. Please give your support and vote up the bug to get it fixed. Thanks.

To get XKCD in Boxee add our repository http://dir.greatboxee.com in repositories under Apps.

XKCD is an award winning webcomic from Randall Munroe, a former contractor for NASA. The comics feature stick figures and subject varies widely but the tagline pretty much says it all “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language”.

What’s Coming Next For XKCD

• I’d like to get it to use the player so people can recommend and rate the comics but I gave up in the end it, couldn’t get it to work. Although I think it looks quite neat without.
• I might have to do some work with scrolling if the comic height is quite large. I’ll see how they are as they turn up.

Want anything else? Leave some comments. Ta.

To get XKCD in Boxee add our repository http://dir.greatboxee.com in the App Box.

Welcome to Great Boxee and our first app. Great Boxee hopes to create some apps with UK content, to try and even out the balance between the US (they’re great, I just can’t watch most of them because of my UK geographical location) and UK apps and for purely selfish reasons too. Well that’s the plan but to start off with here’s our first dev app offering.

DimeCasts

Being a .NET developer I’ve watched many of their vids at work (during lunch times of course). What makes DimeCasts unique from other developer teachings is that they all come in under 10 mins*. You know you should watch these other vids but I just have a huge list of TODOs for watching vids but you never get that block of time to watch them. This makes it great for the big screen because the boss girlfriend is never going to allow you to hog the TV for an hour while you watch something on Mocks aren’t Stubs. So when you get 10mins to yourself you can kick back on the couch and be educated in 10mins before you have to do your next chore.

What’s Coming Next for DimeCasts

• Play the better quality screen-casts – the wmv files might be better quality.
• Display all the vids, probably by Tag/Subject Eg ASP.NET, Unit Testing, etc.

Want anything else? Leave some comments. Ta.

To get DimeCasts add our repository http://dir.greatboxee.com in the App Box.

* Mostly