There’s a lot of Microsoft haters in my world. While they aren’t good at everything, they have some damn good niches. Trying to duplicate Active Directory in Linux is really, really hard. I find OpenLDAP one of the hardest to understand application I’ve seen.

This article isn’t about the IT realm though. It’s about the Xbox 360. This is really the best console I’ve ever had and here’s why.

• I can watch all my videos on my Linux server using uShare in my living room.
• It’s not hard to look at.
• Xbox Live is only $50 a year and has worked flawlessly for me.
• The controllers work and are all in USB format so plugging in a normal keyboard to the Xbox is stupid simple.
• Movie and game downloads are fast and reasonably priced.
• The machine itself is pretty cheap considering you get a DVD player, digital media player, movie rental device, DVR (if you have a Windows Server backend), and of course a game system.

I do wish it had HDMI (the new black Elite does but my older one does not). I also hope that they adopt blu-ray and put out a new machine with a built in player. I’d happily buy a new Xbox if they do that.