Love the concept and the cost - good luck finding a (mainly) solid wood 10ft table for much less than $1000 (at least round these parts not blessed with an IKEA). Might be able to improve on this by finishing the sides and legs a bit more cleanly (assuming I was not totally cackhanded).

@tankertux: If Sketchup isn't easy enough, I actually found the IKEA room planning software to be quite useful - [www.ikea.com] - it does limit you do using their stuff, but who doesn't love a good bit of Swedish pine + plastic, really? #openthread

@Curt l H: In defence of ye olde xboxes, certain versions of the firmware (i.e. not the last one v1.6 [www.xbox-linux.org]) can do 480p and 720p (only in NTSC-mode, not PAL). You need a new cable - the "HD-Kit" (get an aftermarket one on eBay). Full HD 1080i is also an option, but the processor can't really handle…

@chorpie: sadly no, but there are other options... use MythTV as the DVR back-end, then XBMC as the playback app, or MediaPortal - see (admittedly old) here: [lifehacker.com]

Any chance of a similar guide to setting up a backup server solution using Ubuntu instead? Seems like that would be more in tune with LH geekery (and give you $92 to spend on another disk) #windowshomeserver

+1 for level of genius, also +1 for mess waiting to happen.