Here is my solution.

I call the tool ProcessWatcher and have decided to release it as a free download:
http://storage.kylefarnung.com/ProcessWatcher.zip

It does require that you have .NET Framework 4.0 installed:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992&displaylang=en

Usage Instructions:

1. Unzip the downloaded file to a convenient location (like C:\Tools\ProcessWatcher\).
2. Create a new shortcut in Windows. Point the shortcut to the ProcessWatcher.exe file and name the shortcut whatever you'd like (I call mine "XBMC").
3. Right-click on the newly created shortcut and choose "Properties."
4. To the end of the "Target" field you will need to add the full path to the XBMC.exe file. On 32-bit systems this will likely be "C:\Program Files\XBMC\XBMC.exe" (Don't forget to include the quotes) and on 64-bit systems this will likely be "C:\Program Files (x86)\XBMC\XBMC.exe" (Again, don't forget to include the quotes).
5. Change the "Start in" field to match the path you found the XBMC.exe file in (For example C:\Program Files (x86)\XBMC\).
6. Change the icon using the "Change Icon..." button to whatever you'd like (I used the XBMC icon).
7. Click "OK" in the properties dialog and double-click the shortcut to launch XBMC via ProcessWatcher.

If at any point the XBMC.exe process exits (either intentionally or via a crash), the ProcessWatcher will count down and then restart the process. While ProcessWatcher is counting down, you can hit the enter key (if the window has focus) or click "Quit" to abort the countdown immediately and exit the application. If the countdown elapses, then XBMC will be started up again.

In another small step toward its competitors, Windows Phone 7 will finally be able to play some of the most popular games on other smartphone platforms. Not the least of these games is Angry Birds, whose presence on every imaginable platform represented a rather large hole in the Windows Phone 7 game lineup.

The complete list of games to be released over a six-week period starting on April 6th:

• Angry Birds
• Doodle Jump
• Plants vs Zombies
• Hydro Thunder Go
• Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I
• geoDefense

It's unfortunate that the release dates seem to be arbitrarily delayed, but the real question becomes the price of these apps. In general, it seems that Xbox LIVE games on Windows Phone 7 seem to command a significantly higher premium than the same games on other platforms.

The Radiance display is quite a masterpiece, with outstanding color reproduction and viewing angles, it's $200 premium was more than justified. Comparing my current non-Radiance display side-by-side with a Radiance model, I was instantly amazed by the quality of the picture on the Radiance and equally as amazed by just how bad my display looks by comparison. This is a disappointing symptom just how undervalued the screen is on today's consumer laptop models.

Overall, the Envy is a very solid machine with a few minor quirks, mostly around their use of Apple design choices. For one, the laptop includes no microphone port, but instead utilizes a headset port (works with the iPhone headset) that combines the microphone input with a second headphone output. A $15 adapter can solve this issue, but it's still a bit annoying. Further, the laptop only includes an HDMI and a Mini DisplayPort connector, requiring a MacBook-style adapter in order to get VGA or DVI output. Luckily Monoprice sells a cheaper version of this adapter, but it's just another thing to carry around with me and inevitably misplace.

All-in-all, the HP Envy 14 does represent an important segment of the "high-end" consumer laptop market. Although they have a few oddities in the design, the build is very solid and I'm very happy with the purchase.

Last week, I was overjoyed to see a coupon for your highly rated Envy 14 laptop (with the Radiance display) and purchased it immediately. I was confirmed an order for $985 shipped and my credit card was charged almost immediately. The expected ship date listed in both the email and on the site was February 1st, a completely reasonable date for such a custom PC purchase.

Today, I receive an unsolicited cancellation mail with absolutely no details about why the order was cancelled. I called the HP Shopping support and was “helped” by a clueless representative who could only tell me that an email would be coming later on today. The email was pretty generic and included a pretty awful deal on another laptop, the exact same deal I used for the laptop I had ALREADY ordered. Calling customer support again yielded even more frustration as a representative worked very hard to try and persuade me to add unnecessary upgrades to my previous configuration (now $1199 without the Radiance display) to get it over the $1399 requirement of the coupon. When I clearly explained that this was unacceptable, the representative went on to offer me another deal, $300 off of $1199. This deal, obviously, was even less acceptable as I would be paying the same price for a laptop without the Radiance display. He told me that he could offer me nothing else and we parted ways.

Extremely frustrated, I decided to try online support and spoke with a slow, but helpful, representative who pointed me to the HP Resolutions Team. That call went a little better, with the representative seemingly putting some effort into solving the problem, but ultimately stating that she would need to contact the head office and letting me know that I would be receiving a call back sometime within the next 24-48 hours.

The problem with this whole situation is that it could not have been handled more poorly. My credit card was charged even though there weren't even parts available for fulfilling my purchase; I know that other companies won't charge you until production has started. Rather than contact me, my order was cancelled in a very unfriendly manner and I was left confused and needed to call support to even get the generic "wait for the email" answer. Now when I call to try and resolve the problem, the representative will not do anything about the fact that I was not responsible for this order cancellation. They treat the order as though it’s a new order and will do nothing to actually compensate for my time, trouble, and lost interest (due to the apparently fraudulent credit card charge).

I don’t feel like my request is outrageous, I simply want the following: take my original order for $1399 minus the original $500 off coupon and remove the Radiance display option ($200 value) that wasn't even available in the first place. This brings the computer down to $699 (plus tax) shipped to me. Given the fact that my original order was supposed to ship by February 1st, I don't think it's too much to ask to throw in free 2nd day shipping to make up for the huge inconvenience that your company has caused me.

The update has been announced since before the phone even launched, but now the "January Update" has become a bit more official. Microsoft has posted a site (which used to give a hint to the release date) listing the three main features of the new update:

Copy and paste
Soon you’ll be able to copy text from emails, text messages, web pages, and Office Mobile documents, and paste it anywhere you can type. Using copy and paste is easy and intuitive. In many cases you just tap a word, slide your finger to highlight any additional text, then tap the Copy icon. To insert this text in a message or app, just tap the spot where it should go, then tap the Paste icon. Copy and paste is a handy way to quickly send someone’s latest Facebook update, turn-by-turn directions from Maps, or a must-see link from Internet Explorer Mobile. Once you’ve copied something, you can paste it again and again. The new feature adds to the list of time-saving shortcuts already built into Windows Phone, like the ability to tap an address on a webpage to map it (US only).

Faster apps and games
Nobody likes to wait. That’s why we’ve whittled down the time it takes for apps and games to start up and resume. It’s all part of our focus on getting you to the things you love, easier and faster.

Better Marketplace search
We’ve streamlined Marketplace search to make it easier to find specific apps, games, or music. Press the Search button in the apps or games section of Marketplace and you’ll see only apps or games in the results. Press Search in the music section of Marketplace to search just the music catalog.

Sure, these are all features that would be nice to have (the Marketplace search has been driving me bonkers, honestly), but what about the other missing features? No mention of custom ringtones, separate volume controls, or better SkyDrive integration for Office. There are also a number of looming bugs that desperately need attention, but yet no mention of bug fixes at all. I sincerely hope that the complete lack of new functionality is eclipsed by the shear number of bug fixes included in this new update.

I certainly hope that they can get the update out by the end of January (or at least early February), but it would be nice to get a more solid release date than:

Getting phone updates
How will you know when an update is available? Easy. Your phone is designed to automatically tell you via a pop-up message (unless you’ve turned this option off). For more details, see How do I update my phone software?

The more unfortunate issue here is the lack of any "cloud" way to recover from such an incident. Sure your music, videos, and podcasts are all safely stored on your computer (which I don't have access to at the moment) and your contacts, calendars, and email are all safely stored in the cloud (as long as you aren't using POP3 and deleting messages from the server), but what about the data generated by the apps that you installed? What about all of the customizations you performed? All of this is lost with absolutely no way to recover.

This isn't all bad news, Windows Phone does one key thing that the iPhone does not, it allows you to setup the phone without needing a computer. Given that I had just gotten into town to visit my parents tonight, I would have been hosed with my computer 2700 miles away, but thanks to this one feature at least I have a working phone with some of my data present.

I really don't care what the cause of the problem is, but Microsoft really needs to get that January update out ASAP. They may not have even fixed the issue that caused this, but hopefully they did fix a bunch of the other nagging, but generally mild, issues I've had with the OS since launch.

Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition was only $20 on Steam last night, so I finally decided to pick up a copy.  I've played a lot of the game already on the Xbox 360, so I'm pretty familiar with the beginning areas, but I spent most of that time dealing with an annoying bug where the game would freeze, but not crash.  I could no longer control the game, but the ambient audio continues to play; the only resolution being to kill the process.  Needless to say, it really ruins the experience in the game and worst yet, it seems to be a really common problem for anyone who has more than two processor cores (I have eight, so the problem is multiplied further).  There doesn't appear to be any sort of official fix, but people have reported success with some custom modifications to the configuration.

The game engine has some issues with processors that have more than 2 cores. You can force the game to only use two of them and it will stop the freezing. I haven't had it freeze once since I did this several days ago.

Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3

Find the line:

bUseThreadedAI=0

change it to:

bUseThreadedAI=1

Add another line after it and insert:

iNumHWThreads=2

This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.