Solution Spheres

I fixed my iPod!

2007-03-12T20:48:00.000-07:00

No real secret to it. The iPod had bad blocks on it. I knew it did... HD-based iPods are prone to bad blocks because they get tossed around while playing. That head hits the platter and boom-- you got some bad blocks (a bad block is a portion of the drive that can no longer have data written to it).

Anyway, the iPod wasn't really dead. But powering it up got you a Settings menu, nothing more. It had no playlists, but would simply play all the songs in random order. Kinda neat, but not useful.

So I broke out an old TechTool Pro CD, and booted up my ancient G3 iBook with it. I plugged in the iPod, and scanned. Like I said, I knew the surface inside the drive (the little platters) had damage because I did the self-diagnostic scan and it failed. TTP told me I had 8 bad blocks, and recommended I zero out the data. Guess what? TTP had an erase disk function, which allowed me to do just that!

For some reason Apple's own disk utility wasn't doing this trick for me...

Anyway, while I won't rely on the thing, and I'm a little sad I bowed out one side getting it open a while back in an attempt to re-seat the drive, I'm happy it's working. That little 20 GB 4th gen form factor was so nice.

Let's all just change to Zulu time

2007-03-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

I happened to drive the kids to see the grandparents today and caught up on some podcasts. Cnet's Buzz Out Loud had a comment from a listener regarding this time change we're all panicking about. In reference to aviation, he said planes won't fall from the skies because airlines, pilots, the entire system uses ONE time system. Zulu time. It's the Greenwich time standard, kinda like time zero... So what if it'll be wacky for a while? I don't mind going to bed at 7 am!

How to lock up your Intel Mac completely

2007-03-06T14:32:00.000-08:00

I have found a solid, reliable way to crash my Macbook Pro. By "crash" I mean totally, 100% unrecoverable lockup. The mouse moves, but all other signs of life are gone...

1. Launch Word.
2. Connect external monitor.
3. Do stuff for a while.
4. Disconnect external monitor.
5. Use Cmd-Tab to switch to another app.... BAM! You done been frozed up.

This had been vexing me, until I finally caught GeekTool putting the message from the Console (a crash reporter) onto the desktop... apparently Word must be informed of any monitor activity. Once an external is disconnected, it starts to get cranky.

Bug or feature? Did MS put the bug in to intentionally crash my Mac? Let the conspiracy theories begin!

Anwyay, try it, lots of fun. Thank goodness for web-based work (no appreciable loss of data-- just a real PITA).

Fixing health care

2007-02-22T05:34:00.001-08:00

(this is copied from my superpixel blog, but I wanted it here too-- it counts as a Solution!)

One of the coolest bloggers around, Willy Volk, recently said in an interview that he'd blog full-time IF he could still get health insurance. Oh sure, he can get *private* insurance, but we all know how expensive that is (well I do, as I've got friends on it). So my wife and I got to talking last night about this mess... Make no mistake, it IS a mess. Why is your insurance tied to your place of employment? This seems really arbitrary considering how often we all change jobs nowadays. Also, I think it is safe to say many Americans feel shackled by jobs they've taken "just for insurance." And don't forget the upward-spiraling cost of said group coverage...

Well, I can't do much about the increasing costs. That is something that would indeed involve a modicum of reform and government oversight. Personally the idea of a sort of "Federal Trade Board" makes sense-- a body of experts who can evaluate and promote medical solutions objectively. As objectively as possible, anyway. But that isn't something I can speak to, because there are a myriad of reasons for increasing costs, some of which seem blatantly abusive, and some which are subtle in their intricacies.

What I can speak of is using technology to provide coverage for most Americans at an affordable rate, independent of their jobs. Think about that for a moment. If you could buy into affordable group health insurance, yet remain a "free agent," what would that do for our economy? I think a great outpouring of entrepreneurship would occur. We would literally set free the pent-up dreams and ambitions of thousands, if not millions, of Americans who otherwise took jobs for the insurance. It would revitalize the economy, it would make people happier, and it would spur innovation and productivity like the world has never seen. So how do we do it? Technology has the answer!

If there's one thing we've learned about the web, it's that the real power is in connecting dots that would have previously sat isolated. Take ebay, linking up oddball sci-fi toy collectors and grandmas cleaning out dusty garages for over 10 years. Before, geographic proximity was the limiting factor for collectors, but ebay has removed that obstacle. Well, how about doing this for health care? I'm in my 30's, quite healthy, and I lead a "safe" lifestyle... Why not use the power of the interwebs to put me in a similar group for healthcare? It's like LinkedIn for group health-- except you need an intermediary. So you build a website that serves as a nexus for patients seeking group coverage (and matching them up in groups), and doctors looking to serve this clientele. Doctors would finally play a part in the cost equation, as their willingness to take a deep-fried Twinkie-eating smoker aged 40 would really have a cost associated with the risk. The company handling all this would take patient info, evaluate the risk, and assign groups and match up doctors. It's so simple! Why can't there be a Progressive insurance for health?

Now what about fraud? Obviously this could be a problem. Again, technology to the rescue. Develop devices that allow you to monitor vitals and push that info to your provider via the web. An e-checkup? Sure, why not? Or build kiosks to do this. Also, once someone is caught being fraudulent (like saying they don't smoke but winding up with emphysema a week) you just cut them off. Fraud would not be tolerated, just like car insurance or at a bank. I already monitor my heart rate when I jog-- I'd be happy to pass this along to my doc.

So that's it-- affordable medical coverage for most Americans is within reach. We still need some reforms, we still need some government oversight, but just handing the keys to the Feds, if history proves anything, would be a disaster. Keep it private, but keep it quality. You only buy what you need, and insurance would finally have to make real decisions for the betterment of their customers. I think it's a win/win/win for patients, doctors and the insurance companies. Never mind the aforementioned surge in productivity (and reduction in stress) we'd see in the country as a whole.

Llamapod is dead!

2007-02-21T17:23:00.000-08:00

We'll be closing in a week.

In other news, this blog is officially closed.

ZOMG TEH INTERNETS!

Take a chance on the little guy...

2006-09-17T11:24:00.000-07:00

You know, Apple was once an upstart. Then again, they had to rebuild from almost nothing. What a long journey...
And so it has been for the family business-- Llamapod.
Made our first cases when the 4G was newish, and we've been chasing sales ever since. Take a look and see (there's a 5G version, and a cool nano "Gama" system I designed to keep your nano on your wrist or wallet or dashboard... just go to llamapod.com to see it all)

the dumbening of the internet?

2006-07-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

They said AOL was for internet n00bs, yet we are now experiencing a huge surge in web-based tools and services as a result of so many users.

Now, one might think bringing even more people, with less money and education would lower the "quality" of the citizenry. Maybe, but it definitely brings more diversity. Diversity is the essence of life, both the reflection of a healthy ecosystem, and a way to propogate the very same diversity... it is stupid-proof, and that's the point.

Here's your Mac mini media center

2006-04-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

This is awesome. However, it's taken THIS LONG for it to happen. My El Gato device is now so obsolete it's silly. Mine didn't come with a remote, isn't this small, needs a power brick, and gets excessively hot. Never mind it won't really work right on an Intel Mac. I can't wait to get a new mini some day...

Tips on using Windows

2006-04-12T19:45:00.000-07:00

I started using Apples back in 1977ish. I was six. Point is, I also started using PC's running MS-DOS when those became available. I remember snickering a bit at Windows 1.0. I remember trying out a different way to look things up on the internet called Mosaic.

And now you can run Windows and Mac OS on one machine. That machine just happens to be a Mac, which is pretty cool too...

Anyway, I wrote up a few tips for living in Windows. Next installment should be the security perspective. Because Mac users are kinda clueless when it comes to security ;)

The article is over at Download Squad: Tips for Boot Campers

Apple ][

2006-04-03T18:12:00.000-07:00

Apple ][
Originally uploaded by superpixel.

Riddle me this: how can a nearly 3 decades-old machine still have its keys legibly printed on the keyboard, yet my iBook, less than 3 years old, is now almost blank?

Clean your Mac

2006-03-20T19:01:00.000-08:00

I have been pondering the use of Spring Cleaning from Aladdin Software (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) for a while, as I know there are lots of little cache files, etc. left over when you do the amount of surfing I do.

But Mr. Clean is so much cooler because it's free! (Thanks to Lifehacker on the tip)

One thing I did today to clear nearly 10 gigs off my machine: I deleted 2 entire "Previous System" folders. If Apple has ever had you do the OS shuffle, setting up a new account, and leaving your old one as an archive, consider going back and deleting your old system. Were there crazy fonts in there I should have saved? Maybe. All I know is that my hard drive is a lot leaner now... I'll probably live to regret that one.

Mac mini media center here almost...

2006-02-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

As I write this Engadget, TUAW, and several other sites are buckling under the strain, but iLounge has intermittent info on the new Mac mini's, with Intel chips inside, and sporting more media-sharing tools (Front Row with Bonjour). I still don't see anything revolutionary, although the remote is nice. I believe ALL the Macs will have this from here out. Awesomeness.

Run for the hills!

2006-02-21T18:44:00.000-08:00

OK, lesson for today: always apply security patches to your machine, no matter what OS. Even Linux has problems, which is why developers drink caffeinated beverages and patches are released. For every OS. Some more than others, but they all have issues. Let's remember that social vectors are the most likely method of a security breach. For instance, if I steal your laptop, I just "hacked" your machine. In meatspace, granted, but it's a hack. You didn't give me permission to do wild things to your machine, did you?

Well here's a story I found on CNN, because with all their Apple lovin' they have to show they are still somewhat unbiased.
Worm targets Macs through Bluetooth

That's scary, isn't it? Well here's the counterpoint, provided several days in advance for your viewing pleasure:
Yet another pointless worm Inqtana

Granted, a fan of the Mac platform isn't going to scream bloody murder at the first sign of these things. Which raises the constant specter of laziness. That's a social vector too-- thinking you can't get a virus when you can and doing nothing once you've been warned.

Good news: so far I have yet to see anything so destructive or easy to infect and do damage on the Mac as on the PC. So for now you are safe, in my opinion (patent pending). If you want to be paranoid, switch to FreeBSD and wear a tinfoil hat.

Mac mini portable media center

2006-02-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

The mini
Originally uploaded by superpixel.

Posted up some pics of my mac mini I take to parties. It's a sort of video jukebox, and it can do more than just be a glorified video iPod. I can connect a camera and play EyeToy-style games, or other mac games. Yes, there are some. I use VLC and QuickTime to play video, iTunes for audio, and a trackball instead of a remote. I can drop AppleScripts on the desktop, make 'em really big, and pretty much script an entire evening of wacky, nerdy entertainment.

Can't buy Danger Doom on iTunes?

2005-11-22T09:04:00.000-08:00

Don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but I have been unable to purchase the latest Danger Doom album for almost a week now off of iTunes. Something about it's being modified?

Oh well, that's why we have p2p. DD, if you ever read my email to ya, sorry but I tried! Looks like it's back to breaking the law for me.

Which is a point: jHymn, and other tools not condoned by Apple exist because the tools provided by Apple sometimes don't work. Unfortunately, the DMCA says these things are illegal. It's like if you bought a Ford with faulty Firestone tires (remember that fiasco?) but were prevented by law from going to a 3rd party for tires. Wouldn't make sense, would it? Well, neither does this DRM nonsense, neither does locking me out of a purchase...

More on this as I figure out a workaround...

Front Row on NTSC TV's

2005-10-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

I happened to see Front Row running on a plain ol' TV the other day. It was gorgeous. A mac mini was connected via crummy little RCA jacks (not even gold), about the worst signal you can get, on a mediocre 29" TV. The gradients in the background of FR's interface had no banding! The fonts on screen were smooth and legible. Everything looked fantastic.

Front Row is made for TV. Say it with me: Front Row is made for your television.

Will the Mac mini be superseded by the Mac nano?

Imagine a set-top PVR with integrated iPod dock. You can run it headless, via BT keyboard, mouse, or IR remote... through the TV. Or you can buy a wireless tablet screen as an accessory to interface with things like email, iCal, photos, etc.... Then those Airport Expresses to spread the joy across the house.

Perhaps I've said too much.

Front Row hacked, the juice is loose

2005-10-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

Go here to get Front Row on your Mac. YMMV. As seen on TUAW!

Automatically get video onto your iPod using p2p

2005-10-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

It's a mashup of tools like videora and azeurus (if you don't know what those are read the article anyway), but it looks pretty cool. Hackaday has the deets on grabbing vids off the net and plopping them on your 5g iPod automatically each night. Not as easy as the method below, or obviously buying them off iTMS, but very cool for you DIY crews.

Not only that, but you can get stuff off p2p faster than the store (like Lost).

Turn EyeTV vids to iPoddable vids

2005-10-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

So I still use my EyeTV, though not as I'd intended, because I'm being cheap and not wanting to pony up the dough and time to put Airport on my mini. There it sits in a corner, tethered to TV cable, but not internet cable. I need a cheaper wireless solution, as the WAP-11 won't act as a simple pass-thru for DHCP... Or something like that. I'm no networking guru, that's for sure.

HOWEVER, if I ever get an iPod for video (the 5th gen one), I'll really want to automate the process of capturing TV shows and plopping them onto my iPod. Jim Heid has put together a great how-to on getting video from the EyeTV to the iPod. Thanks for beating me to the punch Jim!

He also notes that a future rev of the EyeTV app will include an iPod video preset (as the latest QT 7 Pro does). So that's a good thing.

Now I need to setup an AppleScript (since Automator is too lame to do it) that'll take a recording, once it's done, and export to iTunes. Should be easy when the preset is available, as EyeTV is very scriptable. That way I'll have auto downloads of shows onto my pod!

Why? I'm a BIG "Lost" fan, but I work on Weds nights. So I'm missing it like right now... And I don't want to pay $1.99 just to have commercials removed. I'll just record it, and have it on my iPod in the morning (because I can plug in at night, see how that works?). Nifty. That is, IF I get a 5th gen iPod!

Steve Jobs has a posse

2005-10-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs has a posse
Originally uploaded by superpixel.

This one is just for fun. Jobs has a fascinating history, really. At the epicenter of the Silicon Valley story, he and others have made the technology world what it is today... Check Wikipedia.org for a great short story... What's interesting to me is how Sun, IBM, Microsoft and others have either been enemies or allies of Apple at any given time, and Steve has just about seen it all.

More tips coming soon!

Stop the Broadcast Flag-- again

2005-10-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Why do we keep going down this road? Obviously the boneheads in Hollywood STILL don't get technology... They have, once again, tried to resurrect the Broadcast Flag. What's that?

Well, you know how you can plug in a VCR to your cable and tape a show, then watch it on your TV? That's nice, isn't it? Well the Broadcast Flag would make sure that, in the future of HDTV, that is NOT possible. No more recording for you! In Hollywood's America every citizen is a thief, guilty until sued out of existence. And even then they want you to buy the package of Dorito's with Yoda on it...

So let's kill this thing AGAIN. Some really stupid congressional idiots have actually been suckered into supporting this crap, and BoingBoing.net has their info here. I'm dismayed to see rep. Marsha Blackburn, from my state of TN is on there. I think I met Marsha back when I lived in Nashville.

This is SO stupid...

Video DJ tool

2005-10-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

Oh how I wish I had the dough to try this out: the Tactic M2 from Livid Instruments. It's like something out of a BBC sci-fi show. It's freakin' sweet!

The Tactic M2 is literally like a video mixer, and as such you can mix video streams (and audio, naturally) just like a DJ mixes the music. Very cool. It's for the Mac!

Sun and Google teaming up

2005-10-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, Marc Perton has a nose for news. I hadn't seen this yet, but he pulled this info on Google and Sun's big announcement tomorrow. The post (on Download Squad) actually refers to the roadmap for Open Office, or rather StarOffice, which Google has been kicking around...

Put that together with Jordan's post on Jon Schwartz (also from Sun, for those who don't know) saying everyone would rather ditch their desktop apps before their browser... Doesn't this sound like the beginning of a Google OS?

Well, duh for many techies, but for those of you unfamiliar with all this, and how it would make a useful solution, allow me to explain very briefly.

A web-based office app, combined with online calendar/email/newsfeed apps, and some form of online storage is a holy grail. Imagine being able to walk up to any network-enabled device and get to all your work. Between this, Google's purchasing of fiber lines, gearing up wireless spots...

Well, when you connect the dots I think it's clear that 2006 may be the year of the Google.

I'm hoping they get to releasing some more Mac apps, like Earth and Picasa. But having an online work solution would be cool. If they could tap in to Backpack features, that'd be nice too...

SIGGRAPH via Hackaday

2005-09-11T05:12:00.000-07:00

Someday I would love to make it to SIGGRAPH. It occurs to me that many of my pet projects or ideas start out pretty wild like these... So this is great stuff. Applicable to ideas on creativity (why not turn a bunch of routers into a display?), 3d graphics (love the cell phone stereograph). Read the article for more:

Read Hackaday's Best of SIGGRAPH 2005

Sharing the love

2005-09-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody. Whoo-eee, I been hectic as a junebug in a pickle jar lately. Expanded my gig with WIN from Download Squad to TUAW... Speaking of which, TUAW is running a contest where you can win an iPod nano!!!

[link removed]

Last week (I think) had some day where bloggers share links to other blogs on their blogs. OK, I'm late to that party. But I've been trying to share the love around (Knoxville blog done, Animation and sp to go).

So here's one blog I found via TUAW that absolutely rocks the hizzie. Since I can't be trusted to provide killer tips (at least, not every week), check out Mac Tutorials, which is another Blogger-powered site. Good stuff.

And I've been working on my solution sphere ecosystem thing some more. Should have that up in a bit... Finally!

Great site for free Mac software

2005-08-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

Brian, besides being a great photographer and contributor over at the Unofficial Apple Weblog, put together a great site with some killer Mac software. It's all free too! Check 'em out:
Freemacware.com

Google's IM in Adium/iChat

2005-08-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has the story on getting set up...

Google is apparently really, really releasing an IM client. Unfortunately it's only a PC client. But using the instructions above you too can experience Google Talk.

Here's the original scoop on the client:
Google Talk review

Yes, I did it, and that's yours truly chatting with none other than the infamous C.K. Sample.

Woot! As they say.

An even easier way to change screencap format...

2005-08-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

So I just posted up how to do it in Terminal and then I find this:

SCIT 1.0 does just what I wanted as a little app, and I don't have to log out or reboot. Awesome. I am constantly amazed by those lone developers out there...

How To Tuesday: Change the default screen capture filetype

2005-08-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

OK, I always forget how to do this. If you use Cmd-Shift-3 you'll take a pic of your entire screen. Using Cmd-Shift-4 and you get some crosshairs, which allow you to select a region of the screen to capture.

In previous versions of OS X the captured screenshot was saved as a PDF, onto the desktop, in a doc titled "Picture 1" (and then Picture 2, etc.).

In Tiger the default screencap file format mysteriously changed to PNG. Maybe because that's what Widgets use? I dunno.

However, for my blogging over at Download Squad I have to use JPEGs. So I used to take a screenshot, pull it into Photoshop, do my thang, and save it for the web as a JPEG. Ack. Photoshop don't run too good on my dinky iBook...

So what if I could save out the screencap as a JPEG? You can, in fact, switch the default screencap format to whatever you like (within reason). PNG, PDF, JPG, and more... How?

Go into terminal, and type this:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

This will write a little change into a config file, changing the format from PNG to JPG (see that on the end?)...
Pretty snazzy. Except you'll have to log out and back in (or reboot) for the changes to stick.

Works for me!

99% less whining, 100% more usefulness

2005-08-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

OK folks. I've officially moved all my ranting and raving to my sister blog, Armchair CEO. If you want to explore the dark side of tech, and how snarky I can really get, go there.

Also, I'm starting to post again on my creativity blog, DaVinci Notebooks. It used to support a podcast, but I haven't the time for podcasting anymore, and even if I did, I'd probably only do it for Download Squad. That's where my overall daily blogging has gone to...

Yet another blog is superpixel subscripts where I ruminate on the tech world. Not only that, but my freshest ideas will probably bubble up over there. When I'm in a good mood I can come up with some pretty neat stuff. My latest idea: geeks vs. gawks. Go there and check it out.

So what's to become of Solution Spheres? It will rise again!

Actually, I plan to keep blogging away on tips, tricks, and stuff exclusively for the Macintosh platform. In particular, how you can use Macs in a small business (preferrably SOHO), or at home to do really cool stuff.

Does saving money and time sound good? Great, you're at the right blog. I'm researching stuff like GTD, Mac-friendly web services and offline services, Mac business resources, etc. The ultimate goal is to create a series of extensible and configurable "Solution Spheres" for biz and home. I might have said this before, but it's not as easy as it sounds. There are a TON of resources on the 'net, and making sense of them for a switcher or even a Mac expert can be daunting. So I'm working on Mac-based ecosystems...

I like that so I'll repeat it again: Mac-based ecosystems. That's what Solution Spheres are all about.

Stay tuned.

Super Quick Tip: Switch between windows in an app

2005-06-30T05:42:00.000-07:00

Hitting Cmd + ~ (that's the Apple/Command key and the tilde-- above the Tab key folks) will switch among open windows in an application. Actually, it shifts focus to open windows within an app.

In case you didn't know, Shift + Cmd + directional arrow will move between different tabs in Safari.

Blogging crazy

2005-06-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

OK, I've jumped headlong into the world of blogging. So I'll be posting even less around here. But, you can catch me writing on a daily basis for DownloadSquad.com, where we cover all platforms of software. If I have time I'll post later next month with my SolutionSpheres thing...

Dark Side of the Source

2005-06-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

Slashdot | Jamie Zawinski Switches to Mac OS X

So some of you may have heard of Windows, right? Apple is of course happy to have you switch to OS X. Although it doesn't hurt to have both platforms available.

Linux, on the other hand, I have no use for. Apparently, neither does Jamie Zawinski, a former Linux developer...

Why? Well, if you ever have trouble with your mac, just click on the link above and start reading some comments. Many posts talk about "oh, this is easy, just buy XYZ from Mr. Noname Company, then jiggle the handle and hold your mouth just right-- you'll get a sound!"

Yeah, that's a productive way to waste your time, isn't it?

The great thing about OS X is that you DO have the option to tinker with many of the "guts" in the OS, somewhat like Linux (more like UNIX), but you don't HAVE to. With Linux, and UNIX, you pretty much always have to tinker with the guts of the OS to get things working.

Before Linux geeks flame me, I know there are grandmas out there using Linux, having never used a computer before. That proves nothing. Some distros are very point-and-click and usable out of the box, provided they are running on the right hardware. But overall, OS X is easier to use and works well for what it does.

Now back to your Beowulf clusters boys.

How-To Holiday: Read Backup.app Logs

2005-05-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

OK, I searched high and low on this big wide internet of ours and found bupkus on this one topic: when Backup.app tells you some files couldn't be copied (backed up), how do you find those files in the log?

I don't know about you, but I'm backup up literally thousands of files. First I saved the log as a text file. Then I tried searching for seemingly logical terms-- fail (and all variations), incomplete, unsuccessful, etc.

The magic word: skipped.

Do a search for skipped in the saved text file of your logs, and you'll see what files Backup could not backup.

There is a way to back everything up without Backup.app. Actually there are several, but I'm a very cheap person, so I want free or really cheap...

1. Everybody seems to love Carbon Copy Cloner, and it is cool, but you have to make sure you have another hard drive to accomodate your ENTIRE drive!

2. So instead, to replicate much of what Backup does, I found this tasty little knowledgebase article on Apple's site. It explains how to properly backup your machine while keeping permissions, etc. in check. Enjoy! The link is here.

iTunes confusion

2005-05-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

itunespoodoo
Originally uploaded by superpixel.

OK, I'm not the only one getting bit by this right? A quick trip to the discussion boards indicates NO.

However, in my case the error is due to an interface issue. Look, Apple is king of easy-to-use and interfaces. So what happened here?

If you look for the Gorillaz single on iTMS (currently playing in an iTunes/iPod ad) this is pretty much what you see (my pic).

BUT, if you buy the song down below, the one listed with all the videos, you do NOT get the videos! Instead, you have to buy the song up above, listed as an "album"-- meaning it is one song and some videos.

If this is how the new video system is going to work, Apple is going to have to figure out how to make it idiot-proof. Luckily they refunded my money and allowed me to buy the other one...

There goes that profit margin...

codepoetry - Here We Go Again: Bad Reporters and Good Rumors

2005-05-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

codepoetry - Here We Go Again: Bad Reporters and Good Rumors

So normally I like to keep the "newsie" stuff outta here. No rumors, just solid tips or reviews of software/hardware... Y'know, useful stuff!

But I just *had* to recycle this story!

Tiger in my tank?

2005-05-02T19:40:00.000-07:00

Not yet. Fact is, I'm somewhat of a lackadaisical early adopter. I bought a very early DVD player, but waited a while for a digital camera. Took me no time to jump into OS X, but quite a while to jump into Linux. Still haven't got Bluetooth, a LCD screen, or an 8-track.

Go figure.

But the real reason I haven't jumped into Tiger: time and money.

Time: I haven't got time for the pain. There are some wonky things going on in my iBook. I doubt Tiger will make them better. Also, things like Divx, and some other stuff I use reportedly are broken in Tiger. I'll wait for the point-point release on CD, thanks.

Money: Even with my educational discount I'm not freeing up the cash just yet. We are, in fact, about to go on a massive family vacation.

Speaking of which, I've been spending a LOT of time with family lately. So if posts become sparse it's because I'm pushing my daughter on the swing or teaching my son to play ball. You only get so many of those days.

I'm still working on a book, somewhat delayed until Tiger invades my mini, but look for it sometime this summer.

There's also a funky little product I designed coming up soon...

But if you're starved for Mac-related useful tips and info, here are some of my favorite websites:
http://www.tuaw.com
http://www.appleturns.com
http://www.macminute.com
http://www.macnn.com
http://www.macupdate.com
http://www.apple.com

Enjoy! I'll post when there's something useful to say.

Tiger features

2005-04-15T14:59:00.000-07:00

Apple has laid down the guantlet in the OS wars.

See the list of new features to add on to the core MacOS features...

For a critique of Tiger, see Paul's blog.

Peeking into the guts of Automator?

2005-04-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

Until Tiger is available on April 29 and I can use Automator, I'm trying to use AppleScript to make iChat set itself to "Away" when I open my iBook... When that's done I'll post up in this entry.

Automator will hopefully be a powerful tool for the average person. I'm just a hack (unlike a hacker), but I enjoy these basic scripting languages. Automator looks like it will finally record all those things you used to try and record using the ScriptEditor. I can't seem to get it to work with iChat. So I'm hacking at the code and found this site:
http://developer.apple.com/cocoa/applescriptforapps.html

With an explanation on opening the libraries! So now I can see what I'm doing... More later.

iSync is the coolest thing ever

2005-04-03T19:39:00.000-07:00

OK, the El Gato details are coming soon (I know, I'm way late).

But right now I've been totally obsessed with my new cellphone. Here's the deal:
Our contract with US Cellular was coming up. I had asked them about better phones. In particular, I wanted a Bluetooth phone so I could use Salling Clicker, or at least iSync.

US Cellular said BT was incompatible with CDMA. That's a bit like saying you can't have AM and FM on the same radio. Technically speaking, it was nonsense. For years US Cellular has had lousy phones, but great calling plans.

Unfortunately, Cingular had the best phones, but worst plans and a survey just came out saying they were tops in customer complaints. I had my eye on the NGage, despite the derision of gadget-heads everywhere. Personally, I think the NGage has a lot of promise.

Well, I took a look at US Cellular one more time, just to make sure, and there were some decent phones finally! Only one BT model, and out of my price range. But the Motorola phones without BT were compatible with iSync!

So what? Well, I live by iCal and my computer's Address Book app. So to be able to have these things on my phone, with ONE click, that's just too cool.

So today I plugged in my iPod, Palm device (an ancient Handspring Visor), and Motorola V262, launched iSync, and walked away. Within 5 minutes it was done. Any contact with a phone number was on the phone. All my alarms and calendar events were on the phone too. My phone is the one device I've always got on me, and now it's just that much more useful.

Keep in mind the phone has a voice recorder, which means I can jot down notes on ALL my devices too. I bought the iTalk from Griffin Technology for the iPod...

One thing to note: Apple does not list the v262 as being iSync-compatible. They DO list the c343, which I originally picked up. My wife got the v262. But I tried hers and swapped out. The c343 can't really do a lot of the cool things like the v-series: ringtones, wallpapers, etc. I have the Motorola software that allows me to directly load these things onto the phone. The lousy thing about *that* however is that it's PC-only. Sometimes it pays to have one crummy PC in the house.

Coming soon: an overview of the SolutionSphere Digital Ecosystem for the home!

Complaints department...

2005-03-24T05:12:00.000-08:00

Let me state for the record that I'm a pretty optimistic guy. I'm obviously also a pretty technically proficient individual. When I started my college days I was in computer/electrical engineering. I left in part because at the time my math skills weren't what they should have been, and because I felt the industry wasn't where it could have been.

Well, things haven't changed that much. The day we get a computer or piece of hardware that actually works properly without a lot of fiddling will be a wonderful new era. Almost every machine I've had has some tiny imperfection or flaw. My iPod resets the clicker (and the battery has started to go funky-- imagine that). My iBook has had a wide array of issues, from a failing HD to wonky Airport. All of which were fixed under warranty. Although I should point out that each repair has raised further problems. Right now 3 keys have all but been wiped clear, the paint has rubbed off. The machine is 14 months old. Apple has yet to give me a new keyboard (and their repair people in Memphis left out a screw on the keyboard so it doesn't attach fully now).

But overall my computing experience has been pretty good. I will say that I spend a LOT less time maintaining my Macs than I do the one PC in the house. And I use the Macs about 90% of the time!

But, today I discovered a MAJOR flaw in the El Gato EyeTV software/hardware...

While rendering something in another program, I went to open EyeTV. For some reason, I couldn't open the LiveTV window. This is necessary to record shows, or watch shows. It is the window that plays the video! Well, the menu item was grayed out, meaning it's just totally unavailable. I looked at everything, checked the cabling, and followed the troubleshooting steps on El Gato's site. Ultimately, there was only one choice: reboot the machine. El Gato is aware of this issue, but has yet to fix it. At least they have it in their knowledgebase, as Apple's KB is rather pathetic.

Now here's my quandary. I'm leaving for work today at noon. The show I wish to tape is at 9pm. My render won't be done until around 6pm. So what to do? I'd already had a couple of good hours of render time on the machine, and I hated to have to reboot. In OSX, you rarely have to reboot. Hear that El Gato? You should NOT have to reboot!

But I did. Hours of "work" vanished just so I could timeshift TV. And I wonder why my wife hates computers sometimes. The worst that would happen with a VCR is the power could go out...

So anyway, there's my rant. I'm thinking of another book now-- "The Way Things Never Frickin' Work"
Because sometimes it just goes that way!

Video EVERYWHERE!

2005-03-20T18:01:00.000-08:00

1. Video on your iPod
While you still can't view video directly on the iPod screen (sorry, but "The Matrix" looks foolish in 2-inch widescreen) I have played video from the iPod on a Mac. Here's how:
- taped an episode of one of my TV shows using the El Gato EyeTV Wonder USB 2.0
- exported the video "for the web" as a QuickTime movie
- copied that file to my iPod
- plugged in the iPod to another Mac
- opened the file from the iPod in QuickTime

Obviously this process could be partly automated. While I could do it in AppleScript right now, using El Gato's thorough documentation, I'm going to wait for Automator.
Also, Apple doesn't recommend you use the iPod for things like video, because the hard drives are not really designed for such heavy usage... Driving video tends to make the drive constantly work. The iPod uses RAM cache to allow the HD to rest for periods.

2. Video on your wall
Want to watch all that cool video content you illegally downloaded, er, *legally* purchased on your shiny new walls? First you'll want to buy a projector, right? Yeah, I can't afford one either. So build one!
Once you've got the hardware figured out, you'll want to be able to play any sort of video full screen. DVD's automatically show up full screen on the mac. But if you've got other stuff, you'll need something extra. For example, I've been recording old VHS tapes using the EyeTV and Mac mini. I'd like to transfer those to my iBook, so I can watch them on the big video projector at work.

Personally I like QuickTime Pro, because not only does it enable fullscreen movie viewing, but it allows you to export out a variety of formats... I'll dish more on QT pro later. The downside is that it's $30.

To accomplish the same thing, check out Cellulo. It's free, plays fullscreen, allows scaling, and does a whole lot more.

3. Video in your Palm
There's a process of conversion involved, but Kinoma makes a nifty product that allows you to move your movies into any Palm OS device (running OS 5).

What's really cool about this? Imagine recording a how-to, family video, or again, something off the TV using the EyeTV. Now you can have that in your pocket, but unlike the iPod solution, you can actually watch the thing on the go!

EyeTV Wonder USB 2.0 first impressions...

2005-03-12T10:37:00.000-08:00

I'll do a detailed review (with tips, tricks, and how-to's aplenty) later this week, but here are some thoughts on the new EyeTV Wonder USB 2.0. The Wonder, for those of you who don't know, is El Gato's bargain-basement TV tuner device for Macs. Most of their products are Firewire-based, expensive, but overall quite nice. My intention with the Wonder was threefold:
1) Copy some VHS and 8mm tapes to DVD
2) Record TV shows ala Tivo while away, and easily watch them on my iBook later. Recording would take place on the Mac mini. For setup I used the iBook first though...
3) Longer-term this would become a part of the master bedroom home theater system. (Which I detail as a case study in my upcoming book)

First off, I pre-ordered the unit directly from El Gato. When will manufacturers learn? If you're going to offer a product for sale on your site, get the basics of e-commerce down! I never received a tracking number. So by the time I'd emailed El Gato, they responded (the next day) with "it's already there." A quick call home confirmed, yes, it had arrived. So, whatever.

Now installation was a little sketchy. The box has one of those last-minute stickers indicating that OS 10.3.8 was the MINIMUM requirement. No problem. What freaked me out a little was a USB driver that had to be installed. Call me crazy (many do) but who do I trust more: the makers of a random TV tuner or Apple? Yeah, drivers from 3rd parties tweak me, so this was problematic. So far, so good though, I haven't had any kernel panics...

After that (and a reboot) you pretty much plug everything in and continue with setup. Once the tuner is plugged in, you choose your line-in, like cable or antenna. The cable tuning took quite a while (over 15 minutes), but worked well when done. Switching channels is quite fast, but nothing beats a real TV. Last step, optional, is to sign up with TitanTV. For the full review I'll go more into that, but the process is a little confusing. All the pieces aren't really fitting together for me.

One word: interface. All of these disparate elements need one central control. This is the difference between Apple and 3rd parties. iTunes is so popular because everything is just there, easy to use. El Gato's software won't be winning any GUI awards. Confusing icons, lots of little pieces lying around-- they could really stand to hire me to redesign their software!

But I digress. Powered on, with a coax cable plugged in, the USB 2.0 cable nestled in my iBook, I quickly began watching TV. "Lost" happened to be on, but suddenly my daughter got out of bed. No problem! I just hit the Record button, and it quite readily began taping the show. Unfortunately, there's only about 4 GB of room on my iBook. While plenty for the last 30 minutes of Lost that night, it isn't enough for all the projects I had planned.

Once Lost was over, I stopped recording. Unplugging the Wonder, I noticed it was REALLY HOT! Not like Paris Hilton would use the word, and not spicy hot, but like "don't leave loose papers nearby or it'll cause a fire" kinda hot. Ouch. So I unplugged the power too, just to be safe.

Now I took my iBook back to the couch and tried to watch the show. Hm, where is it? This is where the interface is not very intuitive. There's another control panel you have to open from a menu to show the shows you've taped. One note: I thought by setting the archival drive to an external firewire drive I'd be able to store my video externally. Nope! So far I don't see a way to do that. So your primary drive will need lots of room if you plan on recording a lot of video. Anyway, I did manage to figure it all out.

The "editing" software is of course an abomination. Trying to edit out commercials, from what I can tell so far, is almost pointless. But I'll work that out in the big "how to." Also, there's a little bit of a bait-and-switch going on with this thing...

Point #1 for buying the EyeTV Wonder was to burn some old tapes to DVD. Nowhere on the website does it tell you one minor fact: you must have a dual-G4 to record DVD quality video! In fact, for the BEST quality video (a 90-minute DVD), you will need a frickin' dual-G5!!! Ouch. Yeah, this point is mentioned: buried in a PDF, linked from the website. So you have to really dig to discover this. Guess when I found out? After my credit card had been charged.

Luckily, I'm not to bothered, as the VHS tapes are low-quality to begin with (recorded years ago at SLP). And what can you expect from such a cheap device? For $150, it's still cheaper than Tivo.

What happens with the EyeTV Wonder USB 2.0, and why it's cheaper than it's siblings, is that the MPEG conversion happens on the computer, not in the unit itself. Thus, El Gato recommends you have the latest, greatest, fastest, fanciest, super-duper machine you can get to record. Thank goodness they don't do this with all their devices. The EyeTV 500 is HD, and I guess you'd need a few XServes to record, not to mention XRAID to store...

So I'm going through the documentation now (I'm a mac user darnit, not used to that manual-reading nonsense), and I'll post up some goodies soon. In the meanwhile, think about this...

1. You can view *what* you have recorded (not the actual show) in a web browser. Like a menu...
2. You can control the app via the web too.
3. And yes, you CAN stream the video to other computers...

To see how, check out El Gato's tips page.

I'll try them all out, plus perhaps some automation, ASAP! First I gotta get another podcast in the can. If you get the chance, check out my Da Vinci Notebooks podcast until next time (link to the blog on the right).

All the pretty minis...

2005-03-11T06:49:00.000-08:00

Two companies offer ways to add color to your Mac mini:

1. Colorware has offered paint jobs for pretty much any Apple product for a while, and starting March 14, they'll add the Mac mini as an option. Note that they actually PAINT your devices, similar to car paint. It's pretty cool, and from what I hear quite nice. Don't know about the longevity, but if it's like car paint I believe it'll last a while. Still, I get nervous with physical tweaks that could affect cooling in such a tightly engineered device like the mini...

2. SkinIt on the other hand provides a 4-piece vinyl sticker set for the mini. This means it is undoable (and don't we all like to undo things in software-- why not hardware?). Again, there could be cooling issues, but at least this way it's easy to remove.

Mod your Mac mini: mount a front panel USB port

2005-02-27T22:01:00.000-08:00

The metal doowhackey
Originally uploaded by superpixel.

I got tired of scrounging around the back of my mini for the 2nd USB port. Also got tired of the cord flopping all over the WAP next to the mini (see other pics

So using this simple metal shape I "mounted" a USB port on the front of the mini. It's painless and useful, just a way to manage cord clutter...

Take it to the next level...

2005-02-15T12:03:00.000-08:00

Not content with the base specs on your Mac mini? Want to put in a bigger hard drive than Apple will allow? Or how about an internal slot-loading 8x Dual-layer DVD burner?

Personally I thought MCE Technologies would be the first with the upgrades, but it looks like Fastmac has beat them to the punch.

So each upgrade is $199. That's the DVD burner, a 100 GB HD, or 1 GB of RAM-- each is going to run a couple of C-notes...

It may seem like a lot to pay for the upgrades, but when you factor in the actual cost of components, it's fairly reasonable. A 1GB stick of RAM for the Mac mini is currently cheapest at $163 on DealRam. I prefer the LaCie burners, and I like being able to use them on my Macs and PC's independently, but there's something to be said for having it all in one tiny package...

Choices, choices...

2005-02-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

It's good to have choices. While I doubt Apple's operating system will be ported to Intel-based machines any time soon (prove me wrong Steve!), meaning we're stuck with more award-winning designs from Cupertino, I have discovered a wealth of software choices out there...

Case in point: X-10 controller software. I wrote about Indigo earlier, but one reader informed me that the old "classic" Mac OS X-10 controller software had been ported to OSX. You can find out more about XTension at www.shed.com. The very same reader also wrote software for XTension that provides web remote control! Imagine being able to turn your lights on in your house from any browser in the world... Check it out here, and thanks James.

It also seems that everyone is getting into the Mac mini HTPC/etc. usage website act! There's a pretty comprehensive, exhaustive, and clever site called BYOKDM.net. Of course this is in reference to Apple's explanation for the Mac mini's lack of a keyboard, display and mouse. So you "bring your own." My only complaint with the site is design-- lots of little text crammed on a page isn't easy to read. But I'm sure the site will mature over time. Perennial favorite Spymac.com has undergone a LOT of changes...

Speaking of Spymac, if you're looking for an alternative to Apple's .Mac service, they have one. What is .Mac? I use it and my wife loves it. Basically you pay Apple a cool Benjamin a year, and get access to a wealth of online-based services. Virus protection (pretty useless considering how few are out there for the Mac), lots of free software, sounds, and other goodies and discounts, an online hard drive (accessible ANYWHERE). Web-based email, accessing your bookmarks online, synchronizing all your data, backing up your data, and probably the most useful item: iLife integration. The reason my wife likes .Mac so much is that she can very easily manage her photos in iPhoto, and when she's done make a web page and put it online with NO coding necessary. You can do the same with movies as well.

However, not everyone wants to pay Apple for the service. What to do? I'll be tackling this in-depth later, but here's a few suggestions. First, I do suggest you try the service. It's very nice and actually pretty reasonable for what you get. I've added a link on the right of the page for you... Go ahead, click it!

OK, you really don't want to pay? Try Wheel from Spymac. It's cheaper, and does some of what .Mac. will do for you. The geeks at O'Reilly have put together a way to emulate some of the features of .Mac on your own. Caution: some nerd abilities required. Read the beginning here. Pretty good stuff.

Last nugget: I finally got my Mac mini!!! I'm ordering the El Gato EyeTV Wonder next week (not even shipping until mid-Feb) and of course I'll post all about it. I'm also posting up my impressions of the base unit I purchased... Look for it this weekend.

Please spread the word about my blog if you don't mind. There-- enough shilling for one night. Uh, one more thing: I've added an Atom feed so you can take the blog with you (like on your iPod)... For a cool Atom/RSS reader, check out Shrook.

Until next time, wait until midnight to run cron...

It's the software, stupid!

2005-01-26T18:41:00.000-08:00

As I've been collating ideas and theories regarding the Mac mini as a HTPC (Home Theater PC) or Media Center PC (which is a little different, don't let them tell you otherwise), there's always one crucial missing component.

Software.

That's what makes the Mac as a platform so nice to use is the tight integration of Apple's components. That is, the hardware and software play nice. Also, the Apple-branded software, like iLife, does a great job of talking to each other, and integrating into a workflow. So you see your pictures in iMovie, your music in iPhoto, your movies in iDVD, etc.

But we have to realize that the Mac as a Media Center is lacking OS-level support for some functions, like PVR functions. That's why Microsoft created a unique flavor of Windows XP just for their Media Center platform...

But now some good lads from across the pond are going to change all that. I hope. The Mac Media Center Project is a grassroots effort to create actual software for the Mac that would turn it into the seamless Media Center it could be.

Yes, we can all look forward to those crazy MS Dancers on our Quartz Extreme-driven desktops soon! I just hope there's a Steve Ballmer version.

Two bits.

2005-01-25T13:27:00.000-08:00

Bit one:
With a couple of sub-bits. First, there's a wonderful how-to, complete with pictures, on getting your Mac mini to fit comfortably into your home theater setup at Engadget.

Well, I don't know how comfortable all that is really. Looks a little, er, cramped. But still, a very thorough look at some options. I'm particularly happy about the mention of VNC. I'll cover that later, and show how you can control your Mac via a wealth of devices using VNC.

Second half-bit: another tutorial, this time on getting those horrid, tiny, blurry little camera phone pics (or PDA pics) onto your Mac. Not exactly easy, but not totally hard either. Check it out here.

Bit Two:
Submission time! That's right, as the song says, I simply cannot do it alone. So I'm accepting submissions for the ebook.

What ebook? Well, you could call it the "Do anything with your Mac" book, or "Take control of your home, life, work, entertainment, and education with a Mac" book (except the publishers of the Take Control series would probably be mad at me).

In short, I want to know what crazy things you've done to your Mac to make it more useful. Has anyone used the Mac to control their toaster, and burn the current temp into the bread? How about using the iBook as a robot?

Well, for all you dreamers out there, email me your how-to's or wish-to's and we'll put 'em in a book, for all the good people out there...

You can reach me at ipodcase@gmail.com

Let's do it!

Control... everything with your Mac

2005-01-20T13:27:00.000-08:00

Today I'm going to show you how to use the Mac mini (or any mac) to control your home's lights, appliances (some), and phones (sort of). There's also a killer piece of software I have to discuss...

Home Automation:
For years there has been a protocol known as X10. Many folks have seen those zany pop-ups. Those are from a licensee, and shouldn't reflect your ONLY choice in the matter. I'll post a better way to rig surveillance cameras later.
I'm talking about primarily turning things on and off. Yeah, that's about it-- ON or OFF, binary. But you could turn on sprinklers to water the lawn, lights to pretend you are home (or anticipate your arrival), and, uh, I guess do other stuff... About as long as the X10 stuff has been out there was Mac software for it. At least until OSX came out. Well, now the good folks at Perceptive Automation have created Indigo, an OSX client for controlling all your wacky devices-- or at least those with an on/off switch. I can imagine some neat-o Rube Goldberg applications though.
Here's the kicker: Indigo is compatible with the next two products!

Phone Control:
There is a great little piece of hardware/software out there called Phlink, by OVOLab (or is it OVOLab Phlink?)... This turns the mac into an automated phone center, with on-screen caller ID, message center, and automated answer-bot! Check out there site for more info. But it's a cool thing. And remember that you can use it to remotely control your home via phone with the Indigo system...

Remote Control Part Deux:
So, you got Indigo, Phlink, iTunes, EyeTV, Airport Express, and a host of other stuff, RIGHT? Well, control them all using Salling Clicker.
This clever little software goes on your PDA or cellphone (check for compatibility) and uses Bluetooth, a wireless technology winding its way into more phones and PDA's, to control all those things.
Imagine walking into a room and having iTunes kick on your favorite song. Salling Clicker is there. Want to turn on the lights in another room? Use your cell phone! Crank the volume using your PDA.
And since all people can seem to do is complain about the lack of adequate remotes for their new Mac-based PVR: use Salling Clicker to control the El Gato EyeTV!

Stay tuned for news on the ebook...

Until next week, keep clicking!

Daring Fireball: Small, Cheap, and Without a Display

2005-01-17T20:52:00.000-08:00

For those of you interested in another perspective on the Mac mini (and iPod shuffle), please read: Daring Fireball: Small, Cheap, and Without a Display...

He makes some good points. The thing to remember is that any increase of market share, especially if it gets to double digits (remember 10 has 2 numbers), is good for the Home Computing Appliance Enthusiast.

While there are over 10,000 software titles for the Mac platform, there's a lot that you can't find at Wal-Mart. And that is important... Also this means more peripherals for the Mac as a Home Theater, or gaming platform!

Seeing text on a TV

2005-01-15T04:56:00.000-08:00

I've jacked in my old iBook to a TV using the RCA plugs. It isn't great. Text is pretty unreadable unless you crank the size of the text WAY up, and you can't really do it for the menus in OS X (unlike Windows). The S-Video output would be higher resolution, yet still not adequate for regular text... But there is a solution! If you want to bypass the whole HDTV thing, you can buy the RCA/S-Video adapter for the mini ($20) and continue reading...

To solve the whole resolution problem you'll want to enable Zooming. It's in the System Preferences, under "Universal Access" (although it might move in Tiger, it'll be easy to find by using Spotlight). What does this do? By holding down a keyboard combination you can literally zoom the screen, enlarging everything. Some parts will fall off the screen, but by moving the mouse you can move the focus, and see everything.

It's a cool trick, and always makes my Wintel friends jealous! You can also see a sample of this in my video tutorial on exporting cross-platform movies (meaning no QuickTime required) in iMovie 4 here (for now):
Exporting non-QuickTime content in iMovie 4

Enjoy!

Put your mac mini into your car

2005-01-14T08:25:00.000-08:00

So there's a turnkey way to stick that second Mac mini of yours into your car!

Check 'em out when they launch Jan 22:
http://www.classicresto.com/macmini.html

Now the only problem will be copying all your files over to that computer. Unless you can spread your 802.11 network across your town/state/country...

Guess we'll have to wait until the iPod has 802.11 and that Home on your iPod feature...

Adding Surround Sound

2005-01-13T14:14:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest "missing pieces" of the Mac experience has been surround sound. I don't see in the specs for the Mac mini optical audio out, although the Airport Express does have this feature.

Well, leave it to those crafty folks at Griffin Technology to solve the problem. Their FireWave product adds Dolby 5.1 surround to your Mac via the FireWire port. It also includes a FW port of it's own, so you can still add drives, cameras, etc. to the Mac. And it doesn't need to be plugged in to the wall, getting it's power from the FW port (as any good FW peripheral should).

Tack on another $99 for surround!

How To: turn your Mac mini into a Media Center PC

2005-01-11T18:43:00.000-08:00

Last week at CES Microsoft made a big to-do about their Media Center flavor of Windows XP. Of course, the big news was that this cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, newfangled piece of kit is still inevitably going to give you the Blue Screen of Death at some point. Bill Gates was not amused.

Those of you out there who have been using Apple's new OS X operating system, however, know just how reliable it is, and of course it's mostly immune to the security lapses so prevalent in MS products.

Well, today Apple introduced their first foray into real budget computing, the Mac mini. While the basic unit goes for $499, to create the super-sweet Media PC knockoff I'm proposing, you're going to want to add some extras. Total cost of the base unit will be $1002 under Apple's current scheme.

First let's look at the features from Microsoft's offering. You can review the full set here. So here's our basic feature set:

Share and store photos

Share and store your music

Play stuff like CD's and DVD's

Listen to online radio (really? wow MS thanks!)

Play games

Look up movies

Edit and arrange your movies, music, and photos

Watch Windows Dancers move to your music (seriously, this is a feature)

And of course, act as a DRM-crippled PVR for viewing tv and movies according to MS's whim

Well, aside from proprietary technologies like DirectX, ActiveX, Windows Media Player 10, and crippling spyware, most of the features available on Media Center PC's from MS can easily be replicated on OS X.

So using the following base system I'll show you how to build a Mac-based entertainment center!

First you'll want to custom-configure a Mac mini. Yeah, you could do this with other Macs, but the mini has a very nice form factor for a living room component.

OK, buying a Mac mini with 1.42 GHz CPU, 80 GB HD, 512 MB RAM, SuperDrive (for burning DVD's), Airport Extreme (802.11g WiFi), and Bluetooth, AND the wireless keyboard and mouse will set you back the aforementioned $1002. If you want to stream music into other rooms, buy an Airport Express for each room! This also doubles as a wireless printer connection and WiFi access extension point.

Now, you'll of course be using Apple's very integrated and nice iLife '05 suite, which comes FREE with the Mac mini. That pretty much covers all those Picture, Music, Movies needs. Seriously, we live by the stuff at home.

If you really want to make things easy to share, I suggest going ahead with the optional dot Mac service. It's another $100 a year, but it includes a lot of cool stuff, and is integrated with all the iLife apps. It will increase in usefulness in the future, as with Apple's next OS, Tiger, other app developers will be able to easily connect to your .mac services... You'll see what I mean in a few months, trust me.

Anyway, while you're shopping at Apple, I highly recommend getting the pro version of QuickTime, which enables you to do some pretty cool stuff. I'll explain more in a later post.

No Apple computer would be complete without an iPod, and with all those choices and price points, well, it just makes sense to get one. The iPod allows you to of course play all your music. The iPod photo allows you to store and share your photos on the road. You'll find there are other hidden goodies in the iPod, including the ability to download podcasts, RSS feeds, and more. I'd suggest you check out pod2go, an invaluable tool for your iPod...

If you want to video chat with fellow Mac users (and there will be plenty as people snap up the Mac mini), get an iSight, pretty much the coolest webcam you'll ever see.

Now, an advantage to getting the iSight is the ability to also scan the UPC barcodes of your movies, music, and games, and put them in a really cool and visually pleasing database. This adds another $40, but the software from Delicious Monster, called Delicious Library, can't be beat. It really is very cool and useful.

All right, so you've got a tricked-out Mac mini, wireless keyboard and mouse, some great software, however many Airport Expresses you need, and an iSight. Total cost so far should be around $1500. This will vary depending on the number of Express's you buy, and what flavor of iPod you choose.

But wait! There's more!

If you want to use your mac as a personal video recorder and just plain DVD player, you'll need some more goodies. Also, how are you going to see all this stuff?

The mini is clearly designed for people who have a monitor lying around. Who doesn't have a cheapo CRT sitting in the closet collecting dust? And while you can get an optional RCA/S-Video output dongle from Apple, which allows you to plug in to almost any TV, I recommend instead you find an HDTV with DVI input. Wal Mart sells several decent models. You could, for maximum craziness, buy a projector. But that's just crass, isn't it?

To enable PVR capabilities, there are several options. One of the most powerful is a digital cable box from El Gato. They also have basic analog ones, ranging in price from $149 to $349 for the digital cable version...

At this point you might worry about drive space. Even 80 GB seems anemic when you start recording all those nifty cartoons and whatnot on the TV. So go pick up a Firewire hub (around $40) and as many external hard drives as you can. You can easily chain these together for literally terabytes (meaning HOURS) of recording time.

And no living room system would be complete without a remote. Griffin Technologies makes a very cool RF one, which works through walls! There are other remotes out there from Keyspan, for instance. Also, there's a neat piece of software called Salling Clicker that allows you to use your Bluetooth cell phone or PDA as a remote... It's a very cool thing.

If you get really picky, there are tons of speakers, USB devices, and other things to junk up your living room. Apple has clearly thought about this, and offer a wide range of geegaws to complement you new mac.

One last step. If you're going to make this super-easy, just like Microsoft likes to do, you're going to want to simplify... When you set up your mac, you can create an additional account for general usage, and enable something known as Simple Finder. This makes certain apps really big buttons and the general OS easier to access from across the room.

I've only hinted at the power of this system. Poke around Griffin's site, Apple's site, and check out all the Apple-related sites out there for even more tips and tricks. I think you'll find, pound-for-pound, that you'll get more enjoyment out of a mac-based "digital hub" than a PC-based one. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft has some compelling products and services out there (like those nifty dancers). But OS X, and the next version, Tiger, is really giving them a run for the money.

By the way, the total cost for all this? Around $3000, again depending on your options. Many of the better MS-based Media Centers I looked at (like Alienware) were around $1,500-- JUST FOR THE PC! Never mind a big screen, RF remote, or iPod.

In closing, I'd like to point out I don't work for Apple. I don't own a Mac mini (yet), but neither does anyone else. What I've put together is a system that many others are configuring right now. As time goes by we'll probably see all these things bundled, and packaged, and sold. If I were to do it myself, I'd call it a SolutionSphere. That is my term for this digital ecosystem where everything "just works" and it's fairly easy to move your content around (and create your own content). Motorola will be introducing a cell phone with a mini version of iTunes later this year. You'll be able to move music from your mac to your cell phone very easily. See how the ecosystem works?

Stay tuned for more ways to extend the capabilities of this powerful system, and an illustrated guide!

From the people who brought you the ipod case from a milk jug