The world as frankps sees it!
Posts tagged Apple TV
My New Wireless Solution
0Welcome to my Apple equipped home, and let me introduce you to my latest device: Time Capsule.
Time Capsule is first of all a wireless accesspoint, but also a 500 GB Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. Needless to say, it works seamlessly with MacOS X 10.5′s inbuilt backup solution Time Machine. But it is not restricted to working with only 10.5 or MacOS X, and is of course also working with Windows and Linux. But having said that, Time Capsule only comes with installation and administration software for MacOS X and Windows. The setup takes a matter of minutes, and once it’s up and running, its disk drive is visible to any computer on the network.
As you can see from this first screenshot, Apple has done it real easy to set Time Capsule up for you and they have also made some sensible security choices for you: WEP is not an option. As this device is not for the enterprise, only WPA/WPA 2 Personal is available as wireless security.
Airfoil with Apple TV support
1
I am home with the flue, relaxing on the couch and browsing web pages. I ended up buying two software licenses Airfoil and Go Between for Lotus Notes (I will probably be writing a few lines about the last application another day).
Airfoil was originally only for MacOS X, but there now also exists a version for Windows XP/Vista. It has always been an application that I have followed as I have an Airport Express. I used to have it connected to my homecinema system, but I these days use Apple TV instead. And that is why the latest version of Airfoil got interesting again. Version 3.1 introduces support for streaming of audio from various applications to Apple TV. That had to be tried. A few moments later the Last.fm client was streaming one of my friends’ Radio Station and Apple TV was showing my MacBook Pro with the wallpaper that I am using. I am impressed, but there is some functionality that I would like to have added: Elapsed time on the song played and to the radio station I am listening to, and of course Love and Ban buttons.
You can other wise use Airfoil to play audio from media players like RealPlayer or QuickTime. God forbid me from ever use RealPlayer, but it is supported! Airfoil can also be used with hardware audio devices like Griffin’s AM/FM RadioShark, or any other input.
Airfoil is a must for all Apple TV owners, and it is nicely priced.
8000 songs on Last.fm
04 years ago
Yesterday my Last.fm user profile passed 8.000 scrobbled songs, and I will continue to scrobble my music. Now where did that word come from? Scrobble? Last.fm is one of the few web services (Flickr is the other one) that I really use. I have never taken part in the Facebook hype, nor do I plan to. This week I also read that the DNB (Den Norske Bank – Norway’s biggest bank) in Second Life had 2-5 visitors a day, my Second Life experience lasted for about 15 minutes. A classical “Been there, done that!” …
I love the idea of sharing the pictures I have taken and data about the music I listen to, and today most of the music I buy, I have gotten recommended through iTMS or Last.fm. Just that I rarely buy my music on iTMS. I guess I am a bit old fashioned and prefer having the CD cover in my hands. So once in a while, you can still see me visiting an old fashioned music shop. Yes, there is still a few of them around!
I don’t read that latest sales charts, I have honestly never cared about them. I see that the music industry in the future will have yet another problem to deal with, not just iTMS, but also the fact that artists don’t need them for marketing. Consumer’s listening profile will replace the expensive marketing. So, even my crappy music taste (profile) has an economic value. The Last.fm profile doesn’t stop with what music you should buy, artists have recently also started to list when and where they have concerts and tons of music video are now available for online viewing. Imagine Last.fm updating their software clients (players) to also play music videos in HD. What impact will that have on for instance MTV? Perhaps none, cause MTV these days rarely play music videos. But imagine a client that only play videos from your favorite artists?
Two major events will change the way I (and perhaps you as well) will be buying our music:
- With the “Free Music“ announcement Last.fm recently published, I am sure that I will be buying more music based on my Last.fm listening profile. It’s not available in Norway, but I am sure it will be within the next 6 months. Sadly, not many of friends have a Last.fm profile, and the ones that have, mostly have a “horrible taste of music”. Well, their music profile has a low match factor!
- Apple’s coming software update for Apple TV. Being able to buy your music directly from your home stereo system. Laziness will win. It will be to convenient. With Apple TV, a computer, iPod and a Time Capsule, you will also have the needed backup in place of the digital media that you buy online. That has perhaps been one of my biggest issues with buying music online so far.
Upgrading to Leo?
04 years ago
I have the last days gotten a lot of questions about what I think about MacOS X 10.5. I sadly cannot tell you yet, but I will be getting a copy of Leopard from the central computer department at work on Monday or Thuesday. I hope to be able to install it on a test machine the very same day.
I am eager to try many of the new features, but there are also features that we will not be getting full benefit from, as for instance Time Machine. If I have understood it correctly, you will not be able to sync with Time Machine to Samba shares. We also don’t have any MacOS X 10.5 server at work, so any new features on the client OS that is titly integrated with the server OS will not work for us. I personally don’t have an .Mac account any more either, so these features are excluded as well.
There are, as far as I can see, three other real “show stopers” that I will run in to with MacOS X 10.5, two at work and one at home. The Mac guys at the central computer department have, as so many others, not been able to bind the MacOS X 10.5 clients to Active Directory. So what does that mean? We have no working centralized login (network authentification), and that also leads me to the second problem, as we are using Windows servers (kerberos) for printing, we also don’t have any working print service for MacOS X 10.5. Having said this, I should end with saying a few things about the many reviews I have been reading lately: Many of them pisses me off. Why? They compare Vista with Leo. One of the biggest things with Vista is the enhanced use of Active Directory and Group Policies, in other words getting it easier to administrate big networks with Windows machines from one place. Apple also have these tools for clean MacOS networks. But when the magazines write that MacOS X 10.5 is so much better then Vista, and that it should be considered as an option, then please also consider the costs of mantaining a few Macs in an Windows environment! Administrators will find themselves setting most of the configurations manually on each machine. For home users MacOS X might be a great option, especially if you have some friends around that can help you the few times you get stuck on something. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Macs (MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, Cube, Apple TV and iPod Touch).
The third problem I will mostly meet at home, and that is to get Leopard to see Windows file shares on your home network. I have a Vista machine with a bigger hard drive than on the Mac, so I guess that Vista will be used as “server” once in a while.
These are the negative parts, hopefully some of them will be fixed in the nearby future. I have never been the biggest fan of Exposé, so I am really excited about Apple finally integrating virtual desktops in to the OS. Some third party solutions have been around, but not met my needs. I loved BeOS and it’s Workspaces, and by the little I have seen of MacOS X 10.5, I can say that Spaces is the closest I have seen to Workspaces. I will now be a happy “BeOS-user” on my Mac! I am looking forward to try the small integrated applications, like iCal, Mail and iChat. With iCal, what are the new features and can I get them on my iPod Touch? We don’t use Mail at work, but Thunderbird, but I would love to try out the html-templates that comes with Mail, even though I prefer getting mails as simple text! And iChat, wow, finally an easy way to take over the screen and help my scientific staff and now the possibility to work on presentations, spreadsheets and documents together online. Taking over somebody’s screen has also been possible before, but then through Apple Remote Desktop or Timbuktu.
Finally, will all the shareware, freeware and other software that I am using be working? The next following days are gonna be fun.