A weekend with iOS 5 beta

 Apple, Geek  No Responses »
Jun 142011
 

On Friday evening I saw this post on Reddit. The poster had an Apple developer account but no use for the 30 activations of iOS betas you get with it. I replied and within the hour I was installing iOS 5 legitimately with no jailbreak. Hurrah!

I won’t go into detail about all the changes and updates as they’ve been covered in more detail elsewhere. I just wanted to go over a couple of my favourite changes quickly.

Notifications

Pre iOS 5 notifications in iOS were horrible. A big blue screen popped up and stopped you from doing whatever you were doing until you cancelled it or flipped over to that app. Now you just get a non intrusive band at the top of the screen and once it’s gone (after a few seconds) the notification ends up in Notification Center.

Activated by swiping down from the menu bar (where have I seen that before?) it lists all outstanding notifications. As you can see in the screenshot it also shows stocks and weather. I’m not sure why Apple think everyone cares about stocks… especially enough to need it there every time you want to check which apps need your attention. I couldn’t find an obvious way to turn it off in the two days I ran the OS.

 

 

Easy Access Camera
Another feature added that I think many people will appreciate is the ability to start the camera app from the lock screen. This makes is much easier to quickly take a photo or video without having to type in your passcode and open camera.app.

Because you don’t have to type your passcode you can’t see any photos that have already been taken.

You can also now use the volume up button to take pictures (Hooray!).

 

 

 

 

Whilst all of the new things to play with are fun, the software is still very much beta level. Battery life is atrocious. My iPhone 4 died half way through Saturday after fairly light usage. This isn’t really surprising as I’m sure this is the last thing to be optimised. Apps behave rather erratically as well as they haven’t been updated to run on the new OS.

I’m glad I got to have a play. I’ll probably have another go when they release beta 2 but until then I’m happy with 4.3.3.

Shairport – Apple Airplay streaming for free

 Apple, Geek, Linux, TV and Hi-Fi  No Responses »
Apr 272011
 

I used a few hours of this past long weekend to have a play with the recently released program Shairport (original post and Github repository). What the program does is emulate Apple’s Airport Express. As well as being an fairly over priced wireless router and print server, the Airport Express allows you to stream music from iTunes or an iOS device wirelessly to a stereo.

If you have an Airport Express connected to every stereo in your house you can play music to them all at once, in sync, and have a relatively cheap multiroom music system.

As I have a Linux PC connected to my TV and stereo in the living room I thought I’d give it a go. Installing is very easy – you need to download a few Perl modules (perl -MCPAN -e ‘install Module::Name::Here’)

  • HTTP::Request
  • HTTP::Message
  • Crypt::OpenSSL::RSA
  • IO::Socket::INET6

Then just fire up Terminal and type

apt-get install libssl-dev libcrypt-openssl-rsa-perl libao2 libao-dev libio-socket-inet6-perl libwww-perl avahi-utils make perl shairport.pl

Easy! I’d recommend actually looking at the installation doc when you download as the code is changing everyday and the instructions above are probably already out of date. There are also instructions for installing on OS X and Windows.

So does it work? Yes it does… and surprisingly well. I’ve even created a bash script that runs on start up so I don’t lose it after reboot. I can also connect fine after waking up from hibernation so I don;’t have to have the computer running all the time.

Overall, I’m really happy as it has saved me the £90 I was considering spending on an AppleTV (which can also act as an Airport Express for streaming) just for this feature. I already have Boxee and XBMC installed on the PC and all my music on a NAS but iTunes is really my go to application for music. It doesn’t suck nearly as much on a Mac as on Windows and all my playlists and podcasts are in it. I’ll still probably pick up an Express for the bedroom as having to plug a phone or iPod in feels a bit cumbersome.

Lets just hope Apple don’t attempt to change the key and up security so this stops working. Fingers crossed!

New 2011 Macbook Pro

 Apple, Geek  No Responses »
Mar 082011
 

Shortly after my last post where I was having trouble selling my Macbook Pro I actually managed to find a sane buyer. I had to deliver it which required driving half an hour there and back but I didn’t mind as it gave me the cash needed to put towards the 2011 Macbook. As I’m lucky enough to qualify for higher education discount it only required me put £75 towards the new laptop. Seeing as it’s going to take me around five years to finish this Open University course, I can’t see why I can’t just upgrade each year and have the latest and greatest for next to nothing.

Overall it’s pretty similar to last year’s model. The only cosmetic difference is the Thunderbolt logo taking the place of the display icon next to the mini DisplayPort. (edit. I’ve just realised that it would make sense to mention that Thunderbolt is a new interface with a transfer speed to 10 Gbps.)

 

The real changes are internal. Apple have finally dumped the ageing and positively (by computer standards) ancient Core 2 Duo in favour of Core i5s and i7s. I only picked up the low end 13″ Macbook Pro which is powered by an i5. Accordingly to early benchmarks the low end 13″ is as fast as last year’s top end 17″ in terms of processing. This is all thanks to Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors that were only released a week or so ago.

As with last year my main complaint is with the GPU. Last year Apple used an Nvidia integrated graphics chip that wasn’t spectacular but it got the job done. Due to the increasingly annoying licensing issues between Nvidia and Intel, this year we don’t even get an Nvidia GPU. We’re stuck with the GPU integrated into the processor. I need to fire up Portal and see how things run but I’m not really expecting much and I wouldn’t even be surprised if graphics performance was worse than last year.

Really that’s all there is to say. Everything from last year’s post still stands as overall the laptop hasn’t really changed very much. The design is still great and the build quality is superb. The multitouch trackpad is still a joy to use and made even better with BetterTouchTool. £75 well spent I’d say!

Macbook Pro Upgrade Failure

 Apple, Geek  No Responses »
Mar 022011
 

After Apple released the new Macbook Pros last week I thought I’d see if I could sell my last generation Macbook Pro and pay the difference to upgrade. This turned out to be a lot harder than I originally thought.

I’m fairly happy with my laptop but the fact that the new low end 13″ Macbook Pro is now as fast as the last generation’s high end. I think that’s probably a fair bit more future proof than the 2010′s already a little outdated Core 2 Duo.

Anyway, so I placed an advert on the Milton Keynes Gumtree. After a load of attempted scams and no real offers I decided to post on the London Gumtree and just accept that I might have to jump on a train down there to meet. Even with the extra traffic I still only really got scammers and people offering ridiculously low prices. The few people that actually seemed interested still tried to screw me out of money or kept changing the plan on meeting until I just gave up. I could go with eBay but the commission taken by eBay and Paypal really start to eat into any money you make.

In the end it just ended up being a lot more hassle than I was prepared to put up with. I still might put it up again in a month or so and see if I get any interest. The i5 in the new Macbook sounds a lot more fun than a Core 2 Duo.

So instead upgrading the laptop I just decided to pick up a stupidly fast hard drive to give me my tech fix. I installed my new Seagate Momentus XT yesterday and things seem to be a good amount faster.

Now to spend a few minutes lusting over the new iPad 2…

Thinking the unthinkable

 Apple, Geek, Linux  No Responses »
Oct 272010
 

A few things have recently got me considering the unthinkable. ‘What is the unthinkable?’ you ask. It is the idea of buying a computer that is not is not designed in Cupertino, California and doesn’t have a big, shiny Apple on it.

For the past few years I’ve been an avid Apple fan. Not at fan boy levels of devotion but I can often to found frequenting Apple rumour sites and posting in discussions about new Macs. I should probably point out that I’ll probably always have an Apple laptop. At this point in time I can’t find another company that builds such well built, high quality laptops. Yes you pay a premium but that’s all worth it when you compare a Macbook Pro with a similarly specced PC.

What I’m looking into is building a desktop tower running Linux. Usually I would look straight towards an iMac or Mac Mini for desktop use but the past week or so has brought up a few interesting points that are swaying me towards Linux.

Firstly, Ubuntu 10.10 was released. I’ve been fiddling with Ubuntu for years. Every six months when the new version is released I download the disk image and install it into a virtual machine. I even ran Ubuntu as a server for a few months and as a media streamer for a while. I’ve always found something missing. After using Windows for years I’m sick of having to fiddle with a computer to get it to perform simple tasks. Even now that I’m learning to program, I want to spend my time with the important stuff, not installing drivers. This why I bought a Mac. The first few times I tried Ubuntu on my old PC it wouldn’t recognise the wireless card. This was finally fixed around the time of 7.04 but there was always something holding me back from wanting to use Ubuntu full time. 10.10 is, I think, the first Ubuntu release that’s ready for prime time and can be used by anyone.

The second factor affecting this decision was the ‘Back to the Mac’ press conference held by Apple to introduce the Macbook Air and provide a sneak peak at Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. It left an uneasy feeling with me regarding the direction Apple are taking with their desktop operating system. I may just be being paranoid but this convergence of OS X and iOS (iPhone) has me concerned about the future of Apple computing.

For instance, I know that users will be able to install software from other sources beside the Mac App Store but for how long? And will not being in the App Store be comercial suicide for developers. I kind of like the App Store on the iPhone (although it could do with being a little more lenient) but on a computer, and in Apple’s hands, it could mean the end of the Mac platform as we know it.

Another example of iOS ‘features’ creeping into OS X is the idea of fullscreen apps. Why do I want a full screen application on a 1280 x 800 pixel screen? Or even worse a 1920 x 1080 screen found in the smaller iMac. Mac users have always sneered at Windows users that instantly hit ‘maximise’ on their internet browser and are left with two huge white spaces on either side on the 700 pixels of information. OS X is about taking full advantage or your screen’s real estate; smaller windows are arranged all over the so as much as possible is instantly accesible. This is how you work on a Mac. Not fullscreen.

Lastly I am slightly concerned about the deprecation of Java on the Mac. I’m not a Java programmer (although I will be taking a couple of modules on it next year for my Open University course) but Apple dropping official support for such a major language is troubling.

I hope I’m wrong about my concerns. I still think Apple are years ahead of their competitors on both the desktop and mobile devices, even with some of their bizarre decisions. I just hope Steve realises that we might be happy with a slightly controlled phone or even tablet for the sake of performance, battery life and security but this won’t fly on the desktop.

Choosing a media streamer

 Apple, Geek, Media Server  1 Response »
Sep 222010
 

Throughout this year I’ve been trying very hard to find a practical solution to storing and streaming all my digital media to my TV and stereo. After many months I settled on a Netgear ReadyNAS for the storing but I am yet to decide on the best way to actually play movies and music on the television. Whatever I choose it’ll probably end up being a Christmas present to myself so I have a while to come to a decision.

My current two options are an AppleTV or an Acer Revo running XBMC or Boxee. Until Apple announced the updated AppleTV at the beginning of the month I was fairly certain I would go with the XBMC option.

XBMC

XBMC (XBox Media Centre) predictably started out life on the original XBox. People could hack their consoles to play movies and music from a networked computer – this increased the console’s usefulness and there are still people running XBMC on the original XBox (although development has ceased for that hardware).

XBMC is now focused more on home theatre PCs. With the recent wave of ‘nettops’, small PCs using Intel’s Atom processor and NVidea’s HD capable ION chipset, it’s now easy to create a small, quiet, set top box style PC for the living room. You have to add a IR sensor for a remote control but you can also use the many iPhone apps available to control it as well.

The advantage of this set up is the sheer flexibility. You can connect to your storage device with a multitude of different protocols including UPnP, SMB and iTunes sharing among others. You can install extra add ons such as Last.fm and BBC iPlayer (although a recent change to the iPlayer API broke this). Disadvantages to me as a Mac user are a lack of proper integration into the Apple/iTunes eco system. Playlists I create on my iPhone or laptop aren’t copied over automatically and it can’t access things like my iPhoto library.

AppleTV

Now the AppleTV’s advantages and disadvantages are pretty much the opposites of those discussed for XBMC. It’s obviously a very closed system – it can only stream content from an iTunes library and that content has to be in a very specific format. This means no streaming from my NAS so my laptop will have to be turned on and iTunes running to stream anything. There are also no added applications (although this may come in the future officially or through jailbreaking). The AppleTV also has no analogue audio out so I would need an adapter that costs around £50.

The advantage is complete integration into the Mac environment. I can stream music from my Mac either by choosing it on the television or by using the newly rebranded AirPlay feature. AirPlay also means I can stream music and video straight from my iPhone. It’s also £100 cheaper than the average cost of an Acer Revo.

From thinking about it on my drive home from work and writing it down here it looks pretty clear what I should get. XBMC, whilst being more expensive, provides a lot more. I’m starting to think that a good compromise would be picking up an Airport Express to stream music from my iphone and Mac to the stereo and using XBMC purely for video.

I still have a few months to decide. In that time hopefully someone will get a hold of the new AppleTV, hack it and install some applications that close the feature gap between it and XBMC. I do really like the form factor of the AppleTV. I’d quite like the look of one sitting under my TV… the Acer Revo isn’t much of a looker and would probably be relegated out of sight.

ReadyNAS – Impressions after a few weeks

 Geek, Media Server  No Responses »
Aug 232010
 

A few weeks ago I replaced my FreeNAS network storage with a Netgear ReadyNAS. My first impressions weren’t great. I was hoping for a stress free experience where by I plugged the drive and I instantly had access to network shares for media sharing and Time Machine back ups. I wanted this using AFP, not CIFS, so I get the nice Apple Display icon in my Finder sidebar, not a generic, blue screen of death PC icon.

I’ve mostly got things sorted out and working the way I want them. Shares are mounting reliably every time although this was accomplished by turning on CIFS sharing. Now I’m not actually connecting using CIFS. I’m still connecting via AFP but things just work a lot smoother when CIFS is turned on. I get the nice icon when the shares are mounted but every so often the blue screen icon does rear its ugly head.

For media serving I’ve installed the ReadyNAS version of Twonky media server. I bought a license when I was running it on Ubuntu a few months ago so it’s nice that that money wasn’t wasted. I really like the Twonky software. The web interface is very clean, easy to use and its implementation of UPnP works well with the XBox 360. Downloading is being handled by the ReadyNAS version of Transmission.

On the back up front, Time Machine is working nicely and backing up to its very own Back Up share. The ReadyNAS itself is backed up to an external USB drive every morning at 3am.

After a bit of fiddling I’ve managed to get things working pretty much as I’d like. I’m still a bit annoyed I have to have CIFS turned on to get the shares appearing properly. I’ve been looking into the application Bonjour Mounter that automatically mounts shares when available so that might help. I also made sure I kept the default share names when I set the NAS up (after the forth factory reset) so the share names are in lowercase which annoys me for some reason. I’m too scared to change them as when I did this before the shares just plain disappeared.

So I’m relatively pleased with everything. Im sure if I was using Windows things would be much easier to set up. Mac compatibility can be a little flakey but overall, for the price, the ReadyNAS is a pretty good deal.

From FreeNAS to ReadyNAS

 Geek, Media Server  4 Responses »
Aug 072010
 

Anyone following the geeky posts on this blog will be aware that I’ve had a bit on an ongoing saga with trying to add storage to my network for media serving and wireless back ups. Recently this task has been achieved using an old PC running FreeNAS. Basically FreeNAS is an operating system that gives an old PC the features of a fairly high end NAS drive. It supports AFP, Time Machine, rSync, even Active Directory which you would usually consider a feature exclusive to Windows Server. The software is very nice but my issue was with the old and unreliable hardware I was running it on. Even running such a lightweight OS things kept dying.

I had been shying away from a proper commercial NAS because of price. Generally the cheaper models don’t support Mac protocols which makes transfers slower and less reliable. After finally being defeated with FreeNAS I started looking into the Netgear ReadyNAS series. I found that the entry level model with no drives wasn’t hugely expensive and I figured that the lower running cost and lack of stress would be worth the price.  So I went and ordered myself a ReadyNAS Duo.

After copying my data from FreeNAS onto an external hard disk (formatted in EXT2, the file system recognised by ReadyNAS) I removed the 1TB drive and installed it into the ReadyNAS. I went through the start up wizard which allowed me to disable CIFS (Windows networking protocol) and set up my shares and users. I also enabled Time Machine support. After set up I couldn’t access the shares. Even when choosing ‘Go’ – ‘Connect to Server’ from the Finder menu bar and entering the IP address I could only connect to my user directory, not the ‘Media’ and ‘Back Up’ shares. After much fiddling and a couple of factory resets I was no closer to solving the issue.

At this point I had a Google around but couldn’t find anything directly relevant to my situation. What I did find was a few people asking where ReadyNAS places Time Machine back ups. I had just assumed I would use my Back Up share but it seems that when enabling TM support you also create a new (hidden) user called ReadyNAS with its own user directory in which ReadyNAS places the sparse bundles that TM creates.

This got me thinking. Rather than creating proper shares I could create a user called Media. I knew I could connect to user directories so all would be fine. This, however, didn’t as Finder will only allow you to use one login per network share it would seem (I could be wrong, but this was my experience after trying for 30 minutes). I decided to create one user called Midgar and just lump everything in there and hope for the best. It’s not quite as elegant as having two separate shares but at least it would work. I now have have to log in as ‘Midgar’ and on that one share I have the TM sparse bundles and my media folder. This is a far cry from the user friendly setup I had envisioned and I’m sure it would turn off many non techy people.

I’m not sure if I’m the only one having this problem or if I’m doing something wrong along the way. I did set it up using the wizard and only delved into the advanced options when things wouldn’t work. The interesting thing is that this is exactly the same issue I was having when I upgraded my server at the time to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. Google confirmed that the ReadyNAS is indeed using Netatalk for its AFP implementation. I have no issue with companies using open source software to power their devices but you would think that Netgear with its R&D budget would be able to take Netatalk, improve it to make it more friendly and feature rich then give it back to the community from which it has benefited so much (the ReadyNAS series run a flavour of Linux and use a huge amount of open source software). To be honest I haven’t actually looked into if they do (I’ve been too busy trying to get the thing to work) but I would be surprised if they gave the project the support it deserves.

So yeah, one of the reasons for buying the ReadyNAS, reducing stress, hasn’t really worked out but at least its using less energy.

iPhone 4

 Apple, Geek  No Responses »
Jun 242010
 

I was up at 6AM this morning and out of the house by 6:30. I treated myself to a McDonalds breakfast (so good yet so awful) and then headed off to the phone shop in Tesco. I was half expecting there to be a large queue. I knew there wouldn’t be as many as the Apple Store at the city centre but at least 5 or 6 people. Instead there were two friends and that’s it.

After waiting until around until 9:00 (during which we were told they had phones but no SIMs but were driving to Northampton to steal their’s) I left with a shiny new 32GB iPhone 4. I got to work a couple of hours late and promptly downloaded iTunes to my work PC and activated the phone. I was able to play around with the core applications but couldn’t really take full advantage of the new bits and bobs (how did the original iPhone owners last a whole year with only the preloaded apps?). Since getting home I’ve synced all my playlists and apps and have the phone pretty much as I want it.

What do I think?

It’s pretty damn stunning I have to say. Opinion is mixed on the new design. An iPhone 3G owner at work likened it to an old Sony Erricson. Jordan also thinks it looks weird. I, however, quite like it. I think it’s sleek and after holding it and having it in my pocket all day the 3G/3Gs form factor looks bulky.

I’m not going to go into a huge review at the moment but I’ll mention my two favourite features so far. Firstly, the screen is amazing. The pixel density (326ppi!) really makes for readable text, even in tiny sizes. Pictures, icons and the graphics in Firemint’s Real Racing (one of the only games to be updated to use the new display resolution) are far clearer than any screen I’ve ever come across. I’m currently looking at my Macbook Pro’s LED  backlit screen that has been praised by many for its clarity and quality and it frankly looks shit in comparison.

The other feature I’m very happy about is the improved camera. I basically stopped taking pictures with my 3G. There wasn’t really any point. They were always blurry or too dark. The iPhone 4 has a 5MP camera but importantly it has the same pixel size as the 3Gs’s 3MP camera so there is no increase in noise in low light. The few photos I’ve taken look a hell of a lot better than my 3G. It also has an LED flash. I’ve taken a few pictures with the flash and it’s surprisingly bright. I half expected it to be a measly torch that wasn’t much help to anyone but when it flashes you’ll know about it.

The camera is also capable of 720p HD video recording. You can even edit movie clips with mobile iMovie. Now that is pretty crazy. I can edit HD video on a phone… a phone! A few months ago I was considering picking up a Flip Video recorder but now I have a comparable camera but with editing capability in my pocket at all times. I haven’t managed to play around with it yet but the videos taken with it I’ve seen online look pretty good.

Maybe I’ll do another post in a month as I did with the 3G detailing what I’m liking and what I’m liking not so much. Now excuse me, I’m off to have a few laps on Real Racing.

Phone envy

 Apple, Geek  No Responses »
Jun 042010
 

A few of my friends own the HTC Desire Android phone. From what I’ve seen of it it looks like a pretty amazing phone. Who would have thought, even 5 years ago, that we would have a phone powered by a 1GHz processor?

Today one of these friends posted this on Twitter -

when you think have brought the right HTC and then this http://techland.com/2010/06/03/htc-evo-4g-review-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink/

Now anyone interested in technology knows that their brand new, top of the range toy is going to be old news in a very short space of time. It’s just the way things are. But the pace at which Android phones are progressing is hugely impressive. HTC seem to be bringing out an updated model precisely every 6 minutes night and day.

Whilst this speedy march of tech is by no means a bad thing I do think it leads to buyers remorse in the more fickle consumer. Of course these people are going to feel this way no matter what but at least it used to be the case that they would buy a phone and have bragging rights for 6 months or so. It’s not even close to that now. I can see this making the now almost ubiquitous two year contract seem like a really long time even to the average consumer. I suppose this just highlights the importance of research. Don’t buy when a new product is imminent (although as I mentioned this seems to be all of the time) and make sure you get the best product you can afford so you aren’t left behind during that long two year contract.

Of course, these are just the thoughts of an outsider. My current phone is an iPhone 3G. I am planning to upgrade to the 4th generation model in June. I was slightly tempted by the Desire but I’m hoping that the new iPhone will at least match it technology wise. I have also invested heavily in games and apps from the App Store so I would have spend a fair amount just to replace the functionality I get at the moment. I will also be safe in the knowledge that my phone will be top dog (relative to other iPhones of course) for at least a year.

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