I think that there should be a Hood 2.0 Workshop at ALT-C 2008.
What the workshop should be about and the goal, well it needs to be Web 2.0 as that how Hood 2.0 was originally came about.
More than that, I need to think more.
Recovery Disks
One of the issues with most UMPC devices is that they have no CD/DVD drive. This complicates matters when you need to install software and more importantly when you need to recover the machine.
I have just spent the last hour (or so) making recovery disks for the Sony VAIO UX1XN from a protected part of the hard drive. This should free up some 6GB of hard disk space, which will be useful as the flash based hard disk drive is only 32GB to begin with.
Does mean that I will need a DVD drive to recover the VAIO if it ever needs recovering.
I was downloading a file!
So there I was thinking which office suite I should put on my new Q1 Ultra UMPC. I did consider Office 2003, but of course the Q1 does not have a CD drive, and my external drive is Firewire only. I know I could copy the disk onto an ISO image and that mount that as a virtual drive, or I could share a drive on a network computer, but that sounds like hard work (or so I thought).
I then decided to download and install OpenOffice, okay so it’s an 120MB download, but that won’t take too long, or so I thought.
So I started the download…
Well this according to Firefox is going to take an hour, okay no worries, I’ll leave the Q1 on, the batteries fully charged shouldn’t be a problem.
Left it for a while, did some stuff on the Mac, went back to the Q1 and it was off.
What?
It must have thought, “ah nothing’s happening here, I’d better turn myself off to conserve battery life”.
I was downloading a file!
“nope, mouse hasn’t moved, no taps, no keyboard entry, time to turn off”
I am downloading a file, I don’t want to stare at the screen for an hour, I just want to download the file.
“okay, time to turn myself off”
NO!
“I’m off….”
What about my file? I was downloading a file.
Well that sucks, and of course restarting an interruped download with Firefox means downloading all over again from the beginning.
So here I am now with the power brick plugged in, you’re not very ultra-mobile now are you?
Enjoying the final episode
I am currently enjoying the final episode of the BBC’s Robin Hood, which I recorded yesterday on my Mac using an EyeTV device. I am viewing it on my TV via an EyeHome media streamer.
Digital Photography Reviews
Digital Photography Review has recently reviewed quite a few digital cameras these are well detailed and thorough reviews and well worth reading if you are interested in getting a new digital camera.
The Sony looks like the one I would buy if I was buying a new digital camera, but then I am very fond of my Sony Cybershot and would be interested to see how their SLRs perform compared to my Canon.
Bluetooth Printing
I have tried to print via Bluetooth from my iMac to my new A618 compact photo printer and have failed, in the main as the driver wasn’t on my iMac.
It can be relatively simple as I found with the PhotoSmart 375 I had previously. This is one of the reasons I create the guides on my website so that when I need to install a new or an existing printer for a second time, I can remember how to do it, likewise by putting them online I can access the guides from anywhere and if required on a separate device (which is useful if you need to reboot or shut other applications down).
Checking my guide it is of course a driver issue, time to find the driver…
In the end I moved the photographs I wanted to print from the iMac to a USB stick and used the printer remotely instead.
Hmm, would the EyeTV 410 make a difference?
On my G4 Mac mini which I am using as a media centre under my television I have an EyeTV USB Freeview device for watching, pausing, rewinding and of course recording live television. I have been having a few issues with the quality of the recordings and viewing live television in terms of interference, but also when watching if a live TV window is open. I suspect that part of the problem is the speed of the G4 which is rather slow for a Mac and it only has 512MB of RAM.
I am wondering if I use the EyeTV 410 which is connected to my iMac whether that would make a difference? Whereas the EyeTV USB device is dependent a lot on the Mac for processing the video, the Firewire 410 device has a hardware encoder which in theory takes a lot of the load of video processing off the Mac.
I might give it a go and see how it works out, but will leave it till later as the iMac is going to record the final episode of Robin Hood tonight on BBC One.
New guides
I have published some new guides on my website.
Leopard Guides
How do I find my Mac (OS X) shortname for 10.5 Leopard?
How do I find a Leopard 10.5 Mac’s IP address?
Windows Vista Business Edition
Creating a new user account on Windows Vista Business Edition
How do I find a Vista Business Edition PC’s IP address?
Installing Bonjour for Windows on a Vista Business Edition PC.
Disabling Password Protected Sharing in Windows Vista
Windows Vista Home Edition
Slow, very slow
I have mentioned before the ability of the EyeTV application to export TV recordings in a format which then allows it to be viewed via an iPod touch or an iPhone. It exports in a Quicktime H.264 format, the quality is excellent, and file sizes small, so it is quick to stream/download over an 802.11g wireless network.
One thing which does let the whole process down is the speed of conversion. On my Intel iMac it is slow, a one hour show takes under an hour. However on my 1.5GHz G4 Mac mini, it takes forever.
A two hour recording I made last night which finished at 10.30pm was still been exported this morning at 9.30am! Eleven hours into the conversion process and it was about half way done!
As you might expect I have now turned of the wifi access function of EyeTV on the Mac mini.
Elgato do make a device that in theory makes things faster, the elgato turbo.264, an external USB device which according to the blurb…
Turbo.264 rapidly converts and drops videos into iTunes, ready to synch with your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or Sony PSP. And even better, Turbo.264 does all the heavy lifting. While the hard work of video encoding is in progress, you can continue to work or play on your Mac.
Turbo.264 also accelerates the H.264 (MPEG-4) export command of popular Macintosh video applications, including EyeTV’s Wi-Fi Access feature.
I have read mixed reviews, but it certainly does look interesting.
Interference Issues
I have started using a Mac mini under my TV in (another) experiment in using it as a media centre.
Apart from the fact it seems rather noisy (for a Mac, but a lot less noisy then the Windows Media Centers I have tried) the main problem I my having with my Mac mini is with the USB Freeview EyeTV device attached to it, and it isn’t a problem with the EyeTV software nor is it an issue with the USB device, the problem appears to be an interference issue with the aerial which causes interference on some of the digital TV (Freeview) multiplexes.
I have moved the aerial cable which can resolve the issue, but I think I may need to replace the cable with a shielded cable. I have changed cables and not been able to see a difference which makes me think that the EyeTV USB device I have is suspectible to interference, whilst my TV or the EyeTV 410 Firewire device are not affected to the same degree. It’s not too bad if I am recording or watching a programme from the BBC multiplex, but the ITV multiplex is particularly bad.
Hopefully will get it sorted soon with a shielded cable. Next will be some kind of remote, at the moment I am using VNC and Apple Remote Desktop, which works, but is not very portable.