Author: jamesclay

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Mac mini Entertainment Centre

I have managed to borrow a Mac mini, one of the new ones, and I have connected it up to my HD TV using an HDMI cable.

After realising that I needed to change the audio output from the built in speakers to the HDMI output I was very impressed with how well it looked and worked.

I haven’t put any content on the Mac mini so far, just streaming content from my home iMac across our 802.11n wireless network.

The first thing I tried was EyeTV, using EyeTV 3 on both computers I was easily able to stream recordings from the iMac to the Mac mini. I was quite impressed with the picture quality, even though it is SD television. There was no buffering or stuttering which impressed me.

I then tried Front Row and browsed my shared photographs, which looked lovely on the big 40″ HD TV.

I then was able to browse my iMac iTunes Library from the Mac mini and was again impressed, though it made me realise I need to be better at playlists. Then I tried to stream some HD iTunes content from my iMac to the TV and fingers crossed, was it going to work?

Yes, worked really well.

Very impressed.

I may have to get one for myself.

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TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone

I’ve had my TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone for some time now and have been quite pleased with it. The enhanced GPS signal does work really well and it manages to get a lock really quickly. The handsfree calling does work, but not if the road is noisy. I thought the kit came with a FM transmitter, it doesn’t, it comes with an audio out port. Quite useless for a car with no audio in!

My main concern now though is compatibility with the iPhone 4. It does click in, but you wouldn’t want to do it too often. However even if you do click it in, there is no connection made with the Car Kit, so no charging and I guess no enhanced GPS.

You can , according to the internet tubes, add some padding that will allow it to work, but not tried that yet.

I would like TomTom to offer upgrades to an iPhone 4 model or even free upgrades would be nice.

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iPad update

Apple have released an update for the iPad, taking the firmware to 3.2.1

Quite big at 456MB.

The update is hoping to solve various iPad wifi problems.

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How many wireless networks do you need?

Both the iPhone 4 and the iPad can connect to the faster 802.11n networks, but it is not as clear cut as that.

Whilst the iPad can connect to a 5GHz 802.11n wireless network the iPhone 4 can only connect to an 802.11n wireless networking using 2.4GHz.

Whilst that is much faster than connecting to an 802.11g network one reason for having a 5GHz is to avoid the often crowded 2.4GHz spectrum as the rest of the world has discovered the advantages of wireless networking.

So if you if you only have a single 802.11n wireless network you will need to ensure it is either running at 2.4GHz or add a new network just for the iPhone, which is a little bit over the top.

I can see myself adding a 2.4GHz 802.11n network for my new iPhone 4 in the main so I can stream video over my network using the AirVideo App.

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Why, Apple, why?

There are times that I wonder if those that design software actually ever use it? I usually lay this charge against Microsoft, but last night Apple in their wisdom really annoyed me.

I have a very poor internet connection and as a result if I download any big files I generally try and do it overnight, partly as these downloads take so long and mainly that if I am downloading files, it sucks up my bandwidth making the internet unusable for anything else.

So last night I set iTunes on my iMac to download a HD episode of Doctor Who and a couple of very large iPad Apps. About 2-3GB of data.

I went to bed, came down this morning to find a message from iTunes asking me if I wanted to download the latest version. Well I do have this setup in preferences, so that iTunes checks for updates.

So what’s the problem?

Well due to this unanswered dialogue (I was asleep in bed) iTunes had stopped downloading my downloads. It was waiting for me to say yes or no to downloading the new version of iTunes!

As a result I had only downloaded one of my downloads, all the rest were waiting…

Why can’t iTunes continue to download the files in the background, why does it have to wait until I answer the dialogue box?

In my mind this is poor design. If I decide that I do want to update iTunes, I can always stop the downloads, in fact I would probably want to finish them first before updating. So iTunes should really keep downloading even if it is asking me if I want to update.

So the end result is that I have to turn off “checking for updates” so this doesn’t happen again.

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Still thinking…

Still thinking if I should get the new Mac mini. Yes it meets my needs for a media centre (well apart from the lack of Blu Ray) however it is not cheap!

My hesitancy is based on how much I think I would use it.

Yes I could use it to play video content, iTunes content, recordings from EyeTV, DVDs.

Yes I could use it to play audio files, music and podcasts.

Yes I could use it to access web content, especially Flash based video web content.

However I currently do most of that via the iMac and the newly acquired iPad.

So would I use it?

Don’t know for sure.

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Oh, new Mac mini

Oh well pleased to see Apple have released a new Mac mini. Not only is there a new form factor there is also faster graphics and key feature for me is the HDMI port.

I will now be able to connect the Mac mini to my HDTV. I should then be able to play HD content from iTunes. Of course at the moment in the UK this only means HD TV Shows. HD Films are only available to rent at the moment on the Apple TV or the iPad. I do wonder if that will change now with this new Mac mini?

It is now a lot more expensive than it was before so that is one downside.

Key question I need to ask is, does the superior functionality of the Mac mini justify the increased cost over an Apple TV?

Should I wait for the rumoured new Apple TV which is rumoured to cost less than a $100?

So going to wait at this time.

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Some days I hate DRM!

Sometimes I really hate DRM.

I have the new iPad and I bought the VGA connector, connected  it to a monitor and I thought (after trying out Keynote) I would try a video, an episode from the new Doctor Who purchased through iTunes…

Well this was the result!

But…

I paid for this episode….

I did not copy it, download it, or pirate it, I PAID for it.

I can play other videos through the connector (ones converted from EyeTV recordings for example) why can’t I play the nice videos I PAID for?

Some days I hate DRM!

This annoys me.

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WWDC Keynote

Today is Steve Jobs’ Keynote at WWDC.

Traditionally we get to hear about new products and new software.

As might be expected the web is rife with rumours about what we will hear about. I’ll let you Google them to find what they are.

Will probably follow the keynote via Macrumors.