Wireless Network Tutorials

Apple have posted a nice couple of video tutorials on wireless networking and setting up a wireless network at home.

For seasoned techy geeks like myself who have been using wireless for the best part of a decade, we sometimes forget how magical and fantastical wireless is to people new to it.

“You mean I don’t need to connect any wires to connect to the internet!”

So nice and simple tutorials like these from Apple are useful and can set the groundwork for people to enter a wireless world.

Wireless basics

Setting up your wireless network 

ITV chasing BBC on iTunes Store

Following the BBC, ITV are now putting TV shows on Apple’s iTunes Store.

Finally!

BBC reports

ITV is to make more than 260 hours of archive programmes available for sale on Apple’s iTunes store.

Brideshead Revisited, Cold Feet and puppet show Captain Scarlet are already available for download. Inspector Morse and The Saint are due later this year.

The Saint

I am pleased that both the BBC and ITV are finally selling TV shows in the iTunes Store.

Now all I need them to do, is sell HD versions.

Also would be nice if American shows were also made more widely available.

New 802.11n Airport Express

New 802.11n Airport Express

As predicted, Apple announced their new 802.11n Airport Express.

Now featuring support for the faster 802.11n Wi-Fi specification, the new AirPort Express Base Station delivers up to five times the performance and twice the range of the previous model. The world’s smallest 802.11n-based mobile base station, the new AirPort Express offers a great option for anyone who wants to set up a high-speed wireless network, share a printer wirelessly, or stream iTunes music wirelessly from a Mac or PC with AirTunes. And because its so compact, you can take AirPort Express with you and set up an ad hoc wireless network in your hotel room.

So the main difference is the 802.11n speeds which is welcome.

Interestingly at the time of writing the 802.11n Airport Express was not available in the UK online Apple store, but that might be just because today is the day of release.

Hold your breath…

Generally upgrades and updates go smoothly, but not always.

As jonmul posted recently on Jaiku, sometimes if not always you hold your breath.

Although Apple have made firmware upgrades a painless process I still hold my breath every time. Bricked to many devices in the past…

He’s not the only one who holds their breath…

I do it quite often, especially with firmware upgrades.

Having said that, I actually now rarely upgrade unless I am “forced” to. Sometimes I have been “forced” into an OS X upgrade as a piece of software I want to use is only compatible with a newer version.

If it works I generally leave it well alone. In the main as updates sometimes just do weird things.

Good example, I upgraded the iPod touch to 1.1.3, but I ain’t upgrading to 1.1.4 just yet.

iPhone SDK Released

Today Apple announced and released the SDK for the iPhone (and iPod touch).

iPod Touch

Lots of other sites have covered the event and the SDK is now available to download

Well at this point in time. no it is not possible to download, obviously everyone else is trying to download it!

Download MacWorld 2008 Expo Keynote

Steve Jobs MacWorld 2008 Keynote

Sometimes depsite all your planning, it all falls apart.

Not living in San Francisco, actually I don’t even live in the US, I knew it was going to be impossible to attend the MacWorld 2008 Keynote in person. Though I didn’t realise until listening to MacBreak Weekly that it’s like an iPhone launch if you want to actually get in there in person, it starts at 9am, but you really need to start queuing at 4am – now that’s dedication.

So I couldn’t be there in person, like I was ever going to get there!

I didn’t really want to “view” the keynote by watching the Macrumors’ feed, or refreshing Engadget on a regular basis, or watching multiple tweets on Twitter (which I believe went down during the Keynote). I do like watching the stream (as though it was “live”. I subscribed the Macrumors spoiler free link. However fifteen hours after the Keynote, no e-mail giving me the link, I thought to myself, either there is no stream (there had to be, it said it was going to be made available on the Apple website) or (more likely) the Macrumors e-mail service had failed! It hadn’t completely failed, the e-mail telling me about the steam eventually arrived eighteen hours after the start of the Keynote!

So I went to the Apple website, obviously saw the MacBook Air on the front page and thought ah well, and clicked the link for the Keynote stream.

Now maybe it was my connection or my computer, but could I get the Keynote to stream? No.

I tried on two different connections with no luck. I tried on about four computers with no luck.

Probably too many people trying to access the stream.

I am not a great fan of streaming, as too often (with long videos) I want to pause the video as real life gets in the way, you know phone calls, coffee, e-mails, etc… I have found with some streaming, if I pause the stream it never restarts, so I need to start the whole stream from the beginning.

I even tried to find online a place to download the Keynote with no luck.

I was resigned to the fact that I was not going to be able to watch the Keynote this year. Ah well I had found out what was released and I had seen the sixty second version.

So imagine my surprise when looking at the top podcasts in the (UK) iTunes Store when there was the MacWorld 2008 Expo Keynote.

Well I am downloading all 900MB of that then!

I am surprised that not only was it available, but that Apple hadn’t really mentioned it on their main website.

Still downloading, and you know about everything that was mentioned, so leave me to enjoy that distortion field which is Steve Jobs.

One more thing…

What no 3G?

What no 3G?

Though you may think I am talking about the lack of a second generation iPhone with 3G, no I am talking about the lack of 3G on the MacBook Air.

Yes it has 802.11n, but how many 802.11n wifi hotspots have you seen on your travels? Also from an internet perspective, 802.11n is a bit of overkill for a typical internet connection. Not everywhere has wifi hotspots, they never seem to be available when I am out and about or they fall over a lot from too many clients.

So there you are with this beautifully thin MacBook Air and either you need to use a Bluetooth to a 3G phone, which kills the battery both on the MacBook Air and the phone, and a lot of mobile phone providers in the UK now no longer allow you to use your 3G phone as a modem (or they charge you a fortune) they all now seem to want you to use a USB dongle.

Now an USB  dongle though has less of an impact on battery life on your laptop (and no impact on your phone’s battery life) is a dongle and it dangles from the beautifully styled and thin laptop you just bought!

All of this could have been avoided if Apple had provided 3G functionality with their beautifully thin MacBook Air.

I’m not the only one thinking like this, as you can see here and here.

I think Apple missed the boat on this one, though maybe they didn’t want to get into bed with another phone provider!

New Apple Stuff

Those who know me will know that I am a bit of a fan of Apple products, not exclusively, but I do like good design and stylish kit.

Yesterday in San Francisco at MacWorld Expo, Apple announced some new products and upgrades for the iPod touch and iPhone.

Key new product announced at the keynote was the MacBook Air, a small light MacBook.

I do like small computers, great fan of the 10″Sony VAIO laptops, however this is slightly bigger than I would like, and I can’t see how that would survive travelling by air or train.

Don’t get me wrong I think it’s very stylish, well designed, but doesn’t meet my needs for a small portable computer for use at conferences, on the train and in coffee shops.

No rumoured touchscreen, nor a Blu-ray drive either (actually no optical drive, though cleverly you can use your other Mac’s drive wirelessly, which is a very clever piece of software and something I would like to use with Windows UMPCs).

Nor can you can carry a spare battery, actually you can’t even replace the battery, it has to be sent to Apple to be replaced if it goes faulty.

There was also upgrades for the iPhone and iPod touch announced which provide additional applications, annoyingly free on the iPhone and a £12.99 upgrade for the iPod touch.

Huh!

Probably worth it for the e-mail and notes applications which make the iPod touch a more useful.

Also announced was a new Airport Extreme base station which comes with a 500GB or 1TB drive for Time Machine backups.

On the Americans get the opportunity to rent films, here in the UK we don’t, well not for a while.

Blu-ray “wins” the HD format war

Well if you read the BBC technology blog you will see that they are seeing the end of the HD format war and Blu-ray has won!

The HD DVD camp turned a crisis into a disaster when it cancelled its scheduled press conference at the show and then – perhaps unsurprisingly – cancelled all media interviews at the show. It’s left observers with the impression that the HD DVD group is in disarray and on the verge of collapse.

Where as Blu-ray

Blu-ray, on the other hand, is only to eager to parade spokespeople talking up its own format.

The BBC blog seems to indicate that the reason for the victory was the Sony PS3.

The PS3 comes with a Blu-ray player as standard unlike the xBox whose HD DVD drive was an additional extra and it was getting that Blu-ray player into people’s homes via the PS3 which has allowed Blu-ray to if not win the war certainly make that last march to victory.

I suspect if Apple release new Macs at MacWorld Expo with Blu-ray drives then this will be the final blow to HD DVD and Blu-ray will be declared the victor of the HD format war.

Then us consumers can go out and buy the Blu-ray player knowing we are not buying the HD Betamax or MiniDisc.

Photo source.