Category: news

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Unpacking the Apple TV

You have to just love the way that Apple package their “toys”. Unpacking the Apple TV was a really wonderful experience… can’t believe I just said that.

Slide the box open, tip out the Apple TV. Remove the clear plastic and then a strip of black plastic film that protects it and the ports. Underneath was the remote, in at an angle so the box can be smaller and under that tightly tied was the power cord.

I connected the Apple TV to my TV and then using the remote connected it to the wireless network. After turning on Home Sharing it found my iMac on the network and I could easily play content from it. Now with my faster broadband I will have no worries about renting movies on the Apple TV, though not sure how often I will do that at £4.49 a pop… Disappointed that we in the UK don’t have TV episodes, hopefully at a later time. No BBC iPlayer either!

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111.6″ MacBook Air

Well the rumours proved correct with the Apple event on the 20th October with the release of iLife ’11, details of OS X 10.7 Lion and new MacBook Air models.

We got a new 13.3″ MacBook Air and a nice little 11.6″ model.

For me the 11.6″ model is a true portable Mac, almost a netbook. I really like the idea of that.

Slightly pricy though at £849 for the low end model.

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Apple TV

Yes, I have gone out and bought one…

Took me a while to find in the Apple Store as the box is tiny compared to the previous model… very minimalist packaging!

Still in the box at the moment….

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iLife ’11

Once more the rumour mill gets going and lots of talk about a possible new version of iLife been released on the 20th October.

It certainly would be the right time for an update.

Lots of talk too about iDVD going and been replaced with an iPhone App creation tool.

Looking forward to the event.

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New MacBook Air???

There are rumours floating about regarding a new MacBook Air.

Macrumors says

…the new MacBook Air will offer an 11.6-inch display, down from the 13.3-inch display found in the current model.

and

…the new models will do away with existing options for a conventional hard-disk drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD) in favor something described as an “SSD Card” that lacks a traditional drive enclosure and more closely resembles a stick of RAM, yet is not easily user-replaceable.

This sounds like the really portable MacBook that I expected when the first MacBook Air came out. A true Apple netbook….

Back then I said

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.

I also talked about the lack on built-in 3G, something that most portable laptops at the time were coming with.

However something has changed since then.

The iPad.

The iPad is now that portable computer that I take with me to conferences, use on the train and in  coffee shops. The iPad has built in 3G and has a great battery life.

What will the MacBook Air offer that can’t be done on the iPad? Well I know stuff like printing and saving and moving files for instance….

This rumoured MacBook Air sounds like the device that Apple should have released back in 2008.

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Airport Extreme Reliability

At the beginning of September, I wrote:

…my Airport Extreme is becoming less reliable. I am having to reboot it at least once a week now. There is no warning before it goes dodgy.

I said at the time that when I upgraded to FTTC I would probably upgrade the Airport Extreme

I am going to wait before replacing it, as we are getting BT Infinity later this month and I am not sure if I will need a new router. If I do need a specific type of router then I will get a new 802.11n router.

However in the end I found out from BT that I could use my Airport Extreme with FTTC. So before I was upgraded I did update the firmware on my Airport Extreme to firmware 7.4.2

I don’t usually recommend updating your Airport base stations unless there is a security issue, or in my case you are having problems.

Updating the firmware seems to have resolved the issue and I have not had a problem since I updated. However the Airport Express has stopped working properly at least once, though that is much older than the Airport Extreme.

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Some things now working…

As I have upgraded to FTTC and one of the requirements is that your router supports PPPoE. As a result I have replaced my old aging Netgear ADSL modem router with my Airport Extreme Base Station. I wasn’t able to use the Airport Extreme before as it did not support PPPoA, but as FTTC requires PPPoE I can now use it. As a result, it is a new(ish) router and therefore I anticipated that I would be able to do two things, one is use EyeTV remotely across the internet and two use Back to my Mac.

So what of EyeTV?

Watch, record, and enjoy live TV on your iPhone or iPad via a 3G or Wi-Fi connection. At last, you don‘t have to leave all your great TV shows at home; the EyeTV app puts the power of award-winning EyeTV in the palm of your hand.

The EyeTV app accesses EyeTV running on your Mac at home to deliver these great features to your Apple device:

  • Watch live TV and change channels anywhere (via a Wi-Fi or 3G connection)
  • Watch your EyeTV recordings
  • Browse the comprehensive Program Guide and view details
  • Start recordings back home on your Mac immediately or schedule them for later
  • View and edit your recording schedules
  • Automatically launch EyeTV on your Mac at home as needed

    • EyeTV has an iPad and iPhone App which have worked really well on my home network, but so far I have not had any luck accessing it away from home, even though it is correctly configured.

    I do believe though this is because of the remote network I was on. I have yet to try on a public wifi network and I suspect I will have better luck then.

    As for Back to my Mac, Apple says.

    Back to My Mac puts any Mac OS X Leopard- or Snow Leopard-based Mac you use within easy reach. MobileMe finds your remote Mac computers over the Internet and displays them in the Finder on the Mac you’re using. So you can connect from anywhere with just a click. Edit and save documents, open applications, and move folders. With Back to My Mac Screen Sharing, you can control your remote Mac as though you’re sitting in front of it.

    Again on my home Mac, everything seems fine.

    Well I did try and do this, however I couldn’t get my work Mac to recognise my MobileMe account and again as with EyeTV I believe this is because of the remote network.

    So near, yet not quite there.

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    Really fast…

    Finally had my broadband upgraded to FTTC and I am impressed.

    With 40Mb down and 10Mb up this is significantly faster than the 1.3 down and 0.6 up I had before.

    It has already changed how I use the internet, whereas before I would probably not consider downloading a film from iTunes during the day, as it would soak up my bandwidth and would take hours to download; now it takes under five minutes to download! No problems with downloading large files and updates now.

    The other key advantage is streaming video, which was almost pointless before due to buffering, and like downloading, previous streaming would soak up my bandwidth, having 40Mb down means I can stream and do other stuff at the same time.

    My only concern is that all this speed I will probably exceed my bandwidth quite easily…

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    Apple TV Soon…

    According to the original announcement from Apple we should see the Apple TV before the end of September. The last time I went to my local Apple store they still had the old model and no news on the new one (nothing new there then).

    Originally I was quite excited about it and nearly pre-ordered….

    However since then I have become slightly less keen.

    Will still probably buy one.