Category: General

My family and I have given the Apple TV a heavy weekend of testing, here’s what we’ve discovered.
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Doctor Who
Smith and Jones
by Russell T. Davies

starring David Tennant as the Doctor
and Freema Agyeman

Is a smarter, more analytical companion going to ask the Doctor a lot more tough questions about the holes in Russell T. Davies’ scripts?

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Just in time for the Big Day, March 31, I bought an Apple TV.

While I’m really enjoying the convenience, my experiences have not been as glowing as most of the other reviews I’ve read. I’ll explain more later, but first, a bit of background…
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In the lead-up to today’s grand experiment, yesterday I was conducting some preliminary experiments using Xgrid.

I’ve got a lot of video I’ve recorded digitally that I would now like to have in an iTunes-friendly H.264. VisualHub, which is the program I generally use for conversion does a nice job of it. Further, it does it rather fast (at least on my MacBook), rendering down 30 minutes of video in around 20 minutes.

One of the things that’s always intrigued me about VisualHub is that it is Xgrid-enabled. Xgrid is a nifty little Apple technology that clusters OSX computers into a distributed computing platform. I’ve completely ignored this feature of VisualHub because everybody knows you need an OSX Server to control an Xgrid cluster, don’t they?

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I’ve been scanning photo negatives this evening.

In no particular order, I’ve stumbled across the photos from our 2000 trip to the UK. It’s really remarkable how digital cameras have changed the way I take pictures. (No, the haven’t gotten any better.)

When I’m done it’s going to come out less that 100 photos for the entire 2 weeks. With my dSLR, I’m as likely to snap a 100 photos of the on a slow afternoon.

Looking back at the photos taken of me, I’d be surprised if there’s 200 of my entire childhood.

Never in the history of mankind has there been such a complete visual record of the triviality of life as there is today. It’s not hard to imagine a time when every moment of a life might be recorded, but what will happen to those of us from before the digital revolution?

Will we be forgotten photos on the wall of a TGI Fridays?

Technorati Tags: Blog

I stopped by the Apple store today and got a good look at the Apple TV. They had 3 on display for playing with in addition to one in the front window.

It was generating a fair amount of traffic and the Apple associates were certainly willing to bend anyone’s ear who was willing to listen.

I wasn’t willing to listen and they left me alone, but I got to overhear what they were telling others. It was nothing that you haven’t heard before about what it does and how it works, etc.

I did run the unit through its paces and… well, for what it is – an iPod for your TV – it appears to be well positioned as a real consumer electronic device and not a geek-only lash-up like previous attempts have been (and still are.)

The menus and, in particular, photos from iPhoto were gorgeous. Music from iTunes was about as exciting as watching an album cover. I’d much prefer the iTunes visualizer. (The Apple TVs in the store were not hooked up to audio.)

The videos were… not so good. I watched some Battlestar Galactica and Pirates of the Caribbean, both of which looked like something one might download from a bittorrent site and not something you’d paid good money for. That’s an area I think that iTunes really needs to improve before people will widely accept this. I’m not a video snob and the quality was very noticeably pixelated. On the other hand, if you’re used to looking at digitized videos of that quality, it’s just fine.

The hack sites on the Apple TV are running wild and it looks like there’s lots of “innovation” going on with the product only being out a couple of days.

Looking at what I’ve seen so far, I wonder if the following is possible:

• Replace HD with larger unit
• Implement SSH and SFTP
• Get Java running
• Install Azureus
• Configure Azureus to monitor a designated torrent directory, auto-download those files and place them in a designated outgoing directory
• Enable Automator or AppleScripting
• Building a script or action to auto-convert XVIDs to H264
• Incorporating those items into the Apple TV side of the synced files, bypassing the need to put them in iTunes.

With a configuration like that, one could SFTP a torrent file onto the Apple TV and it would eventually show up automatically on the Apple TV ready-to-watch.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blog, Computer, iTunes, Mac, OSX, Technology, Television, Video

Scientific American: Ask the Experts => Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes, yet there are only 24 hours in a day?

I’m not going to apologize for this totally geek moment. I found this article about time fascinating. I’ve always wondered why we used 24 hours and 60 min/sec increments, but never bothered to research it.

I can remember as a child spending hours trying to develop a workable metric time system. 10 hours a day? Too few. 20? (10 day, 10 night) Not really metric. 100? Ridiculous.

Thanks to documented evidence of the Egyptians’ use of sundials, most historians credit them with being the first civilization to divide the day into smaller parts. The first sundials were simply stakes placed in the ground that indicated time by the length and direction of the resulting shadow. As early as 1500 B.C., the Egyptians had developed a more advanced sundial. A T-shaped bar placed in the ground, this instrument was calibrated to divide the interval between sunrise and sunset into 12 parts. This division reflected Egypt’s use of the duodecimal system–the importance of the number 12 is typically attributed either to the fact that it equals the number of lunar cycles in a year or the number of finger joints on each hand (three in each of the four fingers, excluding the thumb), making it possible to count to 12 with the thumb. The next-generation sundial likely formed the first representation of what we now call the hour. Although the hours within a given day were approximately equal, their lengths varied during the year, with summer hours being much longer than winter hours.

I also found it fascinating about the Egyptian duodecimal system.

Back in the 70’s when Schoolhouse Rock was airing, they had a multiplication segment on base 12. They posed that we use base 10 because we have 10 fingers but that an alien with 12 might use a base 12 system (inventing 3 new numbers to replace 10, 11 and 12, which they called – if I recall correctly, “dou”, “dec” and “el.”)

What’s interesting is that it firmly fixed in my brain the notion that it was basically impossible for primitive humans to have naturally developed a non-decimal system. Yet, here we have those clever Egyptians and a base-12 system. I could see how they easily could have had a base-8 system instead if they’d only used the two knuckles actually on the fingers and not the one at the base. Would naturally using an octal system have made the development of digital computers simpler? I wonder.

Technorati Tags: Astronomy, Books, Science

Long time readers of my blog may recall that my very first generation MacBook experienced every major problem being exhibited by MacBooks. Weird screen problems, sudden power offs, etc.

Now, I’ve got a new one… my MacBook has never had as good battery life as my iBook did, but, I figured it was to be expected as it was smaller, had to drive fans and has a dual-core Intel processor. (Intel never having been known for power-efficiency.)

With those strikes going against it, I didn’t expect that kind of battery life. Still, I never got anything particularly good. 2 hours of operation if I was lucky.

In the last few weeks, that number has plummeted to about 1 hour, and the battery gauge doesn’t accurately reflect the run time. I did all the steps to re-calibrate the battery to no avail.

For a couple weeks, it behaved normally, but with limited battery life. In the last week it has adopted a new symptom. It runs out without warning, and even the battery indicator on the battery itself appears to be wrong.

On our way back from Prescott, since I was the passenger, I decided to give it a complete, documented test.

Conditions:

• Battery fully charged
• Airport turned off
• Bluetooth turned off
• No programs started automatically
• Energy settings set to: Better Energy Savings
• Running one program only, Solitaire XL, continuous use

Here’s how it worked:

• Booted at 12:40, battery estimate 2:10, battery lights 5 LEDs
• 13:44, system shutoff without warning. Battery estimate was about 1:50 remaining within 3 minutes of shutoff! Battery lights, 3 LEDs.
• Booted at 13:45. Battery estimate 1:20, battery lights 3 LEDs
• 13:48, system shutoff with no warning. Battery lights, 3 LEDs
• 13:50, Power Up, Estimate 1:54, battery lights, 3 LEDs
• 13:53, powered off, battery lights, 3 LEDs
• 13:54, power up
• 13:54, powered down before boot completed, battery lights now read 1 LED.

I was actually surprised by how many times I could restart in. In the past (but with much less stringent observation) I had estimated that it was dropping off after approximately one hour. I would check the lights and have 3 LEDs. I would try to start the computer again and it would fail during startup. At this point, it would only show 1 LED.

The question is, is the battery wonky, or is the computer’s energy management system busted. Either way, it’s time again for AppleCare.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Applecare, battery, Computer, Mac, MacBook, OSX, Technology

I’ll give high marks to the Spring Hill Marriott (perhaps I’ll explain why later) but among the good things, free wireless and a real complimentary breakfast, with sausage, eggs and waffles, not just bagels.

After we consumed breakfast, it looked promising that, while still grey, the rain might have abated for the day. We headed out for a walk to get pictures of plum tree blossoms for Irene. Then we headed up a random street towards the top of a hill. When we got there, we found ourselves in Acker Park. We trudged around through the mud for quite a while and finally found ourselves on the south-side of the park. Because Irene had been pushing the stroller through the mud, an environment not friendly to strollers, we decided to circle around on the roads back to the north side and our hotel.

That proved to be a rather circuitous route, but had the advantage of being all downhill. As we approached the hotel, the temperature began to drop considerably and the dark storm clouds began to roll into town again. I left the GPS in the car, but I used Google Earth upon return to calculate our walking distance. Michelle managed to walk the entire 4 miles, which is pretty good for a 4-year old.

Thursday night after our lackluster dinner at the Fazoli’s next door, I’d searched for pizza places and discovered a highly recommended place called “Papa’s”. I dutifully noted the location and paid close attention to the lamentations of several people complaining that they were only open fives days a week (Tuesday-Saturday.)

We hopped in the car as the weather continued to worsen and drove to Papa’s. Perhaps people should haven’t been complaining about the days they were open and should have been complaining about their hours. They weren’t open until 4:00PM. We’d have starved by then and the kids had been geared up for pizza. We returned to a small pizza place we passed along the way: Tastebud’s.

I’ll be reviewing that over at Pizza Locust shortly.

While we were in the restaurant, it really started to dump. Since we were all tired, we returned to the room and I took a nap.

Dinner was almost an equal fiasco, I wasn’t going to get pizza twice in one day, so I knew Papa’s would have to keep for another trip. We headed out to exercise the kids some more and find food. Due to the obscene influx of people into Prescott over the last decade, all the “usual suspects” for family dining were here. I wanted a hamburger, so we finally drove back into the center of town to Kendall’s Famous Burgers & Ice Cream. We arrived just as they were closing.

We drove around mostly aimlessly until I gave up and suggested Red Lobster. Irene was please to get seafood, and they’ve always got a New York Strip steak and a good caesar salad waiting for me.

More pictures follow:
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VisualHub, a program I live and die by on my Mac has updated to a new version that encodes videos directly into the format needed for Apple TV.

Guess it’s time to buy an Apple TV before March 31…

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blog, Computer, Mac, MacBook, Technology, Television, Video