Okay so like most of the planet my music collection lives in iTunes, together with my podcasts, audio books, and home movies. Now being on the move a lot I use my 5th Generation 80GB video iPod to listen and watch the varied content, but what happens if I am away for more than a few days. Well, usually I have watched / listened to the podcasts and tend to rely on my audio books and music. I do however take advantage of the duty free shops at London Heathrow on a regular basis, collecting CD’s and DVD’s, or services such as audible.com to download more audio books . The problem you ask? Well getting them onto my iPod means coping them to my local iTunes library, which means when I get home I have multiple iTunes libraries that I need to keep synchronized.

Well, the answer it would seem is an application from SmithMicro called “Tune Ranger”. Tune Ranger allows you to keep up to 4 Mac’s/Windows machines and / or iPods in sync with each other (You obviously need at least one Mac or Windows machine running iTunes) and better still gives you complete control over what it is you are synchronizing. You can synchronize by play list, genre, artist, file format, the list is extensive. You can also choose to replicate one way or another overwriting the destination, or being overwritten. You can merge one way, both ways or even allow it to duplicate. You can set it to avoid items you already have, items that are orphaned the list just goes on.

The killer thing is that they don’t have to be all your Mac’s. Husband, wife, 2 kids, all with Mac’s / PC’s / iPods? Synchronize the lot, better still synchronize the items you want. Don’t want the wife metal working podcasts, or little Jack’s “Bob the Builder greatest hits” filter them out.

Now I wonder if there is an iPhoto version?

Tags: Apple, Music, Technology

So after I got the Mac Mini, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air setup and configured I hit a problem I was all to aware of, keeping the informations synchronized. Now Apple has always had the iDisk for quite some time now and the .MAC service which allowed you to synchronize your mail, calenders, bookmarks, etc. With the Launch of the second generation iPhone Apple announced the new name for .MAC and some additional features, including “Push” email. MobileMe arrived along with the 3G iPhone, but the arrival was marred slightly as MobileMe struggled under the load, inevitably leading to outages. In fact three weeks later some people are still struggling.

However for me it worked and proved to be exactly what I needed. Now which ever Mac I am using, or indeed if I am out and about I have access to my email, calendar, contacts, and bookmarks. If I add, delete, or modify any one of these items it’s almost immediately replicated to all the other devices. Better still the information is all available via the MobileMe website which means I can effectively access the information via any internet enabled device, where ever I am!

Now for the issue of documents and data! Apple’s iDisk is a little bit like Microsofts offline folders in as much as it allows me to have a folder located on a server and synchronize it for offline use with my Mac. However Apple’s iDisk actually lives in the cloud, my which I mean out on the Internet, and it allows me to actually connect to it from multiple Mac’s and the MobileMe interface. So any documents that I place in my iDisk are within a short period of time, available on any of my Mac’s and via any Internet enabled device via the MobileMe website.

Now I hear what you’re saying, is that safe? Well, I had the same question, and to be honest up until now I remain unconvinced. So for now I have only placed what I would call reference information on my iDisk.

The next step is to figure out how I do the same thing with my sensitive data, music, and photo’s.

That however is another story.

Tags: Apple, Technology, Music

Okay so one other thing I have been doing over the last couple of weeks is reviewing my computer usage and home network setup. About six month's before I went out to India I made the move away from Microsoft Windows and over to Apple and OS X with the purchase of a 17” MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro, while I have been in India, has been a real life saver and has not failed me once while I have been away. From day one my experience of Apple and the Apple product line has been excellent, as many people have said before me everything just works, and it was because of that I purchased a Apple AirPort Extreme and and an Apple Time Capsule.

Now since I have been back in the UK I have realized that my needs have changed slightly. The main thing is I spend a lot of time commuting, about 4 hours a day, and this is time when I could actually be doing stuff that I usually end up doing in the evening when I should be relaxing. Now my iPhone (first generation) allows me to do certain things, like replying to email and basic web surfing but things like typing up this blog entry are just not practical. So after a lot of should I, shouldn't I, I took the plunge and payed out for a MacBook Air, and I must say I am glad I did! This with a 3G USB modem means that I can read and respond to my email, catch up on my favorite web sites, and update my blog while I am on the train, time I would normally spend ruining my brain reading the Metro. I still have my iPhone which is great for when I am down the pub or out shopping, but having something that allows me to do everything else means that I do actually get to have an evening, and more importantly an evening that doesn't require sitting in front of a computer when I have been doing that all day. Now I haven't got rid of the MacBook Pro as there are some tasks that are just easier on the bigger screen and need the extra power, but they are generally weekend tasks like putting together movies etc.

So then came the issue of what I was going to do with these free evenings where I could relax and chill out. I probably can count on one hand the number of hours I watch TV a week, but when I do sit down I want to watch what I want to watch and not necessarily what the schedule lists. Now I have been researching all of this for some time, so before anyone says anything it's not that I just went out and blew a pile of cash on a bunch of new toys (Well that is actually what I did do) but I have been planning this all for quite some time now and the last couple of weeks have been the first stage of putting it all together. So I thought what do I actually do in the evening. Well, I actually either read, listen to music, or watch TV and usually from the comfort of the couch. So I purchased a Mac Mini and have set it up as a home entertainment system. So far I have connected it up to my sky dish via a USB EyeTV Hybrid which allow’s me to record to disk the actual TV shows that I actually enjoy even while I am away for viewing when I am in the mood. I have also moved by iTunes library from my MacBook Pro to the Mac Mini together with my iPhoto library. As I said this is the first stage, and my next step is to get everything syncing so I can access all my information from the Mac Mini, the MacBook Air, or the MacBook Pro. The first thing is to get MobileMe and iDisk up and running.

That’s for another update!

Tags: Technology, Apple

Would you spend 16,000 on a set of headphones, well I did and no I am not mad! First things first, when I say 16,000 I am talking Indian Rupees which is about £200, and the headphones in question are the Bose QuietComfort(R) 2 Acoustic Noise Canceling(R) headphones.

Now I was introduced to these by a friend of mine who loves traveling but finds it hard to sleep on a plane. I'll be honest and say I have never paid more than £30 for a set of headphones in my life, but I tell no lies when I say if I lost these tomorrow I would be back at the store with another £200.

If you travel regularly and travel internationally crossing time zones, you will understand what I mean when I say "You grab sleep where you can!". Well these things are just fantastic. The sound quality is excellent and they come with all the cables and connectors you need including an extension cable, and the dual pin adapter loved by some airlines. What is even better is the cable disconnects at the headphones themselves so once you have watched an inflight movie and numbed yourselves with a few bottles of red wine, you can unplug yourself and fall asleep without the noise of the aircrafts engines, small children, and the constant ding that emanates from those people summoning the attendant for more red wine because they can't sleep, knowing that you aren't going to strangle yourself.

Now I did look at the newer QuietComfort(R) 3 Acoustic Noise Canceling(R) headphones, and while they were lighter I didn't like the fact that they sat on my ears rather than around them.

Next time you pass a Bose shop, stop and take a look.

Tags: Technology, Music

Okay so after tidying up my website I thought it was about time I tided up my MacBook Pro. I have downloaded a bunch of applications and tested them only to throw them away later and everything was starting to feel a little sluggish. I was also starting to have problems getting certain applications working, and suffering from the odd hang here and there. I therefore resolved to test my backups and go through the process of trying to rebuild my MackBook Pro only using the equipment I travel with. I was surprised how simple it was and how well prepared I actually was.


So here is my setup

1) 1x MacBook Pro 17" plus power supply
2) 1x Lacie 1TB Firewire 800 connected Hard Disk Drive (3 Partitions, one containing a bootable copy of Leopard, one TimeMachine, and the last a scratch disk)
3) 1x 250MB USB connected Hard Disk Drive
4) 8GB iPhone
5) 80GB iPod Video G5
6) Neoprene wash bag filled with cables & connectors

So I first of all rebooted the MBP and made sure that no programs had started up. I ran a Time Machine backup and then a SuperDuper backup, and synchronized mybookmarks, email rules, notes, etc with .MAC. I then opened Tunes and de-authorized my audible account and my computer. I then restarted the computer and choose to boot off the Leopard disk on the Lacie drive. I then went through the installation selecting the erase and install option. I did a custom install and removed all the stuff I didn't need like printer drivers, foreign languages, and fonts.

Once the installation was complete I connected to my Wireless network and downloaded all the updates from software update. After rebooting I opened up time machine and pointed it to the partition on my Lacie drive that I was using for Time Machine backups. I choose not to enable backups at this point, as I just wanted the Mac to know that this was the Time Machine drive. I then fired up Time Machine and restored the contents of my home folder. I selected to restore;

1) The "Documents" Folder - My personal documents.
2) The "Downloads" Folder - Audible Books / Applications
3) The "Library/Mail" Folder - My Email
4) The "Music" Folder - My iTunes Library
5) The "Pictures" Folder - My iPhoto Library
6) ...and a couple of other folders that I store graphics, and my development projects.

Once that was done, I configured my system preferences and synchronized with my .MAC account. I then opened Mail.app and it imported my mailboxes, everything was where it should be. I opened up Safari and once again everything was as I left it. I then went through reinstalling my applications. I store everything I download in the downloads folder and have all the license keys in my email.

4 hours after I started the process, and that doesn't allow for the time I wandered off to do other things I am back up and running. I plugged my iPhone and iPod back in and after re-entering my account details and syncing I can't see anything untoward. All my documents, photo's, Music, and audio books are there. The machine is snappy, and quick again.

I think I am prepared. What have I missed?

Tags: Technology

Well for those that didn't know I converted to the Mac (MacBook Pro) about a year ago. On the Mac I use RapidWeaver from RealMacSoftware to keep my personal website and blog up to date. Now I love RapidWeaver as it's easy to use and extremely versatile, but one thing that does annoy me is that it doesn't seem to like publishing a lot of files over a slow link.

Let me explain a little, while the man from Jaguar goes off to find me a new car battery. In India I have a 2 Mbps DSL line. Now when I say 2 Mbps line what I really mean is I have a line that at some point in the future might actually start to offer 2 Mbps transfer rates and I might at some point be able to get an upstream rate that is marginally quicker than a fax machine. Not that that is really RapidWeavers fault, but I recently decided to tidy up the site a little, area's like the Photo Gallery where becoming a little cluttered and I wanted to simplify the structure a little. So I set about creating an archive area and moving some pages around, all of which was very easy using RapidWeaver, but when I came to publish the site there were over 3000 pages that needed to be re-published. So I clicked the publish button and RapidWeaver started to weave its magic. The only problem was that it never got beyond the first few hundred pages before it through up an FTP error.

So frustrated I kept hitting the publish button and RapidWeaver went through the motions, but I was never quite convinced that it was doing what it said it was doing. So last night I decided to take the plunge and after checking everything was where I wanted it to be and saving the site project file ten times I cleared the publishing cache and marked all the paged as changed, I FTP'ed to my website and deleted the entire contents. I then went back to RapidWeaver and clicked the publish buttons. RapidWeaver went through the export phase, and then advised me that 5134 pages need to be uploaded, and off I went to bed (with a doubt or two in my mind).

I woke up this morning to find that every single page had uploaded and not one error was encountered. I thanked my 22 Mbps Internet line and the Internet gods. I checked the site and everything seems to be there, even my newly implemented Google Analytics code and FavIcon.

What's does that mean to users of the site? Well not much really, but what it should mean is that there are no broken links (Google Web Tools showed four) and that everything is a little less cluttered. If you have bookmarked anything other than the home page you might find those links don't work as I have tidied up the file structure a little too, but everything does feel a lot more ordered; to me at least.

If you do have any problems let me know via the Contact Form. Otherwise enjoy!

Tags: Technology, RapidWeaver

Okay so Friday is here, and after having Wednesday off I can say it has been a pretty good week. It was another busy day at the office, but that seems to be par for the course and to be honest I would rather that than be bored. I need to pop into the office tomorrow and check on some work that's being done over the weekend, otherwise I intend to get out and about. As I said yesterday I am thinking of heading into Delhi but will see how things go. Otherwise I might just have a better look around Gurgaon.

This afternoon I did take another trip to the shops to pick up a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) as the power cuts out here were starting to become annoying. I am using my laptop which has a battery so isn't affected when the power does go off, but of course my internet line drops every time which is really rather annoying especially when trying to upload or download anything. I also managed to get hold of a component cable for my Apple TV although I am still trying to get the sound to work.

Otherwise nothing more to report, so I am going to open a beer and try and sort out the Apple TV then listen to some music and read.

Tags: Technology

Okay, so it's been a pretty busy week sorting out the house and making the final arrangements, but I am very nearly there now. I need one last item, a suitcase, and I am ready. I fly out of London Heathrow tomorrow evening at 17:10 on flight BA257 and I am next due back in the UK on November 12th (BA142), as yet for an undefined period.

It hasn't been all work this week however. I have managed to spend time with friends and family and do a little fun shopping too.

Thursday morning I had to pop into town to sort out some last minute stuff at the bank, and I found myself in the Sony shop. 30 minutes later I was the proud owner of a new Sony HDR-SR7E Handycam camcorder. Something that i had fancied for a long time, but hadn't been able to justify up until now that is.

Thursday lunchtime I took my Mum out for a nice lunch at a place called "Bartons Mill". It's an old water mill situated on what was the Basingstoke Canal. We had a good chat, some very nice food, and a walk along the canal before returning home.

Thursday night I went to visit Katrina (my sister) and my nephew William for dinner. I got the warmest welcome ever from William who then spent the next hour running round in circles and going completely crazy, while also making a complete mess of the house Katrina had spent the last four hours cleaning. Once he was exhausted, bathed and in bed. Katrina, Rob (My brother-in-law) and I sat down to one of my favorite meals, Shepards Pie with fresh vegetables and put the world to rights. After dinner we had a couple of hours to chat and say our goodbyes and then it was home for an early night.

Yesterday, I headed to the Apple store in Southampton to pickup a copy of the newly released iWork 08 , and iLife 08. iLife 08 or iMovie 08 in particular now supports the AVCHD High Definition format so this meant that I could now get the film of the new camcorder in magical High Definition, and add a Movie Gallery to my site. Take a look now for a short clip that I put together of William from the footage I shot on Thursday night.

Today I am sat waiting for Parcel Force to deliver the Nintendo Wii that I am talking out to India for a colleague, but after I have finished updating the blog I am going to try and shape up the garden as with all the rain while I was away followed by the sun the grass is now 30ft high (Well nearly). After that I intend to pop into Basingstoke town center and pick up a suitcase and then pack.

Once packed I think it will be time for a few cold beers and a Pizza. Now that's living in the fast lane...

Tags: Technology, Food

A few years ago you could guarantee that if you asked the vast majority of home users if they backed up their computer most of them would say no! These days however people are a lot wiser mainly as most of them has at least once lost the family photo's or that important presentation.

However the question I find myself asking now is "Have you tested your backup?"

Yes, while most people do backup the family computer in some way, shape, or form, most never test the backup / restore before they really need it.

So today I set about testing my own backup and restore procedure. The first thing I did was to take a new Full System backup using the existing backup plan (I do a weekly full backup of my Home directory to an external USB drive). I then wiped my machine (Not an easy thing to do).

Now I was where I hoped I would never be, unplanned, again. I then went about restoring my system.

1) I reinstalled Mac OS X
2) I connected the external USB hard drive which as well as holding the backups in a directory called backups has a directory called emergency in which I keep two text files. The first contains a copy of my WEP key, the second a list of the applications I have installed.
3) I now connect to my Wireless network and run a software update.
4) Once the software update has completed and I have rebooted and rerun the software update to ensure that everything is the latest version I kick off a restore.
5) Once the restore has completed I re-install the applications I have listed in my second text file. This is a good test to make sure I have the source for all the applications I have paid for, which I normally keep in a folder in my home directory. It also ensures that I have all of the serial keys.
6) The last step is to make sure everything works, making sure applications run as expected (all the preferences should be as before as they are store in plist files that are stored in my /home/library/ blah directory).

For me it all when fine with a couple of groans like Parallels requires me to re-enter two serial numbers (the original and the version 3 upgrade one) and for some reason some of my email is showing up as not having been downloaded from the server (all very old archives so not major). One major issue is that the restore of my Photo's and iPhoto didn't happen. It would appear that the pictures were not being backed up. Now normally at this point I would be throwing the laptop around the room and opening a large bottle of whisky but I know I copied off my entire collection to my parents machine two weekends ago, so I will pop round there tomorrow and copy them back. However it is something I need to investigate, but that was the purpose of the test. Imagine if this had happended a year down the line?

Tags: Technology, Photography

iPhone pictures are now in the wild here. The normal unboxing video's have also appeared on YouTube.

Tags: Technology

Okay well it's probably rumor but it's the rumors we want to hear and its from MacRumours so its all in the air and just to rhyme perfectly fair (Da DA) . The talk now is that Apple have done a deal with Vodafone and others. The general chat is that Vodafone have the bandwidth to do 3G, but the US iPhone doesn't do 3G.

Mmmmm. Vodaphone hasn't really been able to make any money out of the 3G network (Has Anyone?) and considering what they paid for the license and its predicted life span it would make sense, but then as the more enlightened point out Apple rejected 3G in the US due to power and size.

We watch, we wait, and we sell family members.....

Tags: Technology

If your looking for up to the minute iPhone news MacRumours are on the ball. They have a dedicated "Katie" who will be blogging the whole thing. Check it out at http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/

Tags: Technology

Well what a week. It started off as just busy and ended up as manic, so to say I am glad to see the back of it is an understatement.

So what's the plan. Well to be honest not a lot. The forecast is horrible so getting out and about is a no no. The jobs I have around the house are outside jobs, so they are not going to get done either. So I guess it's eating, drinking, and if I can be bothered some web development stuff (WebYep).

I will most likely however spend the majority of my computer time drooling over the iPhone which goes on sale in the US tonight. I have already downloaded iTunes 7.3, why I am not sure as it's bound to be nothing but iPhone updates, which we aren't going to be seeing until the end of the year at the earliest. I guess I just want to be part of the hype.

Tags: Technology

Well normally I read, listen to my iPod, or fall asleep on the train in the morning, but this morning I thought I would put the hour train journey to good use and migrate some of the photo's I had on the old site to the new one.

Well I didn't need the hour. Once I had figured out how I was going to structure the gallery it took me about 20 minutes to upload the 6 most recent albums. You can check out the gallery here or by following the links to the left.

Now in terms of web site development I'm nearly complete with what I planned to do. As I have said before the idea was to keep it simple and to reduce the amount of administration it required. Well I think I have done that. I have been using RapidWeaver 3.6 from realmacsoftware, with some Plug-Ins from YourHead.com, and must say that I am extremely impressed. Not only are the applications very easy to use but they integrate with Mac OS X and the iLife applications very well.

If you are interested in taking RapidWeaver for a test run you could do worst than take a look at Don McAllister's ScreenCastsOnline RapidWeaver section.

Tags: Technology, RapidWeaver