Mark Dalton

I purchased my Apple TV going through Heathrow Airport early last year as I wanted to be able to listen to my Music, Podcasts, and Audio Books, via my TV.

I was on my way back to my apartment in Gurgaon, India at the time and the apartment was comfortable but pretty basic if I am honest. I wanted to be able to chill out on the couch with a very expensive bottle of imported vino and listen to what was going on in my other world.

Returning to the UK however I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it and it ended up in the bedroom. I did start out falling asleep to music but before long it just started to gather dust. No way to treat a shiny white box!

I had the Mac Mini downstairs hooked up to the 42″ LCD which was supposed to act as an Apple TV and some, but I found myself playing with the Mac more than listening / watching any content. So there was only one thing to do!

I moved the Apple TV downstairs and was immediately frustrated. I mean Mac Mini +Keyboard +mouse meant surfing, meant tweaking, meant…….Hold on! I sit on the sofa to absorb content! No, I sit on the sofa to absorb my content, the stuff that I want to listen to or watch. I do it in some way’s to get away from sitting in front of keyboards.

So I decided to explore a little more, like you do! The first thing I really noticed was how cool it was listening to my tunes while taking a look over my photo library. I then moved on to my home video’s and really started to understand what this device did for me.

It was a couple of days later I actually sat down and juggled the various remote controls (Project?). I finally figured out that the 900+ channels I have had nothing showing that I wanted to watch. As I juggled the remotes I found I was left with the Apple TV remote in my hands.

I then decided to move to the next level and rented a movie via iTunes. I was a little apprehensive to start with but decided to give it ago. Luckily I have a fast Internet connection (22 Mbps) and by the time I had made myself something to eat the movie had downloaded. It was a great experience and better still I didn’t need to return any DVD’s.

A few day’s later I found myself in the same position, really must think why I am paying for Sky. This time I decided to buy a movie. “Get Smart” was the chosen title and I opted for the standard definition version. Once again a very smooth experience and I liked the fact that I didn’t have to find a home for yet another DVD.

It was a couple of day’s later when I was upstairs in my study that it really hit me. I was downloading another album via iTunes and clicked on the Movies listing. There it was. The movie that I had purchased via my TV. I clicked play and the movie immediately started to play on my MacBook Pro and the sound started blaring out of my Bose Companion 5 speakers. Awesome! I went back to the iTunes store and purchased “Taken” in High Definition to watch that evening, and it immediately started downloading and I went back to my inbox.

That evening as I sat down in front of the TV I didn’t even bother to check what was on Sky. I switched to the Apple TV and selected My Movies. There it was, just sitting there waiting for me.

Since then I have purchased a couple more titles and the Skins TV Series as I had watched the first two episodes but it’s on to late for a school night.

All in all I have really started to appreciate my Apple TV but I would warn others that if you have a slow Internet connection your experience may not be as smooth. I did make the mistake on one occasion of trying to download a movie while my off site backup was running and it was painful. Why I had my backup’s starting at 6pm however is a different story and something I have since resolved.

I would like to see the next version of the Apple TV include PVR functionality, but am not sure it that is a realistic expectation given the iTunes store model, but you can but hope. I can also see myself needing to invest in more external storage if I continue down this path as the movie titles aren’t exactly small, and am going to have to find an unlimited offsite backup plan that doesn’t involve remortgaging the house to fund, as backing up to external disks is not totally bullet proof and I don’t really want to turn the house into a mini data-center.

So another busy week at work. In fact I can’t really say that as its been the first full week I have done for 5 weeks, what with flying back from India and being ill. Never the less it hasn’t been to bad. I have been able to get stuck into some of the work that has been laying in limbo for a while, and have made good headway with one of the big projects that I have been struggling with. Other wise it’s been good getting to see people I haven’t seen in over a year, and they are all kind of interested to hear how I got on, and it’s kind of nice being able to dismiss some of the preconceptions that exist in people’s minds and share with them what it’s really like.

I must say though, India almost seems a million year’s ago now and I feel well and truly back in the swing of things. The worst part of being home if I had to pick would be the commute up to London and back each day. I kind of got used to having a driver pick me up 15 minutes before I needed to be at the office, but even that is somewhat more pleasant than it was before I left. It’s only really after you haven’t had something for a while you really miss it. For me sitting on the train in the morning and evening used to seem like a complete waste of time, but now it’s time to reflect on the last year as I look out at the lush green fields and notice the different greens in the trees, and livestock in the fields (where they belong). The commute has also allowed me to get back into something else I love, albeit in a slightly new form; reading!

Before going out to India I would read two books a week. In India 15 minutes over bumpy roads with your eyes closed as large trucks, rickshaws, and elephants, came from all sides wasn’t really conducive with relaxing and reading. I did still read in the evening and at weekends, but there were other problems such as storing them somewhere, figuring out how to get them home, not to mention the fact India is generally a noisy place. However while in India, after listening to a TWiT podcast I found Audible and the audiobook. I must say I haven’t looked back. Having a story read to you is very relaxing and helps block out the noise. So I have diligently been working through my bag catalog and am nearly finished with Michael Palins “New Europe”, which I will write a review of as soon as I finish it.

So this weekend I decided it was time I started to catch up on the “Personal” stuff I have neglected for 13 months. Friday night I met up with an old friend Gail who I used to date for a few drinks. Gail is what might be known as “dizzy” but is crazy in a nice, non-bunny boiling way. We talked about India, work, and what we had both been up to and by about 21:30 were both drunk and inevitably started to discuss why we had broken up. Luckily I still had a least a few brain cells firing and reminder her that I, in her words, “had commitment issues”. She laughed and said, yeah and added she also had a crush on some guy at work. Which made me feel slightly weird, especially when she added she couldn’t remember his name. Anyway we eventually realized neither of us had eaten and stumbled down the road for a pizza before getting into taxi’s and going our separate way’s. Gail sent me a text Saturday morning saying and I quote “Ouch!”. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Saturday morning was kind of slow. However Saturday afternoon I remembered this was my “Do something, do anything” weekend and tackled my paperwork and then generally tidied the house up. Today I started out with a run to the supermarket and followed it up by weeding and spaying weed killer over the drive way in preparation for it being power washed and sealed. Tonight well I am updating the blog and then need to sort my study. This is another one of those tasks I started before I went to India and now just need to get back on with.

Okay so since coming back I have been working on tidying up my home network setup, and for the main part I have it all sorted, but I have one annoying problem that I just don’t seem to be able to resolve, and that’s my WiFi signal.

Now I have a Netgear DG834GT wireless router and previously had two Netgear WG602v3′s setup using WDS. One was wired directly into the DG834GT and the other was installed discreetly in my lounge. With these setup I had 100% coverage all over the house. The problem was the WG602 only supports WEP and apart from the fact that WEP is easily broken, giving people the key to log on is a nightmare.

So while I was in India (Well going through duty free to be precise) I picked up an Apple Airport Extreme, an Apple Airport Express, and an Apple TimeCapsule. These worked wonderfully and provided me with a complete 802.11n network throughout my apartment, and better still allowed my to use WPA2 encryption.

Returning to the UK I thought I would recreate the network I had running in India and that’s where my woes started. I have tried locating each of the devices in different rooms but I don’t seem to be able to get the 100% coverage I need. The main problem is in my lounge where I tend to spend most of my time with my MacBook Air. The really annoying part is that it works pretty much everywhere in the lounge apart from the seat I sit in, where it moves between 100% coverage and 0%. Now I could change my seat, but I simply refuse to do that. I am loathed to spend any more money, but have the feeling that I may need another Airport Express just to provide the coverage I need. Anyone have any other idea’s?

Since returning from India last Friday I have felt absolutely terrible. At first I thought it was just Jet Lag, and then a chest infection (Man Flu). Now I”m not sure what is going on but I have done nothing but sleep, and I”m talking sleeping 18 hours a day. I generally feel like I have flu and a cough, but every now and again I feel fine and then a couple of hours later I just can”t function and need to sleep. I saw the Doctor on Wednesday and she referred me to Basingstoke District Hospital for a chest X-Ray and blood tests which I had done yesterday but otherwise just told me to rest and wait for the results. I am really hoping it”s Indian Man flu at worst, and not some of the alternative on the table.

During my good moments however I have been looking at ways to improve my web site and blog. If you have been following the “Playing with Technology” posts I have made you will have learnt that I am trying to get to the point where I am not reliant on a single machine, and can work regardless of where I am.

Well I am slowly making progress and one of the tasks that was really annoying me was that I was tied to my MacBook Pro and RapidWeaver to update my website. Now I love the ease of RapidWeaver but it means that I have to carry it with me. This is not ideal as it weights quite a bit and should anything happen to it, I am well and truly stuck. So after looking around I found WordPress, a great free blogging solution that was remarkably quick and simple to install.

I have been playing with WordPress and it seems to work well so I have decided to go with it for now. I am still keeping the RapidWeaver site which you can find here, until I have migrated everything over. Be sure to let me know how you find the new site, and any problems you experience, as I am still learning the software and there”s quite a lot to learn.

One of the biggest items to migrate is my Photo Library. Now this is one of the area”s I still haven”t figured out how manage completely, but I am getting there in a round about way. At home I use iPhoto from Apple. I have my main photo library on my Mac Mini and within RapidWeaver I simply created a new Photo page and selected the pictures from iPhoto. Now that I am looking to stop using RapidWeaver I needed a way to do this with WordPress. I found a plugin for WordPress called FlickrExport (£12) that allows you to upload your iPhoto pictures to Yahoo”s Flickr service. Now I have been playing with Flickr for a while and it”s Pro Service is pretty good value at $25 a year. Flickr is basically an online photo gallery, like Google”s Picasa. The plugin then allows you to display the photo”s you have in your Flickr albums on your WordPress site.

I am in the process of uploading my photo”s to Flickr, and as there are quite a few this is going to take a while, but you should start to see them appear shortly. One part I haven”t quite figured out yet is when I am on the road I can upload my photo”s to Flickr but I now need to figure out how I bring the photo”s from Flickr back into iPhoto.