Mark Dalton

I am not quite sure when this option crept into iTunes, but boy am I glad it did. I like to keep my iTunes library tidy and save disk space by deleting PodCasts after I have listened to them and am sure that I will not need to refer to them again. However from time to time I do remove one that I need to refer to.

Now in the past you had to CTRL + Click the little disclosure triangle to the left of the podcast a number of times which would then download the list of past episodes. However the team over at Apple must have the same OCD habits as me, as they have introduced a handy little right click option “Show all available episodes” that does exactly what that CTRL + Click trick did. Cool!

One thing I really hate buying is printers, not because they are overly complex devices or because they are particularly expensive, but simply because I hardly ever need to print anything. In fact the only things I do tend to print is electronic flight tickets and the occasional photograph.

So when my faithful HP 7210 Office Jet Printer kept asking me to check the print cartridges, which were brand new HP branded cartridges a mild form of panic started to set in. You see while I don’t do much in the way of printing the scanner plays a pivotal role in my Digital Office setup. Every letter, paper bill, useful flyer, that comes through the door gets scanned in and securely stored in Devon Think. Without the scanner I end up with is a desk overflowing with paper, which doesn’t fit well with my OCD tendencies.

As time went on the 7210 was no longer happy with me removing the cartridges, putting them back in, and then turning the printer off and on again, it just complained. So screwdriver in hand I set about taking it apart to clean the sensors and man do these thing attract dirt. I dutifully cleaned and air dusted and then reassembled the device, and smiled to myself when I realised that I didn’t have any “spare” parts left over. As I powered the printer back up it started its diagnostics, and then asked me to check the printer cartridges. Noooooooo!

So I hit the web looking for reviews and guidance on what was the best printer in terms of original cost and then running costs. This is the part I hate, as there are just so many on the market with so many bells and whistles, and they change so quickly that by the time you have made up your mind the one you decided on is end of life and the whole product line has changed direction.

I sat down and started to think about what I needed from the device, and looked back to the 7210 and the features it lacked. The biggest thing by far was the lack of a duplexing unit. A duplexing unit in essence allows the device to automatically flip the page over, allowing you to print, copy, fax, and scan both sides of a document without manual intervention. With the amount of scanning I do not having a duplexing unit involves a few extra steps in my workflow, as I have to manually flip all the pages over and then merge the two scanned document into one single document. The next shortfall of the 7210 was the quality of the printing, especially when it came to photo’s. The 7210 is really a small office printer, that is suitable for documents and not photo’s. Finally was the ability to print onto CD’s & DVD’s. This is only recently something I have wanted to do! After playing more with video I thought it would be really nice to be able to make up DVD’s of family events and share them with family members.

A little more research and I discovered the HP Photosmart premium Printer. An all-in-one device that supports printing, scanning, copying, and faxing as you would expect with the added benefit of allowing you to print on CD’s and DVD’s and includes and a built in duplexing unit.

I am still putting the device through its paces but so far it works very well and Snow Leopard automagically recognised the device and didn’t require any additional software to be installed.

Back in October I wrote about a few issues I was having with my MacBook Air, well thankfully I managed to resolve them without spending any money! The main issue I was experiencing was a reduction in battery life, leaving work with a full charge I would use it on the train journey home and be left with a 20%-30% charge. Well, what I didn”t do was look at what I was doing during that journey.

The first thing I usually do, once comfortably seated, is plug in my 3G dongle and check my email, and try and catch up with the mess that is my inbox. Once we are moving however I would fire up the BBC iPlayer application and try to enter “unwind mode” by watching some of the programs the BBC shows that I actually like (few and far between these days).

Now it would seem that this combination is the perfect setup to drain the battery, at least on a MacBook Air. The BBC iPlayer content had been downloaded to the local drive, so I wasn”t streaming, but I still had the 3G Dongle plugged in and connected, and was checking my email while using iPlayer. So I tested the obvious combinations.

What I found wasn”t a real surprise, but both iPlayer and the 3G Dongle do make the machine work harder and therefore take their toll on the battery. I didn”t do any really scientific tests but simply using the 3G Dongle and working on email left me with 40%-50% battery life, and just watching iPlayer left me with 20%-30% charge. Now the MacBook Air hasn”t got the best battery but I have found I can get 2-2.5 hours out of it using it moderately, but if I am using BBC iPlayer or indeed watching any type of media, I can only expect 1-1.5 hours. This doesn”t really work for me!

My second issue was with the hard drive. Now this was initially triggered by an issue I was having with SuperDuper and errors during the backup routine, the support technician from ShirtPocket made it sound like the drive was going to fail at any minute, and he wasn”t to far out, as not long after I had a nasty “Will not boot” (I forget the exact error message) issue on the MacBook Air.

After doing some research I found a number of posts that all pointed to the same solution, format the hard disk drive and restore from backup. Now luckily I did have a SuperDuper backup that was 3-4 weeks old, and I don”t keep any data on the laptop (I use DropBox), so all I was missing was a few application updates. After doing this however the whole system picked up and was much more responsive, and I haven”t had any issues with the hard drive since.

So the question about what to do came up again. As I said back in October I love the MacBook Air in terms of its weight but after two years I am starting to find it somewhat limited. The more powerful, but slightly heavier, MacBook Pro is one option but we all knew there was a special event due and the much rumoured Apple Tablet device was what everyone was talking about. Every Mac fan know”s you don”t go and buy anything prior to a Steve Job”s Keynote!

When Steve stood up at the end of January and announced the iPad to the world, what I needed was clear. When I purchased the MacBook Air it was so I could browse the web, send the odd email, and look at my pictures while around the house or traveling. It however transpired that I did more on the move than I originally thought and the MacBook Air quickly became my main mobile computer. The iPad for me is what I really wanted when I brought the MacBook Air. What I then needed was a laptop that really is a laptop and capable of doing those more advanced and resource intensive tasks. This for me is the 13″ MacBook Pro. So decision made. I am going to replace the MacBook Air with a 13″ MacBook Pro, and when the iPad is available will be buying one of those.

Back in May 2009 Don McAllister who runs and hosts ScreenCastsOnline did an episode on using the New Mac Min as a Media server. Now I have owned a Mac Mini (G5) for a while and have been using it as a basic media server, and when I say basic, I mean I have Snow Leopard installed, but only use it connected to my iTunes Library via FrontRow. Well, after buying a new Samsung Series 7 LED HD TV I moved my Series 6 up to the bedroom and had it wired into Sky via a Sky Multiroom subscription, but this got me thinking again about the Mac Mini as a Media Server, so I decided to revisit the original shows (SCO198, SCO201, SCO204) and see what I had missed.

I did a clean install of Snow Leopard on the Mac Mini and then a Software Update whilst watching SCO198, and then set about installing Sapphire. Now Sapphire for me doubles the usefulness of the Mac Mini straight away as it gives me full access to my ripped DVD library that lives on my Drobo. Sapphire simply provides another option within the FrontRow interface, aptly named Sapphire that connects you to your media. This media can be on the Mac Mini itself, although Don didn’t recommend that, or on an external or network attached drive. Now at present I have my DVD’s located on a Drobo connected to the network via a DroboShare. This is functional but three is some lag. Once I have things as I want them I will once again look at the storage element as I don’t really want external drives all over the place but if its flakey I know I won’t use it.

Following Don’s instructions the installation was simple and was completed in less than 30 minutes. Importing the meta data and choosing the correct artwork did take a while, but given how many DVD’s I have on the Drobo that was to be expected.

The second show (SCO201) moved things up a notch and introduced Plex. Plex was just as simple to install and configure using Don’s walkthrough, but right from the outset it was obvious that Plex was a lot more powerful than Sapphire and there are many more options to explore / play with. Obviously Don could only cover the essential ones in the show, but this was enough to get me up and running. Importing the meta data and selecting the Album Artwork were easy and I know it’s sad, but quite good fun, especially with the added ability to use Fan Art which is top quality I must say from what I have seen so far. The interface is not as intuitive as it could be and some of the menu options are simply not named correctly as they do not actually do what they say they do. However once installed and configured this is certainly a small price to pay for the experience the application provides, and with luck the developers will quickly correct. Plex hooks directly into iTunes an iPhoto to provide you access to your music and photos, and better still Plex also supports “Applications”, which easily allow you to connect up to other services such as the ScreenCastsOnline feed.

In SCO204 Don takes a look at ways to remotely control the Media Server, but I must say I am perfectly happy with the Apple supplied remote. I did purchase the Aluminium remote for use with the Apple TV in the lounge, and may at some point buy another for use with the Media Server. I did explore using the iPhone and use the Apple Remote application to control my iTune library on the Apple TV as I do like to skip tracks and move between albums, but with the Media Server it is more select movie, click play, fall asleep. Why complicate perfection!

Well somewhat of a different start to the holiday season this year when I decided last minute to join a bunch of online friends in Liverpool for what is affectionally known as a TweetUp. I have been chatting to most of these people for a while now and when the chance came up to meet them face to face I thought it was a great idea and a brilliant way to start of the festive season.

I worked from home on the Friday as I didn””t fancy doing the commute in and out of London to then drive up to Liverpool and it was a good job I did as I woke Friday morning to a dusting of snow. I set off late afternoon and made good time only stopping a couple of quick comfort break””s and was checked in, unpacked, and in the bar by 19:30.

The weekend was spent chatting over beer, food, and the odd cup of coffee, about a variety of subjects from emerging technologies to Christmas plans. We did manage to get out and about a little bit and see a few of Liverpool””s landmarks but it was very cold and we did tend to break the touring up with beer breaks on a regular basis, so didn””t cover quite as much as we could of, but we did make it to the Apple store.

I also managed to meet up with Don McAllister the host of ScreenCastsOnline and The Mac ScreenCast Guy. Don was just as nice in the flesh as he is online and had some great insights and views on upcoming technologies. I also manage to meet up with three of my oversea””s contacts, Jane from Australia who was visiting family in the UK for Christmas, Paul Shadwell who flew in especially from Zurich who is very knowledgeable on Virtualisation and hosted services, and David Allen who also flew in especially from Barcelona, who run””s amongst other things the Mac 20 Questions website.

A great time was had by all and I think its fair to say that some good friendships were cemented in the process. Not to mention we all got a ScreenCastsOnline cap Most people left Sunday morning but I had arranged to stay another night, which in hindsight wasn””t such a good idea, although it did allow me to do a little extra Christmas shopping and see a little more of the city.

Monday morning I checked out and headed for home and made good time until I hit Newbury where it had been snowing and snowing pretty hard. As I came down the A339 it was bumper to bumper traffic and nothing was moving. It took me 7.5 hours to get from Newbury to my home in Basingstoke, 5.5 hours of that was spent crossing Basingstoke itself. I have personally never seen anything like it, and Basingstoke made the national news with 2000-3000 people affected. It took 3-4 to clear completely but luckily I didn””t have to go further than my parents around the corner, which was safer to reach on foot. I was lucky however as poor Paul Shadwell got to Manchester airport on Sunday to find it shut down, and finally made it back to Zurich on Wednesday after travelling down to London””s Heathrow airport.