Friday, August 28, 2009

SendStation's latest PocketDock is slightly larger than a penny, has much better audio quality than a dime

SendStation's latest PocketDock is slightly larger than a penny, has much better audio quality than a dime
SendStation's latest PocketDock is slightly larger than a penny, has much better audio quality than a dime

SendStation has impressed us before with its PocketDock line, back in 2007 releasing an impressively small version to suck audio, video, and even get a USB out from an iPod. The company's latest, the PocketDock Line Out Mini USB, is a fraction of the size -- no bigger than Apple's own charging plug -- yet sports a Mini-USB port for charging and a non-powered 3.5mm line out that enables better quality tunes from your pod when connected to an amplified device. The kit even includes a set of tiny stereo RCA jacks that would like nothing better than to mount the front of your receiver. This latest PocketDock is available right now for $29.95 on the other end of that read link, and we're told they'll be showing up in Apple Stores, too.

[Via SlashGear]

Continue reading SendStation's latest PocketDock is slightly larger than a penny, has much better audio quality than a dime

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SendStation's latest PocketDock is slightly larger than a penny, has much better audio quality than a dime originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Spotify for iPhone gets thumbs up from Apple, subscription music with offline playlists is a go

Spotify for iPhone gets thumbs up from Apple, subscription music with offline playlists is a go

Streaming and subscription music services are a dime a dozen on iPhone, and they seem to get past Apple's app store approval hurdles with relative ease. But Spotify was one whose fate wasn't so clear cut, given its offline playlist function -- which as the name suggests downloads songs ahead of time for you to listen to when there's no WiFi or phone service to stream from -- could very easily fall into the category of 'duplication of core iPhone functionality' and get deep-sixed at the drop of a hat. Turns out that's not the case here, as an Apple spokesperson has told paidContent UK that the app's been given the metaphorical stamp of approval and would be hitting the store "very soon." A premium subscription will run about £9.99 ($16.20) per month, with an option to pay annually coming at a later date. Of course, there's a catch, as Spotify's service is only available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain for now. The company expects to invade America sometime later this year, but that means another round of app store approvals -- and with Apple's track record on consistency, there's no telling how that'll turn out.

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Spotify for iPhone gets thumbs up from Apple, subscription music with offline playlists is a go originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Vodafone rolling out 14.4Mbps mobile broadband

Vodafone rolling out 14.4Mbps mobile broadband

vodafone-logoVodafone is priming 14.4Mbps mobile broadband for all its UK 3G punters, after successfully trialling the super speedy solution in London, Liverpool and Birmingham. So what does it mean if you’re a Voda fan? Read on and we’ll tell you.


Serving up 14.4Mbps mobile broadband takes web on the move to the next level. Vodafone reckons its new offering will let 80 percent of you rocking 3G blowers or dongles upgrade with no fuss and at no extra cost. It all means accessing web pages lick spit, as well as RSS hurtling along at a tidy speed too.


Realistically, 14.4Mbps will only be achievable in the most rare of cases. In fact, the top average speed will be about 10Mbps. That’s still far faster than most HSDPA connections you’ll find these days.


The great thing is that Vodafone’s move into 14.4Mbps should see its mobile rivals pile in and start fighting for top spot. And you’ll be the winner. Who knows? Maybe that home broadband you’ve got will soon be a thing of the past.

LogMeIn adds remote wake up to remote control

LogMeIn adds remote wake up to remote control: "LogMeIn is updating its free remote control software with a raft of new features including the ability to remotely wake your computer."

Prep Your Mac for Snow Leopard [Snow Leopard]

Prep Your Mac for Snow Leopard [Snow Leopard]


An operating system update like this Friday's release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard is a perfect time to clean up your computer and start fresh. Let's prepare your Mac for this weekend's 10.6 upgrade.

Before You Upgrade, Part 1: Clean Up Your Mac

You don't want to take those applications you haven't launched in months, giant log files, superfluous startup items, and even old documents you don't need anymore into Snow Leopard, so the first thing you want to do is give your Mac the virtual hose-down. Audit your data, applications, and login items; run some maintenance, and give the old hard drive a checkup with Disk Utility. Here are detailed instructions on how to clean up and revive your bloated, sluggish Mac.

Before You Upgrade, Part 2: Back Up Your Data

Before you crack open that pretty Snow Leopard box, get yourself an external FireWire drive and run a full backup of all the important files on your Mac. If you've got Leopard now you should already be running Time Machine, so make sure you've got a fresh new backup completed. If you're still on Tiger, here are a gaggle of free Mac backup utilities for you to use. (But seriously, if you don't already: get a FireWire drive. Back up your Mac. Now.)

Before You Upgrade, Part 3 (The Extra-Paranoid Track): Make a Bootable Backup of Your Mac

Maybe you go through the entire Snow Leopard upgrade process only to realize that your one, essential, company VPN application isn't yet compatible. Maybe you accidentally lose files or apps in the upgrade process, or you just decide you hate Snow Leopard and want to go back to Leopard stat. One great way to ensure you can go right back to your working Mac's state before an upgrade is to mirror the current state of your Mac on a bootable external hard drive. Even if you've got a Time Machine backup, grab another external drive and clone your Mac's internal hard drive. With a bootable clone on hand, if anything goes wrong or you just want to boot back up into your old Mac's environment (settings, apps, data, and all), you can do so by holding down the T key Option key, restarting your Mac, and choosing the clone as your bootup disk.

The Upgrade Path to Snow Leopard

To install Snow Leopard on your Intel-based Mac, Apple recommends you go from Leopard using the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade disc, or go from Tiger using the $169 Mac Box Set. Here's Apple's full set of system requirements.

The important thing to know is that you can only install the $29 upgrade on top of an existing Leopard installation. That is, you can't start with a formatted Mac hard drive and install Snow Leopard only, which is kind of a bummer for geeks who like to do totally fresh, from-scratch installations.

Correction and update: We have confirmed that the preview of Snow Leopard DOES offer a standalone installer that works on a freshly-formatted hard drive without an existing Leopard installation or DVD. While we can't absolutely say before Friday whether or not the final release will work this way, it's very possible it will. (Read: The full version of the new Mac OS X may be just $29.) My apologies for the mistake! Thanks to commenters RudolphDer and dark42 for asking!

Choose one of two methods for the upgrade.

Upgrade Method 1. Install Snow Leopard Directly on Top of Your Existing Leopard Setup (Easy)

If you're already running a relatively clean installation of Leopard, and you want to make this update as easy, fast, and painless as possible, you're just going to pop your Snow Leopard DVD into your Mac's drive and go. I did this using the Dev Preview of Snow Leopard on a well-used and cluttered Mac, and things went just fine. This is the upgrade path Apple wants you to take and suits most folks—with a good backup, you've nothing to fear. The only possible disadvantage to this approach is that some old logs and system files you don't need might stick around.

Upgrade Method 2. Wipe Your Mac Clean and Start from Scratch (Advanced)

Serious nerds who want their Snow Leopard installation absolutely pristine (and come from the Windows school of wipe-and-reinstall) can go all-out and format their Mac's hard drive, reinstall Leopard, upgrade to Snow Leopard,, install Snow Leopard and then restore their data from backup and reinstall all their essential apps.

The one advantage to this approach is that you can take the opportunity to repartition your Mac's hard drive in the process (though if it's Boot Camp you want, you can set that up any time, not just when wiping your drive). You'll also know for sure your Mac is completely cruft-free. The disadvantage to this approach is that it's tedious and time-consuming. The Snow Leopard installation can take 45 minutes to an hour, then you've got to restore your Time Machine backup (depending on how much data we're talking, this can also take up to an hour) and then you've got to reinstall your applications.

If you do decide to go this route on Snow Leopard upgrade day, here are a few notes:

  • Only start once you have your Leopard DVD and Snow Leopard DVD in hand, and your data backed up.
  • Inventory your Mac's application list. Command-line lovers can do a simple ls /Applications/ >> appsiuse.txt to get a textual listing of everything in the Applications folder. Otherwise you can just eye your Applications folder and note down its contents. Also check your System Preferences panes for any panels you've installed there.
  • After you've inventoried your applications and backed up your data, insert your Leopard DVD and click on 'Install Mac OS X.'
  • Insert your Snow Leopard DVD and click on 'Install Mac OS X.' When you reach the Snow Leopard Installer's 'Welcome' screen, from the Utilities menu, choose 'Disk Utility...' From there you can (say a little prayer) and format or repartition your Mac's internal hard drive. Once that's done, continue with the installation as usual.

You get a few opportunities to restore your Time Machine backup during the Snow Leopard installation. Even if you pass each time, once Snow Leopard is completely installed, you can get your data out of Time Machine by running the Migration Assistant (located in /Applications/Utilities/).

One important thing to know about restoring a Time Machine backup: you can't be logged in as the same user name that you're restoring. That is, if I'm logged in as gina, and my backed-up Time Machine user is also gina, the Migration Assistant either makes you rename the restored user or log in as another (admin) user to do the restore. The Migration Assistant also lets you decide what you restore: which data (in predetermined folders/categories, like Music, Pictures, Documents, etc), all of your Applications (or none), settings, and other files. Here's what that looks like:


How are you planning to upgrade to Snow Leopard? Are you doing any special Mac prep beforehand? Tell us about it in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker's founding editor, can't wait to get her paws on the Snow Leopard box. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Definitive Guide to Backing Up and Ditching Your Discs [Discs]

The Definitive Guide to Backing Up and Ditching Your Discs [Discs]

Whether you're moving, short on cash, or running out of storage space, you've got plenty of reasons to ditch your physical media. Hard drives are cheap; here are our recommended methods of saving, selling, and trading your CDs, DVDs, and video games.

Photo by mutednarayan.

Audio CDs

Backing up: If you've only got a few CDs to digitize, either because you're already on top of your backups or just want a few sacred albums, go ahead and use whatever music manager you've got. We've found some decent explanatory guides for iTunes, WinAmp, and Windows Media Player, all of which suggest you make sure you've got your format settings tweaked to your liking before you commit the time to swapping discs in and out. Photo by joelogon.

What format should you back up to? We can't tell the future, nor do we know how much of an audiophile you are. The safest bet is to go with a lossless compression method, which doesn't compress audio information for file size, and so has a better likelihood of being rescued and re-converted if a new format takes over from MP3. Both iTunes and Windows Media Player offer their own lossless formats to convert to in their settings.

The free, open-source alternative is to convert to FLAC, which, while popular among serious music fans and the open-source community, isn't quite a readily-playable format on MP3 players and devices. You can convert audio CD tracks to FLAC, or most any other audio format, using the free VLC Media Player.

If you do decide to stick with MP3s for your conversion, aim for a higher bitrate—perhaps 256 kbit/s. Some notice audio "artifacts" on files compressed at 192 kbit/s and lower. On most modern hard drives, a library full of MP3s encoded at the 256 rate can readily be fit.

Selling and trading: Your best deals will depend on your collection, with rare or hard-to-find discs, of course, likely to fetch a better dollar. We've previously posted that disc-by-disc Amazon selling can be worth the effort, if you've got the time. In my own brick-and-mortar experiences, I found that one locally-owned record store (in a different town) wouldn't bother giving me more than a cursory estimate for about 60 CDs, while another took the time to look for any gems with resale value and provided a final estimate. Photo by brewbooks.

I found the best deal at an FYE, because they can quickly scan CDs, match them against a national database of inventory, and offer you firm disc-by-disc prices. A Tina Turner hits collection owned by my wife, and Black Flag's The First Four Years netted surprising double-digit returns, but don't kid yourself—audio CDs are not a product seeing growth, so you may have to swallow your pride and admit your Smashing Pumpkins collection isn't all that valuable these days. If you're offered mere pennies for a disc, you can, of course, always keep it, but there are alternatives.

Reader Richard wrote in to tell us about SwapACD, a service he's found fairly reliable for trading out old, hardly-touched discs for unexplored music territory. Swaptree is another fair bet for all kinds of media.

If mailing out your old wares disc by disc isn't all that appealing, we propose a fun alternative—host an Old CD Party. Email a bunch of nearby friends whose tastes in music aren't completely appalling, buy some snacks and drinks, and invite everyone to spread their CD collections in personal piles on your floor, just like the baseball card trades of yore. Swap albums, negotiate two-for-one deals, and laugh about what a sullen, sappy, or seriously goofy person you used to be. It's a lot more fun than getting 50 cents for your Throwing Copper disc(s).

DVDs

Backing up: Adam really dislikes having DVD scratches and skips interrupt his 'stories,' while I loathe looking at my DVD purchases and realizing that, on a per-view basis, they've cost me about $5 per hour. How many films does one really intend to watch over and over? Wouldn't your copy of The Italian Job (the newer, Marky-Mark remake, of course) be put to better use as spare cash or a new DVD than as an entertainment center bench warmer? It may not be entirely, officially legal, but making a personal copy of a DVD for your viewing on any device is the mildest of infractions these days.

Adam so dislikes dealing with scratched optical media that he made two tools for converting them to digital goodness. His one-click DVD Rip tool for Windows uses the ever-popular DVD Shrink to make it stupid-simple to turn any DVD disc into standard DVD folders—VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS. Rather than make you dig through folders and thumbnail shots to find those ripped DVDs, he also patched together DVD Play to make browsing, playing, and editing the details of those ripped DVD folders much easier, using VLC for the actual playing work.

For any computer, we also recommend the powerful, popular, and reliable Handbrake, which offers a bevy of helpful presets for all your devices and screens. The VLC Player itself can also help you rip DVDs, while Mac users can still grab the last free copy of Mac the Ripper for a pretty easy solution. DVD spines photo by ToastyKen.

Selling and trading: As with CDs, DVDs see a drastic reduction in value once they leave their plastic wrap, but videos are even more generally low-priced than their audio brethren. As with CDs, though, there are specialized trading sites, SwapTree and SwapADVD among them, that might net you a bit more cash for your cinema.

If you're not up for individual listing on Amazon, checking for no-seller-fee periods on eBay, or becoming an enlightened Craigslist seller, I've found the best bet is selling in a garage sale, open flea market, or other face-to-face opportunity. Price your discs accordingly—hit up Amazon, find the price for used discs, and go down from there. Friends of mine have had the same kind of "Wait, really?" success trading in DVDs at FYE and similar big-box chains that take them, but the best deals I've seen involve bulk offers for boxes of DVDs. It's a guaranteed sale, the discount usually isn't that much, and, hey, you've already got the essential movie moments backed up to digital files.

Video games

Backing up: If you own a PS3 or Xbox 360, there's no easy way to back up your games for later second-chance playing—at least no easy method that we (or our brethren blogs) have come across. For the Nintendo Wii, however, Jason recently posted a guide to copying and playing Wii games with an external hard disk that's not all that difficult to pull off. Photo by NMGilen.

If you're a PC gamer, some of your older games can likely be copied whole cloth onto blank discs, and any of our Hive Five CD and DVD burning tools can get the job done. Some can't, or won't work on installation, because of proprietary copy protection systems. In general, though, most games rely on a serial number to authenticate a game, so keep those backed up somewhere you can't lose them, like a code-named email to yourself, or on paper you won't likely lose.

Selling and trading: For older games of yesteryear, along with today's hot items, Nintari is a good place to test the pricing waters, though you'll have to negotiate your trade or cash deal on your own. Alternately, Goozex uses a point-based system to facilitate the buying, selling, or swapping of games. Game rental service GameFly will buy certain used games and return monthly rental credit.

In bigger cities, a Craigslist post may be worth the effort (mainly connected to spam replies) for rare, well-reviewed, or or relatively new games. Lifehacker readers reported hit-and-miss success at chains like GameStop when we asked for the best trade-in deals, but noted that more in-store credit will be offered than cash—and it's a rare gamer who quits cold turkey. Or so we've heard. Other web stops to check out include TradeGamesNow and SwitchPlanet, recommended by commenters jharris0221 and jadn.


What tools and techniques have you used to free yourself of unnecessary plastic platters? Where have you found the best deals, and what was the easiest backup method you found? Tell us your tips in the comments.

How Fast is Your Internet Connection? [Reader Poll]

How Fast is Your Internet Connection? [Reader Poll]

DSL and other high-speed internet services feel like dial-up more often than they should. According to a new study, the U.S. ranks 28th in terms of fastest broadband speeds behind Japan, Sweden, Holland, and other industrialized nations. Where do you rank?

The admittedly partisan labor union group Communications Workers of America compiled a list of broadband speeds for U.S. states (and its territories). Based on the data, America's average broadband speeds clock in at about 5 megabits per second, with Delaware registering the fastest stateside speeds, averaging 9.91 mbps. For its part, Puerto Rico had the slowest rates at 1.04 mbps.

Though the study should be taken with a grain of salt since not all territories were included, among other variables (the article itself notes that the study is not entirely scientific), it does highlight the wide disparity in broadband speeds, both within the U.S. and abroad. South Korea, Japan, Sweden, and Holland, for example, all fared better than America.

This report got us wondering what kind of speeds our readers are used to enjoying (or pulling their hair out over), so head over to one of the previously mentioned bandwidth speed tests (we're quite partial to the classic Speakeasy speed test), give your connection a workout, then let us know how spry your downloads are:



Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Complete Guide to Making Outlook Faster (Than Molasses) [Microsoft Outlook]

Complete Guide to Making Outlook Faster (Than Molasses) [Microsoft Outlook]

If you are stuck using Microsoft Outlook to send those TPS reports at work, you've already experienced just how painfully slow it can get—but with a few quick tips you can make it usable again.

Install Service Pack 2 (or later)

While you might keep up to date on all of your Windows patches, too many people are running outdated versions of Microsoft Office (not to mention other applications). You'll want to install the very latest service pack—because Service Pack 2 has fixed a ton of performance issues for users with large mailboxes or anybody using IMAP to access their email.

The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2) [Microsoft]

Download Complete IMAP Items (Like POP Does)

When you are using IMAP to access your Gmail (or other email) account, you'll probably notice that Outlook can hang, stutter, and just generally become completely unusable—but it works just fine with POP accounts. You can make the whole experience a lot better by telling Outlook to download the entire message every time you synchronize so you won't have to wait while it slowly grabs the message off the server. Head over to the Send/Receive Groups panel by using the Ctrl+Alt+S hotkey, then drill down into your account and choose "Download complete items including attachments". The first time Outlook syncs with your mail server, it might take a little longer, but you should notice a significant improvement overall.

Force Outlook 2007 to Download Complete IMAP Items [How-To Geek]

Set up Auto-Archive to Clean Your Mailbox

Keeping a nice, clean mailbox is probably one of the most obvious, but also most overlooked aspects of speeding up your Outlook experience. You can do it yourself by setting up a separate personal folders (PST) file, and then moving old email over there on a regular basis. If you don't feel like managing the archiving process yourself, you can turn on the built-in Auto Archive feature by heading into Tools -> Options -> Other and setting up your preferences for when to archive—you may need to tweak them to fit your own emailing behavior, but the key is to keep your daily mailbox nice and small.

Configure AutoArchive In Outlook 2007 [How-To Geek]

Compact Your Personal Folders (PST) File

This is one of those tips that almost all long-time Outlook users know, but it's still important to mention. All of your email is stored in a single .PST file that grows larger and larger as time goes on, but deleting messages isn't good enough because the file never gets any smaller. You'll need to head into the Files -> Data File Management menu, then using the Settings button to take you to the dialog where you can actually compact your mailbox, shrinking the file down and potentially saving you a ton of disk space.

Quick Tip: Easily Compact Outlook Data Files [How-To Geek]

Run the Inbox Repair Tool

You've probably never thought of running the built-in Inbox Repair tool unless you absolutely have to, but if your Outlook frequently crashes and requires restarting from Task Manager, you should probably give it a run to fix all the errors you didn't even realize were there. Since your personal folders file is effectively a database, it's important to keep it clean and free of errors. You'll need to head into your Outlook installation folder, and then find the scanpst.exe file to start the repair process.

Fix Your Broken Outlook Personal Folders (PST) File [How-To Geek]

Disable Outlook's RSS Feature

If you aren't using Outlook to read your RSS feeds, you might not realize that it's still synchronized to the Internet Explorer common feed list. There's really no reason to keep this feature enabled, and you can easily disable it by heading into Tools -> Options -> Other -> Advanced and removing the checkbox from "Sync RSS Feeds to the Common Feeds List". Don't forget to delete any RSS feeds once you are done.

Make Outlook Stop Using Internet Explorer's RSS Feeds [How-To Geek]

Save Attachments (So You Can Delete the Messages)

Chances are good that the majority of used space in your mailbox is taken up by all those attachments that everybody keeps sending you. After a while, your inbox is going to get so gigantic that Outlook can't help but slow down a little, but you can easily find all of the attachments and save them somewhere else before you go through a big mail cleanup—just use the free OutlookAttachView utility to save them to a folder easily and quickly.

OutlookAttachView Lets You Save All File Attachments

Use the Mailbox Cleanup Wizard

It's not that difficult to sort a few columns in your inbox and figure out which messages are wasting the most space—but if you've got a complicated set of folders that you use to organize your email, you can quickly view all email that is older than a certain date, or too large to keep around. Head into the Tools -> Mailbox Cleanup wizard that gives you loads of options to quickly find and delete messages you really don't need to keep around anymore.

Quickly Clean Your Inbox in Outlook 2003/2007 [How-To Geek]

Disabling Plug-ins Can Seriously Speed Things Up

There are loads of great add-ins for Microsoft Outlook that add all sorts of great features, but often there are add-ins installed that are unused, unnecessary, or just pointless—and those are most likely the biggest cause of Outlook slowing down to a crawl no matter what you seem to do. You'll need to head into Tools -> Trust Center and click the Go button to edit your COM Add-ins, though Windows 7 or Vista users might have to open Outlook in administrator mode to be able to disable some of them. In my experience dealing with Outlook problems, this is the hidden one that most people never think of, but gives the biggest benefit overall.

Make Outlook Faster by Disabling Unnecessary Add-Ins [How-To Geek]

Search Speedcine to Watch Movies for Free [Movies]

Search Speedcine to Watch Movies for Free [Movies]

Want to watch movies for free? Speedcine indexes movies and where they can be watched for free—and legally—across the web.

Speedcine indexes feature length movies—by their definition at least 60 minutes long and not television shows—they currently have 13,000 movies in their database. When you search for a movie, you're provided with multiple ways to watch the movie.

The primary link is to the free streaming source—movies come from providers like Hulu, Jaman, and Crackle, all of which are authorized to stream the movies. Other links, when available, point to services like iTunes, Amazon VOD, Netflix (Watch Instantly), and so on. Part of Speedcine's revenue stream is generated by referrals to these services, although if you already have a Netflix account, for example, you can just sign in and add the movie to your queue.

Speedcine is a free service and requires no login.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Duracell soon to release myGrid SmartPower

Duracell soon to release myGrid SmartPower

duracellchargepad


There is nothing I dislike more than dealing with charging my cellphone. Especially since it seems like I do it way too often. I’ve even gone as far as taking out a staple gun and attaching the cord to the back of a shelf so that the top sticks out and the cord never unhooks from my phone and falls down. That does make it easier, but something like this myGrid from Duracell would be far more simple. When it comes to charging, simple is definitely a good thing.


Instead of plugging in your cellphone every single time you need more of a charge, wouldn’t it be nice to just plop it down on a flat surface? Especially for those of you in families with multiple cellphones, you’d never have to worry about dealing with a tangle of cords from too many chargers in one area. This will charge MP3 players, phones and other devices by slipping a power sleeve or power clip onto the gadget. Within the phones it will work with the iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia and Motorola phones. You can expect the myGrid to be shipped out this October.



TUAW Guide: Setting up the Ultimate Mac mini Home Theater

TUAW Guide: Setting up the Ultimate Mac mini Home Theater

Filed under: , , , ,


The Mac mini has always been the perfect form factor for a media center appliance (often called a Home Theater PC/HTPC). It's extremely small, almost completely silent and it can easily blend into an existing electronics shelf - or be hidden away completely.


The lack of a refresh (and rumors that the line was going to be discontinued), coupled with technical specs that didn't justify the price-point, have led many would-be HTPCers to write off the Mac mini as an option because they assume it is just too expensive.


However, as more and more content moves online and people become accustomed to getting their media from a computer, the idea of a HTPC is starting to make sense to more and more families. Taking off where netbooks left off, nettops are starting to enter the marketplace. These low-priced machines are diminutive, low-powered and connect easily to a television set. There's just one problem. Although nettops are pretty good at playing back regular video content, they absolutely choke when it comes to Flash, Silverlight or any other streaming content.



Still, when you look at the numbers, nettops aren't much more inexpensive than a Mac mini. You get what you pay for, too: the mini is much more powerful and can actually be used as a workhorse computer.





Thanks to updated hardware and a much-improved graphics chipset, the current revision really hits the sweet-spot for the ultimate HTPC.


Although many of us have longed for Apple to release an official media center product that brings the Mac mini and the Apple TV together, the current Mac mini is more than capable of serving as that product right now.


Now that Apple has allowed the purchase/rental of some high-definition films via iTunes, the media content options for the Mac mini match that of the Apple TV and then some.


Last month, Robert wrote about his experience transforming his 'Switcher-Dad's' mini into a nice Mac media center.


In mid-June, my fiance and I bought a 2009 Mac mini (the 1GB 2.0GHz model). For the last few months, I've been testing hardware, accessories and lots and lots of software to make it into the best HTPC around. My goal was simple: my Mac mini needed to work with my existing surround sound setup and it needed to seamlessly connect to the FreeNAS media server where several terabytes of audio and video files reside. It needed to connect and work with our other Macs -- as well as our Windows 7 machines -- and it needed to be silent and simple, with an interface that a visitor or guest could easily suss out.


Read on for tips and tricks to get the most out of your machine's hardware and software, as we transform a 2009 Mac mini into the ultimate HTPC!



Part I: the hardware side



Part II: the software side


TUAWTUAW Guide: Setting up the Ultimate Mac mini Home Theater originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Friday, August 21, 2009

iPhone 3GS totally capable of 1080p video playback

iPhone 3GS totally capable of 1080p video playback


We always suspected the iPhone 3GS was capable of 1080p HD video playback, and now we've got proof. Although Apple lists the iPhone 3Gs's max video playback res at just 640x480, iLounge linked to Chinese forum post claiming that the 3GS could do 30Mbps 1080p playback earlier today -- and when we saw that the only thing we needed to do to test it out was download the free FileAid app, well, you know how we've just spent the last 20 minutes. We tested out a bunch of HD trailers from Apple's QuickTime trailer site, some videos we shot with a Lumix DMC-GH1 and some other random videos with general success, but there were some major hiccups: high bitrate 720p video off the GH1 stuttered during playback, and loading the Avatar trailer consistently crashed the phone's audio driver until we restarted. We tried the same thing on an iPhone 3G and just got error messages at almost every resolution, so it seems like it's a combination of the 3GS's extra horsepower and different built-in software at work here -- software that's clearly not ready for prime-time, as evidenced by the bugs. We're hoping Apple is polishing that up and getting ready to unlock this functionality, since it'd be sweet to just plug into an HDTV and play video -- anyone listening out there in Cupertino? Video after the break.

Read - Apple iPhone specs
Read - Chinese forum posts claiming 30Mbps 1080p playback

Continue reading iPhone 3GS totally capable of 1080p video playback

Filed under:

iPhone 3GS totally capable of 1080p video playback originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Brando's Ultimate 3-Point Hand Strap will help you get attached to your DSLR

Brando's Ultimate 3-Point Hand Strap will help you get attached to your DSLR


Sure, a regular wrist strap will probably stay attached to both your wrist and your camera most of the time, but why take chances when you can have something like this? Always on the cutting edge of inexpensive, occasionally useful contraptions, Brando is now offering this so-called Ultimate 3-Point Hand Strap, which attaches to your camera's tripod socket, its wrist strap attach point and, of course, your wrist -- all in the name of comfort and stability. Will it hold up to lugging your hefty DSLR around all day? Will your wrist hold up? It only costs $16 to find out.

[Via Red Ferret]

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Brando's Ultimate 3-Point Hand Strap will help you get attached to your DSLR originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

TuneUp your iTunes collection

TuneUp your iTunes collection

I use iTunes to organize my digital music collection and, for the most part, it suits my needs. I say “for the most part” because similar to the problem I’ve been having with the photographs that I had scanned, not all of my music has correct information associated with it. Fortunately for my music, though, I don’t have to go through my entire iTunes collection song-by-song to straighten out the missing and incorrect data. I have found a program that simply corrects my data — TuneUp.


Based on algorithms and other technical things I don’t fully understand (kind of like the iPhone app Shazam), TuneUp picks up where iTunes leaves off at properly identifying the music in my collection. I no longer have seven Track 03s on my playlists. All I have to do is drag the misidentified song into the “cleaner” and TuneUp pulls up possible matches. (The cleaner function is displayed at right.)


In addition to identifying songs, it also fixes formatting, finds rarer cover art, matches artist names, and even gives information about the songs in your collection sort of like VH1’s old Pop-Up Videos.


There are other programs out there similar to TuneUp, I just happened to find this program first and since it worked for me I didn’t try the others. If you have tried other programs and had success, please tell us about your experiences in the comments. TuneUp is free for a “limited-access” download, and is around $20 for an “unlimited” version.


If only I could find a program to clean up my digital photographs as easily …


(Image from TuneUp’s website … I fear if I show my music collection you all will make strange — but probably correct — assumptions about me! And, it should go without saying, but I wasn’t paid to write this review.)

PlayStation 3 Slim unboxing and hands-on!

PlayStation 3 Slim unboxing and hands-on!

Yes, we can hardly believe it ourselves, but Sony came a-knockin' at our door today, and we were more than willing to answer. The PlayStation 3 Slim is now official in-house, and it's a matte-laden beaut. Enough chitchat -- live vicariously through our unboxing and hands-on pics below!



Update: Some details for clarification. The buttons in the front are now physical and actually 'click' in to function. The PS logo above the disc drive does not rotate for vertical use, and yes, the hard drive is swappable -- as you can see from the pictures, there's a screw on the bottom, hidden by a panel, that lets you take off part of the front for access. We've also lined it up against our standard, fatty PS3, and we gotta say, it's noticeably lighter.



Update 2: Here's a more thorough comparison between the slim, the original, and the Xbox 360. Some people were asking about the texture of the matte finish, and compared to Microsoft's console, it's just a teensy bit rougher (and on that note, about the same weight, too). It's still just as glossy as the original on the sides, however. We still gotta compare the noise of the slim, stay tuned!



Update 3: While our tests were far from thorough, the initial results from our quick-and-dirty decibel ratings show some promise. With a baseline of 49 decibels, the Slim averaged 53 to 56 db when in use / playing a game / installing data (in this case, Metal Gear Solid 4), compared to the 55 to 58 db of the original. Blu-ray movie playback is where it becomes noticeable, as the slim peaked for us at 60 db when the original was doing 70 db running the same disc.















PlayStation 3 Slim unboxing and hands-on! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

BT boosting broadband speeds

BT boosting broadband speeds

btBT is aiming to push its broadband speeds up, announcing a new 20Mb service and doling out its own “BT Broadband accelerator” which it claims will boost speeds in your home by 1.5Mb. Keep reading to see just how BT’s planning on making your surfing sessions speedier.


With a new 20Mbps offering, BT is hoping to slap down Virgin and its superfast fibre optic broadband service. Punters who get their current 8Mb deal will be able to get involved at no extra cost, with packages kicking off at £7.78 for the first three months.

Virgin Media pilots 200Mb broadband

On top of that the phone giant is also launching the BT Broadband Accelerator, which it says will push speeds up by 1.5Mb in the home. If you have more one phone socket, plug it into your main one and it’ll apparently reduce electrical interference.

It all sounds promising, but as with all broadband boosting ideas, it’s worth taking things with a pinch of salt. BT is saying, however, that you’ll be able to get better speeds as 549 telephone exchanges around the country will serve up faster internet, covering 55 per cent of the UK by March 2010.

Blogger turning 10 with new features

Blogger turning 10 with new features

BloggerRemember Blogger? These days, all the web buzz is about Twitter and realtime nattering but the Google-owned weblog publisher is still going and it’s about to turn 10. And to celebrate a decade online it’s about to launch a bunch of new features.



Way back when, on August 23 1999, when Wi-Fi meant there was a bad smell in the room and the cast of Friends all had mullets, Blogger was founded. It was to prove pivotal in sparking the blogging phenomenon of the early 2000s and still has millions of users around the globe. Now Blogger is about to unleash a whole bunch of features on them.


Blogger has not said what precisely what they are, but strongly hinted that they’ll include some of the features on this here list, including proper pages, separate from posts, a new commenting system and the ability to split long posts with a Read More feature.


None of these are groundbreaking features, but Blogger’s selling point has been sheer simplicity so if you’re keen on giving the world your two cents in posts a bit longer than 140 characters, keep an eye out in the coming days.

Head and Shoulders Portraits

Head and Shoulders Portraits: "Many of us will be asked at sometime to provide a head and shoulders photo for some publicity piece. Most of us probably do not have a suitable current file photo. We are tempted to make one ourselves and we get a poor product. With a little knowledge and a little effort, we can produce quite a g...


By: Phil B"

Monday, August 17, 2009

How to Build a Studio Setting in Your own Home

How to Build a Studio Setting in Your own Home

I love it when readers email in their home studio DIY setups. Here’s one that Brian Scott sent in with a description on how he did it. It’s pretty basic stuff that most of us could achieve but it’s interesting to see what our readers are doing with these sorts of setups - if you’ve got one to show us share it in comments below.


If you own your own house like I do, or at least have access to a relative’s or friend’s basement, then you’ve got your own makeshift photography studio.


And you don’t have to spend a lot of money to make it, either.home-studio-2.jpg


Basements often have rooms used for storage, which means not a lot of people outside of the homeowner get to see the rooms. That means if they’re dark, dirty or damaged, no one outside of the homeowner gets to know.


Thus, you might be able to screw things into the wall (like I did) to make a backdrop for your own studio.


If you’ve got the space, here are the steps:


home-studio-1.jpg1. buy two coat hooks at a hardware store. They don’t have to be pretty or expensive, just useful.


2. find a sheet you’d like to use as a backdrop and measure its length and width – the longer and wider, the better.


3. screw the hooks into the wall, making sure the distance between them is about the same as the width of the sheet you’re using, and that they’re at the same height.


home-studio.jpg4. attach the sheet to a shower rod. The top of the sheet won’t be seen in your photos so feel free to cut hole along the edge if you want to tie it to the rod, or use some cheap clamps like I did.


5. hang the rod on the hooks.


And there you have it. Adjust your light, strobes and camera settings to get the images you want.


home-studio-4.jpg


Got a home studio DIY setup? Share it with a link to a picture in comments below!


Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.


How to Build a Studio Setting in Your own Home