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XPAL Power to MacBook Pro

I picked up an XPAL Power XP18000 from Woot.com to use when I travel which seems a bit more frequent lately. I knew that they couldn’t provide a tip for the MacBook Pro as the MagSafe connector is patented and doesn’t appear to have been licensed from Apple. They acknowledge this fact and have indicated that they’re working with Apple on it. Considering that the MagSafe connector has been out for about 3.5 years, I’m not holding my breath.

On my last trip I used a battery from BatteryGeek that I borrowed from work. The MagSafe connector is definitely not Apple quality, but it worked, so I thought that if they could hack together a cable, why couldn’t I?

I found some MagSafe cables off broken power adapters and will use those when I get them, but in the meantime, I wanted a solution. I read a lot of tips online and found one that said to use a circuit lighter adapter socket connected to the battery and then use a MagSafe airline adapter plugged into the socket. Well, I happened to already have the socket and the MagSafe airline adapter, so I was almost there. In a stroke of genius when I was trying to sleep, I remembered that I had a bunch of circuit boards in the garage slated to get trashed (by law, I have to dispose of them as hazardous waste which I haven’t gotten around to doing, so they sit in a metal bucket). Some of the circuit boards had power connectors on it. I took a power connector off one of the boards, soldered it to the circuit lighter adapter and presto, I had a connector. A little electrical tape and it looks pretty good. There is a bunch of extra cable and a few twists and turns, but it works. Once I get the MagSafe cables, I’m going to hop down to Fry’s (the store that has what I need, but I dread having to go there), get some connectors and give it another try.

While I hope that XPAL Power manages to get a licensed MagSafe tip, I have a solution in the meantime. My next trip is in about 1.5 weeks and I’ll give it a try.

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Love/Hate Relationship with Google

I use Google everyday for searching and switched my personal domain to Gmail using Google Apps for your Domain over to Google several years ago. Things work smoothly and are worth every penny I pay for it (it’s free). Recently we started using Google Apps Premier ($50/user/year) for one of our domains at work and it works reasonable well. However, we just tried to purchase 10 additional accounts last week and a week later, they still haven’t processed the order nor returned any of my several email messages to know what is the status. Was the problem a credit card problem? Did the order not go through? I have no idea and am not really sure what to do.

Anyone have any ideas how to get a human at Google to figure out why they don’t want to take my company’s $500 for additional accounts? Is it time to consider another provider? Our last email provider was awful and then we moved to doing our own email which works, but at some point in the future, I’d like to stop having to maintain servers.

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Starbucks HQ would be proud

I was in Chicago this week for 4GWorld and saw this sign at Starbucks at the convention center. I’m sure that Starbucks headquarters would be quite proud of their employees promoting their seasonal latte.

What’s even funnier is that not only did I see this on one sign, I saw it on two and the printed sign no more than 10 feet from this had things spelled correctly.

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Review: EyeTV

41+fCBQnIAL._SL160_.jpgNow that I have a high definition TV, I needed to find a solution to record HD content. We’ve had a TiVo for 5 years now, so watching live TV on a regular basis was not an option. After some research, I decided to turn a Mac Mini I had into a media center using El Gato’s EyeTV 250 Plus.

As I wrote before, the options for having 1 DVR that records analog cable and clear QAM channels are quite limited. The EyeTV handles this, so it is a huge plus for it.

The first thing I noticed after installing the EyeTV is that it isn’t a TiVo. Well, duh, it isn’t made by TiVo. The way I look at it, the TiVo is the gold standard in DVRs as the interface is easy to use, has Season Passes to record all episodes of a show and can be configured from a remote control. The EyeTV is a computer program and easiest way I’ve found to do the scheduling is to use Apple Remote Desktop to connect to the machine and use the program guide instead of being able to use the remote.

It took me awhile to figure out how to effectively use the remote control and on screen menus and last night was the first time I watched TV (I’ve had it for about a week now) using just the remote control and not using my MackBook Pro to control it. The quality is quite good and the on screen menus can be negotiated fairly easily (not as easily as the TiVo, however. Now that I’ve realized the limitation of the programming, I think I can live with it. However, it won’t pass the wife test; I’ll have to do the programming and show my wife how to view the recordings.

Pros

  • Ability to use an existing Mac to use as a DVR.
  • Easy to add drive space for expansion (add an external hard drive).
  • Records analog cable.
  • Records clear QAM channels.
  • Free TV Guide guide data for a year.
  • Record scheduling via TitanTV.
  • Ability to add commercial skipping (in recordings) using etv-comskip. This may be the killer feature of the EyeTV. In my testing, this has worked most of the time.
  • Recordings can be shared to other machines if they have EyeTV installed, or if they are exported to AppleTV and added to iTunes, or if they are exported to iPhone format and viewed over the web.

Cons

  • It isn’t a TiVo.
  • I haven’t figured out how to remotely schedule clear QAM channels.
  • Scheduling has to be done from a remote computer. A web interface (advertised via Bonjour) would be ideal.
  • On screen menus need work as there are far too many clicks to do anything. Take a look at the TiVo.
  • On screen menus seem slow.
  • Remote control is a piece of junk. It is far too light (in weight) and the buttons aren’t labelled to reflect what they do. I’ve had to look at the manual a few times and play around with it to figure out how to use it.
  • More needs to be done to allow full control via the remote control if El Gato wants to hits the media center market.
  • Toast Basic which is included is a waste as the only goal is to upsell you and while it is nice to have some kind of recording software, I don’t like getting slapped with “you can’t do this unless you upgrade”. El Gato might have been able to strike a better deal with Disco or just build in basic disc burning themselves. Mac OS X includes APIs for burning DVDs.
  • I haven’t found an option to automatically delete recordings after x days or when disc space gets slow.
  • No option to say how much disc space you want to devote to recordings.
  • No ability to stream live TV to other machines.
  • If recordings are shared for AppleTV (to share over iTunes), they have to be manually removed.

Overall Recommendation

I have a love/hate relationship with this product so far. I like being able to record HD and non-HD content using my setup without having to purchase more content. In addition, I like the commercial skipping (via open source software). The scheduling, however, is the biggest downside to making this a true TiVo replacement. In addition, the on screen menus need a lot of work. I’m definitely going to keep this and learn to use it more. However, I can’t whole heartedly recommend the EyeTV. It isn’t a product for the novice and won’t pass the wife test in ease of use. Some of the export options may make it more useful as I have a few trips coming up.

I’ll post updates as I learn more and possibly as the software gets updated.

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Review: PhotoLinker

As part of reviewing the i-Got-U GT-120, I searched for a Mac solution to handle geotagging of photos. There are lots of options on the Mac. I looked at many of them and GPSPhotoLinker worked quite well and was free to top it off. In addition, the interface was very Mac like. I liked what I saw, so I asked the developer for a copy of PhotoLinker, GPSPhotoLinker’s big brother, to review.

GPSPhotoLinker and PhotoLinker share a main purpose and that is to geotag photos. In both programs, you load in your track files. (Hint, create a folder on your hard drive and put all your track files there and keep them so that you can reference them later. Both programs link to the files and don’t copy them.) Both programs do their basic job well in that you load your tracks and pictures and basically click “geotag”. If all you need is geotagging, then I have to recommend the free GPSPhotoLinker as it worked well in my testing.

PhotoLinker starts adding bells and whistles that may make it worth $50 to prosumer or professional photographers.

PhotoLinker adds:

  • Cleaner interface. The basic PhotoLinker view puts the geotagging console hidden so that what you see are your pictures, a map, and tags associated with the picture. GPSPhotoLinker confuses the interface by having the first column be the area to geotag.
  • Ability to add EXIF tags outside of the standard geotagging information such as keywords, description, people shown, and event.
  • More customization in view options.

I put both products through some tests and the rest of this review will focus on the paid PhotoLinker product.

Pros

  • Easy to use.
  • Works well.
  • Clean user interface; very Mac like.

    There isn’t a lot to say as it does what it is supposed to do and does it simply.

Cons

  • Map choices aren’t all that useful; Google and the more mainstream maps aren’t options. The developer has indicated on his forums that this is due to licensing costs with the mainstream vendors.
  • No direct downloading of iGotU data. (The open source iGotU software is GPL licensed which would make it impossible without separate arrangements to integrate it.)
  • No AppleScript support. Normally I wouldn’t care, but when my end goal is to get geotagged files into iPhoto, automation would be most welcome.
  • Cost is a bit high.

Overall impressions

I really like the concept of geotagging my photos. I don’t travel all that much, but anticipate taking vacations in the future with my family (have you ever travelled with a 2 year old? It isn’t the most pleasant experience.) For basic geotagging needs, the free GPSPhotoLinker will handle all my needs. I can’t justify the $50 for PhotoLinker for a few user interface improvements. I don’t see myself using additional EXIF tagging, so that feature isn’t a key to me. PhotoLinker will have to add some real compelling features to justify the cost; I can’t think of any features right now, so I’m not much help to the developer. I’d be more than happy to take another look at PhotoLinker when improvements are made to see if my recommendation against buying stands.

GPSPhotoLinker ScreenshotPhotoLinker Screenshot
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Review: Sprint MiFi 2200

41UYWRBTteL._SL160_.jpgA few months ago, I got a Sprint MiFi 2200 to test and use for work. When I first saw this device at CTIA Wireless back in April, my jaw just dropped because of the size and utility of the device. In case you don’t know what it is, it is a mobile WiFi hotspot.

For a number of years, I’ve written drivers/applications for various USB modems. While USB modems do have many uses, the lack of drivers drew me to the MiFi. The quality of drivers/applications ranges from good (the ones that are built into the OS are best) to not so good, so by eliminating the drivers, my main complaint about modems goes away. I also really like the ability to connect more than one device to it when I’m in a situation with co-workers without a broadband connection. In addition, having the modem separate from the computer lets you put the modem next to a window and you can sit somewhere else in say a hotel room. This is huge when you have trouble getting a signal; you no longer have to have sit next to the window.

Really my only complaint about the device is battery life; due to the small size, the battery doesn’t last as long as the battery on my Mac.

Pros

  • Small size
  • No drivers required
  • Can share to 5 devices
  • Fast connection for a wireless card
  • Sprint has a fairly large footprint with good coverage

Cons

  • Poor battery life
  • 5 GB/month data cap (may not be an issue for the casual user)
  • For a consumer, the monthly cost could be a barrier.

Overall, if you have a need for mobile broadband, I don’t think that you can go wrong with the MiFi.

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Reduction in frustration

For work, we use a Cisco VPN. Unfortunately the Cisco VPN client for the Mac is a piece of crap. The software looks awful and isn’t completely integrated into the OS. It gets quite confused if you switch networks without disconnecting; instead of it repairing the mess it made, it almost always requires a few restarts to get things going again. The problem is that it replaces /var/run/resolv.conf (/etc/resolv.conf is symlinked to it) with DNS for the VPN. So, if you disconnect properly, your original DNS settings are put back; if you don’t disconnect properly, then DNS gets wacky.

One of the killer features in Snow Leopard is Cisco VPN support. I’ve read reports of it not working for some depending on if their VPN is using UDP or TCP; it works fine for me. The one annoying problem was that it asked for my password about every 45 minutes which almost made me crazy. A colleague sent me a tip today which solves this.

While the VPN client supplied by Cisco gets confused with network changes, the one built into Snow Leopard seems to disconnect properly on network changes and doesn’t muck with /var/run/resolv.conf. The only issue I’ve found so far is that using a command line tool like “dig” doesn’t resolve DNS lookups properly for lookups that are in my work’s domain (we use split DNS). Other terminal tools such as SSH work fine, so this is just a minor inconvenience.

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Mac Mini vs 1080p

Yesterday when I was playing back an HD show on the EyeTV, I heard the fan running like mad. The Mac Mini is a 1.66 GHz Core Duo Mac Mini. I thought that the problem was the processor being a Core Duo and not a Core 2 Duo machine, but then realized that the machine has integrated Intel graphics while the latest Mac Minis have separate NVIDIA graphics. My suspicion is that the new machines won’t have to work so hard to play HD video full screen.

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Shattered (Media Center) Dreams

Now that I’ve made the leap to HDTV, I had to find a way to record HD shows. I thought that I’d turn a Mac Mini into a media center with El Gato’s EyeTV. I bought the EyeTV 250 Plus, hooked it up and was immediately disappointed. I’m used to TiVo and the user interface is second to none for using and scheduling. While my wife isn’t technology adverse, sometimes she’s a bit slow in adopting the technology I throw at her. It took awhile for her to accept the TiVo, now we don’t know what we’d do without it.

The EyeTV software is computer software and not consumer software; scheduling basically needs to be done with a mouse. I can use Apple Remote Desktop and schedule from my laptop, but that kind of makes it more difficult to program.

I looked briefly at the HD TiVo and the price tag didn’t faze me, but there are 2 things about the device that basically killed it for me. First, I have basic cable which also gets me 6 or 7 digital HD channels. The HD TiVo requires CableCARDs to get guide data for the digital channels. The second is that the HD TiVo cannot record 2 HD channels using basic cable at once. This completely baffles me, but their FAQ tells me this. TiVo has actually confused basic cable and digital cable like I did. (The guide with the EyeTV provides guide data for the digital channels I get over basic cable.)

I had hoped to ditch my TiVo and retire my Apple TV to switch to a Mac Mini, but at this point, it looks like I’m going to keep the TiVo so my wife can program it for most shows and use the Mac Mini for HD shows. We’ll see how this works. So far, the HD recordings are nice, but the scheduling is not easy to do without using Apple Remote Desktop.

Oh well. I think that this is a conspiracy to get me to get me to buy “Digital Cable” from my cable company; something that I refuse to do as I’m unwilling to pay an exorbitant amount of money for TV when we watch just the regular over the air channels.

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Going green

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the company that handles my flexible spending only accepting faxes for reimbursement requests. Well, I sent them email through their contact form and got a reply back saying that they do accept submissions electronically. OK, it definitely wasn’t obvious to me how to do it.

Last week I did another submission and looked around for how to submit electronically. I used the contact form again (it was secure) and saw that they had the ability to attach a file. I selected “Other” as my issue, attached my reimbursement and off it went. Today I received confirmation that they received it and they thanked me to helping them “go green”. My next suggestion will be to make this easier to find instead of having to guess what to select.

In any case, this is great news as I don’t have to print out the reimbursement form and receipts that I assembled using Paperless.