Friday 30 September 2011

Awesome media server setup




Above is the media server setup I have setup. I currently stream to the PS3 and the iPad. PS3 Media server handles the streaming to the PS3 over the home starter kit network connection over my house's electrics. Air Playit media server serves to the iPad, and its particularly brilliant as it remembers where you were in the video. Things I'd like to do next;

- Stream to other TVs in the house - use Apple TV?
- Stream to the iPhone - currently Air Playit is not working on the the iPhone.
- Setup a raided NAS rather than having two manually mirrored external harddrives.
- Sort out streaming to the HP Touchpad
- Sort out streaming to the MacBook Pro, and maybe to the Powerbook G4 also.
- Install Teamviewer so I can remotely logon to the media server PC.
- Find broadcast streaming solution to simultaneously stream the same thing to all devices

Note that I've installed PC monitor which allows me to monitor the performance of the media server PC from the iPad, and gives me control over the powering options, and hibernating the PC. Monitoring the performance is useful in the rare occasiins where the video jumps.

Note you can stteam different movies simultaneously to both the PS3 and iPad.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Sunday 25 September 2011

Parallels for Mac

I was getting disallusioned with Parallels for Mac (run virtual machines with different OSs on your Mac) it had begun to run extremely slow and there seemed to be little help there out in the forums apart from others suffering the same problems.

I came to a cross roads where I was thinking of ditching Parallels in favour of VMware. But the confusion of versions of VMware on their website, and the limitation of certain versions running certain OSs, and the relative cost to upgrade, I decided to stick with Parallels and upgrade.

This helped, since then it's been running reasonably well.

On upgrading to Lion, I was forced to upgrade to Parallels 6, which was annoying. However a week or so ago, I get an email saying I can get a free upgrade to Parallels 7. I've just upgraded, much love to the Parallels team! Oh yeah and the download link didn't work, but they quickly got back to me on Twitter.

Overall things working really now, and a great customer care experience from Parallels.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Friday 16 September 2011

Anki for learning german

I installed Anki on my Mac (flashcards program, I'm using to learn German). When I created an account and chose sync, the decks weren't there online. Even changing my username and password to something that was incorrect didn't give an error on synchng.

So I opened a deck and chose advnced > check database. It found no problems but when I went to sync now it said my clock was over 300 seconds out. Once I fixed it, it synced with ankiweb.net.

Note that you have to open a deck to initially get it to sync with th server.

Once synced I downloadesp the decks to my iPad and iPhone.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Friday 2 September 2011

Marketing DE Prepositions

Before doing another Adwords campaign I am creating an advert landing page, and I'm going to put some effort into improving my keywords, with the intention that this will increase the time people spend on he site, and direct only traffic that is interested in my app. With the intention of completing more goals.

So I've spent the evening trying to edit images, and get the html to format right. I will finish it off tomorrow, and then create an Adwords campaign. I'm trying to decide whether to include the video preview or not. I have heard Google Analytics allows for a-b testing, so I might give that a try.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

IPhone 5

I'm looking forward to the iPhone 5, the plan is to keep my iPhone 4 in mint condition and then sell it on ebay and get a iPhone 5.

IOS 5 should be excellent. I hope that the iPhone 5 has the following;
- Longer battery life
- Larger screen
- Better camera
- New look / redesign
- 4G / LTE

You never know they might call it an iPhone 4G!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Thursday 1 September 2011

What to do with this old stuff?

I'm clearing through old stuff and have come across a number of electronics;
- Scanner
- Nintendo NES
- Old VHS videos

The scanner works, but there is no driver support after windows ME. I was going to throw it away, then I had the idea of writing my own drivers. Now how on earth would I even start that? Sounds like a good project.

The Nintendo NES was donated to me, after a failed attempt at selling on ebay (it was never picked up by the buyer) I have been persuaded to keep it. So I have tried it out. It just presents a flashing red light on the front and doesn't output to the screen. A quick google gave little. I ebayed a game so I could try it out. Now I really want to get it working... The plug is rally dodgy, so could be the issue, that is my next step.

I've got a load of VHS videos, and it is time to convert them to digital, which has got a good guide on how to do this. Initial googling gave very little, but I shall be trying again soon.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad