MTV Music Video's Online

MTV placed a ton of music video's online. There are even several charts available. Guess which one is ranked numero uno @ 'Top Rated'?

Nikon D300 Firmware 1.10 Available

Nikon released firmware version 1.10 for the D300 this week.

Finally a decent way of addig the copyright and photographer info into the EXIF data....

Microsoft Vista Marketing...

According to Apple.

Well, they have a point after the (failed) Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld 'commercials'.

What Happened to FireWire?

The new MacBook lacks the (oh so) familiar FireWire port, so how am I supposed to migrate from my MacBook Pro to a new MacBook? Copy everything over the network? Or are they providing special tooling?

MacBook 2008 PortsThe advantage of the firewire port was that you can access your Apple hardware as a external drive. Quite handy if your laptop/desktop fails to boot. Just hook it up with FireWire to another Apple and you can try to fix the problem (and get to your data).

We might be heading to a Windows Migration Assistant kinda feature....

UPDATE: It seems that migration is available via ethernet, or by mounting a diskimage (which you created on the other machine)

UPDATE 2: Apple to the rescue with the Migration and DVD/CD Sharing Update.

New MacBooks

Apple announced (or released) three 'new' MacBooks;

• MacBook Pro
• MacBook
• MacBook Air

The biggest surprises (apart from the new housing) is that the MacBooks come in two flavours; the 'old' white MacBook (which is also a sub-thousand dollar/euro laptop), and an aluminum version.

Every MacBook (Pro/Air) has the possibility of having solid-state harddrives, and, as usual, there are several upgrades available (CPU, Memory, and tons of accessories). The thing that keeps bothering me is the price that Apple wants for its memory upgrades are most likely ridiculous (as usual). Problem this time is that Apple puts DDR3 DIMMS in the notebooks, and I can't seem to find these in the regular webshops.

Anyway, after getting the Popcorn Hour this week there's no reason for getting an Air or Pro version of the MacBook (if my MBP dies, or gets sold for a decent price). But first.... Wait to see wait the initial problems are with the new MacBooks, because there always is something.......

Low Cost MacBook

We'll see a new MacBook (Pro) tomorrow if all the rumors are right. My current MacBook Pro (MBP) is one of the first releases (the Intel 1.0 version so to say), and is working just fine. I even used it to view HD content on my TV (720p max, but without DTS decoding).

The last year I was having this idea of upgrading my MBP so that I'm able of watching full HD content on my TV. But now with the arrival of the Popcorn Hour that necessity is gone. Now I can 'upgrade' my MBP to a new (sub $1000 ??) MacBook when the time comes. All I do on the laptop is a bit of;

• browsing
• e-mail
• basic photo editting
• webdev

No need to spend extra for watching HD content. It's like 'spending money to save money'.

Popcorn Hour A-110

Popcorn Hour A-110'Networked Media Tank' a.k.a. 'Popcorn Hour' is another name for an awesome piece of hardware. It's a small device (the size of a 8-port desktop switch)) that enables you to view media on your TV. You name the format, and it plays it. No matter what the resolution is.

The Popcorn Hour (PCH) is a specialized piece of hardware just for decoding media. Even MKV (Matroska Containers) files are supported. I tried this by downloading a sample of Iron Man in 1080p with DTS audio, and it performed flawlessly. The picture quality was superb.

Besides watching video's you can also;

• listen to music
• watch your holiday pictures
• watch (pre-programmed) online media like YouTube
• use it as a torrent downloader
• use it as a usenet downloader (NZBGet)

I currently use mine solely with the HDMI connector hooked up to my Pioneer A/V Receiver. This way I get to enjoy all the benefits of HD content. There are numerous ways of connecting the PCH to your TV/Home Theater. Both analog and digital.

One little drawback; don't plan on doing a lot of pushing buttons on the remote when you are copying lot's of files over the network to the device. I had to reset my PCH twice in an hour. The CPU for the operating System (OS) on the device is for the interface and basic network connectivity (there's a CPU for displaying media, and a CPU for the OS). So if you're gonna stress the device it might hang.

So, if you're thinking about a Home Theater PC (HTPC) for the purpose of watching media this is the device for you. If you plan on recording TV you'll need another device for doing that.

Original DVD's.....

Band of BrothersWhy buy them? I bought a couple of movies in the last couple of weeks. Including the 'Band of Brothers' DVD-box (probably the best TV-miniseries ever). Just to be reminded (again) that the original product (in general) is annoying as hell.

I started the DVD, and the first thing that I saw were some crappy trailers of crappy movies. The menu appeared only after I had FFWD'ed every single one of them.
After watching the first episode I wanted to quickly skip to the second.... No way of doing that besides stopping and starting the DVD from scratch. Which results in trailers etc. of the same (crappy) movies I have no interest in..... Every f*cking button, which might guide me to the menu, on my remote was unresponsive.

First thing on my list when I wake up tomorrow; rip the DVD's, remove every piece of DRM crap and enjoy the remaining episodes my way.
Honest people are hijacked by the MPAA (and associates) by forcing all this DRM crap upon those who buy legitimate DVD's. No wonder people are ripping and copying DRM protected content.

Every now-and-then you try to do the good thing, only to be reminded why you were ripping DVD's in the first place......

New MacBooks??

There seems to be a special Apple event next Tuesday (Oktober 14th) with the 'cryptic' hint;

"The spotlight turns to notebooks"

Guess it's time to start saving (or hoping that the stock market goes up)

Back From 'The Canaries'

We went to the Canary Islands (Spain) last week. One whole week of sleep, sun, eat, and drink (all-inclusive). Today.... back to work. Damn, that's hard.

I didn't take that many pictures. Mostly some experimenting with slow shutterspeeds, and HDR (and the occasional sunset).

More photos on my flickr page.