Great show!

I have a couple of questions for you…

After reconfiguring the APN on your iPhone to work with the Straight Talk plan SIM, by chance did you try reconfiguring the iPhone back to use an AT&T SIM?

I ask because I’d like to temporarily try out a Straight Talk SIM in my iPhone 4S just to see how well it works, verify coverage is the same, etc., but I’d need to go back to my AT&T SIM afterwards as I’m still under contract.

You’ve done a great job explaining how to configure the iPhone APN settings to work with the Straight Talk SIM, but I’m a little unclear on exactly which settings I need to change using the Apple Configurator tool to get the iPhone safely back to use an AT&T SIM. Do I just change the APN back to “wap.cingular”? Do I need to also worry about setting the Access Point User Name and Access Point Password?

Thanks in advance,

John L.

I needed to face that last week because my oldest disk in the active set suddenly croaked. It started making that dreaded clicking noise and disappeared from the desktop forever. Nothing could bring that back, except for an expensive trip to one of those hard disk recovery places (see http://www.maccast.com/?s=jc+tale).
Fortunately I had a complete backup & the failed disk was still under warranty (Seagate 5yr). The replacement disk arrived this morning and I’m in the process of copying all the files back.

When the new drive returned, I finally noticed that it was a 7200RPM. I thought I had standardized on their 5900RPM series, which has never failed for me. But I’ve had two 7200RPM external and my iMac external fail (also a 7200RPM Seagate). So, I’m sticking with their “green” or “LP” lines. Reliability over speed is what I’m looking for. (I’ve never had stuttering problems over HDMI; the bottleneck is in the wireless streaming to the iPad.)

I suppose my rule of thumb is to buy hard disks in pairs. One to put in service for Plex and the other is its backup. Drives are real cheap, but the downside is that you need to buy twice as many of them! If I added another copy for off-site storage, that would triple the cost!

PS Dean, I’ve never had any issues with the current version of Plex (.9x), but my Mac Mini is a generation more recent than yours and I tossed 8GB of RAM in it instead of sticking with 2GB. It was the last generation of Mac Minis that included a DVD drive, so it is considerably slower than what’s sold now. I’d expect the current model can run the current version of Plex without issues.

As for 1080p video, presumably these are originally from Blu-ray discs that you already own. Therefore the Blu-ray discs themselves become the archive. Similarly for SD-DVD’s you own. I do that with CD’s I own too. So if you lose the mkv (or transcoded) copies, you can restore them, in principle (with some work yes, but it’s all there eventually). With files this big I think that’s good enough.

This is different from photos, because you made the photos, and no one else has a copy, so your point is well taken for such photos.

If you got the video from some other source (Netflix, Bittorrent), well you’re not “supposed to” have that anyways, right? ;) (Then just get it again…)

Dean

If you are interested, the old post can be found here:
http://www.josephhoetzl.com/backing-up-your-photographs-and-more-why-i-dont-recommend-a-drobo/

Thank you!

My wife and I really need to share some of our calendars, but if there was a way to share some calendars with your suggested setup for a family (multiple iCloud accounts and 1 iTunes account) that would be great!

My main TV is a 55 inch HDTV, so 1080p is appreciated there, and so it has the new 1080p Apple TV now. It has a Blu-Ray player and a digital 6.1 surround audio system. It also has a simple antenna to get the sports game when company comes over, but we don’t watch network TV otherwise. I do have the optical audio from the Apple TV connected to the surround sound system so that I can use it for audio AirPlay without having the TV turned on.

The small HDTV in the kids’ room is fine at its 720p with an Apple TV 2. The den has the old 32 inch TV with a DVD player for kids videos and the Wii for games and Netflix. Netflix has pretty much any of the kids shows anyway.

For network setup, I have the wireless divided in a dual band with the 5 GHz 802.11n only serving just the Apple TVs and the 2.4 GHz 802.11n/g serving the iOS devices, the Wii and anything else. This is n and g rather than g only so that n devices can go faster and also to make extending it way easier than g only. I have two Airport Expresses extending the 2.4 GHz network and connected to Speakers for AirPlay. My only computer is an iMac, and it is wired into the Time Capsule which is the main router connected to the cable modem. It is important that the iMac has a wired connection to the Time Machine device to keep that chatter off the wireless network and not have to worry about working around it or hacking it. Also, having the Apple TVs on the faster 5GHz band separate from the other things then works well for streaming. I don’t know what other people use for streaming, but the Apple TV does a pretty good job of buffering, so I don’t see dropouts – I may have some slow starts to buffer up.

I had been getting podcasts though the iMac since that’s how I’d always done it, but I just recently changed that. Since I just watch the video podcasts on the Apple TV, I favorited those there. I also only listen to the audio ones on my iPhone, so I switched them to Downcast (tap the artwork to zoom it, Adam). This setup seems to be working fine, and I don’t have to mess with if iTunes is open on the iMac to serve them.

I also have iCatcher!, but Downcast is my choice. iCatcher is also a quality product; either is vastly superior to “Music” and deserve our support.

I also tried Instacast HD (iPad only) over the weekend and found that its UI is all messed up. It might grow into a competitor, but right now it seems to be unduly influenced by the “minimal” philosophy of Music. I hear that Instacast for iPhone is different and much better.

Adam, I’m not sure I understand the cover art problem you are having with Downcast. Try “The 10-Minute Test”, VB-H’s auto review podcast. It’s a narrated slide show and it plays correctly in Downcast on iPad. You must mean something different.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=414419105

…in order to get onboard GPS, you must spring for the 4g/LTE model.

Pilots are one group that need the GPS, and that may be reason enough to step up from the WiFi only model.

Ara talked about the Handbrake settings a little bit on the previous episode; I agreed with his choices when I was transcoding to mp4/H264. If you use Handbrake, I agree that the discussion should go beyond which preset to use.

Since Ara’s last appearance and tutorial video, I’ve switched to MakeMPV full time, abandoning Handbrake. Since I use a Mac Mini with Plex instead of an Apple TV, I didn’t have that motivation to transcode to an mp4/H264. I experimented with the Handbrake step to reduce file size but eventually decided to skip it because it introduced a different set of compromises!

I settled on maximizing audio/video quality and the convenience of the prep and the user experiences, but at the expense of disk space.

I’ve got a bunch of disks; this compromise requires them! I’ve had very good luck with Seagates with the 5 yr warranty (1.5 and 2 TB capacities). Each is conditioned in Spinrite prior to deployment and I use those two-slot “toaster” style external enclosures with my Mac Mini. There’s no fans in the system, so noise is not an issue, and the toaster-style enclosures allow for very easy access for a Spinrite maintainence run. I back up the stuff to drives that are connected to an Airport Extreme in another room.

What’s maximized is quality (since there is no transcoding) and speed (since there is no transcoding; did I mention that?). Though the iOS client for Plex plays the mkv files directly, its impossible to actually see 1080p but I do get the convenience of streaming the same file to any device. For ex, if I’m watching a movie on the TV, but its time to go to bed, I can bring the iPad with me and continue watching the movie on the iPad. It remembers where I’m at.

MakeMPV can create one file per track that includes several audio tracks and the subtitles. At playback time, you can choose which audio track you want to hear and whether to display the subtitles. It’s convenient to get all the info from one quick MakeMPV run and then choose your options at playback time.

As far as all my hard disks are concerned, the Plex server lets you define a bunch of top-level categories for your collection (e.g., Comedy, Drama, Film-noir, TV shows etc.) and link each category to as many folders as you want. It monitors the watched folders for changes and automatically downloads the metadata when it detects a change.

For example, this means that the “Comedy” category in the Plex UI can be linked to a bunch of folders that happen to live on several hard disks. That part is hidden from the end-user. He/she just “sees” the category, not the directory structure. When I add a hard disk, I update the definitions of each Plex category to watch the new folders. That change is invisible to the end-user. Also, the iOS Plex clients have a search feature that can search across the entire collection or you can search only within a category. It can play the movie either on itself or on the HDTV.

So, I prefer that set of compromises; to live with the file size disadvantage, I bought a couple of extra 2TB Seagates when I heard about the disaster in Thailand! That ought to hold me over until the prices come down again.

One more thing: There hasn’t been a cable bill for a couple of years.

aka, “Apple caved”.

—-

I noticed that the post doesn’t yet include a link to the shownotes. For those (like me) that enjoy reading through the shownotes, you can find them here:

http://www.maccast.com/podcast/shownotes_20120226/

However I definitely agree with you that they do NOT need your entire contact list, nor do they need to send it up to their servers (and certainly don’t need to store it for X days). You don’t need a person’s home address, etc. to perform matching. Also, rather than send the data in plain text, they can actually compute a hash of it on the iPhone (hashing functions are pretty cheap CPU-wise) and send the *hash* instead of the actual data. So, instead of uploading “adam@maccast.com” and comparing against that, they hash your e-mail address on your iPhone and instead send up the hash (a1b2c3d4…) and compare those on the server. That way they never have your actual e-mail data; hashes are a one-way function. You can’t “crank the sausage machine backwards” and get the original data given only the hash.

So yeah, this is probably a case of Developer Laziness. *raps developers hard on knuckles with ruler*

I have a 2009 white MacBook that I upgraded with OWC’s data doubler bracket and a 64GB Kingston SSD. I also upgraded to Lion at the same time. On three occasions in the last 4 months, I have started up to find an endless spinning pinwheel at the apple screen. On each occasion I was unable to repair the SSD (which is my system disk). I keep all my data on the regular 500GB HD (and backups), so I haven’t lost anything. However, 3 times is now a pattern, and it takes several hours to reinstall Lion and all my apps. Many of my apps were bought before the App Store as well, which takes even more time. Could this be a result of the iTunes cache you mentioned, bloating my drive and squeezing the free space to a too small percentage? I have read that OS X needs more than 10% free space to run efficiently…

Also, just to correct something you have said a few times, Louis CK and Lewis Black are two different (vastly different!) comedians, not the same person. ; )

Thanks,

TSW

Tim

Here is the email Go Daddy sent to me:
******************************************
REGISTRAR TRANSFER DENIED
******************************************

Dear Corrie Anderson,

The transfer of AIMS4U.MOBI from GoDaddy.com, Inc. to another registrar could not be completed for the following reason(s):

Express written objection to the transfer from the Transfer Contact. (e.g. – email, fax, paper document or other processes by which the Transfer Contact has expressly and voluntarily objected through opt-in means).

The express written objection may be the result of a pending or recently completed Change of Registered Name Holder. This is an opt-in process during which the new Registered Name Holder agrees not to transfer for 60-days. This domain will be transferrable on 2/8/2012.

If you believe that this domain name does not fit the situation described above, go tohttp://support.godaddy.com/?prog_id=GoDaddy&isc=gdbba35 for assistance.

Regards,
Go Daddy Domain Services

******************************************

Since you are recommending transferring Domain names to Hover, what are you telling folks to do about hosting their iWeb sites? Apple is eliminating MobileMe and iDisk this year so I suspect iWeb will be lost. I am afraid that my web site will be lost in oblivion. I haven’t heard that Apple is planning an alternative hosting process. Are we to move the web sites to iCloud? Your thoughts and comments would be welcome.

“…PDF attachments sent from Apple Mail to a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with Update Rollup 3 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3) to an Microsoft Outlook 2010 client.”

I did several DVDs, both commerical and some DVD+R’s that I used to back up TiVoed movies. My HTPC is built around Plex instead of Apple TV; as I suspected, Plex can “see” MKV files directly. I just put the MKV file in one of the folders that Plex already “knows” about and it automatically catalogs it, downloads the metadata, and the cover art.

I’m developing a little bit different process than what Ara described. I like DVD commentary tracks and supplemental features, so I’m just grabbing most everything in the one MakeMKV run. In contrast to Ara’s process, I’m checking what MakeMKV selected to make sure that it selected *all* the commentary tracks & special features. A MakeMKV run is much faster than Handbrake — probably because it is not compressing anything — so it is no big deal to just grab everything you want.

If the DVD contains several different video files, MakeMKV automatically creates separate files. You can rename them so you can tell them apart and group all the files for a DVD into a folder. In Plex, you can display the catalog by folder; you group the files by DVD in this way.

A nice feature of Plex is that you can choose the audio track at playback time. If you keep more than one audio track, you will get a pop-up menu with the available audio tracks. In this way, the one MKV file works as a “universal” movie file.

You can also have MakeMKV keep the subtitles. I prefer the original language audio but the English subtitles. Using VLC, I verified that the requested subtitles are stored in the MKV file. Plex also has an option to choose a subtitle track at playback time, but it doesn’t work right. I can select the desired audio track and the desired subtitle track, but Plex munges up the subtitles. That part has to wait for a bug fix or try to figure this out. It looks like a textencoding problem

The other issue with the MKV files is that they are so large that some don’t stream to the iOS devices without stuttering. They play on the HDTV great, but that is a wired connection. To get wireless going flawlessly for every movie, I’d need to proceed to Step 3 and transcode the MKV to mp4/H264 using Handbrake. Unfortunately, the whole theee-step process is real time consuming. The resulting .mp4 is about half the size of the MKV but it streams perfectly to iPad and iPhone. On the other hand, sometimes the MKV streams to my iPhone or iPad perfectly, so I need to figure this out better. Perhaps I only need to get a wireless extender nearer the iOS device (I’ve got an Airport Extreme in a different room).

I suppose that using Plex is the solution to Ara’s problem of preserving the Blu-ray video and audio quality for digital media. It gives you everying and at full quality. With Plex, you can truly put the disks into deep storage.

But it all works! I can see that it is far from being ready for the mass-market, but it has an extremely high coolness factor for mac geeks, despite what PC pundits think.

according the old guard press Apple has been dead, dying or about to die since it first opened the doors. they have never been kind. the computers were tolerated in a business because some part of them were needed to get a job done that couldn’t get done any other way. it seems odd that nearly every magazine used Macs in some kind of way until Windows 95 made it more tolerable to do layout, color correction and other prepress work. kinda cool as long as it made the presses run. sure.

remember when the floppy got axed. Henry Norr (one of the best Mac news guys ever) dedicated 4 column inches of his review of the iMac for MacWeek about what a terrible mistake this was going to be. totally uncool was the word.

when the iPod came out 10 years ago it was declared a instant dud because it was expensive and only worked on a Mac. totally uncool said everyone on SlashDot.

Macintosh never worked well with an Exchange server. and Office for Mac or Windows have had interoperability issues since forever. but that’s not Apple’s fault. but it does make working with them uncool according to IT nerds that have to deal with the screams of the lusers.

and look at all the cool technology that has been killed along the way. why before it even got out of the box Mac BASIC had been knifed to make people happy. but let’s make a list just to be sure: HyperCard, Dylan, AppleTalk (the protocol), printers, small displays, and I could go on and on. what is next? FireWire and optical media. venders and retailers are left with unsellable inventory again and again and it’s really uncool that there is that wake of trash.

Final Cut Pro X is either the best thing ever or you wondered why you didn’t jump to Adobe or Avid long ago. it’s a 1.o product and you’d be crazy not to look at other technology. my feeling is that this move of alienation of a user base was intentional. they are a demanding lot. but the way it was done was totally uncool.

Apple has been a uncool to it’s partners. we won’t ever really know how much money IBM/Motorola lost over Apple switching to Intel. billions were invested in getting fabrication and assembly to make zillions of CPUs. after Apple left there wasn’t a customer. at least 4 companies got left holding the bag making developer tools. not to mention forcing every single Mac developer to rewrite thousands of lines of code to make it work on Intel based Macs. sure, some of it was simple. but look at how long it took Adobe to finish it’s migration.

the number of features that Apple has appropriated from 3rd party developers is countless. one day you might be making a working wage selling a tool only to find it as a feature in the next OS. small developer beware. don’t count on long term revenue stream. especially if what you made is cool.

if Apple was ever cool it’s news to me. this is a company that you should be very wary in your dealings if you are trying to make a living around them.

but from a user perspective. sure. it’s cool. Apple is cool. just be sure you have AppleCare on Mac.

The Model Number is: CP40NG10. Though LG’s site says all their Blu-Ray internal/external devices are Mac compatible.