Category: Internet

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Anti-Phishing Tip

We all get those emails that look legit, but aren’t! It could come from a bank or your credit card company. Usually there’s a “problem with your account” and they need you to log in and give them some information or reset your password. My favorite is when they claim that through a computer mishap that they lost all my information, yet miracously they still have my email address. Also another dead giveaway is the first line that says “Dear Valued Customer.” If I was really your valued customer, wouldn’t you know my name and address me directly.

Even though the signs are clear in some cases, people get tricked into clicking the links, winding up on an fake site and divulging tons of private information.

Here’s a tip for Apple Mail users

If you’re an Apple Mail user (the mail app built-in to Mac OS X), then you’ve got a way of quickly verifying where a link goes without actually clicking on it. Take this “Bank of America” email that I got yesterday. Although I wasn’t even remotely tempted to click on the link, I was curious as to where it led to. So I simply hovered my mouse over the link to reveal a popup display that actually shows the REAL URL that you’d go to if you clicked on it. Needless to say, it wasn’t bankofamerica.com.

boaphishing

Although I didn’t click the link, I’m sure if I had it would have taken me to a website that looks just like bankofamerica.com.

This tip also works in Mail on the iPhone

As I wrote in my iPhone Book 2nd edition. You can do this same tip by holding down your finger on a link in the Mail app on the iPhone/iPod touch to see where the link is actually going to take you.

mail-spamhover

What if you don’t use Mail or are on a PC?

Even if you aren’t an Apple Mail app user, there’s a simple tip for you. DON’T CLICK ON LINKS IN EMAILS! If I thought that this email was legit, the safer thing to do would be to fire up my browser manually and key in the URL myself or use a bookmark. That way I’d know for sure what site I was headed to. Even if you are a Mail user a clever programmer can create a link that spoofs the original site. So bottom line, don’t click the links. Chances are if you get an email requesting that you go to a website, login and give them information, it’s an attempt to gain access to your information, passwords, user names, etc.

Be safe!

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My favorite blogs

I frequent a lot of websites and blogs on the continuous quest for information and technology snippets. I truly do learn something new every single day! Although I visit a lot of websites in a week’s time, there are some that I visit almost every day. They are the blogs of my friends, colleagues and industry experts. So I thought I would share them with you! Actually I’ve been sharing them with you all along, but you may not have noticed. So I’m going to call them out today!

My Favorite Blogs

Actually if you just scroll down this very page near the bottom left, you’ll not only find the links to my favorite blogs, but also my favorite websites too. By the way, be sure to check out my buddy Larry Becker’s New Blog. He and I talk tech all the time and I’ve gaind several insights from him throughout the years. Most of these folks also have Twitter accounts, so I invite you to follow them on Twitter too for more up to the minute thoughts and discoveries.

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Which video sharing site is best?

A couple of weeks ago I started the discussion about which site(s) are best to do photo sharing and you guys responded loud and clear with your favorites and why they were your favorites, but in the end it was as I suspected that no single site had it all. The two favorites among you guys were Smugmug and Flickr. Well now it’s time to ask the same question, but this time about video sharing sites and I imagine that the answer is going to be the same. What’s “best” will greatly depend on what you’re looking for.

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What you might want in a video sharing site

I’m finding that I’m really enjoying shooting small clips and sharing them on the web with friends, family and colleagues. I used to cringe looking at YouTube clips because the quality was just so bad. I imagine that back when YouTube first started, they were encoding the video using lower quality settings to keep the file sizes down and therefore the bandwidth costs down. However, now that YouTube isn’t the only game in town, they’ve had to step up their game to stay competitive. I asked on Twitter which sites were people using and why and the four sites that kept coming up over and over again were YouTube, Vimeo, Smugmug and Blip.TV. So I decided to give them all a spin.

Here are some things you might want to consider when picking a video sharing site:

  • Quality of the video playback
  • Allowable length of the video
  • Ability to make a video private or secure with a password
  • Embeddable player
  • Customizable Player
  • Advertising
  • Time it takes the video to start playback
  • Tools and ease of use for uploading the video
  • HD support
  • Full Screen Options
  • Ability to turn off embedding for others
  • How easy can your video be found by others
  • Upload video from your cellphone directly
  • Ability to turn on/off video downloading by others
  • Playable on an iPhone or iPod touch

In my testing I found that each of the sites had many of these options, but no one had it all. I tested all 4 sites by uploading the same HD video to them (my Wacom Intuos 4 video review). Then I embedded the video from each site onto the same page so that we could see a side-by-side comparison. Check out that page here and see for yourself. Also check the page on your iPhone/iPod touch.

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YouTube

youtubelogo

www.youtube.com

Pros: very easy to get started. It’s free. Probably the largest of all the sites and therefore the most likely site to have your video found on. Support for embedding HD video at no additional cost. Videos can be played back on an iPhone or iPod touch even if they are embedded on your webpage using the Flash player.

Cons: Not as many options to make your video private. Videos are limited to 10 minutes/1GB each.

Final thoughts: For most of the videos I’ll be putting up I’m likely to use YouTube. Although they don’t have as many player options or privacy options as the other sites, YouTube seems to offer the best balance of features and playback options.

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Vimeo

vimeologo

www.vimeo.com

Pros: Excellent video quality. Free to use the basic features. Great stats on your video plays. HD Support. You can password protect your video or simply mark it that only Contacts or people that you choose can watch it. You can turn on/off the ability for others to download the source video. You can also turn on/off commenting.

Cons: HD video requires that either upgrade to Vimeo Plus or  your viewer will have to see it on the Vimeo website. Doesn’t playback on an iPhone/iPod touch. The free service is limited to 1 HD video/500MBs per week.

Final thoughts: I like the features of Vimeo, although I’m not as crazy about their player. They definitely have the nicest stats page. It’s a little thing, but I also love the fact that you can replace the video with a corrected one without losing your stats and comments. I’ve run into this on YouTube at least a couple of times where there was a minor change to the video and I could only delete the one that was posted and upload a new one. Vimeo Plus is $59.95/year and allows 5GB of uploads per week, unlimited number of HD videos, ability to Embed your HD videos, higher quality video, priority uploading, player custimization, advanced privacy options, and no banner ads.

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SmugMug

smugmuglogo

www.smugmug.com

Pros: Probably the BEST video quality. Support of HD video up to 1080p.

Cons: No free options. In order to upload HD video you have to pay for the Pro service at $149.95/year. Even if you pay, you’re still limited to 10 minutes per movie. If you embed a higher quality video on your page, the playback could take several seconds before it starts. Limited embedding/player options.

Final thoughts: SmugMug would be the site I’d use if I were mostly concerned by the quality of the video. In other words If I were trying to impress you with gorgeous HD video, this is the site I’d use. This would be keeping in mind that the video is not playable on an iPhone/iPod touch and that highest quality settings may mean a delay before the video starts.

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Blip.TV

bliptvlogo

www.blip.tv

Pros: the most options for customizing the player! You can allow for advertising or not and if you do, they will pay you for it! Web, Mobile, FTP and Desktop Client for uploading.

Cons: Although there was an option to make the video iPhone/iPod touch compatible, it didn’t work in my testing. Have to upgrade to a Pro account ($8/month) to make your videos private.

Final thoughts: Blip.TV is awesome when you want to customize the look and feel of your player/video. Also it’s the only one that I’ve seen that is willing to share the revenue from the OPTIONAL advertising generated by your video.

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The Bottom Line

I’m finding myself producing fewer and fewer DVDs as a means of sharing video with friends and family. Sure there are some older members of my family that aren’t online and never will be, but that is a very small percentage of folks I know and share with. Shorter clips shared over the internet for free is the key. You can’t really go wrong with any of these sites and like I figured going into this, there is no one site that is significantly better than all the rest. Each one has something to offer depending upon your needs. For example, YouTube is great for the video reviews I do on my blog. However, if I wanted to post a family video and keep it kinda private, then I’d use Vimeo. If I were trying to put video on my website and match the look and feel perfectly, then I’d lean towards Blip.TV. Lastly if I were trying to impress a client with the highest quality HD video the first site that would come to my mind would be SmugMug.

There you have it!

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You should take advantage of Acrobat.com!

acrobatcom

It seems like I’m showing someone each week about the virtues and benefits of the FREE services at Acrobat.com. I’ve talked about Connect Now many times on this very blog. I’ve done podcasts about it too. Yet, the general public still seems to be unaware of the benefits that await them if they simply point their browsers at acrobat.com.

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What is Acrobat.com?

Well the first thing you probably already figured out is that acrobat.com is a website. What this website gives you is access to some very useful hosted services by Adobe. Probably the most valuable one is Connect Now for doing your own online meetings using technology that is very similar to that I’ve used in my “Evening with Terry White” sessions. You don’t get to have a lot of people in your meeting and you can’t record it like you can with Connect Pro, but you do get most of the other key benefits.

Another cool service is Buzzword. I’m using it more and more to collaborate with colleagues. Think of Buzzword as an online collaborative word processor.  You can start a Buzzword document and invite others to come in and edit it or add to it. You can export the final document as a Word compatible file or print/PDF it.

Acrobat.com also allows you to create PDFs online and share them. Speaking of Sharing files, there is a File Sharing component too. If you have a file that is too large to email, you can simply upload it to Acrobat.com and send someone the link to download it.

Acrobat.com is cross platform and therefore works seamlessly with Macs and Windows PCs.

Again, this is all FREE to do. As a matter of fact, its probably easier if you see it in action, so take a look at this video I recorded for my Creative Suite Podcast:

[flv:http://media.libsyn.com/media/cspodcast/podcast-AC-acrobat.com.mp4 625 353]

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Travel Routers: Cradlepoint CTR500 vs. AirPort Express

Sometimes it’s easier just to show you rather than to try to explain it in print. So check out my video review of the Cradlepoint CTR500 3G EVDO Travel Router vs the Apple AirPort Express:

…yes the video shot in HD and was edited in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 (of course!)

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A couple of additional features not shown in the video

The CTR500 not only shipped with an AC adapter (cigarette lighter) and multiple international plugs, but it also shipped with an Auto DC adapter. So in theory you could take that long car trip with the family and your passengers could have Wi-Fi internet access for their laptops, iPod touch’s, etc. while barreling down the highway. UPDATED INFO: Also the guys at the 3Gstore just alerted me to the fact that the latest Cradlepoint firmware now supports true Load Balancing. So if you do have the luxury of having two cards, you can use them together for increased bandwidth. They had me at “now supports”.

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The Bottom Line

I’m always setting up ad-hoc Wi-Fi networks when I’m on the road. I love the convenience of coming back to my hotel room and just opening my laptop and being on the internet (just like at home). It’s also great to be able to share the same internet connection with colleagues in the next room or family that I’m traveling with and to have Wi-Fi access on multiple devices like my laptop, iPhone and Vonage VoIP Wi-Fi phone (great for calling home from overseas). Although the AirPort Express is GREAT (and I still use them extensively at home because of their AirTunes abilities), the Cradlepoint CTR500 gives me the ability to not only share an Ethernet connection over Wi-Fi, but also either of my 3G (EVDO/HSDPA) cards. It even works with some 3G cellphones via USB tethering. There was no software to install. Like most routers you configure it via your web browser. I’ve also never seen a router (let alone a travel router) with so many options to configure it just the way you like. Even my home D-Link router doesn’t have that many options. Speaking of configuring, there was one annoying default. After I set the router up with WPA password security, I noticed that I was still being routed to a web page, which required entering an additional password before being allowed access to the internet. I couldn’t find that way to turn this off fast enough! Once I turned off “Require User Login“(apparently one of the most frequently asked questions), I was totally happy with the setup. The CTR500 only came with a quickstart guide to get you setup with a basic setup. I wanted to dig a little deeper with the settings and therefore had to go to the website to get the complete user guide.

The Cradlepoint CTR500 goes for $179.95 (retail list price $199.99).  There are less expensive models (one of which even has a built-in LI-ION battery) if you don’t need both an ExpressCard slot AND USB. If that’s the case you might want to go with the USB model CTR350 at $129.38. The CTR500 has direct support for over 100 3G cards and cellphones. See the list and specs here. If all you need is to share a high speed internet connection via Ethernet then the AirPort Express ($94.61) is the way to go. If you’re in the market for a 3G data card/service, router etc., the guys at the 3G Store rock!.

I can’t wait to go on my next trip!

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Landlines, Do we need ’em anymore?

cutphonecord

OK, I’m thinking about cutting my last cord. My main home line is still with AT&T. Each month I look at the bill I ask “why?” I switched my business/home office line over to Vonage years ago and haven’t looked back. I get unlimited voice for $24.99 a month. It has worked out very well for me. My old bill back then was over $100/month for both voice and fax lines and that didn’t even include the separate Sprint long distance bill. Now it’s under $50 for both. Plus no long distance charges.

The one feature AT&T offers that I can’t seem to find via the VoIP/Digital companies is “Privacy Manager”. I pay for this service each month (in my package of services) to cut down on solicitors. Rather than just block their calls if they don’t display their number to my callerID, it plays a recording something to the effect of “your name or number was not recognized, please state your name after the beep and you call will be put through.” At this point a solicitor or automated caller will hang up. A legitimate caller will say their name and all is good. I have no idea of how many calls this blocks as the phone never rings if they don’t state their names. But I would hate to be inundated by a rash of solicitors if I switch over to Vonage or Comcast.

 

Vonage or Comcast

Vonage is certainly cheaper! Their unlimited service is $24.99/month. Comcast digital voice has introductory offers, but once that period has past, the rate jumps up to $39.99/month. However, Comcast seems to offer a lot more call blocking features, although none of them seem to be as good as Privacy Manager. It seems that you can either block blocked calls or not. There is no compromise. Even though I’m a Comcast TV and Internet customer, their combined packages don’t seem to bring the price down far enough to be in-line with Vonage. There is one thing about the Comcast service that I do like and that is they will send someone out to wire the new Cable/Voice modem to your existing telephone jacks. So once my phone number is ported over, it would be no physical difference to how I use the phone now. My February AT&T bill came in at $46.21 (January was $67.97 and then I called them to cut some stuff out and move to a different plan.) and that’s with no long distance as I try to do all my long distance calling either on my Vonage line or my cellphone. The other thing that bugs me is Zone Calls! There are usually anywhere from $2-$10 of Zone Calls on my bill each month because we may dial a number that is in the same area code, but just far enough away to be charged as a Zone Call and then by the minute.

 

Do I really even need a landline anymore?

My buddy Bruce sent out an email to all of his friends announcing that his home number was being disconnected and he gave out his and his wife’s cell numbers. His reason was that now that his daughter had gone off to college and it was just the two them, they couldn’t really think of any reason to keep the landline.

Everyone here at my house has a cellphone (yes iPhones). We all have our own numbers and our friends and family members know our numbers and call us. Other than the landline being used by the alarm system and a couple of older TiVos (that are slated to be replaced this year), do I really need one? Cell reception is 5 bars here in the house. I even get great reception in the basement. If I kill the landline, what am I giving up other than another bill? I will still have my office Vonage line if I need that to feel like I’m on a real phone.

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MobileMe – 6 months later…

No company is perfect and that includes Apple, Inc. Apple has been hitting some good home runs lately. No one can argue the success of the iPod, MacBook, iTunes Store, iPhone and Mac OS X. However, Apple’s MobileMe is still, well, um, let’s just say not quite there yet!

MobileMe was launched in July of 2008 on the same day as the iPhone 3g. It was the revamped replacement to .Mac. The main focus of MobileMe was to allow iPhone, iPod touch, Mac and PC users to sync their data wirelessly with the cloud (MobileMe). Of course on launch day there were nothing but problems. Apple’s servers were overwhelmed by all the simultaneous activations of iPhones and MobileMe accounts. 

So let’s fast forward 6 months later and take another look at MobileMe. MobileMe provides its subscribers with email, online storage, data syncing and web hosting. I’ve been a MobileMe user (and before that .Mac and before that iTools) user since day one. So I’ve got first hand experience on what works and what doesn’t. I’ll start by saying that I have no issues with email and data storage (other than the slowness of using the iDisk in the Finder). These services work quite well for me. My issues are pretty much all with the data syncing. 

I love the concept of no matter where you make the changes to your contacts, calendar or email, it will be updated on all your other devices. As an iPhone user this is a really nice thing to have. I was very happy to turn on MobileMe syncing on my iPhone 3g the day I got it. It was like magic to see my phone load up with all my contacts wirelessly. Life was good! 

 

Trouble in paradise

It didn’t take long for the problems to surface. My contacts are probably the most important thing to me on my iPhone. I’m constantly making calls, looking up addresses and looking at contact notes. So if there is the least little problem here it’s going to be magnified for me 10 fold. A couple of days later I went to make a call and my Contacts list was EMPTY! That’s right all gone. Poof! Oddly enough they were still on my Mac in Address Book and still on the www.me.com site. A few minutes later, they were all back on my iPhone. Now other than the obvious inconvenience of them not being there when I went to make a call, there was another issue. My custom ringtone settings were gone. I’m big on assigning ringtones to friends, family members and co-workers so that I have an idea of who’s calling before I even pickup the phone. Well when the Contacts came back, they came back without the ringtone assignments (Apple doesn’t sync your ringtone assignments with the cloud). I timed it and it takes me about 15-20 minutes to reassign them as it has to be done one-by-one. I figured OK, this is probably a one time thing. A hiccup with the cloud perhaps. So I did all my ringtone assignments over again and moved on. Unfortunately this was not a one time thing. It happened at least a dozen times from July to now. There are a few threads on Apple’s discussion boards of people having the same exact problem, so I’m not alone here. I finally gave up!!! That’s right, I just couldn’t take it anymore. One minute they’re there, the next minute they’re not. So I turned off MobileMe syncing of Contacts and went back to syncing them manually via iTunes and the USB cable. I haven’t had a problem since. Now my Contacts are always there and my ringtone assignments stay intact!

 

Calendars

Apple still doesn’t seem to get it when it comes to  calendars. There are several issues that I don’t have the time to go into here so I’ll stick to the big ones.

The biggest problem is that MobileMe still doesn’t handle subscribed iCals. This means that if you use the automatic Birthdays calendar from Address Book, you won’t have this important calendar on your iPhone. No birthdays! At least not without some workarounds. Also if you subscribe to anyone else’s iCal, you won’t have those calendars on your iPhone either. So much for checking your spouse’s calendar before making plans. Another odd problem is that you can’t even select which of your non-subscribed calendars get sync’d. It’s either all or nothing if you sync using MobileMe. So if you have some misc. calendars that you don’t care about on your iPhone, they will be there whether you need them or not. Now if you turn off MobileMe calendar syncing and sync manually via iTunes you’ll be able to have just the calendars you want including subscribed ones. Go figure! Unfortunately I can’t turn off MobileMe calendar syncing like I did for Contact syncing because I also use Exchange syncing for my work calendar. If you sync with Exchange, you can’t sync manually with iCal. It’s either all manual syncing or all cloud syncing for any given category (contacts, calendars, etc.). You can’t mix the two.

 

The Bottom Line

MobileMe is $99/year (or less if you find it on sale). If I wasn’t using the other services if offers, it would be really hard for me to justify renewing this! I keep hoping for a silver lining in the cloud, but after 6 months it’s still a storm cloud. If one of my friends walked up to me and asked me if they should use MobileMe, I would be very hard pressed to say yes at this point. Let’s hope that Apple is hard at work fixing these issues and maybe we’ll see a MobileMe that works by its one year anniversary in July 2009. With all the emphasis on software as a service that most companies are moving towards, Apple needs to get this one right in order to be taken seriously in the future.

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My streaming problem has been solved by YOU!

mm-minimount

Last week I put my blog readers to the task of giving me a way to stream content from my DVR to another TV wirelessly. It didn’t take long for the responses to start streaming in. I’m happy to report that not only did you solve my problem, but you blew past my expectations with the stuff you guys came up with. It was actually the second response by “Ivan” that really turned the tables. Ivan suggested something that I hadn’t even considered. He suggested replacing my Apple TV with a Mac mini.

“I’d suggest replacing the AppleTV with a MacMini :).

Has WiFi and could technically stream whatever you want, at least I think. Add Boxee to the mix, and you’ve got ABC, Hulu, Joost, local movies, local tv shows and so on on your TV.” – Ivan

I was so stuck on adding another box to the mix to do the one thing that I was missing, that I never considered replacing the existing box I was using with one that was more capable! At first glance at Ivan’s comment, I dismissed it. I thought that Ivan was missing the point. He talked about streaming shows from the internet. Well that wasn’t the problem. The TV already has a CableCARD in it and I get live TV all day long. However, when I gave it a second thought the lightbulb came on! I already have a Slingbox Pro connected to one of my DVRs (the Comcast box in my office). I use the SlingPlayer on my MacBook Pro when I’m on the road to watch stuff recorded to my DVR. It was at that moment that I realized that if I used a Mac mini instead of an Apple TV, I’d be able to install the SlingPlayer app on it and stream content from my DVR to the other TV out in my pool/workout area. That was it! That was the missing piece of the puzzle. It was so simple and the beauty of it was that it wasn’t going to cost me a dime! That’s right, I already had a Mac mini just sitting in my home theater going to waste. 

 

Mac mini vs. Apple TV – Smackdown!

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Apple TV! I like the concept of a box that allows me to wireless stream my content (photos, movies, music, podcasts, etc.) from my Mac to my TV with a very slick interface and simple remote. Also now that it has movie rentals, it’s even more useful. However, the downside of Apple TV is that that’s all it does. If you want other content, you’re pretty much out of luck. Now I can take shows recorded on my TiVo HD, transfer them to my Mac (thanks to Toast) and convert them into an Apple TV/iPod format and watch them on my Apple TV. The problem is that the process takes 4-6 weeks to complete. OK, I’m exaggerating. However, it does take a long time depending on the length of the show and whether or not it’s in HD or not. This means that you really have to plan ahead. If I recorded 30 Rock on my TiVo HD and plan to watch it later/the next day out in the other room, I’d have to remember to start the transfer before I go to bed that night. Then when I wake up, I’d have to start the conversion process. For a 30 minute HD show, this could easily take a couple of hours in total. Once it’s converted, then I’d still have to transfer it to iTunes so that it would be available to watch on the Apple TV. It’s certainly doable, but that’s a lot of planning ahead. 

Since the Mac mini is a computer, that eliminates a lot of these steps. For one, I could just install the Toast/TiVo Transfer apps right on the Mac mini and after the show is transfered I could just watch it! No conversions necessary. However, that’s still going to take time as the TiVo transfers take longer than real-time to happen. So a 30 minute show could easily take an hour or longer to transfer. That’s where Slingbox and the SlingPlayer come in. With the Slingbox connected to my office DVR (the one that’s used the least), I can record all my favorite shows and then run the SlingPlayer app on the Mac mini to stream those recordings wirelessly and full screen.

 

My original Mac mini

I bought the first Mac mini, which came out in 2005 (wow time flies!). I originally bought it for much of what we’re talking about today. I bought it put in my home theater so that I could watch my iTunes content (there was no Apple TV back then). I also wanted the ability to run Delicious Library (my DVD cataloging app) on the big screen. This Mac mini is a 1.25 GHz G4 (a dinosaur by today’s standards). It was the base model and I upgraded it to 1GB of RAM. Once the Apple TV came out in 2007, the Mac mini just sat there for the most part. Most times I would forget it was even there until happened to look over and see. In my home theater, the Apple TV does everything I need. I already have all the other boxes I need in that room doing everything else. So the Apple TV was a perfect fit. 

mm-frontrow

So when Ivan proposed using a Mac mini, I thought – “well gee, I already have one of those. Let’s give it a shot!” My initial concern was that it was going to be too slow to stream. I was concerned that it only had 802.11g wireless AND after I hooked it up I realized that this model didn’t have support for the Apple Remote. This meant that Front Row (Apple’s original Apple TV like interface that is built-in to the Mac OS) was going to be a problem. I then remembered that Apple included Front Row in Leopard. The first thing I did once I hooked it up was install Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (with all the current updates). I remembered that even if you don’t have an Apple Remote you can still get into Front Row by hitting Command-ESC. It worked, but now that meant that I’d need a keyboard handy. I do have the newest Apple Wireless keyboard which is nice and small. I also still had my Bluetooth Trackball. While this was all fine, I really wanted ONE controller. A keyboard with an integrated pointing device.

airmouse1    airmouse3  

That’s when I remembered “Matt’s” comment about an iPhone/iPod touch app called Air Mouse Pro. PERFECT! This app was even better than I had hoped. It’s a trackpad and keyboard all in one and it even has a Front Row friendly mode with one button access to Front Row. This eliminates the need for the Apple Remote, separate keyboard and mouse. Air Mouse Pro totally rocks! It will definitely be my iPhone App of the Week! 🙂

 

What about TV resolution?

This is one advantage the Apple TV has over using a Mac mini. Out of the box the Apple TV already has all the right ports on the back. It has HDMI, Component, Optical and RCA audio jacks. Not only does it have the right connections, but it’s also geared to be connected to a TV at the various TV resolutions including 720p, 1080i and 1080p. Luckily I already had the right cables. I have a DVI to HDMI cable. I also had the necessary 3.5mm to stereo RCA cable for audio. When I connected the Mac mini to the TV and booted it, it detected the resolution and came right up. The problem was that the menu bar and dock were cut off. This is due to “overscan”! The Apple TV doesn’t suffer this problem because Apple was very careful to design the menus and interface so that they don’t go to the edge of the screen. On the Mac minis that came out later (like all the intel models), Apple added an Overscan option in the display preferences. This will slightly shrink the screen so that you can see the edges, but it will also potentially introduce black bars all the way around. No real way around this.

mm-fullscreen 

CSI Miami streaming from my DVR in the SlingPlayer running full screen at 720p

 

Since I don’t have the new Mac mini, I used a shareware app called SwitchResX. This app allows you to have custom resolutions and more importantly for me it also offers the overscan correction I needed. Once I turned that option on, I could see everything.

 

I shall call him Mini mount

mm_minimount2

The good folks over at H-squared wanted to help out so they sent me their Mini mount which allows you to mount your Mac mini on the wall. This was perfect for my set up as my TV is suspended from the ceiling and there is no where for the Mac mini to sit. In case you were wondering what became of my Apple TV? I moved it to my office and used H-squared’s tvTray to mount it on the wall as well. I love the LED glow (now standard on the tvTray and optional for the Mini mount).

mm-appletv

I even used the very cool MultiLevel iPhone app to make sure the mounts were level on the wall 🙂 Not only was H-squared very very helpful to my cause, they even want to offer all of you a discount on their products. You have from now to the end of February to save 15% off their stuff. Just use the code, wait for it………… “TERRYROCKS” at checkout.

 

My Gear

One of the comments I got requested that I post the actual components of my final solution. So here they are:

  • Toshiba 27″ LCD HDTV with built-in DVD player and CableCARD slot – this TV was discontinued ages ago. I bought mine on eBay because it was only model I could find at the time that had both a CableCARD slot and built-in DVD player.
  • Mac mini – I have the original model which is 4  years old. The new ones are faster and have an Apple Remote.
  • Apple Wireless Keyboard – it’s small and bluetooth wireless.
  • Bluetooth Trackball – I’m not crazy about this as it takes several click to get it to reconnect after a reboot
  • Air Mouse Pro – Freakin’ AWESOME iPhone app to control it all!
  • Slingbox Pro – connected to the crappy Comcast DVR in my office (see my review here). Wait? Why is my Slingbox connected to your Comcast DVR (which sucks) instead of my TiVo HD? Good question! I connected it to least used DVR in the house because when you’re watching your DVR via the Slingbox, you’re actually controlling that DVR, changing channels, etc. I didn’t want to interrupt any other family member’s viewing. So the Comcast Motorola DVR is the one that gets the least use 🙂
  • SlingPlayer  for Mac – a free download
  • Mini mount – Mounts the Mac mini neatly on the wall (get 15% off with the code “TERRYROCKS”)
  • SwitchResX – because I have the original Mac mini I need this to correct for overscan issues on the TV’s resolution
  • DVI to HDMI Cable – The Mac mini has a built-in DVI port. Most newer TV’s have HDMI. So you’ll need a cable or adapter
  • Audio Cable – Although I used a Monster cable, any old Radio Shack cable will work just fine and will be much cheaper.

 

The Bottom Line

mm-comcastremote

SlingPlayer running on the Mac mini with an onscreen remote that looks just like the physical Comcast remote for my DVR.

 

The Mac mini was a perfect fit for my needs in this situation! Granted it costs twice as much as an Apple TV, but it has more than twice the capabilities. If Apple were to ever build-in a Blu-ray player, it would be the ultimate set top box/computer. Now I’m only scratching the surface here because I really only needed it to do the one thing and that is allow me to stream my DVR content over to another TV. However, because the Mac mini is a computer, it can do so much more. At a minimum you could also surf the net as needed. You can also stream TV content from sites like hulu.com and although I haven’t yet played with Boxee, it looks very promising. It doesn’t stop there! Remember Netflix streaming is now on the Mac. So you could stream anyone of up to 12,000 movies. You could also turn it into a DVR as well with products like EyeTV. Although it doesn’t have a built-in Blu-ray player, it does have a DVD drive in it. This means that it can playback all your standard DVDs and Netflix rentals too. So the Mac mini can just about do it all.

Once again, THANK YOU to all my blog readers and especially those that offered up the very cool solutions that made this a reality!

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Can you get by without Cable/Satellite TV?

abc

Well of course the answer is YES! I grew up with a father who thought paying for TV was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard of. So needless to say, if it wasn’t on the major networks and on at a time I could watch it, I didn’t see it. Maybe that explains my addiction to cable now. Although it seems that I still (for the most part) only watch the shows that are on the major networks, I couldn’t dream of giving up my cable TV (ie “the pipe”). I don’t even think about it anymore. My TiVo HD is all set with Season Passes to my favorite shows and I watch them when I have time to without missing a beat. But what about the costs?

 

How much do you spend each month on Cable/Satellite TV?

My Comcast Cable bill is nothing to sneeze at! I have the digital/HD package with HBO and I would swear that I could probably have another small car for what I pay them each month. It’s worse! I also have DirecTV in my kid’s rooms. I can certainly consolidate and give up DirecTV, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. That’s another, albeit smaller bill.

 

What about the internet?

With almost everything being streamed over the internet these days, do we really need to “pay” for TV? If you live in a relatively large metro area, chances are you can pick up your HD signals through the air. So the only thing you’d be paying for are the premium channels. Isn’t a lot of that content being streamed these days anyway? For example, check out Hulu.com. It also seems like the major networks are also broadcasting their shows for free via their websites. If all else fails, you might be better off just buying a season of your favorite show on iTunes. Two of my favorite shows are 24 and LOST. To buy both seasons in HD on iTunes would cost $118.00 (keep in mind that these shows are streamed for free on their respective websites with commercials). That’s cheaper than one month’s cable bill for me.

This ABC news report shows how a family completely cut their cable bill ($100/month) and went to just broadcast and internet only TV. There are also several computer gadgets out there that will let you record shows and watch them later just like your physical DVR. I’ve experimented with EyeTV and it works as advertised. I plugged in a basic cable line (it can work with an antenna too) and after it was setup, I had it record a show that came on later that day. Once the show was there, I was even able to do basic editing like removing the commercials and from there I was able to either watch it on my computer or move it over to my iPod or Apple TV to watch on the big screen. Sure there is extra work involved when you don’t want to watch it on your computer or when you don’t have a computer connected to your TV, but it’s a lot cheaper to do it this way.

 

Let’s not forget Netflix

I had never seen an episode of the Sopranos while it was on TV. However, I did watch the first 5 seasons on DVD. I loved the show, just never got into when it was airing. With Netflix I was able to watch all of them as quickly as I wanted with no commercials of course. Since Netflix charges a flat rate, all you can eat subscription price, you can watch as many TV shows on DVD as you have time for. The cost will be the same. Same goes for Farscape. I had never watched a single episode of this show when it was on the air. A friend loaned me the complete series on DVD. So even if you like a show that’s on TV, that doesn’t mean you have to watch it on broadcast TV. There are several advantages to renting your favorite shows on DVD once the season is over on TV. The biggest advantages are you don’t have to worry about commercials and you don’t have to wait week to week to see what happens next?

 

This is all good, but I need the big screen

While this cost cutting stuff is all good, let’s face it, we want it all on the big screen in HD! Sitting in front of my computer watching a TV show is not my idea of a good time. I do it when on the road, but that’s about it. I have a sizable investment in large screens around here and I want to see my favorite content in all of its HD glory. So what’s the answer? Apple has the right idea for the most part with Apple TV. However, it’s just not enough! I couldn’t get by with just Apple TV alone. There is no streaming from the websites and it’s a pay per view model (when will you go to a subscription option Apple? When?). So a better option is to have it all is to probably hook up a computer directly to your large screen TV. There are several caveats to this, not the least being the size of the computer, connections, etc. I’ll be covering my switch to the Mac mini soon.

 

The Bottom Line

I’m not quite ready to cut my cable line just yet, but if you’re constantly being frustrated by the ever increasing cable and satellite TV costs, this may be a way out. I could at a minimum give up HBO. There’s just nothing left on that network that I watch. Well there is “Big Love”, but I could live without that 🙂

Explore your options! There are plenty of them in this competitive world we live in.

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Web Conferencing More Important Than Ever In a Recession

I’m a fan of web conferencing! It just makes sense. I can remember the old days of getting up at the crack of dawn to get on a flight to Chicago for a meeting. My part in the meeting would last an hour at best. Then I was back on the plane home. Keep in mind that this was a one day trip because it was close. If it was further away or the meeting was earlier in the day, then that would be mean flying out the night before, getting a hotel room and hoping that the meeting would end early enough for a return flight right after the meeting. Otherwise, a one day meeting could turn into a three day trip. Thankfully now I have Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro and I have many of my meetings wherever I happen to be as long as I have a good internet connection.

 

Web Conferencing is NOT just for the big guys

Although Acrobat Connect Pro is aimed at larger organizations, there is a FREE version that is very powerful for most individuals, freelancers and small businesses. It’s called Acrobat Connect NOW. You may remember that I blogged about this when it was code named “Brio”. Now the service has been officially rolled out and access to it is even built-in to the Creative Suite 4 apps with a menu command under the File menu called “Share My Screen.” Although I encourage you to use Adobe apps whenever possible, you can use Connect NOW with any app that you wish to show someone. It could be PowerPoint, iPhoto or whatever.

As a matter of fact I used this technology to present to several users groups in 2007 and 2008 that I otherwise would not have gone to. One of the advantages of Acrobat Connect Pro is that the meetings can be recorded. As a matter of fact you can check out the presentation I did for the North Coast Macintosh Users Group on Adobe Photoshop Elements 6. They were able to distribute this link to all of their members who couldn’t make the live presentation. Other than a low audio problem I was having with my headset, they were able to see and hear the presentation over 2,000 miles away. Once I was done, I turned off the light and walked upstairs and I was home. 

 

I found this great article listing the “10 Reasons Why Web Conferencing is a Must Have Technology During a Recession“. Definitely worth a read.

 

How does Adobe Acrobat Connect NOW stack up against the competition?

Sure there are other players in the field. You might have heard of WebEx, Go To Meeting and others. The problem with all the other solutions is that they usually require the meeting participant to install something or somehow change a setting or two on their computers or networks. Acrobat Connect NOW is Adobe Flash based and since 98% of computers on the internet today have the Flash player installed, they can join your meeting without installing anything extra. This also means that Acrobat Connect NOW is fully cross platform. So it doesn’t matter if you’re presenting from a Mac or PC or if your meeting participants are on Mac or PCs. Now if you are sharing your screen there is a small plug-in (Add in) that gets downloaded automatically (upon your approval) and installs automatically. The whole process takes a couple of minutes on average. So even if you walked up to a computer that had never used Acrobat Connect NOW you could log on with your account and start presenting in less than 5 minutes flat.

 

What do you get for FREE?

With Acrobat Connect NOW you get a static URL for your meeting room that you can use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Unlimited use. You can have up to 3 connections/participants in your room at once (including you). However, let’s say that one of your participants is in a conference room with 50 other people connected to a projector? No problem. It will still only count as one participant. You can of course share your screen (any app or document on your screen would be broadcast to the participants). You can even hand off this ability to any of the other participants whether they have an account or not as long as they are in your meeting room. You can even request or grant control of your computer/their computer which is AWESOME for remote troubleshooting/help desk work. You can share your live image via a webcam and of course there is Voice over IP. However, if you want to get on the phone, there is an teleconference number assigned to your account. It’s not toll-free to dial, but it’s there if you need it. There’s also a text chat feature. There’s even a File Share pod to distribute supporting files and a Whiteboard for live brainstorming.

As a matter of fact there are a host of other free very useful services on Acrobat.com. Check them out!

 

What’s the catch? Why is this free?

Simple! If you like it, you’ll use it. If you use it, others will be exposed to it. If they like it and need MORE, then they may opt to go to Acrobat Connect Pro. 

 

What if I need more than 3 people in my room, but don’t need all that comes with Connect Pro?

There is something in the middle of FREE and the higher cost professional option. It’s called Acrobat Connect. With Acrobat Connect, you get up to 15 people in your room at once. It’s $39/Month.

 

Don’t hesitate

Sign up for your Acrobat Connect Now account NOW!

Travel is a luxury. Communication is not. 

Learn more:

Adobe Acrobat Connect NOW

Adobe Acrobat Connect

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro