Category Archives: Uncategorized

New MacBook: Coming Soon.

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The new iBooks are expected this week, either Tuesday or Wednesday. Here’s my two cents on the new notebooks.

The iBook needs a revision badly and is going to benefit greatly with an Intel processor (solo or core duo). The 13.3″ screen that is expected sounds like a good idea. The 12″ with its 4:3 aspect ratio is too old school by Apple standards. I hear it’s going to be thin, light, with an iSight, Front Row and the Apple Remote. Plus I’ve read it’ll be offered in both black and white. All of this sounds great. A black iBook may tick off ColorwarePC (the company that offers painting services for many Apple products), but it would give the iBook a more serious look, especially if Apple wants to market the iBook to businesses.

It may or may not be called the MacBook. Fine with me.

Will I be looking into getting one? My wife has a 12″ iBook – it could be replaced… Nope. I’m not getting one for a long while. I bought the MacBook Pro about two months after it was released. I had heard about Apple’s 1st generation products – I wanted to read the reviews to find out how the MBP was. It’s a great machine, don’t get me wrong – but it ticks me off that it has a high pitched whining noise, one of the fans makes that “mooing” noise that people complain about and the battery life could be better. I didn’t find out about those things until after I bought one.

I’d rather not experience another 1st gen Apple product. Here’s hoping Apple has learned from its mistakes with the MBP and the MB runs free of annoyances.

Digital Picture Frames

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I have been interested in digital picture frames for a while. For some time now, I’ve hated stuff. I hate having big books with pictures in them. So I’ve looked into digital picture frames and a lot of DIY projects by transforming a laptop.

I can see the benefits of reusing a laptop. You could update the photos with wi-fi and remotely access a computer you have hanging on the wall. That’s great, but I had an even dumber idea than repurposing a laptop.

DVD players have gotten tremendously cheap. I’m thinking I could take a DVD player, either a portable one with a screen, or hook up a small DVD player to a cheap LCD (like a 5 inch XBOX or PlayStation LCD) and use it to show photos.

I could probably just throw a bunch of photos into iMovie and make a slideshow and set it to repeat. Some of these DVD players even have remotes, so not only do you have a cheap Digital Picture Frame, but you have a remote control, too.

Plus, I could throw small pieces of home movies onto the disc. If you put this together, you still have a decent DVD player. I’m thinking that a shadow box could hold all of the components easily. You would just have to mount the devices in the shadow box.

Even easier, I’ve seen some new portable DVD players that have tablet PC style hinges that let you turn the screen around or fold it over to have it in tablet form. Each DVD Player-based Digital Picture Frame (or just one frame and lots of DVDs) could serve as an album. One DVD player’s a wedding album, another is childhood photos, etc.

Click here for my del.icio.us links for Digital Picture Frame Projects.

PowerMac G4

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The other day, I won an ebay auction on a 450mhz PowerMac G4. I’ve got it hooked up to a 19 inch Acer monitor. I installed Tiger on it and it runs okay.

I’m not a fan of the 20GB hard drive, so I’ll be swapping it out with a Seagate 120GB later this week. I’ll probably use the PowwerMac as a test bed for experiments. I’ve been thinking about making it a server and / or making it a “widget machine.”

For some time now, I’ve been thinking about having a “widget machine.” This computer would have either Yahoo or Dashboard widgets displayed on a monitor. It would have news stories, weather, sports, pictures, and maybe tv listings.

Before more RAM was installed into the Titanium PowerBook that was its function. It would display images as a screen saver. I had the crazy idea of taking pictures of the inside of the fridge so when the screen saver would activate, I could get an idea of what was possible for dinner. It also had (then Konfabulator) widgets displayed with sports, weather and news. Plus, it was an internet terminal when I needed one in a pinch.

At worst, the PowerMac G4 will turn out to be a widget machine. If you’ve got ideas, let me know.

No Vonage Yet.

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VonageI’ve been thinking about Vonage. I even saw an infomercial about it. It looked quite reasonable. A cheap telephone system that lets you take your phone number with you where ever there is a broadband internet connection. It’s a great idea.

Why do I have a traditional phone system then? Well, systems like Vonage presuppose you have reliable electricity. When the power goes out, you’ve got no phone system (aside from your cell phone). I live in Vermont and if it gets too windy, the power goes out. I’ve lost power on both Wednesday and Thursday and they were relatively clear days.

I think I may get Vonage as a second line if I need one. I think it seems like a great idea for kids – an easy way to give them their own phone line – and they could take it to college as well.

Fans.

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I switched from a Windows Media Center PC to an Apple Mac Mini around August of last year. My media files were still being hosted on a Windows box until last month.

I then had seven external drives connected to the mini in my living room. It was astonishingly quiet.

I hadn’t bought a PVR solution for the Mac Mini since I had read rumors that Apple was going to unveil one in February. Nothing like that happened, so I bought a device that let me watch TV on my Mac.

Since I connected that device to my system, the fans on some of the hard drives have been whirring – trying to cool them. I became tired of hearing the fans so I ran some wire from the living room to my office (they share a wall). I put my hard drives in the next room and now I can’t hear the fans. I’ve got to clean up the wires behind my TV again since I changed stuff. One day, I’ll come up with a well-thought out system for my hard drives and media.