Eric's Writings

Puzzling results from Apple TV when there is no Internet

2012-01-31T13:48:00.001-05:00

As of late, my ISP has been getting worse and worse; Internet connection seems to go out constantly. But the real puzzling thing is what happens to the 2nd generation Apple TV when there is no Internet.

I will still be able to stream Music, Podcasts, Photos, and iTunes U content that is stored on my computer via my Airport Extreme Base Station. However, Movies and TV Shows from my computer will not stream if there is no Internet connection. Even if it's content I created myself. I do not understand why this occurs, but it's very confusing. If other content continues to stream without an Internet connection, why do my Movies and TV Shows fail to do so?

The reason America is failing

2012-01-29T08:12:00.000-05:00

I'm watching an old episode of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? from last year and the contestant is Tami Buechler, an elementary school teacher from Las Vegas. The only questions she got right were the 1st grade questions. Did I mention she is an elementary school teacher?

THIS is what is wrong with America today, the teacher they have are dumber than the students they are supposed to teach. And this isn't a new trend either; when I was in elementary school in the 1980s, I had some pretty dumb teachers too. I remember one time I was told my math was incorrect, just because it was printed wrong in the Teacher's Edition of the math book. That's another problem with American school teachers, if it's not in the TE then they don't know the answer (most of the time).

Same thing when I was in High School in the 1990s. I was in a computer class learning MS Excel, I coming into the class knowing nothing at all, discovered little tricks with Excel that even the teacher didn't know! Why are these teachers so stupid? This is exactly what is wrong with America, and why our education is failing, we have stupid teachers.

We should pay the GOOD teachers more money to stay and keep teachers, and we should fire the BAD teachers (like the one on the game show) that are complete morons.

Why the Lantronix xPrintServer will fail

2012-01-25T10:08:00.001-05:00

Lantronix showed off xPrintServer at CES 2012 with a price point of $150. You can buy a new AirPrint-enabled printer for less than that. I contacted Lantronix asking how they can justify the price, Mark Tullio replied with the following:

Hi – thank you for your email about our xPrintServer and your concern about the price point. While we understand your concern about the price, we wanted to clarify the product and the market for it:

The xPrintServer is designed primarily for businesses. A price point on a more consumer version of this product would, as you mentioned, need to be lower.

Regards,
-Mark

There is only one problem with that, Lantronix showed XPrintServer off at CES, which stands for the CONSUMER Electronic Show. You go to a consumer trade show to introduce a business product? Are you a complete idiot?!? By going to CES, you told the world that your target audience are consumers. If you were trying to target businesses, then don't go to CES; go to a business trade show instead.

The Lantronix xPrintServer will fail because it is priced too high. End of story.

The problem with UltraViolet

2012-01-20T13:50:00.001-05:00

The problem with UltraViolet is that you need multiple accounts to use it. You can't just create an UltraViolet account and be able to watch movies, you need to create a "client" account (such as with Flixster). Now after you created TWO accounts, let's say you want to download the movie to your computer. Well you need to download two additional pieces of software to your computer, Adobe AIR and the Flixster Collections App. So now you're dealing with four hassles just to watch a single movie.

(What you're presented with after clicking "download")

Another problem is there is no syncing between devices. With the old (or what I call the "real") digital copy bundled with DVDs and Blu-ray Discs that downloaded to iTunes, the movie would be synced between all devices. So if I watched the movie on my Apple TV and then wanted to finish watching it on my iPad, I could pick up exactly where I left off. HOWEVER, things don't work like that with UltraViolet! I'm watching a movie via the Flixster app on my Google TV and then I tried to watch the same movie on the Flixster app on my iPad and I started from the beginning of the movie. It did NOT pick up where I left off, like the Apple digital copy does.

UltraViolet is a complete piece of crap, and I personally boycott any movie that says an UltraViolet copy is included. I discovered a deal Flixster was having, where after creating an account you get one movie for free (from a very limited collection of below-average titles). And I only created an account, to get the free movies, so I could review UltraViolet. Now that I did, I'm glad it was free, because UltraViolet is a piece of garbage!

Apple and education

2012-01-19T20:12:00.001-05:00

Today (January 19, 2012) Apple announced textbooks in the iBookstore for high school. More exciting are the improvements to iTunes U. Before, iTunes U was a cluster of files; a fragmented mess. iTunes U is now an app in its own right, which brings the audio, video, and text all in one unified place. This makes getting full use out of iTunes U easier and more user-friendly.

If you haven't done so yet, head over to the App Store and search for "iTunes U" and install the app to get started.

Why movie titles matter - The Karate Kid

2012-01-12T13:23:00.002-05:00

The 2010 movie The Karate Kid staring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith (son of Will Smith) would have been good under a different title, but disappoints under the current title. Trying to bank off the title of a successful series of movies from the 1980s is no way to make a movie. Think of Nicolas Cage as an example. After his first movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), he changed his name (he's credited as Nicolas Coppola in Ridgemont High). He didn't want to be successful because of his uncle Francis Ford Coppola; he wanted his success to be of his own merits. However the producers and director of The Karate Kid (2010) didn't feel so inclined to succeed on their own merits.

Karate is a Japanese martial art, but the movie is set in China. Also, the boy doesn't learn Karate, he learns Kung Fu; an entirely different form of martial arts. The movie would have been better served being called The Kung Fu Kid, or like it's called in Japan Best Kid. I think Best Kid would have been a good title for American distribution, rather than The Karate Kid which insults both the 1980s movies, and the Japanese.

When creating a movie, it's important to consider the title as well as the story and plot. However in this case, the title was butchered by Hollywood. The title is what brings what would have been a solid 4-star movie down to only 2-stars. If it wasn't for the excellent acting by Jackie Chan, this movie might have even been brought down to 1-star due to the title.

Hollywood, you need to take movie titles more seriously; and put more of an effort into using a correct one. I wonder what Ralph Macchio and Noriyuki "Pat" Morita would have said about the title of this movie.

If you want to see the real Karate Kid, pick up the 1984 version at your favorite video store. Here are links to the The Karate Kid series on IMDB for your reading pleasure:

If, however, you're interested in the fake Karate Kid, you can find the IMDB link here

Google, we want iPad apps!

2012-01-05T07:33:00.001-05:00

Google recently added native iPad support to "Google Translate" but there are still other Google apps that have yet to get an iPad facelift. These include:

Google TV
Google Voice
Google+
Blogger

I wish Google would update these iPhone apps to work with the iPad. Sure you can hit "2x" on an iPad to (somewhat) fill the screen, but it's not really the same thing as having native iPad support.

Dog the Bounty Liar!

2012-01-04T23:00:00.000-05:00

The commercials have been running for over a week about the new season of Dog the Bounty Hunter and the episode in the commercial mentions the arrest of "Baby Lyssa" last year. However, tonight (January 4th) is the start of the new season, and what do you know... there is NO mention of the arrest! A&E lied about which episode would start off the new season just to get higher ratings (in the hope more people would tune in to see Lyssa arrested).

This is a bold-faced lie and A&E should be ashamed with themselves. This is a horrible example of false advertising. I normally don't watch the show, because I think it sucks. But I watched it tonight just to see the episode that was advertised. This is NOT the episode that was advertised. A&E you owe me an hour of my life back!

Apple, put Cover Flow in other products!

2011-12-15T20:20:00.001-05:00

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

One of the features that really wowed me about the original iPod touch was Cover Flow. Cover Flow in iTunes (and later in Finder) is also pretty good on the Mac. But where Apple went wrong is the exclusion of Cover Flow in the iPad and the Apple TV. Cover Flow would be amazing in these two products; not just for music, but also for movies. Being able to scroll between movie covers on Apple TV would be as cool as using Kinect on the Xbox 360 to scroll through movies.

Now I know not everyone would want Cover Flow on their iPad or Apple TV, but that's what preferences are for. There could be an on/off toggle for this feature on both devices. I think Apple could sell a ton more devices if they included Cover Flow. I'm really hoping they understand this soon and add the feature in an upcoming update to the operating system.

WebOS is going open source

2011-12-10T18:17:00.001-05:00

HP announced recently that they are making WebOS available to the open source community. People will be able to tweek it and put it on any device they see fit. (provided you know how to tweek software to work on any device)

It would be interesting to see someone rework the software to run on Intel Core i7 processors. WebOS currently runs on ARM processors

Flipboard for iPhone and iPod touch

2011-12-07T09:39:00.001-05:00

I mentioned it before and now it finally happened. Flipboard has come to the iPhone and iPod touch. You can easily import your setting from the iPad using your Flipboard account. Happy reading!

Apple thinks 2 days is too late

2011-12-06T14:49:00.001-05:00

Apple recalled the graphics card in my MacBook Pro; however when I went into an Apple store to get mine replaced, I was 12 days late. My computer was experiencing problems with the faulty recalled graphics one month prior, but I was stuck in bed for the past month with severe pneumonia. Unable to leave the house, I missed the deadline by 12 days. When I showed up at the Apple store on that 12th day, they refused to replace it under the recalled agreement. Instead, they said I'd have to pay over $500 to get the graphics replaced. I explained my illness, but they didn't care. I've bought at least three new Apple products per year since 2007, so I'm a pretty good customer. Apple doesn't care, they wouldn't bend their rules for anything.

Thank you so much Apple, you really care about your customers.

Apple TV vs. Google TV

2011-11-23T23:20:00.001-05:00

I reviewed Google TV last year, and though the Android 3.1 update this Fall has brought with it the Android Marketplace and better UI, the Google TV still falls short in my opinion.

I recently picked up an Apple TV for the ability to mirror my iPad 2 on it. Due to an issue I'll be buying a new TV later this year.

Both devices have their shortcomings, both are far from perfect. Overall I will say that the Apple TV is my preferred box of choice. One thing I used Google TV for a lot, was Podcasts. Apple has a larger selection of Podcasts, and all the ones I watched on GTV are also available on ATV. And yes, I realize that you can manually add podcasts to GTV that don't show up in their Podcast list, but it's more of a hassle. Especially when those Podcasts are listed on the Apple TV Podcast list. Also Apple TV makes it easier to watch movies I have stored on my computer. Just throw a movie into iTunes, and it plays on Apple TV. I'm not talking about just movies you buy on iTunes, I'm talking about DVDs that you rip to your hard drive. To do this on Google TV, I have to put the movies on a USB hard drive (or flash drive) and load up Media Player on GTV. And even then, there is a chance GTV will choke on the video and not play properly.

Now if you do buy movies from iTunes for some reason, well those only play on Apple TV. I bought one of the first movies to appear in the iTunes Store, just to test out the quality. After I found out the dreaded DRM prevented me from burning to a DVD, I stopped buying from iTunes. It just doesn't make sense, buy the DVD and rip a digital copy yourself. Luckily a lot of movies these days come with digital copies, so you don't have to rip as much as you used to.

ATTENTION MOVIE STUDIOS:
Speaking of digital copies, UltraViolate is a horrible piece of shit. STOP IT MOVIE STUDIOS! If you want to include a digital copy, make it a REAL digital copy. You used to include codes that worked in iTunes (for iPods, etc.) or Windows Media Center (for Zune). Just continue doing that, people still had a choice (iPod or Zune), but now you took that choice away. People MUST use your crappy software to play the UltraViolate movies. And you have to create TWO different accounts just to watch the UltraViolate movies on your computer.

What I don't like about Netflix

2011-11-22T12:11:00.001-05:00

Originally the model for Netflix was DVDs in the mail for a flat fee per month, similar to how it is now with streaming. But here's the kicker, as a bonus you were able to stream some of the movies for FREE over the Internet.

Then Netflix decided to make a business out of streaming, and for $2 extra you could get DVDs in the mail.

Then Netflix decided to charge you a 60% price hike, going from $10/month to $16/month to get streaming plus DVDs.

Then they announced Qwikster as a way to "make people less pissed." However, it just made people more pissed.

Then they dropped the Qwikster idea, but are keeping the 60% price hike.

Oh well, their streaming content was very limited anyway. I used Netflix for a while, and was not impressed at all. Needless to say, I don't use their service anymore. Their lackluster collection of streaming content left a bad taste in my mouth.

New UI for Google iOS app

2011-11-21T14:23:00.001-05:00

The Google iOS app has received a new UI tht makes it look more like the website than the previous version did. He Google app is a universal binary that runs on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Citizen Kane on Blu-ray

2011-11-19T22:13:00.000-05:00

I recently acquired Citizen Kane on Blu-ray, which was released only a couple of months ago. Loaded with a ton more bonus material than the DVD, watch this video of my explaining what you get in the box.

Apple TV, older sets beware!

2011-11-18T22:49:00.001-05:00

Do not buy an Apple TV if your set is older than 6 years. That is how old mine is, and Apple TV decided it was too old to behave correctly. I am stuck with a 480p image, if I try to manually change it the screen goes blank. Other devices, such as my Google TV, blu-ray player, and cable box all receive the full 1080i single. However, I can't even get the meager 720p that the Apple TV is limited to. I bought the Apple TV mainly for iPad 2 mirroring, however look how awful this picture looks.

I am disapointed in Apple's ability to get a simple thing like resolution on older sets correct. Especially when every other box I connect works just fine.

Flipboard is coming to the iPhone soon

2011-11-17T18:16:00.001-05:00

I have spoken of Flipboard before, and it is my favorite app on the iPad. Now it will be coming to the iPhone in the not-to-distant future. The app was updated Thursday, and in the changelog is the following:

Flipboard Accounts. Create an account to access your Flipboard on a shared iPad or on the upcoming release of Flipboard for iPhone.

The bolding was added by me for emphasis. This is great news for anyone who likes to read their news on the go, and enter areas where an iPad is too large to follow. And with the inclusion of this new syncing account, your Flipboard will be the same no matter which iOS device you decide to read it on.

If you have multiple iPads, you can give it a try right now. (or just wait for the iPhone version to be released)

The iPhone 5 is actually an iPhone 6

2011-11-11T20:44:00.001-05:00

Many tech sites say "The iPhone 5 will come out in 2012" - but they miss a very important point. It will NOT be called an "iPhone 5" and the people that continue to refer it as that are idiots.

To this date, there have been five iPhones:

iPhone
iPhone 3G
iPhone 3GS
iPhone 4
iPhone 4S

If you count all those, that is FIVE. Which means next year will be the iPhone 6. SIX, NOT FIVE, GET IT?!?

The next iPhone will be the iPhone 6. Now shut up about this "iPhone 5" crap.

iOS 5.0.1 is here

2011-11-10T22:07:00.001-05:00

Today there was a minor update to iOS 5, and as Steve Jobs promised, the Over-The-Air (OTA) delta software updates work quite well. Unfortunately, I was hoping for some kind of notification of the update, which there was no sign of. At least with the old way, when you plugged your iDevice into your computer to sync, iTunes would notify you of an update. But now that syncing to iTunes (or iCloud, if you choose) is done wirelessly, there is no notification of such an update to the software. I found out after reading about it on other blogs.

In no time at all, I successfully updated all my iDevices wirelessly. If you haven't done so yet, grab the update. Just go to Settings -> General -> Software Update then choose to download the update. You will need a battery of at least 50% before it will let you install however. I had to plug my iPad 2 in, as it only had 33% battery. After plugging it into a power source, I was able to install.

Flash is dead on Mobile

2011-11-09T14:31:00.001-05:00

Today Adobe announced that they will be stopping development of the Flash plug-in for mobile devices, in favor is HTML5. This will hopefully get more web developers to design their websites with HTML5 instead of Flash. Somewhat of a victory to people (like me) that absolutely hate Flash. Flash is a huge resource hog, it slows systems down, causes them to overheat, and can even crash a computer. I hated it back when it was called Macromedia Flash, and I hate it even more now. For those too young to remember, the company Macromedia created Flash and later bought by Adobe.

The reason I say it's only somewhat of a victory, is that Flash is still being developed for the desktop/laptop computer. Also Adobe said they will still support current mobile devices that already have Flash installed on them. This gives web developers little incentive to redesign their sites to remove Flash, but hopefully in the next few years as more and more people browse the web with their mobile device instead of a computer, maybe then we will finally be able to browse a Flash-free Internet.

Google TV 2.0 is released

2011-10-31T11:01:00.000-05:00

I have mentioned the shortcomings of Google TV last year, and now Google TV is finally going to be half way decent. With the update, comes the Android Market, and an improved UI. The update isn't coming to all boxes at the same time, but will be showered down to all the boxes over a 24 hour period. I have yet to receive the update on my Google TV box, but I know others that have. If you're the owner of a Sony Internet TV device, expect the update today. Those with Logitech Revues will receive the update at a later time.

Contributions Steve Jobs has made

2011-10-13T16:18:00.000-05:00

With the help of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs revolutionized the computer industry by providing the first commercially successful personal computers. This opened the door to other companies also manufacturing PCs as well.

Steve also saved animated film with Pixar. Animation was starting to die, Pixar teamed up with Disney to release Toy Story, and the rest is history. (Disney has since bought Pixar)

With all the pirated music on the Internet, the music industry was losing money. Then came the iTunes Store, which legitimized music downloads by selling them. Now iTunes is the #1 music store in the country, which rivals "brick and mortar" stores in sales.

With everyone blogging these days, the printed word was starting to die. Steve saved newspapers and magazines by giving them a new outlet to sell their products; that outlet being the iPad.

Remember the days when people used to handwrite letters? A lot of younger people don't. With e-mail, sms, mms, instant messaging and the like, the Postal Service is slowly dying. Now you can create cards on your iPhone or iPod touch and they will be mailed out by post. This could very well save postal workers from losing their jobs.

iOS 5 is out

2011-10-12T14:03:00.001-05:00

iOS 5 has been released, but a lot of people are reporting problems installing it. This may be due to the Apple server failing under heavy pressure right now. The iOS 5 update brings the following features:

iOS 5 has been released, but a lot of people are reporting problems installing it. This may be due to the Apple server failing under heavy pressure right now.

The iOS 5 update brings the following features:

iOS 5 Software Update

This update contains over 200 new features, including the following:

• Notifications
◦ Swipe from the top of any screen to view notifications in one place with Notification Center
◦ New notifications appear briefly at the top of the screen
◦ View notifications from lock screen
◦ Slide the notification app icon to the right on the lock screen to go directly to the app
• iMessage
◦ Send and receive unlimited text, photo, and video messages with other iOS 5 users
◦ Track messages with delivery and read receipts
◦ Group messaging and secure encryption
◦ Works over cellular network and Wi-Fi*
• Newsstand
◦ Automatically organizes magazine and newspaper subscriptions on Home Screen
◦ Displays the cover of the latest issue
◦ Background downloads of new issues
• Reminders for managing to do lists
◦ Syncs with iCloud, iCal and Outlook
◦ Location-based reminders when you leave or arrive at a location for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
• Built-in support for Twitter
◦ Sign-in once in Settings and tweet directly from Camera, Photos, Maps, Safari and YouTube
◦ Add location to any tweet
◦ View twitter profile pictures and usernames in Contacts
• Camera improvements for devices with cameras
◦ Double click the home button when device is asleep to bring up a camera shortcut on iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
◦ Volume Up button to take a picture
◦ Optional grid lines to line up shots
◦ Pinch to zoom in the preview screen
◦ Swipe to camera roll from preview screen
◦ Tap and hold to lock focus and exposure, iPad 2 and iPod touch (4th generation) only support exposure lock
• Photo improvements for devices with cameras
◦ Crop and rotate
◦ Red eye removal
◦ One tap enhance
◦ Organize photos into albums
• Mail improvements
◦ Format text using bold, italic, or underlined fonts
◦ Indentation control
◦ Drag to rearrange names in address fields
◦ Flag messages
◦ Mass mark messages as flagged, read or unread
◦ Customize mail alert sounds
◦ S/MIME
• Calendar improvements
◦ Year view on iPad and new Week view for iPhone and iPod touch
◦ Tap to create an event
◦ View and add event attachments
• Game Center improvements
◦ Use personal photos for your Game Center account
◦ Compare your overall achievement scores with your friends
◦ Find new Game Center friends with friend recommendations and friends of friends
◦ Discover new games with custom game recommendations
• AirPlay Mirroring for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S
• Multitasking Gestures for iPad
◦ Use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen
◦ Swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar
◦ Swipe left or right to switch between apps
• On-device setup, activation and configuration with Setup Assistant
• Software updates available over the air without tethering
• iCloud support
◦ iTunes in the Cloud
◦ Photo Stream
◦ Documents in the Cloud
◦ Apps and Books automatic download and purchase history
◦ Backup
◦ Contacts, Calendar, and Mail
◦ Find My iPhone
• Redesigned Music app for iPad
• Hourly weather forecast
• Real-time stock quotes
• Wireless sync to iTunes
• Keyboard improvements
◦ Split keyboard for iPad
◦ Improved autocorrection accuracy
◦ Improved Chinese and Japanese input
◦ New Emoji keyboard
◦ Personal dictionary for autocorrection
◦ Optionally create keyboard short cuts for frequently used words
• Accessibility improvements
◦ Option to light LED flash on incoming calls and alerts for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
◦ Custom vibration patterns for incoming calls on iPhone
◦ New interface for using iOS with mobility-impairment input devices
◦ Option to speak a selection of text
◦ Custom element labeling for VoiceOver
• Exchange ActiveSync improvements
◦ Wirelessly sync tasks
◦ Mark messages as flagged, read or unread
◦ Improved offline support
◦ Save a new contact from a GAL service
• More than 1,500 new developer APIs
• Bug fixes

Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone 4S
• iPhone 4
• iPhone 3GS
• iPad 2
• iPad
• iPod touch (4th generation)
• iPod touch (3rd generation)

* Normal carrier data rates may apply. Messages will be sent as SMS when iMessage is unavailable, carrier messaging fees apply.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Facebook for iPad

2011-10-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

Facebook for iPad has now officially been released, finally! The app will now allow for things that were impossible in Mobile Safari (such as video and photo uploads).