Thanks Steve

Steve Jobs - 1955-2011

Like a lot of people, I woke up this morning to hear the incredibly sad news about the death of Steve Jobs. We all knew he was ill, probably very ill, but I wasn't expecting it so soon. The way he'd been talking when he stepped down as Apple CEO a few months back, I figured he still had years ahead of him.

So many people have said so many poignant and truthful things already today. Friends like Rich, Oli and Sam - just regular, everyday Apple fans - have already paid tribute to a man who touched their lives in a unique way. I can imagine others (those who obviously don't understand) saying "But you never even met the guy! What's the big deal?"

I'll take a moment to share my perspective on Steve, and what he did for me.

I've used Macs for a long time. Back before the original iMac. Before the iPod. Before they were cool. For me, there was always something great about them, even those monochrome Mac Classics that I used in the early nineties. They had character. They were different.

And then, Steve came back to Apple after his "wilderness years". He launched the iMac, and what a machine that was. Then came OSX. Then came the iPod. In those revolutionary products, Steve captured the attention of the world and showed them something that they didn't even know they wanted, but simply had to have.

Through my job, I got to buy and play with a lot of Apple kit. The G3 iMac, in particular, revolutionised my view of what a computer should be, and should do. I was never going back. I'm sat here typing this on an iMac right now.

Apple's meteoric rise has been astounding. Only recently, Steve's guidance saw the iPad become their next massive success - and again, a product that "experts" thought wouldn't sell because there was no market for it.

Today, it seems like everyone is brandishing an "iDevice" like a style accessory. The majority don't have Macs, and never will have. They probably don't know the first thing about the history and evolution of that piece of technological wizardry they're holding, and nothing of the contribution Steve has made to their lives.

If I've got one regret about how massively successful Steve made Apple, it's that not enough people will look down at their Apple product on this monumental, awful day, take a brief quiet moment and think to themselves, "Thanks Steve".

I like to move it (iTunes, that is)

When I bought my iMac last year, I foolishly thought that a 500GB hard drive would be plenty big enough. But you know what they say, you can never have too much storage and my recent regime of ripping DVDs into iTunes as well as upgrading a lot of my music to lossless files has meant that those 500 gigabytes have been getting used up pretty quickly.

I figured that I needed to locate my burgeoning iTunes library somewhere else, off of the iMac internal hard drive. I had a few options, and the one uppermost in my mind was Network Attached Storage (NAS). After discussing this with Olitee though, he was firmly of the opinion that this wasn't necessarily the best option. Not only was it expensive, it might not work exactly as I wanted it to. I'd still have to have iTunes running on my Mac in order to be able to get my files to my AppleTV and Airport Express. His answer was a big external hard drive, locally attached to my Mac instead.

However, the thing I liked about a NAS was that - if it was a two-bay one, with two separate drives inside - it would automatically mirror one drive to the other in case of failure. I wouldn't be able to do this with an external hard drive would I?

I've used Apple's Time Machine to back up my computer ever since it was first introduced in Leopard, and I love it. It's incredibly reliable. What I didn't realise though, is that Time Machine will not only back up your main Mac drive, but it can also backup up other attached drives (providing they are formatted for Mac), so clearly, if done correctly, I could get Time Machine to backup my external iTunes library in addition to my main Mac drive.

So, learning from my "you can never have too much storage" lesson, I decided to go the whole hog and get two new drives - a 1TB for my iTunes library, and a 2TB for Time Machine.

Moving your iTunes library is reasonably straightforward, but there are a few potential pitfalls along the way - things have to be done in a certain order. You can search for "moving iTunes to external drive" if you want some more in-depth tutorials on the subject, but here's how I went about it.

Firstly, because I wanted Time Machine to be able to backup my iTunes drive, I needed to format it for Mac use. By default, most external drives come preformatted as FAT32, and rather stupidly, the ones that are Mac formatted cost more money?!

Anyway, you need to fire up Disk Utility, choose your drive in the left-hand column (make sure you choose the right one!) and then go to the "Partition" tab. I only wanted the one partition, so I chose this from the dropdown and ensured "MacOS Extended (Journaled)" was selected. Hit "Apply" and in only a few seconds you have a freshly formatted drive, ready to go.

The important thing to realise at this point is that you CANNOT just drag-and-drop your iTunes folder onto this new drive and expect it to work. It won't. You need to let iTunes do your housekeeping for you - that way the iTunes program can keep track of what is going where.

Needless to say, before you start messing with any of this, make sure you have a backup in case things go awry.

Then, in iTunes, you need to go to the File menu, and then choose "Library" -> "Organise Library".

From here you'll get a dialog giving you two check boxes - the lower of the two says "Reorganize files in the folder iTunes Media". If you've already got your library set up this way, then it will be greyed out and you won't be able to click it, so you needn't worry about this step. If, like me, you didn't have it this way, you can check this box at this point. DON'T choose the upper "Consolidate files" checkbox just yet - that comes later! Click "OK" and iTunes will set everything up in neat subfolders for you, in a central repository called "iTunes Media", subdivided into music, movies, TV shows etc. To be clear, you don't HAVE to do this - you can leave your folder structure as is, but to my mind allowing iTunes to set it up makes the next steps easier.

The next part is to tell iTunes that you want to move your library somewhere else. You do this via the iTunes "Preferences" option. Go to the "Advanced" tab, and you'll see "iTunes Media folder location" at the top.

Click the "Change" button and navigate to your external iTunes drive (I named mine, rather imaginatively, "iTunes"). You need to create a folder inside this drive for your media files, so create one at this point using the "New folder" button. You can name this new folder anything you like, but I opted for the default "iTunes Media". Click okay, and then ensure both the "Keep iTunes Media folder organised" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" checkboxes are ticked. Click "OK".

Now comes the slightly scary bit. Go back to the iTunes "File -> Library -> Organise library" menu, and this time check the "Consolidate files" box. Click "OK", and iTunes will warn you that it's about to copy everything into the new location and that this cannot be undone. Click "OK", and the long and arduous task of moving everything will commence. This could take minutes or hours, depending on the size of your library.

Bear in mind that this does not remove your original media files from their previous locations - it copies them, not moves them. This means that you'll have all your music, movies and so on in two locations now - the new one, and the old one. Clearly the object of the exercise is to free up space, so you need to find your original "iTunes Media" folder and drag it to the trash. It's VERY important not to trash any of the other iTunes files - just the media folder. The other files "iTunes Library.itl", "iTunes Music Library.xml" etc are vital to the correct operation of iTunes. If you get rid of these, you'll lose all your play counts and playlists.

Quite iTunes, and then restart it. If you've done things correctly, iTunes will simply restart without protest. If it does, then you can empty the trash, deleting your original media files and freeing up all that lovely drive space!

For most people, that will be quite enough tinkering. Everything will work as it should, and when you add new music or videos to iTunes, they will be stored on your external drive along with all the others. However, if you've got computer-OCD like me, you'll want to move all those other iTunes files that I just mentioned too.

Make sure iTunes isn't running, and then go to your original iTunes folder location, and there will be those few files (iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Music Library.xml, iTunes Library Genius.itdb etc) and folders (Previous iTunes Libraries, Album Artwork etc) in there. You can copy and paste these into the root of your new iTunes drive (i.e. NOT in the iTunes Media folder) and then, once this is done, you ned to start up iTunes whilst holding down the option key on a Mac, or shift key on a PC, and iTunes will ask you to choose an iTunes library. Click "Choose library" and navigate to your new drive and click OK. iTunes will start up, and from hereon will remember where to find its files. You can delete the original files once everything is working correctly, or if you're paranoid like me, you can back them up safely in a separate folder somewhere else in case of disaster.

All of this will mean that you've moved all of iTunes, wholesale, to your new external drive.

By default, Time Machine WON'T be backing up this new drive at this point, so make sure you go to the Time Machine preferences and remove your iTunes drive from the "Exclude" list under the "options" menu. The next time Time Machine works its magic, it'll backup not only your internal drive but also your external iTunes drive as well. Sorted.

Mac software essentials

Once I'd taken delivery of my new iMac, I had the task of setting it all up the way I wanted it. Fortunately, being a Mac, that is all very easy. When you first switch it on, it asks you if you've got a Time Machine backup that you'd like to use to restore your previous data. Obviously I had been using Time Machine, so pointed it in the right direction. It then asks exactly what you want restored - music, photos, applications etc. I decided to just go for my personal data, as I was aware that I had clogged up my old machine with no end of applications that I had only ever used once before deciding they weren't for me.

Everything restored just the way I wanted it, but then I had the task of putting back just the applications I REALLY wanted, and this was quite a useful decision-making process. So what did I install? Here's my round up - and you'll be pleased to know it's all free!

The first thing I went for was trusty old Firefox. I prefer it over Safari for a number of reasons - I like the plugins you can get for it, particularly Xmarks, favicon support and its Google search defaults to the UK site. Small things, but for me it gives it the edge.

The next essential app is Skype. It's even better now I have a Mac with an iSight camera, as obviously I can now do video chat. All my friends have an account, and not only does it do voice and video chat, it's also a very decent instant messaging program. Add in the fact that I've also got it installed on my iPod Touch and mobile phone, it's an absolute must-have.

Next up, Dropbox. I realise that you can just use it direct from the web interface, but the Mac app adds so much more. I've got it set up to automatically synchronise with my Documents folder, so I know I've always got an up-to-date copy on Dropbox if I ever need a file, and the drag-and-drop nature of the desktop app means it's all much simpler than the web uploader.

I'm going to bundle these two together, as they are very similar in their functionality - Perian and Flip4Mac. In actual fact, there's nothing that you need to do with them once they're installed, but they give you access to all the different web video codecs that you're likely to come across. Flip4Mac handles WMV files within the Quicktime player, and Perian does the rest.

On a similar video-based theme, the VLC player is very handy for playing any truculent videos that don't like the Quicktime player. Not only that, it's essential to get my next app choice to work properly. Which brings me on to...

Handbrake! A fabulous piece of free software, it allows you to rip DVDs to a variety of formats and sizes. It works in conjunction with the VLC player, so make sure you've got that installed if you want to use Handbrake. There are a lot of settings to play with if you're so inclined, or just go for the presets.

If you're a Twitterer like me, then a Twitter client is a must-have rather than constantly visiting the website. My client of choice is Twitterrific, which is free if you can put up with the occasional advert. It's slick and unobtrusive, and there's a matching iPhone/iTouch app too.

One of the finest ideas in a long time, Spotify is quite something. Internet-based free music, supported by the occasional advert (or ad-free if you want to pay a subscription). I think it's brilliant. Great for discovering new music before committing to a purchase, and I really like the iTunes-like interface.

If you like to dabble in a bit of BitTorrent, you can do a lot worse than this very fine client app, Transmission. Small but perfectly formed, it does everything you need to do without any bloat or unnecessary features.

Should you need to FTP anything, then Filezilla is a great fully-featured free application for doing just that. Not much more to say really. Easy to use, does everything it needs to including secure FTP if you require it.

And finally, if you just can't help yourself and you find yourself installing stuff that you later discover you don't want then you need to get rid. You could just drag it to the trash, but that's not very sophisticated. AppCleaner will also get rid of all the associated files and folders leaving you crud-free. Splendid.

So there you go - all tried-and-tested, top notch free applications. So are there any that I've missed? Your suggestions in the comments if you will...

I can resist everything except temptation

I knew it would just be a matter of time. Despite my best efforts to convince myself that I was completely happy with my G5 iMac, I knew deep down that I really wanted a new one. And over the last few days, I caved in. However, there was of course the perennial problem of how to pay for it. There was no way I could stretch to (or accomodate!) the 27-inch model, as that would just have been too much, but I thought that the entry-level 22-inch might be within my grasp. I knew that I would have to make sacrifices in order to meet my target.

Taking a leaf out of Olitee's book, I set about scouring the house for things that I could flog on eBay. I decided I'd have to part with my EeePC, and I knew I had a buyer lined up for my current iMac so already I was almost halfway there. I figured that seeing as I'd used the telephoto lens on my camera twice in the five years I'd had it that it could probably go, and then there was an assortment of quite decent computer bits that I didn't need any more. After much faffing with photos and descriptions, it was all up on eBay and to my pleasure it all sold first time.

The money that I made from all this was more than 75% of the way to the new iMac, so using tried-and-tested "LaceyMath" I thought I could justify the purchase bearing in mind the massive upgrade it would give me for what was now relatively little money. I went with the bog-standard 22-inch configuration, no messing about - 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, wireless keyboard and magic mouse. Pretty impressive specs for the entry-level machine really.

I ordered it on the Thursday afternoon, and it had been delivered by Friday afternoon. Getting it out of the box, I simply wasn't prepared for the comparative size difference between the existing 17-inch and the new 22-inch. It seems absolutely massive. I can only imagine what the 27-inch is like.

Anyway, the upshot is that I now have a beautiful new iMac sitting on my desk in front of me and it really is very impressive. The new LED screen is quite something, and the performance is superb. Where my old G5 used to take about 12 hours for Handbrake to encode a 2-hour DVD, this new machine can manage it in under an hour! I got nearly five years of use out of that old G5 (and it's still up and running nicely with its new owner) so I'm reckoning that this one will do me until about 2015!

Airport extension

I've sung the praises of the Apple Airport Express before on this blog, and recently I've got myself another one - this time, the newer 802.11N version.

Although it's essentially the same, in upgrading it to "N" Apple have introduced a bit more functionality to the unit at the same time. Whilst tinkering with it, I've found something very useful - something which you can't do with the old "G" revision.

I've had a few problems with the wifi reception around my house - quite a few dead spots, and patchy signal strength - so I'm now using the Airport Express to boost things up a bit. It's widely publicised that the Express can lock onto the wifi signal from an Apple base station and then relay it to extend the coverage, but I don't have an Apple base station. I've configured it slightly differently.

I've taken an ethernet cable out of my existing Netgear wifi router (which is still on main wifi duties), and plugged this into the ethernet port of the Airport Express in another part of the house. Using the Airport Utility on my Mac, I've then set it up to rebroadcast the signal it's getting via it's inbuilt transmitter. All quite mundane so far - but the clever bit (as far as I'm concerned) is that the Express can use the same SSID as the existing network, so your client wifi devices only see one single network name in the list of available networks. Your wifi device - laptop, iPod Touch, phone, whatever - will use the strongest signal in any given place, and switch if necessary, all completely seamlessly.

I've now got a decent, strong signal virtually everywhere in the house - a clever solution from a VERY versatile Apple gadget!

If you want to know specifics about the setup, just ask in the comments.

Essential upgrade - maybe

Word on the street (i.e. internet) says that there will be a new version of the iPod Touch arriving as early as September this year. And, if rumours are to be believed, it could come complete with everything from a built-in camera to a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The things I would most like to see, and the things that are most likely to be included in the update, are a camera (hopefully the autofocus/macro model from the iPhone 3GS) and the GPS capabilities (also from the iPhone). These two things would make the Touch even more indespensable than it already is. The number of apps that would benefit from a camera are immense, and equally GPS for being properly "location aware" would be brilliant. Less likely, but also high on my personal wishlist, would be a built-in microphone. I'm guessing a processor speed bump and more RAM are a given, as is the version 3.0 OS.

However, if these things really were included the the third-gen Touch, wouldn't it be straying just a bit *too* far into iPhone territory? Already it's 75% iPhone, and these additions would push it to about 90%. The only thing missing would be the telephony features. I'm thinking that Apple would be wary of eating into its iPhone sales (and associated revenue from the stupidly long and stupidly expensive tarriffs).

Needless to say though, if they did manage to put a camera and GPS in the next model, mine would be straight on eBay and I'd preorder the day it was announced - providing it can come in at a sensible price. Let's hope that the money men at Apple see the sales opportunities for a better Touch and don't fret too much about their iPhone contracts...

And... thanks for nothing.

So the WWDC keynote has been and gone, and it was all a bit... well... meh.

The iPhone 3.0 OS looks like a good upgrade, but it wasn't exactly a surprise as it was announced months ago - and if I want it on my iPod Touch it'll cost me, whereas iPhone users get it for free. What's that all about?! But it's definitely worth the outlay as it will give me the ability to CUT, COPY, PASTE AND UNDO!!

As for Snow Leopard, again it looks like a worthwhile step forward. And the best bit? Only $29! That's a serious bargain. Oh, wait... what's this?! Intel only? Ah. Not for me, this brave new world. There will be no snow on my ageing G5 Leopard.

And so on to the much anticipated new iPhone hardware - the iPhone 3GS! Marvel at the camera that is THREE WHOLE MEGAPIXELS WHICH CAN RECORD FRICKIN' VIDEO! Gasp in wonder at the introduction of HSDPA! WHOA! What is this, 2007?!

Way to go Apple. Sometimes you disappoint me greatly. But I still love you. I think.

Offsite

I've recently got my hands on Leopard and I've started using Time Machine for backups - and I have to say it really takes the hard work out of backing stuff up. However, as good as it is I've also started being extra cautious and begun a strategy of off-site backups. I figure that all the backup in the world won't help if some scumbag burgles your house and nicks not only your computer but your backup drive as well. Believe me, in my line of work I see it all the time.

I've burnt all my photos (one year per disc) to DVD and also backed up all my iTunes music to DVD too, and shipped them off to a trusted source. I know that iTunes isn't strictly necessary bearing in mind I still have (most of) the original CDs, so I can always re-rip, but thats a bit of a long task really - and if the aforementioned scumbag steals your CD collection as well as your computer then you're really scuppered, particularly if you've got some classic discs that have now been deleted.

There's not a huge amount else of importance. I make very regular backups of all the websites I work on, but those are fairly small files, so not only do they go on to backup drive AND USB stick, they also get burnt to CD for good measure every so often and I've just started chucking the odd folder of documents and stuff onto DropBox (www.getdropbox.com). I figure you can't be too careful.

Think about it - you might not want to put all your eggs in one hard-drive-shaped basket, regardless of how good your backup strategy is. Just something to think about...

Wi-fi to go

As you may recall (if you've been here before) I recently got myself an Airport Express for the purpose of streaming music from my iMac to my hifi, in conjunction with my iPod Touch and the Remote app. This, as I've already reported, works wonderfully.

I was off to my folks' for the Easter weekend, and I was wondering how I would manage for four days with no wi-fi. Although they have broadband, it only goes directly to their desktop machine and nowhere else. I figured I could take my Airport Express with me, and somehow get it to broadcast a wi-fi signal - thereby allowing me to use my iPod Touch and netbook.

I wasn't entirely sure about the best way of doing this (and I'm not even sure this is the correct way now), but allow me to share how I got it all to work.

The AE has a feature built in to the setup software which allows you to set up profiles. Basically a profile is a batch of settings instructing the AE to function in a certain manner. My default profile was to connect as a client device to my home wifi network and stream music from my iMac. However, I knew when I got to my parents' that this wouldn't work. I needed it to accept the broadband signal via its ethernet port and then act as a wifi base station to broadcast the signal. So I set up a second profile telling the AE to work in the fashion, then packed it in my bag and set off.

Upon my arrival, I plugged in the Airport Express, but the setup software on my netbook simply would *not* find the device at all. I began to wonder how I'd ever manage to switch to my other profile if I couldn't connect to the AE in the first place. After some Googling (on the desktop machine of course!) I discovered that I needed to reset the AE. I held down the reset button for a few seconds, and when the light flashed I knew it had reset itself.

Sure enough, straight away the AE appeared in the Airport software, and it asked me which of my saved profiles I'd like to enable. I chose the new one that I'd set up before I left, and then the unit rebooted. When it restarted, it began broadcasting the wi-fi, which I was able to connect to with both my Eee and my Touch. Result!

Upon my return home, I reversed the process - reset the unit, selected the original profile in the Airport software and it was back in client mode. Simple when you know how...

iMac G5 open-heart surgery

So, after months of blogging about upgrading my G5 iMac, I finally got round to doing it at the weekend. Ably assisted by Olitee, I swapped out the existing hard drive for a much larger, faster model. I went for a 640GB Western Digital Blue in the end, mainly because it's a good combination of price, features and (hopefully) reliability. Having read through Apple's instructions for replacing the hard drive, it seemed a reasonably easy process. And, I'm pleased to report, it was.


Firstly, I made sure everything was backed up before we started. Then it was a matter of opening up the case on the iMac, which is a simple job of loosening three captive screws on the bottom and lifting the whole back plate off. Once inside, the hard drive was easy to find, being located at the top right corner. To get to the screws holding it in place, you have to remove the rubber fan cover. Then the hard drive is held in with three small screws. Loosen these, and the drive comes out attached to a metal chassis.


There are three cables attached - one for data, one for power and a small one on the rear of the chassis which we decided was a temperature sensor. Detach these, and the drive lifts out. Take the chassis off the existing drive and attach it to the new one, and then reverse the procedure to get the drive back in.


To get your OS back on to the drive - which in my case was an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard - you need to boot up the machine with the DVD in the drive whilst holding down the 'c' key. (Good job Olitee was present, because I didn't know about that bit). Once the machine boots, you use Disk Utility to partition the drive and then crack on with the install.


The whole thing was a very simple, painless process and I'm pleased to report that my faithful iMac is now running beautifully. Hurrah!

Incoming

Nothing particularly earth-shattering, but (as part of the ongoing upgrade saga) I have just ordered a new hard drive for my iMac, which should be arriving before the weekend. Went for a 640GB Western Digital Blue. Should hopefully be a marked improvement over the HDD that's currently installed.

Good friend and fellow blogger Olitee is coming over on Saturday and we're going to see if we can't get the trusty old G5 up and running with Leopard at the same time as installing the new disk - it would seem sensible to do both at once. Standby for progress report... and maybe even photos if you're lucky.

Remotely interesting

I've had two Roku Soundbridges for quite a while now. I started with just the one soon after they were first released in the UK, and I loved it so much that I bought a second one soon after for another room. The principle is simple - they're merely audio streamers that use your iTunes library to wirelessly pipe your music to an attached hi-fi. The good bit is, the system works seamlessly and they look nice, which is always a bonus.

However, a couple of months back, my original Soundbridge gave up the ghost. After extensive testing, I came to the conclusion that it was shafted (I think it may have been the power supply) but try as I might, I couldn't get it working again. I looked around for a replacement unit, but it turns out they're now as rare as rocking horse poo, and the only place I could get one was secondhand on Fleabay. I considered alternative options like the Squeezebox Duet and the Sonos multiroom system, but they were way out of my price range. I thought about an Apple Airport Express, but discounted it because I needed to be able to control it without sitting at my computer.

However, it was while I was researching these options that I came across the iPhone/Touch remote app for controlling iTunes. I'd never really noticed it existed before as I had no real need to use it, but I decided that it just might be what I was looking for to make the Airport Express a viable option. I searched around a bit more, but strangely I couldn't get a definitive answer about whether I would be able to use it to remotely control an Airport Express attached to iTunes. Not even the combined geek-knowledge of Richbos and OliTee could answer the question.

I figured that there *should* be a way of using the Remote app to control iTunes to, in turn, stream its music to the Airport Express - all via wi-fi. If it did what I wanted - and if it worked correctly - it would be quite an elegant solution. I could be sat in the kitchen, use the Touch to browse the iTunes library held on my iMac, choose some music and tell it to be sent to the Airport Express in the lounge. Or was I just expecting too much?



First things first - I downloaded the free Remote app via the Apple App Store. Dead easy, and all done in seconds via the Touch itself. Within no time I was enjoying controlling iTunes using it, despite being sat only two feet from my iMac. So far, so good - but a bit pointless without the Airport Express.

I managed to secure myself an Airport Express on eBay for the very reasonable sum of £45, and just two days later I was feverishly unboxing it. I figured that I might be able to just plug it in and get cracking, but even though its an Apple product, it's not *that* clever. There's still some configuration to be done - but it's reasonably simple.

Firstly, my Airport Express was still configured to its previous owner's settings, so as soon as I tried to connect to it with my iMac it requested a password. Fortunately, it's an easy job to do a factory reset and wipe the unit of its configuration. Hold down the reset button for ten seconds, and there you go.

Once that was done, I ran the Airport Setup Utility on my iMac. My mac is normally hooked up via ethernet, but for this step I had to activate the built-in wi-fi so that the iMac and Airport Express could talk to each other. Very quickly the iMac had detected the wireless signal that the AE was broadcasting, and I connected to it. The utility then takes you through some simple steps to find out how you want to use the AE. I opted to make it a client device on my existing wi-fi network (which was sufficient for my purposes) and with that it was set up and raring to go. A 3.5mm jack to stereo RCA lead to connect it to the AUX input on my hi-fi and I was ready to unleash some tunes.



I fired up iTunes, and after a bit of searching I located a previously unseen dropdown menu in the bottom right of the screen which listed both my computer and the new Airport Express as speaker options. From this you can choose one or both to determine where the audio from iTunes gets sent. I chose both, just for fun, and hit play. I was pleasantly surprised to hear my music emanating from both my computer speakers and my hi-fi speakers in the other room, both in perfect sync with each other. Result!

So then - moment of truth. I switched on the iPod Touch and selected the Remote app. I went to the 'settings' screen (from where you choose which iTunes library to connect to) and, right there in front of me, were two new menu options for 'Speakers' - it listed my iMac and my Airport Express, with on/off switches next to them! I navigated through to my library, found a new album and pressed play on the Touch. Again, without so much as a hiccup, the music changed on both computer and AE.

I then discovered that you can activate and deactivate the speakers from the 'Now playing' screen without having to go back to the 'Settings' page every time. Simply tap the album cover, and not only do you get shuffle, repeat and genius options at the top you also get speaker options at the bottom. I spent a good five minutes switching the speakers on and off - just for fun!

So the upshot of all this is - yes, it works as I wanted it to. And it does it beautifully. So well, in fact, that I'm thinking of eBaying my other Soundbridge and buying another Airport Express. It's a brilliant, elegant and simple solution - how very "Apple"...

Please let it be true

So then... according to MacRumors, the interwebs seem to believe that there's an Apple netbook/tablet in the works. Lots of gossip amongst news agencies including Reuters and Dow Jones about Apple placing a large order for 10-inch touchscreens.

Whether it's true or not remains to be seen, but if it is, then this Asus Eee 901 that I'm currently typing on is on borrowed time...

Phase two complete

Nothing exactly earth-shattering, but I've just completed the next step of my iMac upgrade plan. Not blessed with a mountain of cash this month, I decided to go for the least expensive (but most pretty) option and added a new Apple aluminium wired keyboard. To be honest, I don't know why I didn't do it sooner - not only does it look fabulous, but it's also a joy to type on, the media keys across the top are very handy and the best bit is that it was only £28.

The 1TB hard drive, OSX 10.5 and iLife 09 will have to wait a bit longer. Can't make up my mind whether to change the HDD first (and reinstall 10.4) or whether to do everything at once and change the hard drive and install the new OS at the same time (which would seem to make sense). If I do it all at once though, that's about £220 (£90 HDD and £130 Mac Box Set) I'll have to drop. Ouch.

Ah well. For the time being, at least I've got a lovely keyboard...

I just can't help myself...

So I've been sat here for the last few hours, "organising" an assortment of files on my computer. I've been going through and creating new folders, moving files around, renaming stuff to make more sense and generally "tidying up". I had loads of individual files just thrown into my "documents" folder and it was starting to get unweildy, and I didn't know what was in there. Despite the fact that OSX's wonderful "Spotlight" search feature makes it a doddle to find stuff, I felt like I needed to get a handle on what I had, and where it was.

After doing all that, I decided to start on a few iTunes files to make sure they were organised sensibly too - particularly the ones that I've bought from the iTMS store. I cannot stand it when things are all categorised using different conventions - it makes things really untidy. Again, iTunes itself does a pretty good job of organising things for you but occasionally it does things wrong. Well, maybe not "wrong" per se, but certainly not the way I'd do it. Particularly the way it handles compilation albums does my head it, so I take matters into my own hands for those.

Whilst going through, I then noticed that virtually every track you buy on iTunes has different metadata embedded in it - I think it depends on the record label, but some tracks have the bare minimum, some are stuffed to the gunnels with irrelevant bits and pieces. So, me being me, I've had to go through and standardise things a bit. You'd think this was easy wouldn't you? But I've come up against all sorts of headaches - there's a lot of hidden data in some of those files and it's a bitch to get to. But eventually I've managed to go through and wipe a lot of the unnecessary stuff, and then complete the more important bits.

A few weeks back, when Apple announced that they were making the entire iTunes Music Store 256kbps non-DRM files, they offered the option of upgrading your existing purchases for 20p a track to change them from 128kbps DRM-protected tracks to the new non-DRM higher bit rate ones. I was quite pleased about this (I hated the 5-burn limit on those tracks more than anything) so I duly clicked the "upgrade" button and prepared to take a hit for about a tenner's worth of non-DRM goodness. However, things are never that simple. Seven of my purchased tracks are not yet available in the new format, so they're still the 128kbps versions. That's annoying me immensely, as you can imagine. Apple reckon they'll soon be available to upgrade too, but I don't know when.

This has presented me with another issue though. Now I have these new shiny versions in 256kbps, but I've ripped the rest of my library as 128kbps and that means THEY NO LONGER MATCH.

I'm quite convinced I can't/won't hear the difference between the two bit rates, but knowing that they ARE different makes me uneasy. I'm seriously considering reripping my CDs at 256kbps now. You see, this is why I'd never be able to get rid of my CD collection in favour of digital versions - there's too much to go wrong in the virtual world. One day, (Apple heresy coming up here...) there will be no iTunes. Then what will we all do?

And then I got to thinking - why am I bothering with all this? Why don't I just leave stuff alone? I've come to the conclusion that I have some kind of computer-related OCD. I need help. Seriously.

Thanks for the memory

This morning, I received the 2GB RAM kit that I ordered, and I've just installed it in my iMac. Now - those of you that have been around for a while (you know who you are) - will remember back in 2005 when I got myself worked up into a frenzy the last time I installed new RAM into my machine. I did have just the 512MB that came pre-installed, so when I found out that optimal performance was to be gained from having two matching RAM modules I bought another one to boost things to 1GB and hopefully unlock the wonders of the mythical "128-bit pipeline".

Now when I had just 512MB, Terminal reported this:
phil-laceys-imac-g5:~ Phil$ ioreg -p IODeviceTree -n memory -S | grep ram-
| "ram-layout-architecture" = <00000002>
| "ram-bus-width" = <00000040>

Then, when I went up to 1GB, I got this:
phil-laceys-imac-g5:~ Phil$ ioreg -p IODeviceTree -n memory -S | grep ram-
| "ram-layout-architecture" = <00000002>
| "ram-bus-width" = <00000080>

At the time, I really couldn't work out whether this meant I was using the 128-bit pipe or not - the bus width had changed, but not the architecture value. But more RAM is always good regardless, so I was happy. Things nipped along quite nicely.

So, for the sake of consistency, I tried the terminal report again now I have two matched 1GB sticks in the iMac - just to see what it would say. So we now have:
phil-laceys-imac-g5:~ Phil$ ioreg -p IODeviceTree -n memory -S | grep ram-
| "ram-layout-architecture" = <00000001>
| "ram-bus-width" = <00000080>

Which is different yet again. However, this Apple knowledgebase article would seem to suggest I am now at the very pinnacle of G5 iMac memory nirvana - 2GB of RAM, in a perfectly matched pair, running on the 128-bit pipeline.

That, my friends, is as good as it gets.

No brainer?

You probably don't need me to mention this again, but I'm a bit of an Apple fanboy. But however beautiful, intuitive and user-friendly their hardware and software is, it still goes out of date. Technology does that unfortunately. You can have the most up-to-date, bleeding edge kit one day, and it's relegated to second-best the next. If there's an upside, it's that Apple kit does stand the test of time. The hardware's built to last and the software gets support for quite some time before its completely obsolete.

As I've mentioned in passing already, my iMac is a G5 Power PC running OSX 10.4 Tiger. Both the hardware and the software were superceded quite some time ago. I've resisted the lure of 10.5 Leopard for some time (so long in fact that I thought I could miss it out entirely and just jump straight to 10.6). This isn't to be though. 10.6 is for Intel processors only, so I've hit the upgrade wall with that one I fear.

I could save up my pennies and opt for a whole new machine preinstalled with 10.6 when it finally arrives, but I think by the time I'd saved up enough we may well be on 10.9 and I'd still be lingering in the unsupported software dark ages in the interim.

So what to do? If I can't afford a whole new machine, and my current one won't run the new OSX, I think my only option is to upgrade this iMac to make it as good as it can be to tide me over until funds allow something better.

So far as I can tell, the best way of me doing this is threefold. 1) Install a great big hard disk - this current one is stuffed to the gunnels, 2) cram in 2GB of RAM and 3) replace Tiger with Leopard. That would take this machine to its technological ceiling - it can't get any better than that.

Something else that came to mind was that my iLife suite is currently the '06 version (and that, in computer terms, is practically prehistoric). Apple have just released iLife '09. I was never tempted by '08, as it never got very good write ups (particularly iMovie 08) and seemed a bit of an incremental update rather than anything genuinely new, so I never felt the need to change. (There was never an '07, in case you were wondering.)

However, this new iLife 09 looks the business. Already people are raving about it, and it does look very tempting. And the best thing? Apple are bundling Leopard, iLife 09 and iWork 09 (their latest productivity package) for £149. If you bought Leopard and iLife separately they would set you back £152. iWork costs £69 on its own. Erm... is that a difficult decision? So I can have the two pieces of software I want for £3 cheaper than buying them separately AND you'll throw in iWork for free? Can I phone a friend?

When I finally get round to this mammoth upgrade, I shall be documenting the process (maybe even with photos) for your delectation. Mind you, I'll probably change my mind six times before then. That's half the fun though. Isn't it?

*** UPDATE 30/01/2009 ***

I've decided to bite the bullet and start the upgrade process, but rather than do it all at once I've opted for the "little by little" approach. I figured that changing the hard drive and upgrading the OS would best be done together, so the logical (and less expensive) first step is to max out the RAM. The iMac can handle 2GB, so that's what I've ordered. The down side is that because PC3200 DDR RAM is a fairly niche market now, the price is comparably high. If I had wanted DDR2, it would be half the price. Typical. Anyway, I've secured myself a shiny new matching pair of Crucial 1GB sticks for £50 and they'll be arriving next week.

OSX Address Book & gMail contacts - import workaround

My OSX Address Book is usually my most up-to-date list of all my contacts. Every so often I iSync my Nokia N73 with it, and my iPod Touch syncs every time I plug it in via iTunes. I also, from time to time import my Address Book into my gMail contacts list as well.

In order to do this - because gMail can't seem to get its head around a native Address Book importer - you need some third party software to export your contacts as a CSV file and then import that into gMail. I have used A to G in the past, but I've recently found AB2CSV which offers more functionality.

However, I came up against a bit of a problem this morning. Every time I tried to import my latest CSV file, I just kept getting an error. Try as I might, gMail was just not playing. So I turned to the internet for help - someone must have cracked this problem. And sure enough, they have, over at Breakitdownblog. Turns out the new "improved" gMail interface is the problem. If you click the link at the top of your gMail window to revert to the "older version", and then try it, your CSV file will import just fine and dandy. How very backward.

Wholly unnecesssary

Much to the despair of my better half, I've just spent ten US dollars on a piece of really cool - but utterly pointless - software called Delicious Library. You may be aware of it already (it has been around a while) but essentially it's a cataloguing/library management tool for keeping track of DVDs, video games, CDs and books. It's Mac only (because it's too cool for Windows) and the killer feature - purely because it's so beautifully geeky - is that it scans the barcodes on your media in order to import it into the libray. You can do this via a firewire camera or if you're lucky enough to have a Mac with a built in iSight camera then you can use that instead.

I can't begin to tell you about the unadulterated peurile joy I've been having scanning in all my DVDs and games. I still need to do my CDs, but that's a mammoth task for another day!

At the moment, due to being stuck in the Mac dark ages with OSX 10.4 Tiger, I've had to limit myself to version 1.66 as opposed to the new and very shiny version 2.0 which only runs on Leopard.

And whilst I'm on the subject of OSX upgrades, I've been reading that OSX 10.6 "Snow Leopard" will only be for Intel-based Macs. So that's me stuffed then. I was going to miss out 10.5 altogether and jump straight to 10.6, but that now looks like it won't be possible. So is 10.5 the end of the road for my dearly beloved G5 iMac? It certainly looks that way.