Coming next week

This weekend I endeavor to write the first short story I've attempted in over a decade. The title is "The Reals" and it will be a Sci-Fi story of sorts about a man who has was born with the gift of precognition. But his skill only manifests itself in a very specific and ultimately useless manner. At this point I think it will be a first person narration, and I don't like reading those much less writing them, but that is how the story is unfolding in my head.

Now, what to name this guy? Any suggestions? I might even submit this for publication so I can add to my dusty stack of rejection letters.

I'm pretty sure the Suzuki V-Strom DL1000 is the one

I've done a lot of dreaming about motorcycles of late and I'm still a ways away from getting one (anyone want to purchase a lightly used 30' towable RV trailer?) but the bike I keep coming back to is the Suzuki V-Strom DL1000. Allow me to elaborate. I'm learning a lot from Magnus and his purchase of that very sweet Triumph Bonneville T100. That is one sharp looking bike. I, like he (him? I'll have to look that piece of grammar what-not up), would like to use the bike to commute to and from work. I can avoid the Interstates, specially I-85, if I choose and that's a good thing. I'm not a big fan of Interstate travel anyway.

But, and this is a big but, I'd also like to ride out to the NC Outer Banks every so-often. This trip would take far too long if Highway 64 were not avoided and, believe me, there is an abundance of big-rigs that use 64 between Zebulon and the I-95 interchange. Very many of the miles are also 70 mph free-for-alls. In short, I need some wind protection. The V-Strom offers that with a nice windshield and there is an option for a larger one to provide even more protection. I'd probably also make several other investments in creature comforts and I'd like a bit of storage so I can store my backpack and not wear it while commuting. The only other farkle I'd get ASAP is a center stand.

Progress! It is time to make some. Please hide the cookies until further notice. And the peperoni pizza. And beer.

Kelly's Macbook Lives

She's still upset, and rightfully so to have lost all that data in one fell swoop. To be fair she's not as upset at the drive dying as she is in her perception that Apple made zero efforts to help restore iTunes purchased material or image the old drive. When I arrived to pick up the laptop the drive was missing. I immediately asked (nicely) that the nice young gentleman see if the drive could be located in the back. He complied and found the drive after some searching (at least we hope this is Kelly's drive). I had hoped Apple would replace Kelly's somewhat discolored top-case but this was not done. I can't complain, really, the case isn't cracked, but it would have been nice.

I also purchased a LaCie backup disk for both of us to use until bonus time when I hope to order myself a Time Capsule which, I am told, is now shipping (as of today). I've had good luck with LaCie disks and I'm not going to ask much of this drive other than to perform weekly Time Machine backups. I hope that isn't too taxing a task for the little drive. Interestingly the drive it powered by a USB to DC input cable while the drive interfaces are Firewire 800, Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 (backwards compatible to USB 1.0). As I have no Firewire 800 interface on my laptop I'm using Firewire 400 as the transport. So far, so good.

Finished Richard Bachman's Blaze last right

We can put that novel to rest. It was a good story, all things considered, and one worth reading. The story is about a man named Clayton Blaisdell Jr., a hulking man standing 6'7" and weighing nearly 300 pounds. Blaze, as he becomes known, is a bit on the slow side thanks to a savage beating he endured courtesy of his father when he was a young man. The story, a bit like From a Buick 8 in this case, alternates between history and present time telling the history of Blaze the person as your read about the major caper he is attempting to pull off.

I won't say anything more in case you are going to read the book yourself but what I can say is the story is a solid one, well written and easily digested as all King, excuse me, Bachman books are. If I had to classify this book into a traditional genera I'd call it an American Tragedy.

*** out of *****

Now, back to the enduring question which I frequently face: what do I read next?

I'm still irked at Apple BUT..

I've had some time to cool off. Still, I'm upset at the quality control issues with the Macbooks and other laptops I've owned. Two more people, just today when I was at the Apple Store between 2:15 and 3:30, were dropping off dead Macbooks. I find it difficult to believe this could possibly be anything buy a quality issue. Grrr!!!!

Still, all that said, I think Time Capsule is the best backup option, at least the only one I can afford at the moment (or near future). Too bad you can purchase one just yet, believe me, I looked while I was at the Apple Store. The Time Capsule claims to use a "Server Grade Serial-ATA Internal Drive". I feel better about this than what is currently in my Macbook, but I'm still considering something with at least RAID 0. Because the Time Capsule isn't for sale yet I have some time to find the correct solution for my household so we won't find ourselves in this position again in the future.

I did pick up my family pack of Leopard today. I'll start the upgrade process of the two remaining Macs tomorrow night after work.

I'M STILL MIFFED, MR. JOBS! You can still make it up by offering me that long overdue position as Apple TV Product Manager.

My Dead Macbook - the rest of the story

Yesterday I headed to the Apple Store with my wife's dead Macbook. Upon arrival I found there were three other people in the store ahead of me, all with Macbooks all with.. can you guess? Yes! Dead hard disks. No, Apple, allow me to point something out. I placed a note on my blog about my wife's head Macbook and two people who I know, all who purchased early Macbooks, had already endured dead hard disks. At the store were four more people, including myself, with the same problem. Call me crazy, but finding six people, without even really trying, all with the same hardware problem seems to indicate something a bit more widespread than an isolated problem with a batch of laptops.

Both my Macbooks are under warranty with Applecare. My wife's laptop had quite a bit of purchased content we are not looking forward to losing not to mention she had a lot of photographs on her laptop that are not replaceable. I'd like efforts made to restore that software once the laptop reaches its final destination.

Also, potentially more troubling for you, is my wife is totally disinterested in purchasing a new Mac (I'm not to that point yet, but am getting there). Allow me to provide a bit of history. I purchased a new G3 iBook back in the day, right when OS X was first released. That iBook went back to the factory twice for repairs. I later purchased my wife a G4 TiBook, a nice laptop really, and that laptop was sent back to the factory once as well (today the G3 iBook is dead and buried, it seems the power connections from the plug to the motherboard came loose at some point and the TiBook limps along at my parent's house on a dead battery, a nonworking optical drive, a dead Ethernet port and 802.11b wireless that doesn't support WPA. Not ideal). So we haven't had the best run of luck with our Macs up until now. The two other Apple devices we purchased, our Apple TV and our 1.5 Ghz G4 mini, have proved to be more robust, at least thus far.

I've always said I loved Apples because "they just work" but they don't work if they won't boot. This really is more than a simple annoyance. Yesterday I was thinking about upgrading my mini to a new Intel mini or an iMac but not I'm just not interested, partly because I no longer trust the Apple hardware to "just work" and partly because of the added cost of upgrading everyone to Leopard ($200 for the family license) and then adding a ton of RAID firewire disk to the mini so the backups can have somewhere to back up to. Time Capsule is a possibility but I don't have the money to spend on another product right now.

So, yeah, Apple, I'm annoyed. I've put up with a lot of hardware errors in your laptop line for a few years now and, quite frankly, it's getting old. Yesterday I looked at the Macbook Air as a possible candidate for my wife as a replacement laptop to be purchased in a year or so but honestly the first thing I thought while looking it over was "what's the first thing to go (break) on this one?" That's not good. You shouldn't be happy with that line of thinking and you shouldn't accept your current hardware failure rates either.

dead Macbook

Looks like my wife's Intel Macbook gave up the ghost some time last night. The laptop no longer fully boots and only gets to a flashing question mark folder. This normally means the Startup Disk location is, for some reason, unknown and the fix is easy enough: just boot form a repair disk or a OS X install disk and go to Disk Utility from the first install screen (following the language selection). Once there just click "Repair Disk" and you're off to the races. But for whatever reason my wife's disk is no loner "seen" by the laptop, and that's a bad thing. Looks like I'll be taking a trip to the Apple Store tomorrow to drop the laptop off for repair.

Shoot.

I'm going to add a second ethernet to my Mac mini

I am taking a little trip to the Apple Store tomorrow, at least that is the current idea. My reasons for going is twofold: get a family edition of Leopard (OS X 10.5) and I'll also pick up a Macbook Air Ethernet dongle. Rumor has it that the Ethernet dongle will work as long for any Mac as long as you are running 10.5 or greater. I'll put that theory to the test and give it a whirl.

If anyone has any other ideas on how to best add a second Ethernet to a mini I'm all ears.

examples of fine writing

Stewie Griffin: Squiggle in my Eye

Oh squiggly line in my eye fluid.
I see you lurking there on the periphery of my vision.
But when I try to look at you, you scurry away.
Are you shy, squiggly line?
Why only when I ignore you, do you return to the center of my eye.
Oh, squiggly line,
it's alright, you are forgiven.

William Shakesphere, as read by Withnail (Richard E. Grant)



"I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this mighty o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire; why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a God! The beauty of the world, paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dusk? Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, nor women neither."

Ernest Hemingway

"He went to the river. The river was there."

Stephen King

"Sometimes, dead is better"

Can't Remember

"Great people are those that never remind us of anyone else"

Damn, I thought I'd rattle off 100 easily. Guess my mind is elsewhere.

I need to write another unpublishable novel. I think I'll get started this Saturday. I've got an idea for a Sci-Fi story, a dramatic novel and, well, something so strange I don't really know how to classify it. I'll pick one and get started.

Good... no GREAT products!

You know you have found a great product when, after untold years, whatever it is remains your favorite of competing items and you don't even remember where or when you purchased the item. My Sony MDR CD30 Digital Reference headphones are such an item. Good job, Sony.

They are, in fact, so old I can't even find a decent page on the Internet for linking purposes.

What a rough and tumble week

It's been a damn sh!tty week if I do say so myself. 'Nuff about that.

I'm making my way through Blaze by Richard Bachman. It's a good book, but I can see why it's a Bachman book rather than a Stephen King book as the subject material is very "un-King-like". Nevertheless, it is an enjoyable read. So far, at least as far as I have noticed, the only tie-in with other King works has been the mention of Shawshank Prison which, you might remember, as the name of the fictitious New England prison in the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption which itself was based on a King novella named Rita Heyworth and the Shawshank Redemption which was originally published in Different Seasons. Ok, everyone got that? Good.

Also mentioned in the book was the song Phantom 309 a song by the late Red Sovine. I only know the song because of a trip Kelly and I took to South Dakota, driving, with the dog, in our old 2002 Toyota Corolla CE (5 speed, no cruise control). Space for the trip was VERY limited as Boo, our wonderful dog, and only dog at the time, occupied all of the back seat. The truck and spaces behind the front seats (on the rear floorboards) and even the space under Kelly's legs was crammed with camping gear and everything else we'd need for the week. To get on with the story we only had the radio to keep us company; the corolla had no CD player nor port for a MP3 player. So we picked up a tape called "Trucking's Greatest Hits" at a truck stop in Iowa and Phantom 309 was one of the many (depressing) songs featured. Seriously, I don't know how truckers can listen to this stuff and maintain any level of sanity.

Well, I'd write more but work calls. Over and out.

The War is Over: Blu-Ray has won

It might be time to invest in a Blu-Ray player now that HD DVD is effectively dead. I had been waiting to see who won the war and I'm glad it's over, quite frankly. I didn't want to relive another Beta/VHS war that seemed to go on much longer.

I wonder when the first Blu-Ray drive for a Mac will emerge onto the market. If Apple were to release Mini with a Mega-F#$%^#!-SuperDrive (Blu-Ray player, DVD-DL +R, CD W+++++) I'd probably get one. Then I could, hopefully, rip the Blu-Ray disks to the Apple TV and get a Blu-Ray player for home. In doing so I would be able to watch the Blu-Ray disks on my 1080i TV at home while taking the Apple TV show on the road where I could watch the same content at the beach on my 720p TV.

Truth be told, I can't see what a Blu-Ray disk might provide me over DVD. DVDs on a High Def TV look pretty darn good, and with the audio piped through a home stereo the sound is excellent as well. Then again, I have yet to see a Blu-Ray disk play in person so the advantages could be obvious upon sight just like the HD-TV upgrade was back it the day (also a device I said "I would never need"; "need" perhaps not, "want" yes).

A weekend with the Apple TV

This was "the best test" for the Apple TV and the unit passed with (nearly) flying colors. The very first thing I did was remove Kelly's laptop as the primary device that the Apple TV syncs with. Why would I do this? The main reason I wanted to make this change was to stop having to carry our favorite DVDs to the beach and back each time we drove to the Outer Banks. One Apple TV is much easier to carry than is a stack of DVDs. Kelly's laptop has limited hard drive space so I started ripping my purchased DVDs into iTunes on the Mac Mini (which has an external firewire 250 gig drive, plenty enough space for a bunch of movies for long-term storage).

How did I rip the DVDs? Handbrake. All you need do with Handbrake is download the free software, install, put a DVD into the Mac (then quit the DVD Viewer which autoluanches) and then tell Handbrake to rip a copy. You have a choice of command line or GUI versions of the software. In the end you have a rather large .mp4 file that can be imported into iTunes. Once in iTunes you synch the Apple TV and, in my case, the Mac Mini. The movies are now ready to watch via the Apple TV. How elegant! There is one annoyance you should know: ripping of the DVDs take a LONG time and how fast it will go depends greatly on the machine doing the ripping. I tried to rip one movie using my Mac mini G4 as the ripper but, let me tell you, that whole process was going nowhere. I quit the software after four hours or so of the DVD humming along seemingly doing nothing. The 2.0 Ghz Macbooks fared better on this front ripping a DVD in about two hour's time. Copying the movies over the 802.11g connection takes just short of forever so there was a lot of walking up and down the stairs plugging into the switch in the bonus room to copy three movies at at time. This weekend was the first time I longed for something faster (for general use) than 802.11g. My laptops aren't 802.11n capable, the Apple TV is, so 802.11g is what I'm stuck with for now.

Movie rentals were another issue altogether. It seems that watching a rented movie over the Apple TV is possible if the rented movie resides on the machine that synchs to the Apple TV. Got that? iTunes video content can be viewed over the Apple TV provided that you first pair the Apple TV with the other machine. Pairing a second machine allows a machine running iTunes (PC or Mac) to stream video over the wireless provided that content is not a rented movie. So that kind of sucks. The only reason I believe it is possible to watch rented content sent via the primary iTunes account is under the Apple TV a tab for rental information does exist and it displays a message something along the lines of "no rentals exist to be copied to this (Apple TV) device". The rental tab does NOT exist when the Apple TV info is displayed from a paired machine.

Overall I am satisfied with the Apple TV and the rentals. Saying that I also have not rented a movie and downloaded it directly to the Apple TV, at least not yet, but I intend to do so when movies such as Cloverfield are released. My wife has a few movies she'd like to rent as well.

The new Apple TV "top menu" is a bit more complicated and I really can't believe that Steve Jobs' design people let the menu out the door as is. I say that only because the side-by-side menu under the new software reminds me of right mouse clicks, something that Steve Jobs has long found disagreeable. But that is neither here nor there; the Apple TV, always a fantastic device, has improved greatly with the new software release. Combined with Handbrake the Apple TV is the device I have longed for - a small package I can rip DVDs to and take that content along with me when I travel between home and the beach condo.

Is it perfect? Not quite, but close. A DVD/Blu-Ray drive included would be nice. In fact if it were possible to have a DVD/Blu-Ray option in a Mac Mini I would probably just get a Mini to haul back and forth if - and this is a big if - the Front Row software on the mini could mimic the software on the Apple TV. But I don't see that happening any time soon. I can happily live with my Apple TV for a long time to come.

Apple, now that you have given us the ability to purchase movies directly to the Apple TV and rent content directly the Apple TV what is next? A larger internal drive? Fast processor (for what purpose I do not know)? An internal drive option? Please do tell. Oh, and Mr. Jobs, I'm still waiting for the offer letter for the position of Apple TV Product Manager.

Completed Hemingway's A Moveable Feast last night

What a great and entertaining book from a great author. A previously stated A Moveable Feast is a collection of memoirs written by Hemingway about his life in Paris during the early 1920's. The book was the last he would write and it was released following his death by double-barrel shotgun blast to the forehead (his previous attempt at suicide by walking into a spinning plane propeller was stopped due to being physically restrained).

I'd like to share some interesting quotes from the book:

"I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always stop when there was something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it."

"Anderson's stories were too good to make happy conversation. I was prepared to tell Miss Stein (Gertrude) how strangely poor his novels were, but this would have been bad too because it was criticizing one of her loyal supporters. When he wrote a novel finally called Dark Laughter, so terribly bad, silly and affected that I could not keep from criticizing it in a parody (The Torrents of Spring), Miss Stein was very mad."

"Are you a gentleman?" (Hemingway)
"Naturally. I have held His Majesty's commission." (Ford Maddox Ford)
"It's very complicated," I said (H). "Am I a gentleman?"
"Absolutely not," Ford said.
"Then why are you drinking with me?" (H)
"I'm drinking with you because you are a promising young writer. As a fellow writer in fact." (FMF)
"Good for you," I said. (H)
"You might be considered a gentleman in Italy," Ford said magnanimously.

"We never argued about such things because I kept my mouth shut about things I did not like."

Of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Scott's wife Zelda: "He would start to work and as soon as he was working Zelda would begin complaining about how bored she was and get him off on another drunken party."

"All things truly wicked start from innocence."

What book is next? Well it just so happens I picked a copy of Richard Bachman's lost book Blaze last week at the grocery store. Bachman is, of course, Stephen King and King wrote a few books as Richard Bachman early in his career. The Bachman books have a different feel and style to them, especially the ones that were written early in King's career (Rage, The Long Walk, Road Work and The Running Man). King also wrote Thinner as Bachman was but outed as Bachman after the book was published. In addition King wrote The Regulators as Bachman but it was clear by this point that King was indeed Bachman and there was no reason to continue to pretend he was not.

Blaze, though, is somewhat different. Blaze was written during the Bachman years but shelved because King though the book was not good enough to print. Still, in my "stack-o-books-to-read" I've got a lot of a King and very few classical authors. My feeling is I should add some other "greats" into the mix. We'll take a wait-and-see approach on that one.

Apple TV

Mr. Steve Jobs:

I have still not been offered the position of Apple TV Product Manager with your wonderful company. I understand writing the perfect job offer, mulling over pay and grade level, and so on takes some time, but really, I'm ready! Please drop me a line.

Sincerely,

Greg

Part 2

I am currently downloading a major software update for the Apple TV that will allow me, for the first time, to rent content from iTunes and view that content where it should be viewed - on my HDTV. I had to overcome a bit of an obstacle in order to get my hands on this download. We left the condo at the beach rather quickly last weekend having stayed far too long this past Sunday and we managed to leave the Apple TV remote behind (at least I remembered to bring the Apple TV and the remote.

What is a guy to do?!?!? No worries! Just unpair the Apple Hi-Fi remote (by holding down the rewind/review and menu buttons at the same time just hold then down until the green LED on the front panel flashes three times). Now we have another problem in that I have to tell the Apple TV to unpair from its remote (again, same procedure; hold down the same buttons until the white LED on the front of the Apple TV goes from white to "off" then release all buttons and you're set).

Next, easily enough, download the software update under the Settings menu. I have to say, I always thought "Software Download" should be under the "sources" menu. Perhaps it's the programmer in me and "sources" reminds me of "source code" or the fact that the servers at Apple are the "source" from which my update is downloaded. Regardless download the code and install when the download is complete. Fun times.

As stated a full review will be forthcoming. Don't expect me to pull any punches either. We still have rented content on Kelly's MacBook and I want to stream or copy that content to the Apple TV.

An Open Letter to Senator McCain

So, Senator McCain, you hate "gooks". Do you have any idea what you just said? Let me attempt to enlighten you. The term "gook" entered the American vernacular during the Korean War (it was actually the second time American had been involved in a conflict on the Korean peninsula, but that is a story for another time). The word "gook" in Korean is a suffix and it means "kingdom" or "country". The word itself is derived from Chinese where word means, literally, "kingdom". Korea, which used to be spelled, in English, Corea (the spelling was changed during the Japanese occupation so the "Korea" would appear after "Japan" in English dictionaries, and, no, I'm not kidding), is called Hangook (or Han'gok). The word "America", when spoken in Korea, at least prior to the Korean War, was pronounced "Mi'gok" (megook). Today America is simply called "America". Functional English is spoken by the majority of the Korean population.

You might see this one coming but here it is anyway. When American forces liberated villages in Korea during the war children would run to them screaming "Mi'gok!" 'Mi'gok" (American! American!) to which some anonymous American responded "Ok, you're a gook". A decade later salty and crusty veterans of the Korean War were shipped to Viet Nam and they brought the term along with them and started referring to the Vietnamese as "gooks". And that his how the word "gook" became a slang term for anyone of Asian heritage.

So there you go, Senator McCain. Carry on about your duties and try not to sink any friendly ships in the future. Ok, yes, that was a low blow, but I don't like your politics. Once Obama defeats Clinton (please please please) I hope he replays you comment that "we should be in Iraq for 1000 years". If were campaign manager no American would be able to claim they did not year you make that statement. It is only a few words, but it speaks volumes.

Did I mention I loved my time in Korea and I miss the people, culture and language of that fascinating land greatly? One day I hope to return, if only for an extended vacation.

Hemingway and Fitzgerald

A Moveable Feast, Hemingway's memoir of this time spent in Paris, has taken an interesting turn. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, among other fine works, has arrived in Paris and befriended Hemingway. Hemingway looks up to Fitzgerald and seems him as a seasoned writer and the two strike up a mutually beneficial friendship, at least during the first couple of years.

Hemingway doesn't pull many punches as he details Fitzgerald's increasing problems with alcohol and the damage his drinking did to his writing career. Hemingway also doesn't mince words about Fitzgerald's wife Zelda and her effect on his writing career (and her possibility as the source of the Fitzgerald's drinking problem).

It is my hope that A Moveable Feast will find a happier title on which to end. The book is almost finished, in fact I might finish the book tonight should I go to bed at a decent enough hour and squeeze in a hour or so of reading. So far I have a few dog-eared pages of material I wish to share with my readership (all three of you) and I will undertake that endeavor upon completion of the book.

My budding library has picked up two more titles: Blaze by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman and Lisey's Story also by King. Authors I wish to add to the library are Yates and anyone else off this list.

Good afternoon

What a morning it has been: busy, busy and more busy. I managed to get pretty far behind on my daily tasks so it looks like a busy afternoon is ahead for me. Busy is good, though. This company is not a great place for the "non busy" among us. That is all.

Movie reivew: King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters

What a great movie. This is a story of Steve Weibe and Billy Mitchell, both masters of classic video arcade game of Donkey Kong. Billy Mitchell has been king of the game and a great many other video games since the early 80s. He's kind of a Video Game Superstar, if there is such a thing. Bill has owned the Donkey Kong World Record since the 80s by achieving a top score of over 800,000 points - at one point thought to be unbeatable.

Steve Weibe has lead a more difficult life having been laid off from Boeing and making the transition to teaching middle school students. Steve wants the set the world record and does, briefly, just before he is disqualified for using a board that may have been tampered with (unbeknownist to Steve).

Upon his disqualification Steve take the show on the road at attempts to break Billy's record on a neutral machine in a neutral location. Steve manages to get to the Donkey Kong "kill screen" (a screen that due to a computer glitch simply kills your character for no good reason). During the game Steve breaks Billy's record and briefly holds the title - until Billy submits a video tape of him playing where he achieves a high score over 1,000,000 points.

Who holds the record? How does it end? Watch and see.

***** out of *****

This could get very interesting

More on that in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

I ate a bagel.

The bagel. I have consumed it.

6 pounds down

Many, many more to go. But at least I'm headed in the right direction.

Bad Apple

Dear Apple TV Product Manager:

A: I want your job, please vacate your office immediately, but leave the Macbook Air and the 24" iMac behind.

B: Please tell the Apple.com web page maintainer for the Apple TV that the iTunes Movie Rental page for the Apple TV is misleading, as is the main Apple TV "front page". The update to allow movie rentals to be downloaded to the Apple TV has NOT been released as of 10:00 PM Eastern, 06 February 2008. I know this to be fact because I checked for said update.

C: I would also like some clarification on two key issues:

1. Is content from the Apple TV going to be backed up via Time Machine? Is this feature even being considered? If I am going to purchase content directly to my Apple TV I would like some way of recovering said content in case of catastrophic disaster to said hardware-based device by act of God, dog or other. Please let me know.
2. Will movies rented via iTunes on other laptops be allowed to stream to the Apple TV? What about movies that are rented on the Mac that acts as the synch host; will this device be able to stream or "push" rented moves to the Apple TV for viewing on the big screen?

Apple Product Manager, you may be happy to hear that a watershed moment passed in my house last night around 10:15 PM. My wife and I somehow got hooked on a delightful little show called Rob and Big that plays on MTV. You know the show - small white professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek and his mammoth black bodyguard Christopher "Big Black" Boykin manage to get into all kinds of antics along with friends Drama and Bam Bam. Good stuff. Good times. Back to the story: we tape Rob and Big on the DVR, at least we did until last night. We tape the show because are old fuddies who don't like to stay up late in our advanced age (tongue in cheek.. a little). While viewing Rob and Big last night on the DVR the ending got cut off and that irritated us (that and fast-forwarding through all the commercials was really tiresome).

I'll get to the point: last night we stopped taping of Rob and Big and elected simply to download each episode from iTunes. We don't watch the show the night it airs anyway so why not just download and synch to the Apple TV and watch the show any time I want without commercials? I looked into that season pass thing and I don't see how this option would be more cost effective then simply purchasing each episode outright.

There is a missing feature with purchased content from iTunes as well and that feature is the ability to purchase a show directly to the Apple TV bypassing my wife's laptop. I don't know if I can be any more clear when I say we don't watch video content on our laptops or iPod so why clog those devices with content that we watch on the television? I hope the ability to purchase a television show directly to the Apple TV is included in the next major software release for the Apple TV. Please.

I need a 2nd, small (very small) laptop

Requirements:

• Aforementioned small size
• RJ-45 (goodbye Macbook Air)
• 802.11g
  
• Any OS (OS X, Linux, XP preferred in that order.. WinCE would suffice, but just)
• At least one USB port

Would be nice to have, but not required:

• One 1394 port
• At largest, a 12" screen
• 802.11n
• bluetooth
  

That's really about it. I am fortunate in that I have two connections at my desk: the regular "office" GigE RJ-45 and a second connection with a direct connection to the Internet. Yup, I am totally unencumbered Internet access that does not touch one piece of company network hardware. Why would I have such a thing? I have to test and troubleshoot VPN problems as part of my job so it helps to be directly connected to the Internet in order to do so (if you ever sneak into my office orange Ethernet cable is the one you want).

I have a 3rd option to connect, well 3rd and 4th, as well: company Wi-Fi and public Wi-Fi that bathes the campus where my office is located. As you can imagine the public Wi-Fi is kind of, ahem, busy most times so I prefer to connect to the Internet via the orange Ethernet cable at my desk. The 2nd small laptop would sit on my desk attached to the Internet were I could do all the things I'm technically not supposed to do during long teleconferences that don't apply to me (that I also seem to have to attend on a regular basis).

Right now the Asus eee PC looks like a front runner. The cost is low enough and I

It was only a matter of time...

I love my Apple TV. I blogged about it extensively in my old blog. I was more impressed with what the device could become rather than what it is today but that was reason enough to be excited. It is my hope that someone deep inside the guts of Apple out in Cupertino is working to sign partnerships with not only the "big boys" of the movie world but also the little guys.

My personal dream of movie downloads and rentals would include some kind of partnership with IFC where any new movie debuting on IFC could be downloaded to the Apple TV for a nominal charge. Quiet down, I know what you are about to say: "if you could download content directly to the Apple TV and thus bypass IFC would not the channel starve, go bankrupt and off the air forever?" In my vision of the future, no. Here is why: each movie rental would, in the cost of the rental itself, compensate the film creator, Apple and IFC by splitting the monies collected through iTunes for that rental.

This kind of split compensation must be possible, in fact I don't see how Apple could be signing deals with the big movie houses without such a deal in place. There is no way on Earth that major motion studios would have signed on iTunes without this kind of plan in place so I don't see where the major impediment signing a deal would be. Another nice feature for Indy film fans would be to present collections of movies as presented in film festivals. Personally I would start with Durham's Full Frame Film Festival, but that is clearly showing my bias toward a particular genera, but work with me on this one.

Imagine submitting your movie to a film festival and, along with screening the film during the festival, doing the normal Q&A, etc, you also had the option to make your movie available by iTunes for the Apple TV. When attending a film festival it is impossible to watch each movie that appeals to you as multiple movies are shown in parallel. Wouldn't it be neat if you could watch what you could at the festival then go home and queue up another five or six you did not get to watch and then view those films as your leisure? I think it is a great idea plus the movie maker, and I would presume the festival, would make a little bit of extra money through rental fees.

Movie purchases through a film festival are another thing altogether. Major studios send reps to festivals to try and find "that next big movie" for cheap, so they might not want to make a festival movie available for purchase right away. I'm ok with that; I understand that a self-producer/director might want to hold out "for the big bucks" in the hopes of selling the rights to a big studio, but that should not impede movie rentals. If the festival created enough buzz about a particular movie and the rentals went through the roof that kind of thing might actually help a movie get picked up by a studio. Maybe. It sure would be an easy way to test screen said movie.

A month or six later, if the movie isn't picked up, perhaps the content owner would then want to release the movie directly to iTunes. Perhaps the dream of a major theatrical release would be over but at least the work is out there for millions to rent or purchase. And this wouldn't stop someone like IFC from picking the movie up and showing it on their channel (I wouldn't think).

So go now, Apple TV Independent Movie Content Manager, go and sign those deals. If you fly to Durham to talk with the Full Frame Film Festival I'll buy you lunch at Tyler's, or Cafe Zen, if you prefer sushi. Now you really don't have a reason to pursue the deal!

The "You Can Wright Good To" Award for the Day

Article.

"Since 1999 the Ford Motor Company has recalled 225,000 vehicles due to a faulty cruise control system that are known to start fires."

Thoughts on Superbowl 42

That sucked.