Media Streaming, MacBook Pro, PS3, Xbox 360, MediaLink, iTunes Part 2

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Ok, I didn’t manage to get this to work completely but as I think it might be down to the network I am going to post it anyway. I almost managed to stream the music from my MacBook Pro (iTunes) through the Xbox 360. The idea of this is to have all music in one central location to avoid duplication of songs and double handling when it comes to updates.

Also, if you don’t have your mac set up to run a Windows environment or need to improve your Bootcamp set up follow my blog post that talked about an easy installation of VM Fusion using your Bootcamp partitioned drive. I did need to import the Bootcamp Partition in order to mirror the music folder in OSX and Windows.

I didn’t use the medialink streaming server software, instead I opened up VMFusion and loaded Windows Media Player. In the VMFusion Setting found under Virtual Machine I then turned on folder sharing and mirrored the music folder where the iTunes Media folder resides. By doing this I was able to use the Add to Media Library under File In Windows media player in order list all my music without actually copying anything over into this environment.

Next, make sure all you media sharing is turned on in the windows environment (I’m using Vista) you can do this via Library > Media Sharing > Share my media to: in Windows Media Player, the Xbox 360 icon should appear in the box below,  or choose Control Panel > Classic View >  Networking and sharing > Media Sharing > Change.

With everything on, turn on your XBox 360. Go to My Xbox > Music Library and select your computer, you should see your playlists…. problem is, mine won’t play!!

If anyone can get ths working please expand in the comments area?

See how I got this to work on the PS3

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April 8, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Favourite and most used iPhone Apps for March 2010

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Without a doubt copilot continues to be my most used app on the iPhone and the constant updates to it’s functionality I think make it the best VFM Sat Nav App.

A couple of recent additions to make life easier include My Movies and Tap Forms

My Movies has a handy little bar code scanner that queries imdb for your DVD data and cover graphics. The app only failed to recognise 2 DVDs out of 201, although it only takes a couple of minutes to manually add the information yourself.

Tap forms allows for you to input much of your vital data that you have on various forms and bits of paper all over the place, things like driving license number, account numbers, national insurance etc.

Oh, and a quick mention for Voucher Cloud. Often these types of Apps make me wonder whether the content warrants an entire App but in this case the location finding and number of businesses that have signed up for it makes it very worth while. Watch this space for reviews on the new hotukdeals Apps that are in the making.

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March 30, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Review – Sony Dream Machine ICF-CL75IP iPhone alarm clock radio with 7 inch display

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This Christmas I asked Santa for a new clock radio with an iPhone dock built in. My old one was perfectly alright but since it was built for the iPod it no longer charged my phone which had become quite annoying. My eldest sister rose to the challenge and being partial to my gadgets, I think had a little bit of fear of getting it wrong! But she got it so right!!

The new Sony Dream Machine and it is a DREAM MACHINE does everything I wanted a clock radio to do and a whole lot more, with a few nice touches thrown in there to polish it off.

Where to begin? Let’s start with the obvious! It’s got a 7 inch screen! As you know 7 inches is quite enough! And like you are wondering now and I was wondering as I took it out the box, is that merely a digital picture frame or can I watch movies through it? And yes, yes you can. The 7 inch display (800×480) allows you to watch your iTunes movies, video on YouTube, and even things like the iPlayer! Genius! and supports Mp4, M-Jpeg and Avi file formats. It also is a digital picture frame for when the machine is idle and this can easily be switched to sleep mode when you hit the hay with 3 taps of the snooze button.

The dock foe the iPhone pops out, spring loaded from the right hand side, you can control your music or video from the iPhone or from the dream machine. The sound is good and I’d so far to say more than you’d expect from a clock radio. Oh! Clock radio! The main function, it’s got a sweet clock radio that allows you to be woken up by radio, iPhone or sound of nature and matching image. One of the nice little extras is that you can set more than one alarm and adjust them from one button on either side of the display the alarms can also be programed to just go off over weekdays or just at weekends which if like me you are away most weekends saves having to remember to manually switch it.

The entire menu screen is based on the playsation 3 theme and is just as intuitive, you’ll get to grips with it with limited consultation of the instruction book.

The dream machine has 1 gig internal memory so that you can import photos, music and video. It has a USB slot SD slot and obviously the iPod dock.

The radio is pretty sweet an gets a better signal than the old clock radio I had in exactly the same position.

OK now for some negatives
The first USB stick I plugged into it could not be read, second one fine.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how to delete the sample pictures which is really frustrating having them on my little slide show.
Also, if the clock radio is on sleep mode and you drop the iPhone in you will get the this device is not supported error and it keeps flashing up but this is no biggy! Just tap snooze and drop the iPhone in again.

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January 30, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

iPhone apps or Online apps? What is the future as new smartphones emerge?

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iPhone_App_BrowserI am very much into my iPhone apps but a website I visited the other day made me stop and think. I always check the weather on Windguru but it not always accurate, so I went to the XC Weather site using safari to have a second look. XC advertised their new iPhone app on the homepage but with a web address rather than a link to the iTunes store.

I stopped to think and realised that soon at this rate I would have an app for nearly every website I visited on a regular basis and that would be ridiculous! The thing about XC Weathers development was that although just a webpage, it looked and behaved just like an app. From the vendors point of view, as other mobile phone catch up (lol) then the need for development in order to satisfy the entire Market will be high. With an efficient browser and bookmarking the tried and tested web application might not be such a bad idea.

An issue may arise with the software / website accessing key functions on the mobile phone such as the GPS which sets applications on the iPhone far apart from any website but i’m sure it’s very easily overcome.

I was never a fan of web design for specific devices and actually got frustrated when my iPhone reverted to a .mobi when I wanted to browse the original site. I thought .mobi was a minefield of errors but with the iPhone setting such a precedent and with with full screen browsing it might be a way to go!

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November 18, 2009 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Alternative Apple iPhone 3GS headphones / earphones as recomended by twitter followers

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zbud_blackAfter not having too much success with a google search for an alternative replacement set of headphones for my iPhone 3GS I turned to Twitter for some advice. I got quite a response so I thought I would share the tweet recommendations. Note: I have popped into a reseller and they did tell me that apple would replace a faulty set still within the 1 year manufacturers warranty.

Apple [Link]
Replacements for the headphones that ship with the iPhone £21 and the in ear earphones are £59 on the Apple site.
Z.buds [Link]
These look awesome, durable, not to expensive and all the iPhone functions.
Griffin [Link]
SmartTalk and TuneBuds Mobile. Two solutions and not too expensive, both do not have volume control though.
Bose ipod buds [Link]
A little more expensive, in line microphone but no volume.
Klipse Image S4i Earphones [Link]
Looks like a good set of headphones, a little expensive although comes with a 2 year warranty, microphone but as far as I can see no volume control.
Etymotic hf2 Hands-free Headset [Link]
Again going for the sound quality higher end of the market, a little expensive mic, control, but again no volume.
JVC HA-KX100 [Link]
Affordable, mic and control but again no in line volume.

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October 12, 2009 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »