I might be preaching to the converted on this one but if you are one of those people who if you wanted an album or tune you would just search it on iTunes and buy it, there’s plenty of sites now with mp3 downloads way beyond the standard price. I first discovered this when searching hotukdeals, linked through to Play.com and bought Cream Future Trance for £2.99 which is now one of the most played albums on my iPhone. Now I check Play, Amazon, HMV with a quick look on find-cd before just getting it from iTunes. Amazon have even developed a little download software that make the process almost as easy as downloading it from iTunes!
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
Probably the most common problem I am faced with week in week out is video failing to play in a PowerPoint presentation. Here are a few of the checks to perform to get things working.
Firstly, PowerPoint does not physically bring the video file into your presentation as it does an image. Hit save after embedding and notice the PowerPoint file does not grow in memory size. Therefore the presentation always needs to know where the video is relative to the document. Always keep the video file in the same place as the PowerPoint file and get into the habit of moving the parent folder around as you move the presentation from computer to computer.
Secondly, there is a bug in PowerPoint, if you see the white square when you play the video there is a good chance this is caused by there being too many characters in the video file name, I did read somewhere that over 128 characters but I find this differs from machine to machine. If you ate one of those people who put your videos in a folder named movies or something then include this parent folder in this rule.
Lastly, I sometimes get problems when a presentation is built on a company network and again this differs from machine to machine. If the above doesn’t work try moving the presentation to your desktop or local folder and re embedding the video.
That should do it!
Also see Creating Video for Powerpoint and inserting video into Microsoft Powerpoint
This another really simple error that encore throws up every time you check your build unless you manually set it. This error is merely asking what the DVD should do once it has played the video track.
Use the dropdown, End Action to select how it should act, often it will be just Stop or return to the main menu.
Also check out Title Remote Not Set
Since I was planning another possible relocation, this time from London to Brighton it seemed perfect timing that the findaproperty popped into the iTunes app store.
For a property app that searches a database of listings this app has a few nice touches that even eBay could learn from. The functionality and usability is well thought out and 15 screen shots and hints when you first launch the app means you are soon aware of the features. The findaproperty app has the usual search functions you would expect and makes use of your current location. The home screen adheres to Apples development concept of keeping things simple and supplies just 4 buttons along the bottom for new search, saved searches, recent searches and your account settings which leads me to the first of the nice touches. The app allows you to quickly sign up for an online account and syncs your searches and saved searches, recognising that users more and more like their online activity and how they access the Internet to lead how things function rather than design and development being led by the device. The other little extra that stood out was the ability to swipe through the listings while in the listing view. By this I mean that there is no need to hit back, go back to the listings, scroll and then tap the next house.
While in listing view the map button quickly loads up a google maps and the properties are annotated with pins which is very nice if location is a key criteria to your search.
The listing view is slick and if you are browsing on wireless the images are quick to load allowing you to quickly assess the property. The listings are not unnecessarily scrollable with links or buttons to further information and contacts rather than cramming all the info into one page.
One thing I would have liked to see and this merely reflects upon my search. I very much like on the website that in the listing view I can see the distance to nearest train station. As a commuter this info would effect whether I even look at the listing or not. However the map view allows you to make this assessment to.
Check out the App on the Findaproperty website.
First for this month, the NB TotalFit App has knocked the Mapmyrun of the top spot for fitness Apps with more functionality on the free app some of which MapMyRun a charging for.
The big one for this month is the introduction of the Amazon Kindle, see my Amazon Kindle review. This a simple App but a great seamless collaboration between website and the mobile web.
I am not usually one for replacing the phones basic phone functions with third party Apps but since I bought a Gorillapod the other week I thought I’d try out the Gorillacam App when I saw it and it is brilliant! Simple additional camera functions, countdown timer, sequence photos to name a few. The best bit is that it is well thought out and intuitive.
Since the iRail App has begun charge for their App I have begun using the Trainline App. It’s free and possibly more flexible than iRail with greater information provided once you have found your journey.
Also I should mention again the improvements to the Facebook App, now allowing the syncing of contacts and profile pics with your iPhone contacts.
The Rightmove App is still a personal favourite although a little birth tells me there might be a Findaproperty App just around the corner, watch this space for a full review.
Despite pushing for Adobe Captivate we have installed Camtasia on the edit suites at work for screen capture and tutorial recording. I’m not disappointed though it does the job!
Firstly, the majority of recording the company will need to shoot will be on PC based software so we have bought the PC version and installed VMWare on the Macs. This should improve the workflow from recording to edit. The software is easy to set up and get started with, like most programs.
Load up Camtasia Studio and you will first be faced with an option screen. Choose screen recording.
A small window in the bottom right hand corner of the page will load. In this window you have options for Camera, Audio and Select Area.
Once you hit the record button the window is minimized to the tray and everything you do on screen or within your assigned area is recorded.
When you are done hit the Esc key or go down to the icon in the tray and click to reveal the stop option.
The recording is now in a ‘cache’ state and you now need to decide how you will save the file down.
Click the Save button in the bottom right corner of the window.
Save the files down as an AVI as we will not be editing the video in Camtasia Studio. Organise your clips well so you can quickly identify them and their order later.
Today, for the first time since “The far away tree” I lost myself in a book. I am not much of a reader at length. Most of my library is reference and I dip in and out as I need to learn but today I discovered something great. Roughly a month ago a colleague called me into his office to show me his new Amazon Kindle. Being one for gadgets and tech I was impressed, mainly considering the space I could save. I put it on the future purchases and thought nothing of it until the other day. I was browsing the Zagg website when I came across their App recommendation tool, I signed up and in my first list of recommendations was the Amazon Kindle iPhone App. Without hesitation I installed it, linked it to my amazon account and began searching for a book to test the App. After a short browse I discovered that you could send a sample of hue books to your Kindle to decide whether it’s the book for you. Very impressed I chose a couple and today on the train I spent the entire 40 minutes reading. Now this, for most is no major accomplishment bit one of the reasons I stopped prolonged reading was not by choice, I would get four pages into a book and wake up 2 hours later. The Amazon Kindle for iPhone has a function to switch the color to sepia. I found this a lot less hypnotic than the harsh black and white of a usual page. Maybe it was the time of day, maybe it was mind over matter as I was reading a book on a gadget but I know that I don’t have time to wait for my books to age to that sepia sort of color and will be reading a lot more on my iPhone.
I often want to take a few of my favourite movies away with me when I go away. It is possible to convert your DVD’s into a format that will play on your iPod, iPhone or any portable device to save you physically carrying the discs around with you. I am going to talk about a software I use on a Mac but you can download similar software for windows, just look on download.com or softpedia.com.
I use Handbrake to convert my DVD’s it’s really easy to use and now comes with present for most popular portable devices. Open up handbrake and insert you DVD, if you DVD Player software loads up just quit out of this as you don’t want the computer doing two things at once. 
Choose Source in the top left hand corner and locate your disc, you don’t have to go deep into folder structure, top level is enough for handbrake to assess the disc. 
Once selected Handbrake will review all the chapter on the disc. Make sure you have selected the first chapter right through to the last chapter to ensure you convert the entire DVD.
Select the preset for the output video using the drawer on the right handside of the interface. Handbrake now has presets for iPhone, iPod and iPod Touch to make things nice and simple but if you are worried about file size then you can fine tune the settings yourself.
Once you are happy and have selected where you would like your file to be saved hit the Start button next to the Source button at the top of the interface.
Open the file in iTunes and it will be copied into your iTunes Media Folder, next time you sync you device the file will be uploaded.
Also see Duplicating DVD’s and CD’s using Mac OSX’s Disk Utility
After recently having my first issues playing certain video codecs in Quicktime since the installation of Mac OSX Snow Leopard I thought I’d look at my installed Quicktime Components that in the past have allowed me to play most files. Obviously, Quicktime Pro facilitates many options that are grayed out in the regular Quicktime Player. I also have Premiere Pro which now facilitates many HDD camera files, Final Cut which also supports many mpeg formats and VLC Player which seems to open most files.
Flip4Mac Pro WMV
I have the Flip4Mac Studio Pro for WMV playback and export. There is Flip4Mac Player for WMV Playback, Flip4MacPlayer Pro allows you to import WMV’s for conversion to Quicktime formats although this version is not free, Flip4Mac Studio allows you to export WMV’s in the Quicktime environment but using the presets and Flip4Mac Studio Pro which allows you to create you own custom export settings. I would advise purchasing Studio Pro if you support a company that uses Video in Powerpoint as it provides the most versatility.
Visit The Flip4Mac download page here
Perian
Perian, they say is the Swiss army knife for Quicktime Codecs. I’ll be honest, I installed it and as I can play most formats I guess it helps but couldn’t evaluate it completely. Here is the list of codecs Perian supports.
- File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
- Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
- Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
- AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
- Subtitle support for SSA/ASS and SR
Download the Perian Plugin here
REDcode
I have REDcode installed but to be honest I have know hardware that would require using this as yet.
Visit the REDcode website here
DIVX 7 Codec
I have the DIVX 7 Component installed which adds playback of .divx videos and .avi files, there is also a DIVX 7 Pro version which allows you to create your own DIVX files but I have not yet had the need to do so so I don’t have this installed
TechSmith EnSharpen
Since I have installed Camtasia on the Edit suites at work I have installed the TechSmith Ensharpen Codec to reduce the problems I might come across saving out screen capture video created in Camtasia and saving them to Quicktime to then import for edit into Adobe Premiere Pro.
Visit the TechSmith EnSharpen Codec page here
I’m pretty sure I have the XVID Component installed too but again am not sure whether this ever needs pulling out of the bag and if it does it probably runs nicely in the background.
For more Qucktime Components visit Apple
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