Charanjit Chana

I've often said to friends that when I get my own place, I'm going to trick it out. At the moment, I have a wall mounted TV and Sky but what I really want is a NAS/streaming solution.

I've seen some, but Mac compatiblity is always a worry.

The AppleTV would seem to be the answer however space is limited. At < £200, it's not that badly priced for the base model, but at £250ish for extra storage, an extra 120Gb just isn't good enough.

I've thought about a Mac Mini but haven't decided on anything yet.

Apple's stuff is just too irresistible to me at the moment, plus I know it works.

Maybe when I get my own place!

As part of a proejct at work, I needed access to a .Mac/MobileMe account, so I decided to sign up for the 90-day free trial that Apple are offering. To be honest, I just don't get it!

MobileMe looks amazing. Very Mac, very slick and 3 out of the 4 times I've logged in, it's worked! The other time, it just timed out again and again.

I already sync work and home calendars through Google and my iPod Touch is more than capable of working alongside Gmail.

I do love the way, if my Mac was on, that I would be able to browse through my hard drive, but at £60ish a year, it's just too much money. To me, a NAS makes far more sense and with the big G being free, that MobileMe just doesn't seem like good value for money.

If you want to get at me through MobileMe, I very much doubt i'll be using it beyond the trial, my address is cchana@me.com

Macrumours posted an article about registrations for the 2009 Macworld event and rumours for the event. Among other things, a possible increase in iPhone capacity. From 16 to 32Gb will definitely be a nice jump, but at what cost?

Anyway, I don't really give a shit about that, the thing I care most about is the possibility of a new Mac Mini. Since the new MacBooks don't feature any Blu-ray drives, I doubt the Mac Mini will come with one, but it might serve as an otherwise very, very capable media server. The HDCP stuff on the new MacBooks is just plain annoying, but I'm not sure how this will effect a new Mac Mini which may, or may not, move away from the DVI interface used at present.

The Mac Mini was the first Mac I really got to get to grips with and another Mac Mini was my first Apple computer purchase. It's now over 2 years old but still in constant use at home.

[ read more... ]

I put some time aside to watch the keynote from earlier this week where Apple unveiled their new line of laptops and a new cinema display.



As already stated by nearly every other commentary on the event, the announcements were not exactly surprising. Not they have been for quite a while now.

Anyway, the new MacBooks are beautiful. The all aluminium construction was heavily emphasised and impressive. The MacBooks transition to this new format was a great development, but the premium Apple have place on it will probably mean that the white version will probably be the biggest seller.

[ read more... ]

So I finally got home after a little detour and distraction from a friend!



I'm really pleased with the Touch and can't wait to get more use out of it. Videos look great, music sounds great and I have found a few key apps.

Twitter makes so much more sense from a mobile device.

You can check out my Flickr set of my un-boxing but I hope to have a slide show up and running here in a day or two!

Oh, I'm so excited! I was a bit miffed as to why the box it was delivered in felt like it was carrying air. When I opened the box, I was a bit concerned that there was just a small bit of bubble wrap and some air pockets for protection. I unrolled the bubble wrap to find some tiny box inside. The iPod Touch packaging is tiny but that's no bad thing!

I'll be posting photos of the un-boxing tonight and I will try to include a photo of the iPod Touch's and iPod Mini's packaging so you can see the difference!

TNT's service sucks by the way.

It was an iPod Nano case that got me looking at the possibility of a new iPod purchase, some 4 1/2 years after my first.



The SwitchEasy Biscuit just made the podgy little 3rd gen Nanos look mighty sexy and completely desireable. Had a new Touch been a few months away, a Nano may well have found it's way into my pocket.

With the arrival of my iPod Touch, my Apple product count sits at 6 5 (can't count!), not too bad and all products I use regularly. The list is comprised of:

• iPod Mini (1st gen)
• Mac Mini (2nd gen)
• MacBook (2008)
• Airport Express (2008)
• iPod Touch (2nd gen)

I think the iPod Mini will quickly be relegated to a workout mp3 player and general storage device, despite the Touch's built in Nike+ app and functionality. Considering I own an armband and a Nike+ SportBand, it doesn't make too much sense to break in my Touch in this way.

Oh and I will have picks of the Touch upon it's arrival.

Made a trip to the Kingston Apple Store and took some time to play with the new Nanos and Touchs. For me, the Nano's screen did have quite a bit of noticeable glare towards the edges that would make video difficult to view BUT the colours are amazing, the interface is better than ever and it's thin. Really thin.

I decided that the Touch was right for me and put an order in for the 16Gb version a few minutes ago.

I was considering the 32Gb version, but I'm sure they've upped the price by £10 over the last day or so. 16Gb should be more than enough for me so I am happy I finally put the order in!

I also downloaded iTunes 8 which is really nice. The Genius feature looks intersting, but the constant iTunes store plugging on the right had to go asap!

[ read more... ]

Steve Jobs announced the new iPod Nano and Touch receiving a mixed reaction from the press. Most were impressed with the announcement, but many felt that they weren't worthy of a 'keynote'. I'm excited about the new iPod's so was 90% happy with what was announced.

A few reporters had said that they thought it wouldn't be as big a deal as Apple was making out, and in some ways they were right.

The Nano first. It was the same as we saw in the leaked photos. It features an awesome shake to shuffle feature and the new Genius playlists.

The iPod Touch will most likely be my next tech purchase and now features Nike+ integration, better battery life, a slimmer profile, volume controls, built-in speaker AND the Genius playlists option.

I am wondering why the iPhone and iPod Touch don't the shuffle feature of the iPod nano, but that's a small niggle.

I'm a little disappointed that the Touch doesn't come with GPS, but downloading maps without 3G would have been hit and miss. Either that or a large chunk of memory would be eaten by pre-loaded maps. Had it come with GPS, I think I would have been far more compelled to order one last night!.

[ read more... ]

I have an Airpot Express, but my HD adventures forced me to loose the partition I was using for OS X's Time Machine. As a result, I've been looking for an alternative that doesn't require a hard connection to my MacBook.

Apple's Time Capsule is the obvious choice, but I don't need the Extreme capabilities and I'm not 100% convinced that it can be used as a Time Machine backup device and as a basic Windows file depository. If it can, then it may be my next purchase.

For now, I'll be experimenting with a network storage device I found in Maplin.

What would clinch a Time Capsule, for me, would be the option of Raid 1 backup, like a Drobo... which has a wireless option now, but doesn't come cheap!