Mac Mini

“Dear Mr Jobs,

When I said “Your work here was done”, in my previous post about my iPhone, I may have been telling porkies, as I still had a Windows machine in the house, however you’ll be glad to know, that I’ve done the right thing, and replaced it with a Mac Mini. Sorry for the porkie, and I am now 100% Apple.

Your ever faithful disciple

Darren.”

As you can probably tell from the above, I’ve replaced my last remaining Windows machine with a Mac Mini (Really ? No sh1t Sherlock). To be honest I’ve been toying with the idea since getting the MacBooks last year, as essentially all the Windows machine did was act as a server. It was my media server, my iTunes server, my torrent downloading machine (all legal of course) and a way of dialling into my network from the outside world using remote desktop and port forwarding.

As you can probably suss from my ted post, I spent a little time and ensured that I could still carry out the same functions on the Mac.

I’m using PS3 Media Server to stream to my PS3′s and Xbox,I’m using a uTorrents as my torrent client,iTunes (obviously) for my iTunes server and finally VNC to dial it.

All these pieces of software are available cross platform, so all is good.

The Mac Mini turned up on Monday (unboxing below). The thing that got me about this was just how small the Mac Mini actually is, imagine stacking 4/5 CD cases onto of each other, and that it !

This this is silent, so compact, so tidy, and takes up no room whatsoever !.

As this is just going to be used for the same purpose the Windows machine was, I didn’t really need a high spec, as the Dell I was replacing was only a 2Gb Core 2 Duo, with 2Gb of Ram.

I went for the below, which to be honest it more than adequate for what I need.

• 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 2GB memory
• 160GB hard drive¹
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Now unlike the iMac, this doesn’t come with a mouse or keyboard, these are optional, however I had a spare set kicking around. The Mac Mini does have an internal speaker (which to be honest I was a little shocked at, as this device is so small. You do however have the option of connecting external speakers via the 3.5mm jack plug at the back.

The Video out connections are both the Mini DVI and the Mini Displayport adapters, allowing you to connect this to VGA, DVI and HDMI, however you only get a Mini DVI to DVI connecter included.

As with all my apple equipment, I switched it on, entered my details, and done !

This has been the final piece is a very expensive jigsaw, however my household is completely Mac, Goodbye Windows, I hope I never have to use you again ! (well, I do have to use it every day at work…but I don’t really have a choice in that)

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ted (Television Episode Downloader)

If you are anything like me (and god help you if you are ), and use the internet as a PVR, then this software will be a god send to you.

I’ve just recently ordered a Mac Mini to replace my last remaining Windows machine, and thought I’d better check if I could still do what I do now.

Currently my Dell machine, sits in the corner, and is used as my media server, my iTunes server and my torrent machine. Currently I have uTorrent installed, which downloads each episode using the RSS Feed option. Each of the RSS feeds points to a particular RSS feed for my favourite TV program from eztv, and once a new episode is detected, it’s downloaded.

Once the episodes are downloaded, these get copied to a shared location on my NAS Box, which I can then stream to my PS3′s or Xbox using PS3 Media Server.

I did a little googling last night, and even though there is a Mac version of uTorrent, it’s still in beta, and missing a lot of the functions that the Windows version has, eg the RSS downloader.

After a little more googling, I found a tidy little piece of freeware software called ted (Television Episode Downloader). Essentially it has a list of all the TV episodes that you can select from, and when a new episode appears, it will download the torrent file, and open this with your default torrent client.

Ok, this that fixes the missing functionality of uTorrent, however the software is a lot smarter that the RSS Downloader function in uTorrent, as once you’ve added your favourite shows, you can choose to start from the next available episode, the previous episode, or even download every episode. You then have the option to select “HD Only”, which will only download episodes with the tag of HD or 720.

The interface will also show you the name of the next episode, and when it’s going to be aired.

The good thing about this software is that is available free of charge on Mac, Windows and Linux, and only requires that you have a torrent client installed (I highly recommend uTorrent, Mac and Windows clients available).

Now some people may have a problem with downloading episodes from the internet, I however don’t mind, as I tend to buy the boxsets once they are available. Also this is little different to using BBC iPlayer, or Sky Anytime.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts, and enjoy

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1password

For years now, I’ve been experimenting with different types of password management/virtual wallet software, but never found one that I’m 100% happy with…well, not until now !

When I bought my iPod Touch a couple of years ago, I found the most painful part of browsing, was entering my username and password into websites (as you can imagine the email address of ub3rg33k.co.uk isn’t very iPhone / iPod touch friendly). I tried many free and cheap iPhone apps which sort of did the job, but at best I could copy and paste the details to the site, 1password however just works !

1password comes from Agile Software Solutions, and to be honest is an absolute god send, not only is it a very good virtual wallet, it’s also a bookmark/username and password manager for the iPhone.

I tend not to carry my wallet around with me (unless I’m going shopping), and like the idea of still having all my details safely locked away in an iPhone app protected by AES encryption, for if I need them when out and about.

There are 2 levels of protection, either a simple 4 digit pin, or 4 digit pin and master password (for your more sensitive information)

Currently I have all my card details, my driving licence, passport, and logins to the majority of the sites I use, with username and password saved. I currently have my iPhone set to “10 attempts that the pin code, then delete”, this option is also present on the application too, so if somebody did get into my phone, they would then have the crack the next 4 digit pin, then my master password with 4 attempts.

The iPhone app is good, and I was quite lucky to have picked it up when it was free (now £3.99 for the standard version and £7.99 for the pro version), however I would be more that happy to pay the £3.99 now, if nothing else, I alway have my personal info with me, and never have to punch in my username and password into a site again.

Where 1password really excels is the desktop application (Currently only Mac, there is a beta version out for Windows). I recently wiped my data from my iPhone, I couldn’t really be bothered entering all my details back in to my previous virtual wallet software (Lockbox), which led me to look at other solutions. I googled 1password, and found there was a desktop app, that could sync with the iPhone ! Result !. Not only would this allow me to quickly populate all my information again, it also has browser integration too.

Once installed, it took me an hour or so to enter all my personal details and sync up, Success !

Now the browser integration, whenever I go to a website I get an option to save the login details, or if I’ve already got this saved, I have the option of logging in. If you don’t already have the details saved, you are given the option of adding the details to a folder, and to add tags, for easier searching at a later date.

Another massive benefit to me of using the browser integration is the fact that with it storing all your card details, it makes online shopping a breeze, just a simple click on the icon, select your credit card, and this will enter all the relevant details for you !

As I’ve got both an iMac and a MacBookPro, I wanted to find a way of syncing between the 2 machines, as I use them both an equal amount of time. I didn’t really want to keep backing up, copy to other, etc, as every time I go onto a new website, I would be adding to my database. This was were I discovered Dropbox, a pieces of software that allows you to sync between multiple machines, and with the cloud, however more about that in my Dropbox post.

1password may not be the cheapest option out there, but if works fantastically, and only wish I’d discovered it sooner. The single user licence is $39.95 and the Family version (5 users) is $69.95, however the iSlayer code will save you 20% !, I think the 5 user licence version cost me only £34, there is a fully functioning 30 day trail available from the website, and can’t recommend this product highly enough.

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