Posted by matchek on August 26, 2008
so i’ve re-discovered podcasting recently: 1st on my iPod classic & recently on a nicer, bigger screen - iPhone. but good music podcasts are very hard to find on iTunes … well, it just takes a while (took me few months to go through all the garbage & find this one).
so i wanted to share the love & tell you guys about probably the best modern, electronica, chill, gypsy, hip hop music podcast on d net today - the Sound Culture podcast.
those guys really do it for the love - not only every month or so they come up with the new “radio episode”, this podcast is one of the better organized ones: it has the name, title of the artist, ablum cover, etc. THEN … you can go to their website & … download each of the songs featured on their episodes, either via iTunes, napster - legal chanells OR … for free. those guys rock (they also have live DJ sessions in california). & … when i offered a donation, they suggested to donate to my fav charity … maaaan
here are few of my favorite sound culture episodes:
Posted in Blogroll, audio, mp3, review, web 2.0 | Tagged: best music podcast, music, podcast | No Comments »
Posted by matchek on August 6, 2008
recenlty i’ve re-discovered podcasting, especially usefull if u travel underground w/out sygnal, etc
http://www.fastlanedaily.com/ - daily auto news
http://www.webridestv.com/videos/ - nicely filmed auto clips
http://www.vodcars.com/ - user submited car videos
http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/ - kudos to speed tv - coverage of some racing action
best music podcast:
www.soundculture.com - niiiiiice
Posted in audio, review | Tagged: iphone, ipod, podcast | No Comments »
Posted by matchek on August 4, 2008
so i finally gave in to the apple marketing evil machine … and decided to buy iPhones 3g, but all 3g are sold out, wright?
well … not exactly - believe it or not, it is as simple as walking to any ATT store & … placing an order :). they’ll take your credit card, tell you it will take up to 3 weeks & 2 weeks later … you’ll get a notification in your email (mine is on delivery truck as of this morning as we speak, from MEMPHIS, TN strangely. & I’ve placed an order on 8/22, so that’s 2 weeks sans 1 day). don’t bother checking your email daily for the status of your order, the “back-order” will go from 1 to 0 daily/hourly … and confuse the heck out of you.
if you’re more impatient than that … & are willing to stand in line - go to local apple store (for some “strange” reason, non of the local/ny, att stores have them in stock).
in new york, i’ve called all apple stores & had better luck with soho & 14 st locations - they always had them available, sometime only in white & sometimes “expected 2-3 hour wait” (mon-wed mornings are better). do NOT bother with 5th ave - 3h wait (in the morning) always guaranteed.
if you’re willing to drive - more remote att stores have them on mondays.
ps: ohh, yeah a guide on how to switch to iPhone from another provider coming soon - so far i found that you can: sync google calendar to iCalc, mac address book to either yahoo / google contacts
Posted in buying advise, cool gear, how to, mac os | Tagged: iphone | No Comments »
Posted by matchek on June 24, 2008
i’ve switched to an apple / mac (leopard) 6 months ago & i absolutely love it. i’ve been a PC / Windows geek for the rest of my life (over 16 years now), so i’m not one of those “got to go with the coolest thing out there”. but, after fighting with Windows for most of my professional life, i just got simply fed up with all the annoyances & shorcomming of … 16 year old based operating system.
it took me a while to convince myself to switch … it started with iPod like for most of us - best mp3 player with the simplest UI. then i convinced my dad to buy a motorolla based PowerBook. i liked the new mac OS - tiger, but the laptop still seemed too slow for the price.
then apple announced intel based laptops & soon after my wife got 2gh macbook (best laptop i’ve worked with to date).
so what exactly are the differences between mac & windows laptops (today’s desktops pretty much)?
I’ve decided to write up a little comparison for my friends, who ask me this question those days.
|
mac
|
win
|
| battery life |
4-6h |
2-4h (depending on the laptop) |
hibernate /
sleep |
just close the lid and don’t worry about it!
(it actually goes to sleep by default, then
when it runs out of battery, puts it to hybernate) - haven’t failed on me yet … |
- hibernate breaks after a month or so
you’ll get an error message & it won’t restore
- sleep works well, but drains the battery faster
you’ll loose your work when battery runs out
(hard re-boot often required) |
| desktop search |
- spotlight will find it all, including your outlook (entourage) mail messages
- it will even search your networked (windows) / removable drives in less then 1-5 minutes |
- no built in search (i guess vista has something right now), google desktop IS a nice alternative
- network search is …. sloooooooow
any windows “find” search is slow |
| bluetooth |
works out of the box
-
with my cell phone - i can browse internet over it, transfer files
- 1.0 logitech headset: not only can i talk on skype with it, i can listen / record to any audio via the headset |
imposible to get it to work:
- tried with 3 laptops
- numerous driver re-installs, updates, firmwares
gave up … |
| sound |
amazing, intuitive setup:
- remembers volume levels for each audio out: laptop speakers, headphones, bluetooth
- easy to separate volume control of different applications
- bonus: with $200 apple TV or $100 eithernet adapter you can stream _any_ audio to any hifi in your household … wirelesly  |
… one volume level for all
- if you savy enough, you’ll figure out different output levels (mic, speakers, etc)
- couldn’t get the airTunes to work on windows … but then again, i refused to spend more then 1/2 h to get it working nowadays |
| backup |
built into the OS … enough said. all you need is an external drive & it will automatically back it up for you.
bonus - time capsule - one of the best inventions of the 2000s - it will make automatic backups for you …. wirelessly! |
3 words: pain in the a** - i’ve tried different solutions … and they are _different_ - not compatible with each other. you have to install additional programs, it slows down your system …. a mess. |
| wireless |
not sure why, but mac just connects better … to weak singnals and faster (with an exception for macbook pro … sometimes it acts up, maybe new firmware will fix that) |
a mess: built-in windows “wireless manager” is imposible to connect to a network with a password without going to 10 level deep setup. depending what wifi card your laptop comes you, you have to constantly update your drivers and re-install firmwares … |
| crashing |
ok, some apps to crash, especially wine based emulators (as expected), but that happens …. twise a month. entire computer freeze - once in 6 months on macbook & twise of so in macbook pro. |
constant application crashes (especially if you run too many :), freeze … seems like every week or 2 you have to re-boot. |
|
|
|
| dashboard |
ok … in all honesty, i didn’t get it at first … but after a while, it is nice to have weather, calculator, different time zones, etc - available at a touch of one button at all times |
…. vista has something like this - haven’t tried it, but i’m assuming MS managed to f*ck this up somehow |
| build in media box |
front row is sweet & macbook comes w/ a remote control - watch all movies (you’ll need perian), llisten to music, see your photos - all in a nice, simple interface - out of a box
bonus - stream all to your HDTV via apple TV - $200! |
.. not! |
|
|
|
Posted in mac os | No Comments »
Posted by matchek on March 6, 2008
vmWare & Parallels rely heavily on the hard drive to run Windows (XP or Vista) on your mac. So the only way to make it run faster is to put it on a very fast hard drive … well, here’s my brilliant idea - convert portion of your memory into a fastest hard drive on the planet! :). Here’s what, you’ll need:
- Ram Disk Utility Pro … old but forgotten concept of converting your spare memory into a super fast “hard drive”. ($14.99 is well worth of what you get)
- at least 2GB of memory on your apple (iMac, macbook, etc) is recommended
- a very small installation of Windows XP - with TinyXP (bittorrent link) that’s only 400gb! & vmWare / Parallels
How to: once you have Ram Disk installed, it will show up just as if it was a regular hard drive on your desktop. so all you’ll need to do - is to move the vmWare image of your Win XP to it & then re-setup new Virtual Machine (advanced options / “use the existing virtual disk”).
other suggested usage for ram hard drive:
- have 100mb + photo u want to manipulate in photoshop?
- u can even drop applications on it to speed them up (i found firefox to load images much faster … u figure out what kind of websites i was checking out 
- seriously great way to speed up anything on your mac that is hard drive recources hungry
Posted in best utilities, how to, mac os | No Comments »
Posted by matchek on March 6, 2008
Draft N (802.11n) Routers Redux … it’s amazing that N hasn’t officially been released yet … WFT? well, i’ve used belkin’s one & apple’s one … both work like a charm & yes N is twice faster.
Yahoo extends deadline … hostile takeover attempt continues … again, gov should squash this anyways, right? …
Bush: America must ‘get off oil’ … lol, as in “i’ve made enough $ already & the well is running dry anyways”??? - wonder if we’ll see “bush islands” grow up in the pacific sometime in the near future ….
Be here Thursday for live iPhone SDK coverage
FBI director acknowledges more surveillance abuses …. noooo, realllyyyy? …
Jobs hid cancer for nine months before seeking treatment, damn … distress creates motivation?
NIN Confirms Uploads to Public and Private Torrent Sites … glad to see that at least some artists “get it”
EFF to take RIAA on in court over “making available”
Germany’s Hesitance Slows Technology Cooperation With France
* apple-landia
More Shareholder Notes: SDK Hints, “Lots of” iPhone Apps, No Flash
time machine AirPort Disk discontinued … come on apple … that’s f’ed up … well, here’s the solution - Get Time Machine to work with Airport Disk!
* toys
HDD Stage Rack gets even better: now with 300% more FireWire
* super geek
Supercharge Your Wireless Router With Open Firmware … i’ve actually spent some time & … must admit time waisted, not many advantages, unless u wana hack ur neighbor’s router :). but seriously, i’d just advise to upgrade to N router (i’m buying the time capsule & finally won’t have to worry about my backups & router issues). ps: macs can’t connect to “super g” routers in case u wondered ….
Posted in daily links news | No Comments »
Posted by matchek on February 25, 2008
Posted in daily links news | No Comments »
Posted by matchek on February 14, 2008
i’ve recently bought apple TV & immediately started hacking it :). out of the box apple TV let’s you view & listen to all your iTunes content: movies, music and pictures on your iPhoto (with “take 2″ you can also rent movies from iTunes & stream iTunes music to your apple TV via AirTunes). and you can do it all on your beloved HDTV set & your high end HiFi _wirelessly_
once hacked, apple TV is a very cheap solution ($200!) to wirelessly stream all of your movies (divx, mpeg, avi) from your computer to your entertainment system - via apple TV & you can listen to internet radio (via streamer).
hacking of apple TV does not require opening the box any longer. all you need is an USB stick & … unfortunately Mac OS 10.4 running on an intel mac. all you do is: plug the patchstick in the back of appleTV, reboot & vu a la!
if you’re a techie / hacker, simply follow instructions:
- Beginner’s Guide - how to hack ATV 1
- NitoTV | ATVFiles | Sapphire | Perian - plug-ins
[few notes: can't create a patchstick in Windows nor Leopard, NitoTV doesn't appear on ATV Loader no longer (?)]
on the apple TV 2 news front:
- folks at awkwardTV forums are trying to hack via safe update to apple TV 2 …
- [update] jMahn gives us step-by step instructions to modify your patchstick so it works on ATV 2! (he says, once hacked - AirTunes & movie rentals works - at your own risk)
- ps: you CAN upgrade to 2.0 & then restore back to 1.0 in order to play with the new features (in my opinion podcasts are the best addition to appleTV & you can get a lot of HDTV podcast content for FREE)
- AppleTV 2, AirTunes And Airfoil 3 - soon, you’ll be able to stream any of your audio (non iTunes radio, skype, etc) to Apple TV wirelessly … work in progress & it’s ONLY $25!
Posted in apple TV, audio, guide, how to | No Comments »
