mrblack.co.uk weblog

Ars Technica recently put out a post stating that “macs are making inroads in the corporate sphere”. This sparked some interesting discussion regarding on how macs can be incorporated into the hostile world of Exchange servers and Desktop policy.

A real sore point in the comments were that mac laptops don’t have docking stations. Indeed I can see why its annoying, as I write, this my little Macbook is spilling out 4 cables which are a hassle to plug in and make my desk wire hell. I would much prefer a docking type system, like IBM or Dell offer.

Personally, I *could* get rid of my mouse/headphones/keyboard and replace them with wireless alternatives (the net is already wireless). Alas there is still one major problem. If you use a secondary monitor or a projector, that is one heck of a dongle and loop of wire that as of yet lacks a real wireless solution. Most annoying.

So, I can see why people want docks. ‘One click’ simplicity sounds ace. However wouldn’t it be better is you didn’t have something resembling an octopus sitting on you desk waiting for your laptop? Or have the opportunity to carry around your laptop and be able to instantly connect to the projector to show your colleagues your fab idea. All without wires*?

I can but dream.

*well, all but one power cable

Reading
Ars Technica article
Digg comments

I would love to have a single place where all my music and videos are stored rather than having a bunch of stuff hanging around on laptops, PCs and iPods. So I bit the bullet and began Le Grande Media Server project.

First thing I wanted to do was to set up a music server, so this post is basically stage one. Now, as specs go, we all use iTunes at home and I use it at work, so ideally my music should be served to that piece of software. That about it for specs..

The server I’ll be using is my old desktop running a P4, 512mb ram and about 130gig of hard drive space. Of cause I could throw more hard drives in if need be. This is more than enough power for this task, but meh it was just sitting there.

Step 1 : Install Ubuntu
I chose to install the latest beta of Ubuntu, feisty fawn, as I was rather eager but I’m sure all this will work with Dapper Drake. Feisty really is an impressive operating system, much better than the XP it replaces on my old machine, and, thankfully, makes this task relatively simple.

Installation is pretty straight forward, and documented best over at www.ubuntu.com/

Step 2 : Install mt-daapd
iTunes uses Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP) to share content. Now this is ideal for us, as some clever chaps have reverse engineered the protocol and made mt-daapd, an open program that uses this protocol to share a media directory to our local network. So in theory our little Linux box can be seen by any copy of iTunes on our local network.

First of all install ID3 tag support (so mt-daapd can read mp3 files)

sudo apt-get install libid3tag0

Then for mt-daap itself. Its best to grab the latest debian package rather than apt-get to be sure of a working copy (iTunes changes so often).

wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mt-daapd/mt-daapd_0.2.4-1_i386.deb?download

and then install it

sudo dpkg -i mt-daapd_0.2.4-1_i386.deb

Then, once installed, you need to edit /etc/mt-daapd.conf with whatever you use (vi, nano, gedit, I don’t care). Within this file, point the server to your media directory then restart mt-daapd.

sudo /etc/init.d/mt-daapd restart

Now on another machine you should see your share appear in iTunes and will be able to play music! If not, check to see your Ubuntu box has tcp port 3689 and udp port 5959 open and that iTunes is actually listening for shared music.

Thats sorted me and my family out at home. Hurrah.

Step 3: But I wanna listen at work! *throws tantrum*
DAAP was never supposed to work over the internet. There is a way though, and below are instructions on how I did it for a mac. For windows, it will be possible with putty, but I’m not sure how to complete the entire process.

However, for Ubuntu make sure ssh is installed on your server.

sudo apt-get install ssh

Once thats out of the way check to see if port 22 (the ssh port) is open on your Ubuntu box’s firewall (firestarter is a nice tool for this). Now we want to be able to get to this port from outside our network for that on-the-go-music-server-accessness. So set up port 22 to forward to your server on your modem/router.

If all goes well you should be able to type the following on your Mac and get to your Ubuntu server.

ssh your_user_name@your_external_ip

If not, check your router/modem firewall (or that your pipes aren’t clogged) .

Now we want to set up the tunnel between the server and your shinny mac so the music can flow to you as if you were on your home network.

ssh your_user_name@your_external_ip -L 3689:localhost:3689

Once you have put your password in and agreed to accepting keys, the tunnel is now set up. This is not it though, for iTunes to see the share you need to broadcast its presence. To do this I used Network Beacon, which is set up like in this picture.

Once that chap is up and going, you should be able to see your media server in iTunes.

Hope that’s of use. For me its ace, all that music, at work and at home. Bliss.

Reading
I must point out that most of this was thanks to the following so if you are lost visit these.
Matt’s Blog : Setting up mt-daapd on Ubuntu 5.10
Firefly media server
mt-daapd wiki - ssh tunnel
Ubuntu
Firestarter linux firewall
Network Beacon
iTunes

The Apple TV has not been out for a week and people have opened up the little fella and have had a play with its underbelly.

So far they have ..

• installed a Xvid codec
• installed samba
• installed ssh (and opened up the ports)
• installed a 120gb hard drive

For me this is sweet. I’m thinking about setting up a media server in a wardrobe somewhere to serve daap to the family’s computers and broadcast music to me when I’m at work (through a ssh tunnel.. possibly). This little baby will be running Ubuntu on a low level PC and a few massive hard drives full of content.

Now if the Apple TV could connect via samba to this server and play my ripped DVDs, that would be so nice. It might be even better if it could connect via daap and stream video content from an non iTunes source, then it would make the most of apple tvs already buffering and caching system.

So please hack on!

Readings
Macdevcenter article
appletv hacker
appletvhacks.net
Somethingawful thread on the hacking
Gizmondo covers diy 120gig upgrade
Digg’s “OMG LOLZ H4XXORS”

Amusingly if you downloaded Muse - Knights of Cydonia music video from iTunes a few days ago, you would have received “Hondo” , a western starring John Wayne. So I grabbed it, downloaded about a 1gig of “music video” and chuckled at the cock up.

Today, Apple sent me the actual music video alas not once, not twice but three times. For such generosity I would like to thank Matt, Amy and Lilly from iTunes support . Oh what a lark.

I just hope iTunes will sell these sort of movies at this price (£2) when they finally strike a deal to distribute films in the UK.

Update 22/3/07 12:15 Thanks Kate!! I now have my 4th copy of the music video.
Update 22/3/07 14:16 Thanks Amy!! I now have my 5th copy of the music video.
Update 22/3/07 16:16 Thanks Brian!! Number 6 is on its way.

Readings
Whale Salad blog post
Digg’s “insightful comments”

At my last workplace I stated that I wouldn’t mind developing on a Mac to which I was greeted with “are you mad!” and “but you’re a developer. Only designers and trendy types use macs”. Indeed they do so why on god given earth did I give it a go.

First of all I left that job and felt the need to start a new, so new job, new laptop(s). The Macbook seemed to fit what I wanted not just for working though but for playtime.

Playtime

When the bell rings and the teacher lets us out (teacher/boss, same thing) I run out with with laptop as I can imagine countless others do. At home I play on my Mac (two hands!). Not games though, as lets be honest if you want to playing anything other than World of Warcarft you are screwed but what it lacks in gaming power it makes up for in other areas.

The lack of gaming power is not an issue for me, however, at home I love to play movies and music (mm m&ms). Now the Mac comes with iTunes, which more than meets my needs musically and podcastly but also has iDvd and Quicktime. To get the benefit though you might have to hunt around for codecs like you had to for Windows.

Once all that work is done, hook up some decent speakers or headphones grab your apple remote and its wonderful. Front row is a credit to Apple for its simplicity and design, I would however liked to have seen DVR functionality or at least the ability for other companies to plugin to front row to allow for such functionality.

Now although most of this fun stuff works out of the box there are a few tricks that might help. First of all create a symbolic link in your front row directory to your DVD or CD drive. So then you can just chuck in a DVDR with your .. ahem.. home videos that you didn’t download illegally and use front row to navigate to the files. Also a few fun things to note are Coverflow and the BBC radio widget.

Oi you back to work!

Ok boss I’ll stop farting around now. Working on a Mac is very different than that of Windows and Linux (well I say Linux, I mean I have really only worked on Fedora, Red Hat and Ubuntu systems). Getting used to using the Command (apple) key is for a windows veteran, difficult.[1] Copy is now Command and C.. how odd.

No right click. For gods sake Apple will you please give us right click, that is really annoying, but you can get over it.

As for actual coding it much nicer having a real command line at your control knowing that I can use fun Unix commands. Also if your are developing locally, for example a website, its much easier to use a Mac with apache installed if you are going to be eventually deploying to a Linux or Unix webserver.

Now for developing I need a wicked ass text editor. On windows I used the simply wonderful Notepad++ and on Ubuntu just used the standard gedit that came with Gnome. On a Mac however what on earth can we use, well after a search and viewing a few screencasts and knowing that in the next few months I would be using Ruby on Rails I jumped into the 30 day trail of TextMate.

As I just purchased TextMate I seem to be happy with it. The most convincing feature is the directory display draw next to the code. For anybody who is developing for any of those new fangled web frameworks out there you will see how useful such a feature can be. It also has to be said that TextMate supports Ruby on Rails wonderfully with all the short cuts and what have you ready from the off. I’m still working my way around all of the features but I have to be honest and say this is probably the best text editor I have ever used.

For those looking at database work, I used to use Navicat for a windows machine, but to be honest CocaMySQL does the job in a similar fashion. Although it has to be said that it really needs foreign key support and for it to be a universal application.

As somebody who avoids the mouse (like most programmers) I found Finder in Mac OS X a pain in the arse to use at starting applications. That start key from my old windows machine really did spoil me for simplicity. There is spotlight but it seemed slow and to be honest wasn’t what I wanted when for example I just wanted to start an application. Fear not though, Quicksilver really does change the way you use your Mac. It is a way of starting up (and interacting) with programs using just Key combos. I mapped it to alt and space bar (similar to command and space for spotlight) then just type in a few letters and bang the application you want faster than anybody could use the start menu.

For the web developer we can actually use these new Intel Macs party trick, the ability to boot into windows. As we have to test on the god awful IE6 (possibily 5.5) and IE7 beta this is essential for those who fear having more than one computer switched on at a time, or for those with just one machine. I chose to use Parallels rather than Apple’s boot camp software. As why would I want to leave my new home of Mac OS to test some CSS in IE?

With 512mb of ram it was impossible to run parallels (believe me I tried :) ) but after spending about £120 at scan for 2gigs of memory my macbook now runs Windows XP at really speedy rate (and in total I use about 1.27 gigs of ram at a go , with 512mb devoted to Windows). However I should note I really did have to apply a fair bit of pressure to get the modules in, my fingers still hurt after 4 days. A tip is to put them in at a slight angle then push the rest in afterwards.

Sort of conclusion

There are draw backs and benefits to getting a mac, here is my little pros and cons list.

Cons

• Ouch! Yeah it is a little hot, but to be honest its as hot as my dell laptop with the same Core Duo chip inside.
• The screen is glossy, great for films but can be annoying in high light situations
• You stand out in meetings, the glowing Apple logo and blackness does sort of set you apart from the dell brigade. (I suppose this is a kinda pro too).
• Lack of windows applications able to run inside Mac OS X.
• Still not 100% convinced on the whole none full screen button (ie fill to maximum).
• Apple seem to be on a worrying slide down the DRM route which was really annoying when I transferred all my iTunes purchases of my old machine to this one.
• Lack of an optical out or expansion slot. Then I suppose they want us to go ‘Pro’.
• iChat not supporting MSN messenger, although Adium does a fine job getting chatting to those MSN people.
• .Mac spam within the OS. Useful to those that have it and a fucking annoyance for those that want to use open protocols and develop a more open and competitive market place.
• Applications are usually one step behind the windows world, for example Skype and webcam support and Skybroaband which doesn’t support mac at all!
• No right click
• Lack of a Coca OpenOffice for Intel. Although its on its way

Pros

• No viruses, no worms, no virus checkers, no spyware, no anti spyware. I’m very happy with that.
• Its pretty
• Front row is amazing
• The feeling that I can control the operating system, force quit actually works!
• The thing shuts down, unlike my windows machine that asks me about every crashing program
• Fast, very fast.
• Real command line
• Build in DVD player that doesn’t look like its been attacked by the people from pimp my ride.
• Doesn’t crash that often. It does crash, I have killed it twice in a month, but then I was really pushing it.
• Quicksilver
• Widgets are useful for things like a radio player. Think of the saved real estate pixels!
• TextMate is a wonderful tool and helped me be more productive.
• The built in webcam is actually really useful, but then I’m helping develop a system that uses it.

So all in all, although there are issues, they are tiny in comparison to the benefits you get from running a Mac over a Windows system. I am not a fan boy and I would never tell anybody to buy a Mac just because I like them but In the UK especially it would be nice to see Apple raise its profile a little and attempting to show the country why Mac OS X is superior to Windows XP (I think there is little doubt about that one). Hopefully they might work out the little issues that bug me (RIGHT CLICK!) but to be honest for the first time Mac buyer I’m sold on the quailty of the hardware but most of all by the OS.

1 I personally believe that anybody who has used windows over the past few years is a veteran who has constantly had to protect there system from viruses, spyware and shitware.

I love the new Boards of Canada album. It’s actually really cool for driving too, compared to my heavy rock driving has had a mellower feel.

Now the way I listen to this is using the Griffin iTrip, a small FM transmitter that fits on top of my iPod. Switch it on, tune in the car radio to the frequency it is broadcasting on and boogie. Finding the right frequency takes a bit of work but for my journey I have found the perfect one where no other radio stations get in the way. However there is one slight draw back. A taxi firm on a short stretch of road on my way to university use it. So every now and then whilst my music is playing I get “What’s the traffic like in Clayton?� or “errrrrr we have a pick up in castle, any takers?� It’s pretty funny and when listening to some electronic music by Aphex Twin as it can actually blend in pretty well.

Podcasting is a nice way people on the internet can make a radio show, put it online and with the wonders of magical elf called Really Simple Syndication computer programs then download a new episode when it come available.

“That sounds cool! ROLF LOL!!11 eleven” you might say. However, as with websites, podcasts are full of 14 year olds mumbling on about shite. So have a short list of what I listen to.

2600: The Hacker Quarterly RSS | iTunes | Homepage
This podcast has two shows on it, first is “Off The Hook” and secondly “Off The Wall”. Now as the name suggests these shows are fairly technical with lots of people discussing technical issues. The main reason I listened to these shows was that I study the underbelly of the internet, and with a cast of some ex cons it is sometimes a good listen. Off The Wall is basically a show where the Emanuel Goldstein (aka Eric Corley) goes off on random rants about anything that is on his mind. It can get a bit tedious, but when he recorded his shows going around the world it was actually kind of interesting. Off the Hook however tends to keep to the area of technological innovation and security. These shows are also broadcast on the FM dial in New York area (WBIA and WUSB).

Diggnation RSS | iTunes | Homepage
A humours technology podcast which runs down the most ‘dug’ stories from the social bookmarking news site, dig.com. Kevin Rose (of Systm and The Broken fame) sits along side Alex Albrecht, drink beers, and chat about tech, that’s about it. It is a pretty good listen and you can get it as a video download (a vidcast? Who knows what they are called).

This WEEK in Tech RSS | iTunes | Homepage
A bunch of people talking about Tech. Apparently this is the most listened to Podcast on the planet. It is interesting at times, however, I find it a bit too self congratulating and chatting about “how cool this is�. Rather like bloggers posting about the act of blogging. Its worth a listen though.

BBC Go Digital RSS | iTunes | Homepage
The BBC World show online. They have some interesting shows again about technology, however at times it can fall into childish behaviour like the episode when they all went 20 years into the future. *shudder*

Acecast RSS | Homepage
As mentioned earlier, a nice mix of ‘podsafe’ music.

Cactus Killer Radio RSS | iTunes | Homepage
Again mentioned earlier on this weblog. I actually enjoy listening to this as at the end of each instalment of electronic music we get to here a list of bands/groups which have wonderfully random names.

BBC Mark Kermode’s Film Reviews RSS | iTunes | Homepage
BBC Radio 5 Live’s in house film critic talks about films. I like this guy because he enjoys a film and can talk bollocks about them for an age. It’s a little bit strange as he is along side a regular DJ who always sounds like he doesn’t really care about films.

KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic RSS | iTunes | HomePage
Nic Harcourt hosts a wonderful ad free and normal radio show simply playing live music. Mainly guitar based and a great listen. The show is also broadcast on KCRW a public radio service, so no ads but pledge drives.