March 14, 2010

Posts Comments

You are here: Home / Archives for

TinyURL Preview Feature

April 20, 2008 By Mike Bradbrook Leave a Comment

Tiny URLI like Twitter, especially at it keeps messages short by limiting users to only 140 characters per message.

If you wish to send web links using Twitter, precious characters can be used up by sending long URLs. However, Twitter gets around this by converting URLs into TinyURLs. These are, as the name suggests, tiny URLs that, when clicked on, take users to the webpage of the longer URL. TinyURLs are also useful in emails and forum postings as their short length prevents them being broken.

However, there is a downside. The TinyURL link doesn’t give you an indication of the website you will be taken to if you click on it. For instance, you can go to Mactropolis.com via the link http://tinyurl.com/5s2qle but you wouldn’t know that from the TinyURL. As it is a dangerous online world, some users may wish to know where they will be sent before they arrive

Fortunately, TinyURL have thought of this and provide two options:

The first, is for the creator of the URL to send a TinyURL that contains a preview link, for instance http://preview.tinyurl.com/5s2qle

The second, is for the recipient to activate a TinyURL Preview cookie on his or her web browser. If the user does that, he or she will be taken to a TinyURL page that shows the full URL and, from there, the person can then decide whether or not to proceed.

You can obtain the TinyURL Preview feature by visiting http://tinyurl.com/preview.php

Filed Under How To's Tagged With TinyURL, TinyURL Preview, Tips, Twitter

Time Machine Not Supported on Airport Extreme

April 8, 2008 By Mike Bradbrook 1 Comment

Time Machine Not Supported on Airport ExtremeSo, it looks like Apple mistakenly allowed the ability for Airport Extreme’s to use Airdisks as Time Machine locations. I guessed as much when I couldn’t get it to work for me and others have reported rubbish performance or failed backups.

“What a “lack of support” means is that if you attempt to use an 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station for Time Machine backup, you won’t get any help from Apple’s technical support, something that readers have already told me”.

Check out more at tidbits website.

Looks like it was right for me to order that Time Capsule then!

Filed Under Hardware Tagged With Airdisk, Airport Extreme, Time Machine

MLB.TV Premium

April 1, 2008 By Mike Bradbrook 4 Comments

I couldn’t resist it. I’ve signed up for another year of MLB.TV Premium from the MLB.com website. I was quite impressed with the live streaming last year and it was only the cost ($120 for the season) that put me off automatically re-signing.

I’m happy to report I am even more impressed with the quality this year. MLB.TV Premium now offers the ability to watch streaming at 400 Kbps, 800 Kbps and 1.2 Mbps. Unless watching in Full Screen mode, I didn’t notice too much difference between the three versions, except the 1.2 Mbps stream sometimes stalled. The Full Screen option is nice, although not actually full screen. It is more like “large screen with black background”.

MLB TV

To get the advantage of the faster bit-rate options, you need in install two applications on the Mac: MLB NexDef, which MLB.com says “boosts the performance of your internet connection to provide improved video quality and faster streaming” and Microsoft Silverlight for “better video handling; dynamic resizing and integrated game information”.

You also have the option to install MLB.TV Mosaic, which allows you to watch up to six games simultaneously as well as track your favorite players and watch their at-bats. For MLB.TV Mosaic to work, there is a beta version of Flip4Mac which also needs to be installed. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, all I could get from MLB.TV Mosaic was a screen saying “loading…”. I had problems with MLB.TV Mosaic last year too, so I’m not surprised to be having issues with this latest version, particularly as it only became available for download yesterday.

MLB Mosaic

You can check out MLB.TV Premium and the other MLB.com packages by clicking here.

Filed Under Software Tagged With baseball, MLB, MLB.com, MLB.TV

My Thoughts on the Airport Express 802.11n

March 30, 2008 By Mike Bradbrook 2 Comments

Airport Express 802.11nWhen Apple released the Airport Express with 802.11n I decided that it was now the time to get one.

Because the Express can be used in so many network variations, setup can be a bit confusing. Apple has tried to help by giving the user an assistant that asks questions the answers to which determine the Express’ settings.

Some of the options you get include using the Express to create a new network (if you connect the Express to a modem via ethernet), join a current network or extend a current wireless network. You can also select manual setup if you are more confident in using the device or want to change specific settings.

The main use I have for the Express is connecting one of my Windows laptops to the internet without using Wi-Fi. That particular laptop doesn’t accept WPA encryption but I do not want to jeopardize my whole network by using WEP. Using the Express, I can now work on my Windows laptop, simply plug my Express into a power socket and plug an ethernet cable from the Express into my laptop. Voila, I’m online.

The Airport Utility

The Express is also great for music – I can plug a set of powered speakers into the Express and stream music to them via the AirTunes feature of the Express.

If I wanted to, I could also connect the Express to a printer via a USB cable and create a network printer.

The Airport Express is Great for Music!

Overall, I am really impressed with the unit – it is portable and gives the user lots of networking options. My only concern is build quality – I’ve read a number of comments on the Apple Discussions website that claim the the older 802.11g device has worked for a year without issue but failed soon after. Have any readers had a problem with their Airport Express units?

More on the Airport Express can be found at http://www.apple.com/airportexpress

Filed Under Hardware Tagged With 802.11n, Airport Express

Apple Pushing Safari on Windows

March 22, 2008 By Mike Bradbrook Leave a Comment

Apple Pushing Safari on WindowsApple has been very good to people recently. For instance, offering firmware upgrades to the Airport Extreme Base Station that now give it the ability to use Time Machine with an AirPort Disk attached to it – something many people said would never happen as “greedy” Apple would want people to buy their Time Capsule hardware.

So, what have people turned to in order to get outraged with Apple? Well, it’s Apple pushing Safari onto poor, innocent Windows users.

When I ran Apple’s update application on my wife’s Windows PC, it came up with the option to install Safari. It wasn’t forced on me – just suggested. I know my wife would still be using Internet Explorer if I hadn’t downloaded Firefox for her years ago. So, assuming that there are many Windows users like my wife, who wouldn’t even consider looking elsewhere for an alternative to Internet Explorer, I think it’s totally fair for Apple to suggest one.

The people they are offering Safari to are already Apple software users (iTunes/QuickTime) and with the iPhone using Safari too, one could argue that the more people who are given the opportunity to use Safari, the better.

So, how do you feel on the matter? Why not leave a comment on the Mactropolis Forums and let the community know.

Filed Under Software Tagged With Apple, iTunes, Quicktime, Safari, Windows

Cheaper AppleCare Protection Plans

March 16, 2008 By Mike Bradbrook Leave a Comment

Cheaper AppleCare Protection PlansPreviously, I’ve written about the alternatives to AppleCare Protection Plans. What I failed to mention was that you can get the AppleCare plans from sources other than Apple – usually for much less than you’ll pay by going directly to Apple.

Let’s look at the MacBook protection plan as an example:

In the UK, we pay far more than the US for the protection plans. Again, let’s use the MacBook:

What are your experiences with AppleCare resellers? Feel free to recommend your favorite resellers in the Mactropolis Forums…

Filed Under Editorials Tagged With AppleCare, AppleCare reseller

BBC iPlayer on the iPhone & iPod Touch

March 10, 2008 By Mike Bradbrook Leave a Comment

BBC iPlayer on the iPhone & iPod TouchI’d read some reports that BBC had released the beta of their iPlayer for the iPhone and iPod Touch so I thought I’d try it out.

The Pros

1. If you go to the iPlayer website via the iPhone or iPod Touch it looks the same as on the computer.

2. If you select “Add to Home Screen” on your iPhone or iPod Touch, a nice iPlayer icon gets installed. I’ve put mine next to the YouTube one.

3. The picture quality is pretty good – probably slightly better than the best YouTube videos. However, I did notice some compression artifacts.

The Cons

1. While programs such as Top Gear were available, others such as Click and Ashes to Ashes were not. That is probably because the iPlayer is still in beta and therefore not everything has been converted to an iPhone/iPod Touch compatible version.

2. It is Wi-Fi only, so you cannot access the content while on the move over the Edge network. Hopefully, Apple will release a 3.5G iPhone in the summer and that problem will go away. In the meantime, I’ve read that people will be able to access the iPlayer content via the UK’s Cloud network, so people will have access to the content in pubs, airports, restaurants, hotels, etc.

3. It is only available for people with UK IP addresses. However, seeing as it is people in the UK who are effectively paying for the iPlayer’s development (through paying the annual TV licence fee) and the BBC makes money by selling its content to other countries, I can appreciate why this is the case.

Overall, I am happy with the iPlayer’s development to date. Mac users just need the BBC to resolve the issue of not giving them the ability to download the iPlayer content (Mac users can only watch it via a stream). Once that is resolved, I will be extremely satisfied with the BBC iPlayer.

Filed Under iPhone Tagged With BBC iPlayer

Time Capsule Not Using a Server-Grade Hard Drive?

March 1, 2008 By Mike Bradbrook Leave a Comment

Time Capsule Not Using Server-Grade Hard Drive?Victor Cajiao has posted that it doesn’t appear that Apple’s Time Capsule is using Server-Grade hard drives. It appears that the 1 TB option contains an Hitachi Deskstar 7K100.

The manufacturer’s data sheet for the drive doesn’t refer to having a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) – something that you would expect to be proudly referred to if the drive was indeed server-grade.

Can anyone add some light on this? Is Steve Jobs guilty of false advertising?

Filed Under Hardware Tagged With Time Capsule

Tooble – Download YouTube Content to your Mac

March 1, 2008 By Mike Bradbrook 5 Comments

Tooble - Download YouTube Content to your MacThere are quite a number of options to get YouTube video off their website and onto your Mac. One that is very easy to use is Tooble. With Tooble you can download content to your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or mac computer.

When you open the application you see and can search through the usual YouTube categories such as Recently Featured and Most Viewed. You can also enter a URL or enter keywords in the “Search for Videos” field.

Once you’ve decided what you want by putting a tick in the check box next to the video, simply select the Download button and the file is downloaded into either the default location of your Movies folder or wherever you select in the application’s preferences. You can also select the option to automatically add the downloaded content into iTunes.

The quality of the files is not great because they have been converted from Flash but for a quick, easy and free method to get YouTube content onto a Mac, I have found Tooble ideal.

Filed Under Software Reviews Tagged With Tooble, YouTube

Macworld Encore Online

February 25, 2008 By Mike Bradbrook Leave a Comment

Macworld Encore

While at Macworld Conference & Expo 2008, I was able to attend some of the user presentations but due to schedule clashes, I couldn’t see all the ones I had wanted to. Fortunately, Macworld have posted QuickTime videos of a selection of the presentations from both the 2008 and 2007 Macworld Conference, so now I can relive the ones I went to and catch the ones I missed.

Presentations include tips on using OS X, the iPhone, the iPod and an introduction to Microsoft Office 2008.

You can watch the presentations now at Macworld Encore.

Filed Under How To's, Videos Tagged With MacWorld 2008, Macworld Encore
« Older Posts