Why a Mac Mini is the Best Home Media Option

by Kent on 18. Jul, 2010 in Tech

Like a lot of techophiles, I have struggled mightily with bringing computer apps and internet content to my home theater set up.  I’ve tried full size computers, small computers, various streaming solutions and all sorts of other equipment, all in the name of television and internet convergence.

Everything works a little and it seems like nothing works really well.

image This weekend, I found my answer.  A Mac Mini.  It’s not perfect, but it’s the best solution I have found so far.

By a wide margin.

Sure, I tried a Mac Mini before.  But it died a premature death so I took a while to try again.

I also recently tried a Dell Inspiron Zino. These are nifty little computers, and its small footprint will find it a place in the house, likely as a replacement for my kids’ older and bigger shared computer.  Plus, it has a Blu-ray drive, which the Mac Mini stubbornly lacks (thereby prolonging the need for a stand alone DVD player).  But the Windows big screen media experience is just not satisfying.  I don’t like things to be too simple in a desktop environment, but when you’re on the couch chilling, simple is good.

And for better or worse, Apple tries to make the media process pretty simple.

I also tried- and loved- Apple TV.  But three things make the Mac Mini a better choice.

1. It does what the Apple TV does, plus the entire range of other computer and internet functions.

2. I don’t know what Apple has in store for the Apple TV, but the two most likely things are massive changes or death.

3. Parallels.

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Parallels is a pretty nifty program that lets you run Windows 7 and Windows apps inside of and along with OS X.  So I can have the best of both worlds.  As we speak, I am installing Windows Live Writer on my Mac.

Scary thought: if I find little or no performance degradation when running Windows apps on a Mac via Parallels, it could lead me to make my next desktop a Mac.  I just need to find an extra $10K or so to recreate the dual monitor Windows setup I have now.  People try to tell me that Macs are not overpriced, but one trip to the Apple store to configure a Mac Pro with lots of storage and two monitors proves otherwise.

Front Row is a beautiful app for viewing photos and videos and for listening to music.  I just wish it had iTunes store integration so I could buy movies from within the app (and completely avoid that blight that is the iTunes app).  The inability to purchase media within Front Row and the need to suffer iTunes  is, by far, the biggest feature deficiency in the Mac Mini as home theater experience.

But it’s still the best option out there.

At the end of the process, I’ll probably have two Mac Minis in operation.  One in my study (where the current one resides) and one in the theater room, so my wife and kids can access our music, photos and home movies.

It’s hard to believe how far I have come in my Apple journey.

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Why You Should Dump Your iPad

by Kent on 17. Jul, 2010 in Tech

And why I’m not.

Vivek Wadhwa at TechCrunch sets forth the best argument I’ve ever read for dumping your iPad.  He sets forth various reasons, but it really comes down to three.  No useful way to use Microsoft Office, reliance on the outdated, ugly and unnecessary iTunes, and the lack of a camera.

As it turns out, I just returned from vacation.  10 days in God’s country (that would be South Carolina for you geographic heathens).  My job requires that I be generally accessible and have the capability to review and approve Word documents (for those who haven’t read Newsome.Org in a few days, no one in corporate America uses or in my lifetime will use any of the so-called Office alternatives, and any argument to the contrary is naive).

All of this left me with a packing dilemma.  I love my iPad and use it all the time.  I haven’t carried a laptop since I bought my iPad, and I haven’t needed one.  But I also hadn’t been away from home and the office for 10 straight days.

So I got nervous, pussed out and, along with my iPad, toted a laptop and all the related gear all the way to Pawley’s Island.  I felt more comfortable knowing that I could review and revise Word documents from the beach.

The thing is, I never used it.

image Sure, I was in contact with my office and clients every day.  But I did it all via email, on my iPad.  While the lack of Office is a big issue for iPads, there’s no denying that you can easily read Word documents.  It’s only when you want to revise or create one that the frustration level skyrockets.

And the fact is that at this point in my career, I’m much more likely to be reading, commenting on and approving Word documents than writing them from whole cloth.  And I found it to be easy enough (enough being the operative word) to copy and past portions of a document into an email, then paste such portion again below and revise it the way I wanted.

At the end of the day, many of my vacation emails read something like this:

“Change this part:

‘The problem with the iPhone 4 antenna is massive and should be the subject of a massive recall.’

to this:

“‘The problem with the iPhone 4 antenna is a partially a common cell phone issue exacerbated by an Apple design choice and largely bad editorial choices by lazy media.’

It’s not perfect, but it worked well enough for me.

So while the iPad most certainly needs a better way to work with Office documents (Microsoft being the only solution), and a camera or two and while iTunes is perhaps the worst application ever, I’m keeping my iPad.

But you’ll probably see my laptops on Craigslist before long.

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Delaney Wins!

by Kent on 01. Jul, 2010 in Life

The 2010 SWAL Championship was held last night at Lamar High School in Houston.  Delaney won the Freestyle, in a highly anticipated, very close and unbelievably exciting race.  She also won the Breaststroke and was second in the Backstroke.  Her medley relay team came in second, giving her two golds and two silvers for the night.

The Freestyle final was among my happiest moments, ever.  It’s hard to describe how proud I am of her.


Delaney Wins the Freestyle from Kent Newsome on Vimeo.

She’s done with SWAL events for the summer, but will continue to swim for Rice Aquatics.

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Compression Depression & the iPhone 4 (Updated)

by Kent on 27. Jun, 2010 in Tech

Yes, I stood in line for hours.  Yes, I’m a nerd.  And yes, the new iPhone is awesome.

One of the biggest reasons I was willing to get up at 5:00 a.m. and trek off to the dreaded mall is the new camera features.  Front and back, flash and high definition.

Which is all great.  In theory.  Unfortunately, I have run into two hurdles that are all but killing my iPhone video buzz.

Buzz Kill 1: Too Much Compression.

Videos shot on the new  iPhone look great, on the iPhone.  And it simply could not be easier to upload video from the iPhone to YouTube.  The big, massive, honking problem is that somewhere between the iPhone and YouTube the video is compressed so much, it looks like something from the nineties.  As in the 1890’s.

Here’s the way my test clip looks on YouTube.

That really couldn’t look any worse.  In fact, I’d rather close my eyes than look at that.

So maybe we can improve things a little by working with the native video file.  Here’s the way the same video looks on Vimeo, after I manually copied it to my computer and uploaded it.


Swimming from Kent Newsome on Vimeo.

That’s a lot better, although it still looks a little grainy when you view it full screen (see the little icon with four arrows).  Why in this age of infinite cloud storage and broadband do we compress video at all?

There’s no excuse for over-compressing it the way the YouTube process does.  In a few years we’re all going to have the same dilemma we faced after initially ripping our CDs at 128 Kbps.  Those who forget history, and all that.

All of this makes the iPhone largely unworkable as a camcorder substitute, particularly if you aren’t near your computer, because. . .

Buzz Kill 2: No Easy Way to Move Videos

Even if I was willing to forego the convenience of an immediate upload and work with the native video files, there is no way to easily move video files off of the iPhone when you aren’t in front of your computer.  Sure, Dropbox lets you upload video files easily, but they are over-compressed before they are uploaded, even if you select the highest quality in the app settings.

32GB is a lot of space when you’re near home, but not when you go on a vacation.  And plan to take your iPad in lieu of a laptop.

There may be a workaround for this series of problems, but I haven’t found it yet.

I’m still mourning my buzz.

Update:

It looks like the inability to upload videos in HD over the air is a known and much bemoaned feature deficit with the new iPhones.  The man himself says we’ll be able to upload in HD “in the future.”

A commenter on the post above says that the Pixelpipe app will upload HD video to YouTube now, but I don’t have that app so I can’t verify it.

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The Number One Reason Why I Don’t Care if Apple Kills Flash

by Kent on 22. Jun, 2010 in Tech

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Gangstagrass, Justified, and Remapping My Musical Genome

by Kent on 20. Jun, 2010 in Music

Every now and then people do something so amazing, but so obvious in hindsight that you can’t believe you didn’t think of it first.  The excellent Post Secret and Will Ferrell’s hilarious takes on drunk history being two examples.

When I watched the first episode of Justified, probably the second-best show on television (behind only True Blood), I was blown away by Long Hard Times to Come, the bluegrass/hip-hop mashup of a theme song.  It was revolutionary, it was obvious, and it rocked.

image Yesterday, I got an email from Gangstagrass, the group that does the Justified song, asking if I’d be interested in reviewing their record and/or adding some songs to our radio station playlists, and including a couple more awesome bluegrass/hip-hop songs.  The Justified song was not a fluke- these are mighty fine songs.  In fact, they are genre-creating songs, at least for me.

I’ve always loved bluegrass.  I thought my hip-hop era started with De La Soul and ended when Flavor Flav took to reality-TV, but maybe not.  Gangstagrass is a musical Reece’s Cup, that makes both elements sound better.

Here’s the bottom line.  I get a lot of requests to review records, but none of them so far have been as musically paradigm-shifting as Gangstagrass’s aptly titled debut, Lightning on the Stings, Thunder on the Mic (purchase @ Amazon).  This is some ear-bending, genre-changing goodness.

Gangstagrass is a collaboration between Rench, a singer, songwriter and producer who has previously combined elements of honky-tonk, hip-hop, and trip-hop music (I am going to explore his other stuff via Amazon), rapper T.O.N.E.-z, who is featured on the Justified song, and some smoking bluegrass players.

So sit back on this Sunday afternoon and dig this little bluegrass, hip-hop, gospel gem.

Gangstagrass- Put Your Hands Up High.

I’m completely serious when I say that this record has single-handedly changed my musical genome.  This is really good stuff.  As a matter of fact, I bought the entire record from Amazon, burned it to a CD and put in in my truck, where it will reign supreme for the foreseeable future.  Hell, it’s 98 degrees out there and I’m going to have to roll with the windows down, just so I can scare a few soccer moms.

Go buy this record.  Roll the window down.  Play it loud.

I am.

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Backing Up and Upgrading Your WordPress Installation

by Kent on 19. Jun, 2010 in Tech

This post has multi-media content.  Click here before proceeding (purchase this classic De La Soul record @ Amazon).

This is a new installment of my The WordPress Process series, documenting my forced march from the comfort of Blogger to the uncharted territories of WordPress.  Parts 1 & 2 are here, Part 3 is here, Part 4 is here, Part 5 is here, and Part 6 is here.

image As everyone knows, WordPress 3.0 was released this week.  This morning, I upgraded my WordPress installation (which uses Woothemes’ excellent Canvas theme), easily and without a hitch.  Here’s how I did it.

First, backup your blog.  There are about a million ways to do this.  Most ways are free and hard.  So I went with not free and very easy: I paid $45.00 for Backup Buddy.  Backup Buddy looks impressive, and more importantly, my pals over at WordPress Tavern really like it.  I can confirm that installation and activation is a breeze and a full backup takes just a few minutes, even using the slower compatibility mode.  Obviously, you never really know if a backup system works until you have to restore lost content, but Backup Buddy looks like a screaming bargain at $45.00.  The installation, activation and backup process could not be any easier.

After that, upgrading was a simple as clicking the “Update Automatically” button on the WordPress Dashboard.

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Wpveda has a good  walk-through.

Note that the WordPress upgrade takes a little while.  So don’t panic if the screen remains blank for a while.  That is normal.

All in all, it took about a half hour to backup and upgrade my WordPress installation.  So far, it works great.

Later I’ll cover the new features.  I’ll also try to answer any questions you have about the process in the Comments.

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Tech for Grownups: The Blog That Will Make You a Windows Expert

by Kent on 06. Jun, 2010 in Tech

Well, along with Newsome.Org of course. . .

Is Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows.  No, not widows, grandma.  That’s eHarmony.  We’re talking about Windows.  As in tech.  As in that operating system that runs the computer you- and I- wish you knew how to use better.

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I spend a lot of time trying to explain to people, many of whom still view the wheel as a mind-boggling and somewhat dangerous advance in technology, how much easier their lives would be if they learned just a little bit about their computers.  As a result, I spend a fair amount of time looking for other people who can explain that for me.

If I was an alien, well, I’d go straight to Arizona and make all of those xenophobes watch this episode of South Park over and over.  But if I was the sort of alien with a flying saucer, I’d kidnap Paul and my buddy Ed Bott and conduct other-worldly experiments on  them by making them teach all of my relatives how to use their computers.

image No, Gigi, not Bowser – that’s a Mario Kart character.  Browser.  As in to browse.  No Sharon, your identity won’t be stolen the second you click on that little blue e.  That sort of thing.

Then I’d have a lot more free time to play Words With Friends on my game-changing iPad.

Anyway, Paul’s site is a virtual classroom for everything Windows.  In addition to a ton of very informative posts, he answers reader questions once a week.

“Dear Paul,  I went on the internet yesterday and today my throat hurts.  Do I need to update my anti-virus program?  If so, should I use  Google or Duncan Hines?  Love, Aunt Anne.”

Paul focuses a lot on Windows, but his site covers all sorts of tech.  It’s a must read for everyone, especially those who rely on me for tech support.

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This Post Brought to You by a Proud Daddy

by Kent on 05. Jun, 2010 in Life

Delaney had her first swim meet of the summer this week.  She finished first overall in all four events.  I’m really proud of her.


Delaney’s 1st Summer 2010 Swim Meet
from Kent Newsome on Vimeo.

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Oh, and she got her final report card of the year yesterday.  Straight A’s for the year.

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Apple: Don’t Make Me Choose Between You & Google

by Kent on 29. May, 2010 in Tech

Other than Macs, which are too over-priced to be taken seriously, I have become pretty reliant on Apple technology.  In fact, I have become a card carrying, windshield decal rolling Apple evangelist to my real world friends.

I love my iPhone and my iPad.  I’m thrilled to see that the awesome but vastly under-marketed AppleTV may not be dead after all.  I don’t even care about the lack of Flash.

image But it would be a big mistake for Steve and Co. to force me to choose between Apple and Google, for one very simple and very important reason:

I shouldn’t have to.

Apple and Google is a combination that could and should be the tech equivalent of the Reese’s Cup.  If they could just get along, and stop using me as a rope in their little tug of war.

I wish there was a Google Latitude app, so I could let Dwight know where I am in redundant fashion.  It irritates me that there is no Google Voice app.  But it will enrage me if Apple tries to force me towards Bing.  Bing may be great.  It may be the hottest thing since Halle Berry.  But I should get to decide that.  Not Apple.

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s good to see Apple and Microsoft making nice.  It is in both of their interest- and mine- to get Microsoft Office somehow onto iPads.  Hell, I’d use the Yellow Pages for search if it would get me the ability to natively manipulate Word documents on my iPad.

But otherwise, it’s a dangerous gambit to keep making me a pawn in whatever war Apple thinks it is fighting with Google.  Because as much as I love Apple, I need Google.  Not just for the all-important search-related stuff, but for email.  For maps.  For Google Reader.  The list goes on and on.

I realize that Google is doing its part to escalate things.  But that’s because it knows it’s losing.  The person getting clobbered always runs its mouth, because that’s all it can do.  Apple should let its superior product do the talking, take as much of Google’s money as it can get, and give the customer the best of all worlds.

I want a world full of both Apple and Google.  I don’t want to choose.

So, Apple, don’t make me.  Because you might not like the choice.

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