Author Archive for mollerade

Mac Mini 2.0GHz Review and Media Center setup Guide

Published by mollerade on January 20, 2008 in Technology. 8 Comments

mac mini new I’ve been waiting over a year for Apple Inc to make a considerable change to the Mac Mini, hoping for faster Hard Drives (currently 5200rpm) and better graphics (currently GMA 950). But no, they budgeth not.My PC has been running on vapour trails for quite some time now, and it either undergoes a major overhaul and refit, or its time to replace and go all Mac (i’m a little scared). But i’ve never been one to give into my fears, and so i’ve ordered my Mac Mini 2.0GHz (160GB HDD, 2GB RAM) and once it arrives (Apple.com/uk site says 2 weeks!! - ouch wasn’t expecting that!) i will be setting this baby up as the new nerve center of my home’s electronics, above the Television.
Update - 29th Jan - I forgot to mention that i will be testing the Mac Mini for use with 3 external Hard Drives (currently being used with my PC) a 60GB photo library, and 100GB video library + one drive will act as my backup with time machine. I will be editing video, images, setting the machine up to play all the codecs possible within front row, examining alternatives, setting up my email, importing my old email (PST files from PC) and generally giving it a good workout.

Step 1. Buy a Mac Mini.

Their are four main ways of buying a Mac these days, PCWorld or similar, an Apple Mac Retail Store (if you have one close by) an web reseller, or directly from Apple’s website. I chose the later, as the nice lady, deborah from Apple’s Online chat (great tool thats free to use) helped explain that because i wanted a non standard Mac Mini (i need 2GB RAM, not the standard 1GB) the store would have to send away for it, add to that I couldn’t find another online retailer offering a lower price than the Apple.com/uk store.

UK Apple Store Delivery Times.

Ordered on the 23rd of January and scheduled for delivery on the 2nd Feb. It was built and shipped on the 24th of January, since then the current delivery status has been - In Transit to Customer - Shipment on Schedule. The only gripe i have is that the Carrier Tracker Number was - In transit to final destination - carrier details to be updated shortly from the 24th Jan, to the 30th, i then recieved the UPS tracker info and the delivery was the 31st, which makes the delivery closer to one week than two. I never noticed any option to have faster delivery, and from my web search, i don’t believe the Apple UK Store offers one, which is a shame, as i would have gladly paid more for a faster delivery.

mac mini newmac keyboard

mac mighty mouse

Equipment Purchased from Apple Store, Mac Mini 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, Intel GMA 950 Onboard Graphics, 160GB Hard Disk (5200rpm), Superdrive (DVD RW + CD RW) + Mac Wireless Keyboard+ Mac Wireless Mouse

Step 2. Unboxing.

Here is a video of the unboxing, (i’m no Ridley Scott), its the usual attention to detail you expect from Apple.

Step 3. The Hardware Setup.

The setup has proved more challenging for one reason only. Getting the resolution to display perfectly on my JVC 37DR7 has caused me a few headaches (more on that later).The Mini has four USB ports side by side on the back, i have 3 external HDD, a printer, my iPod, webcam, and i’m out of ports already so a quick trip down to the shops and i’m back with the Belkin 6 Port Hub designed for the Mac Mini. For £9 you can’t argue with that, especially if you prioritize, keeping your high demand peripherals connected directly to the Mac Mini and the less frequently used on the hub.

Connecting to your HDTV

jvc

I had a choice of connecting my Mac Mini via the VGA on my JVC (using the Apple supplied DVI to VGA converter) or a spare DVI to HDMI cable i had. I chose the latter, and powered on. Apple proceeds to guide you through its first time start up questions, giving you a user name and connecting you to any available wireless or wired network. By now i’ve remembered why the Cable was spare, i tried this on my old PC the one i’m migrating away from, and i could never get the text to look as sharp as i could with the VGA cable. Never mind i thought i’ll sort that out later. Well it didn’t quite work out that easy, as you can see from my points below;

a) Apple displays resolutions that are compatible with the monitor. These are the only setting available for you to choose from without using custom tools like SwitchRes and DisplayconfigX (can be more trouble than they are worth).

b) DVI to HDMI can cause problems if you plan on using your TV Speakers, as your TV will expect the audio to be coming from the HDMI connection (and it won’t be, because DVI can’t carry audio). So you will need to use external speakers, or have a TV which allows manual selection of Audio Source. The DVI to HDMI connection never managed to produce a sharp enough image, probably because it was being forced into a non native resolution by OSX.

c) Sticking with the HDMI cable caused me to run into Overscan (image is stretched beyond the boarders of TV chopping off the top menu). You can turn off overscan in the Display settings but that gave me the opposite problem which is a large black boarder around my desktop. This led me to using DisplayConfigX or SwitchRes, which caused black screens on startup.

d) DisplayConfigX can provide custom resolutions, but as i found out can cause your screen to go black if your monitor doesn’t like the custom resolution you have setup. Usually you can plug into a second monitor to get out of such a bind, but i only have my TV, so i followed these instructions and it got me back into OSX, these instruction also worked for me when SwitchRes turned my screen black.

i) Power off the Mac Mini
ii) Power on Mac Mini wait a second and hit command key (Apple key) + s and hold them down until you enter the single user mode.
iii) Type “mount uw /” and hit return (don’t include the “”)
iv) Type “cd system/library/displays/overrides” and hit return (don’t include the “”)
v) Type “rm -R D* and hit return (don’t include the “”)
vi) Type “Reboot” and hit enter (don’t include the “”)

These actions will remove the stored display settings, and when you reboot, OSX should repopulate with standard settings, bringing your screen back to life, at least that’s how it worked for me.

e) Using the Apple Supplied DVI to VGA converter, plus a VGA to VGA cable didn’t display any image even in safe mode, most likely due to my monitor only supporting strange resolutions using VGA -1366 X 768). Eventually i got my VGA cable working perfectly. It wasn’t easy, and was a matter of much trial and error, but by installing a trial version of VNC on my Mac Mini, whilst connected using the DVI to HDMI cable, and installing another trial version on my wife’s Macbook, I was able to remotely connect to my Mac Mini, switch the DVI to HDMI cable to the VGA (using Apple supplied DVI to VGA converter), and play around with the Display settings on the Mac Mini via the Macbooks remote connection, until I got the resolution working. In the end it wasn’t just the resolution that was causing the problem, it was also the Hz which needed to be set to 60hz, I’ve settled on 1280 X 768 res for now. I will play around with the resolutions more in the future, as i’d like to eek a little more out, but for now i need to get on with setting up the software. One thing to note. During the boot sequence my screen remains black, and only displays the image once its completed OSX startup, problably because this is when my selected settings are forced into action. I will work on getting this resolved too.

Step 4. Software Setup.

As i stated previously this Mac Mini is my main computer, so i want to run all my everyday software and watch my movies, play my music etc. I can only recommend you all visit this site: http://www.opensourcemac.org it is a great place to get started with your software needs. I will be listing and testing software during the next few weeks, however so far my Mini is managing to keep up with all the tasks i’ve thrown at it. The Core 2 Duo CPU seems very capable.

Parallels 3.0

Awesome doesn’t come close. So easy to setup and use and Vista runs like a charm. If you only plan to dip into Vista or XP occationally then use Parallels. The Core 2 Duo is very capable of running OSX and Vista at the same time, and i was able to troubleshoot a very annoying issue with folder permissions being locked on my external drives (only way to fix this was to make a copy of the folder in OSX, boot Vista and delete the original folder). I use Vista to troubleshoot my OSX migration issues, and because Parallels automatically maps your OSX local folders in Vista, you can easily copy accross any work between the systems.

Step 5. Summary and Conclusions.

The setup of the Mac Mini was complicated by the lack of support for my JVC LCD TV, although it displayed an image using the DVI to HDMI cable, i wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the image. I knew from my previous PC setup that the VGA cable would provide a better image, and yet it took some serious effort to get the VGA cable working with the Mini. Not everyone has had these problems, but from what i’ve read in the troubleshooting forums, it seems to be a regular issue. For this reason i cannot recommend the Mac Mini as a Media Center for the average consumer. The Apple TV no doubt provides much better LCD TV support, and if surfing the Internet or reading your email doesn’t need to be done from your LCD TV then it must be better choice for you.

If you are metaphorically prepared to get your hands dirty, then the Mac Mini is proving to be a most excellent Media Center. The wonderfully rich OSX experience means i’m never far away from my media and applications. I firmly believe that the HD TV should be connected to a fully functional computer, unfortunately most consumers are not prepared to mess around with VNC inorder to get their display working.

Just say now to Ads

Published by mollerade on December 28, 2007 in Mollerade Website. 0 Comments

Yes, my friends, the time has come that i try out this thing called Adsense by Google, so over the next few months expect to see a few advertisements popping onto the site. I’ll try to not ruin the look of the site by making it difficult to see what is an advert and what isn’t (Macworld) and will of course write a review of my experience. Initially i have imposed myself the following. 1) do not add adverts to the header, or sidebar, which could impact users ability to navigate the site, 2) Try to have an advert on each page (i’ve since found this is too intrusive to the site and will be adding ads only at the end of each post for the time being), 3) Each post carries one advert, 4) adverts should be clearly distinguishable from the rest of the site. Enjoy!

This hasn’t worked out. I still want to have another stab at advertising, but i hate the impact it has to the site, so for now, i’m calling it off. No more Google Ads… for now.


UK iPhone review

Published by mollerade on November 11, 2007 in Technology. 1 Comment

iPhone

The iPhone II will be better, so if you can wait, wait. Having said that, I love my iPhone, and I’m glad I didn’t wait more than 3 minutes past 6.05pm on that cold Friday evening to buy it. It will be a commercial success, provided February 2008’s SDK allows third party developers enough access to do what they are already doing with the various hacks available today. But enough of what will be, and more of what is..

Packaging

The iPhone is packaged with Apple’s usual attention to detail. Once you get past the difficult to remove plastic vacuum packaging, you lift off the lid and sitting inside a clear plastic shelf, expose the iPhone. Underneath the manuals are packaged inside a light cardboard envelope, along with the lint free cloth, dock, USB cable, and mains plug.

The phone’s aesthetics

The iPhone is larger than any of my previous phones from Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, or Sony-Ericson, and about the same weight as an old 30GB Video iPod. I’m not keen on the silver bevel, but the screen is superb, as posted elsewhere its very tough to scratch, which bodes well for its long term use.

Activation & Syncing

I was warned at the O2 store that it could take up to 8 hours before my new phone was operational, but it only took 20 mins (I was an existing O2 Customer), and within an hour i was syncing music and taking calls. A couple of issue with the syncing;

1) I could only sync with Outlook and Internet Explorer. I would like to sync with Firefox too.
2) Ringtones is not operational by default, (although a work around exists).

Other than that, syncing is a breeze with simple features, such as when more than “a user defined %” of data is being changed in the sync it can be set to warn you before syncing.

The Interface

The interface is the reason this phone has had so much free advertising. If Apple replaced the multi-touch surface with a stylus based touch screen, the phone would still be memorable. Never mind the touch interface, which makes you think like this is the way it was always supposed to be done, the intuitive nature of the software is the real star.

That’s not to say the phone is not without its flaws. There are improvements i and others on the blogosphere have noted, that are necessary, some of which need to come sooner rather than later if Apple wants to retain control over its product. Just in time then as they announce February 2008 as launch date for the developers SDK, providing the ability for third parties to install (we hope) applications that do not rely on a permanent connection to the web (Open Office, Picasa Mobile please!).

iPhones lack of functionality

My early experience with phones from Nokia focused on navigating the software quickly, and they did a great job at a great pace. My last two Nokia phones the 6800 and N73 were slow to run applications installed by default, such as the photo browser which took 10 seconds to go from the start menu to seeing the photo. In an effort to chuck more functionality in the phones, no one took a step back, talked to customers and realised that they were finding it harder to sort through these additional functions, as a result most were not using them, and no one wanted more functions if it slowed down the primary operation of the device, the phone.

The lack of all this additional functionality begins to show after you have used the iPhone for a few weeks, but it doesn’t remove from the fact that I’ve used all the functions of this phone, and now want more, rather than having so much to begin with I couldn’t see the wood from the trees.

The iPod

The best iPod ever? Yes, but its still not perfect. More on this later.

Google Maps

This is the normal internet version, with some functionality enhancements for the iPhone. Double tap to zoom in, two fingered tap to zoom out in Google maps, very nice. The functionality extends to Map view, Satellite view, list with directions to and from locations, bookmarks and integration with your contacts, so you can add your favourite Italian restaurant.

iPhone - Safari

Maybe the best app on the iPhone is Safari. The web in your hand, not ground breaking on it own.. but coupled with the touch interface, tab zoom in and out of full screen web pages, bookmarks, tabs (very cleverly done Apple, i smiled when i saw what you did here). I’ve never surfed as much on the go before.. ever. Oh.. and the Search engine defaults to Google, but can be changed to Yahoo!

Some notes of caution: I’m finding Safari crashes when using Digg, probably the endless scripts those comment pages use. Without plug-ins (Flash, WMP, and Divx et al), and the ability to save web content locally this version of the web is limited.

The Pinch Functionality

The pinch function can be used in most apps, including Safari Mail, and Photo apps. It’s smart, but can take a little getting used to. The Google maps double finger tap to zoom out and single finger tab to zoom in work exceptionally well, and maybe better than the pinch function, although maybe thats because i find it easier.

Mail

Mail syncs with outlook without effort and manual setup is simple enough (wish it could be simpler). First time i ever used email on a phone was a Nokia 6800, then again i tried on my N73, then i gave up. I haven’t read email on my home computer since i’ve been using the iPhone… well maybe once.

The Camera

Its bad when compared to my older Nokia N73. No video, no flash, poor quality and a little pointless. It is better in bright light, but better isn’t great. No Auto focus either. I will say, it’s better than nothing, but only just.

Complaints and Recomendations for iPhone I software updates and iPhone II

1) I miss not being able to fast forward, rewind and stop play my music whilst the iPhone is in my pocket. Apple could solve this by adding some buttons in a future version (maybe on the back of the phone), or using the existing volume buttons, enable double click, so one click increases the volume, and two fast clicks change the track. The menu button can act as a stop play function. Yes in the settings you can enable to iPod function, which when you double tapping the menu button, brings up a back, forward, play, and stop play on screen menu, which is very nice, but not the same as physical buttons, you can touch without needing to see them.

2) I WANT TO SAVE DOCUMENTS ON MY iPhone! That includes saving anything from the web, including images.

3) I WANT TO ACCESS AND EDIT MY SAVED DOCUMENTS ON MY iPhone.

(Sorry i had to make those two very clear just in case Apple was listening)

4) Create Copy and Paste functionality. Two-finger-tap-hold, scroll (left, right, up, down) and release (automatically brings up list function, (copy & paste). You see.. easy, now chop 2 it!

5) Include two stick-on plastic screen protectors in the packaging, Apple forgot to do this with the Video iPods as well. I know its available by third parties, but I’m asking nicely. (I’ve since found out that the iPhones screen is very scratch resistant, and so far mine hasn’t got a scratch on it).

6) Headphone jack. I wonder when commercial thoughts took precedence over design and functionality? Apple deeply recessed the jack into the iPhone, making me unable to use my Sony headphones. Bad move, now my music sounds worse, and i listen less often (I’ve since had to purchase a converter available at the O2 Store, but it’s awful). I feel this is a bad one, that most other phone companies have in common, but even they have been coming round to the idea of using standard RCA jacks instead of proprietary ones. Must have been a f*ck up.

7) The photo app reminds me of Picasa, and I’m thinking you should join forces with Google on this. Picasa functionality on the iPhone would be sweet.

8) Let us select songs on the iPhone as our Ringtones.

In conclusion i would like to state my personal opinion, that all mobile phones should follow these basic points;

a) Make phoning people easier.

b) Make phoning people faster.

c) Additional products should repeat a) & b) replacing “phoning” for the additional products name.

I think Apple really nailed this one on the head. Sometimes more is just more, without adding value to the product. Making sure that your existing products are the best they can be, before adding more functionality is a smart move on Apples part. Although i agree with previous comments on the blogosphere that Apple most likely ran out of time to add the functionality, it helped them concentrate on making what functionality was left, better.