Has Vodafone NZ gone crazy?

I can't believe the iPhone tariffs in NZ... [link]. NZ$250 for only 1GB/month of included data? Are they totally crazy?!
I pay £35/month here for unlimited data (GPRS/EDGE, and 3G when it kicks in, plus unlimited wifi at selected wifi providers), the same number of minutes, and 500 texts which is only 100 less than the voda nz plan - the 1GB tariff in NZ converts to about £95 at today's rate.

And I thought O2 were ripping us off in the UK, but that's just ridiculous!

Better sort this out before we move back to NZ (if we ever do!). Things like this going on in NZ really p*ss me off.

Oh and while I'm at it, there is some clown already camped out at the Auckland store, wanting to be the first iPhone 3G owner in the world. Erm... congratulations? [link via Koz's twitter]

BBC iplayer on the telly

BBC iplayer on the telly
Originally uploaded by rachaelr

Via the Macbook through a dvi --> hdmi cable. sweet! Just plug in the cable, drag firefox over to the TV display and hit the full screen button on iPlayer. Not the best quality, but then the feed is really fast, so I'll sacrafice a bit of quality for 'instant' streaming.

night night macbook

in the last two days, I've had two occasions where my macbook won't wake up from sleep. both times, just have a black screen with a cursor, and no amount of hitting buttons/moving the mouse/shutting and reopening the lid seem to help. naughty macbook!

so it's a hard shutdown and restart, which I really hate doing on any laptop. Both times the macbook was plugged into AC power.

If anyone has any ideas (I've googled around, but nobody really knows why safe sleep is causing this), please drop me a line!

Metadata for video

Now we are watching video on our telly via UPnP media server, it's rather annoying the server can't do any kind of sorting/grouping/filtering on video, similar to what it can do on audio files.

On audio files, I guess it's reading the embedded ID3 metadata to pull Album Names and Artists and allow filtering by those attributes. Images have EXIF and IPTC metadata formats. However, video files don't seem to have a corresponding metadata format. Why? Is it because the concept of a digital video library is relativley new?

An extension of the existing MP3 ID3 tags would probably work (ID4? IDvid?), tagging:
- Title (movie or episode name)
- Episode Num (if a series)
- Series Num/Name
- Director
- Genre (Sci Fi, Drama etc)
- Year Released
- Production Company (? Might be good for grouping up BBC stuff for instance)
- Language (for people that have multiple language stuff)
- Disk Num (ie for ripped DVD's or series?)

Or have I missed something that's already out there? Google couldn't really help me :(

now we're streamin with gas....

thanks to mediatomb, we are now able to serve up video (and photos and mp3s) off our NAS device to the new big TV, via a bit of a round about route -- mediatomb lives on our server, and serves data off the NAS device, then the PS3 has a UPnP client which plays the media on the tv. (yeah... it is confusing!). Will be interesting to see how much the network freaks out...

k had to mess about a bit to get divx working (some transcoding thing that has to happen on the mediatomb server), and there are a few more tweaks we want to try, but it was pretty painless in the end. I'll see if k will post a howto (for gentoo of course!). Now we're watching stuff on 40" tho, it's not looking so flash! Time to start getting higher res cuts of stuff (and blow out our storage space!).

first impressions

the new tv turned up on sunday, exactly on schedule. it's rather large... and we need to arrange the whole apartment to fit it in still, but I'm very happy.

of course, purchasing a HD tv means we had to get a PS3, which lead to GTA4 and Guitar Hero III :) Need to take the stickers off still...

(terrible pic taken with my iPhone)

The new TV is in the mail...

I love ordering online, when things go smoothly. When you don't own a car, online ordering and delivery are great. Just ordered a new TV to replace our very aging old 20" Sony CRT telly. We've gone for a 40" Samsung LE40A656, which is getting really good reviews. Can't wait for it to arrive now!

Have ordered through Comet, who say it will be delivered tomorrow between 10am and 2pm. Tune in tomorrow to see if it arrives or not!

40" might be a bit overkill in our teeny lounge, and there will have to be some serious rearranging of gear to fit it in :) Will have to pick up a PS3 now to go with it, coupla games and some blueray movies. mmmmm

As for the old telly, we'll probably be nice and send it to a new home via our local freecycle group, hopefully someone will want it!

Image from mr.rich's flickr photostream, under creative commons licence

Comin at ya live from the alternative context domain

Finally got around to switching the url of this blog over to my own domain - blog.alternativecontext.com. Took a full 5 mins for my personal tech support geek (yay!) to set up the cname record on our server, then 2 secs to change the url in blogger to use a custom domain. Pretty much 100% pain free! DNS seems to have propogated already around too.

Any links to the old blogger url (http://rachmobile.blogspot.com/) *should* redirect OK. I'll check feedburner is doing its thing with the feeds still.

Once I get really organised, the next step is to set up a typo or wordpress or something blog on my domain, and migrate everything over. Can't imagine that will be pretty :(

stuck in a loop!

oh no! the developers who build quicksilver have managed to get themselves in a bit of a pickle...
the latest version has a "feature" which causes the app to ping their site looking for updates a bit too often, with the consequence of bringing down their download site as it's such a popular app.

yikes! time to go download the fixed version from macupdate or whatever your fav mac software tracker is and help them out :)


(via lifehacker)

more automounting samba drives in os x

I promised someone I'd post on this, and finally I have!

I've given up on the original method of mounting samba/cfs shares that I used to use, as it didn't really handle it well when those drives weren't available... Had to reboot to get them to remount etc, and we renamed some shares on different devices (server, NAS etc) to all be unique, so no more hassle with confusion over what is mounted at any one time.

So... I've gone with a two-prong approach:
- written a simple applescript to mount my drives where I want them
- using an app called MarcoPolo to automatically fire the script when it decides I'm at 'home'

Part 1: The script

1. Fire up ScriptEditor
2. Drop in the following for each drive (this example is for SMB shares):
   
   try
   tell application "Finder"
   mount volume "smb://username:password@server/share"
   end tell
   end try
   
   


3. Put in username/password/server/share as needed
4. Repeat for each drive (if you want them to mount under the same MarcoPolo 'location')
   
5. Save as an application somewhere out of the way (ie your home dir) - I used the settings in this image:


6. Try it out - double click the new app and check it mounts everything correctly. Your system.log (available in the console app) should tell you if there's anything wrong.
7. Add a nice icon if you want, as it will flash in your dock until the script completes.
   

Part 2: MarcoPolo

1. Download MarcoPolo from the developers website, or your fav tracker site
2. Install
3. Set up a 'home' context - Set up whatever rules define your 'home' - for me, I've got set the IP rule (as I have a reserved IP on the router, so it's always the same when I'm connected to the home router), and also the WiFi rule, so it triggers when I connect to our home router
4. Set up an action against your home rule to run the mount script

Note - can sometimes take a bit of experimenting with MarcoPolo to get it set up right - depends on how much info you can give it and the setup on your Mac. I've not figured out if it can rescan and decide your location on a wake from sleep, tho I've not really read a lot up on it yet.

Also, it doesn't matter if the drives are already mounted, and you try to re-mount them - smbmount doesn't mind at all :)

tail-less mouse

Got myself a wireless mighty mouse to go with the macbook yesterday. Am really liking it so far - my old logitech usb mouse didn't play too well with the macbook - was way too slow and I couldn't speed it up.

anyhooo, the mighty mouse is really nice. very responsive, and the scroll ball is really nice - feels easier than a scroll wheel to use. took about 2 secs to set up. Bluetooth is great - means no cables or extra sensors to plug in, and batteries were included :). A little expensive at £49, but then most apple hardware is a little expensive - still, 'it just works', so I'm happy with that!

[image poached from the apple store]

holy iphone, batman!

Apple has sold 525,000 iPhones since the product's US launch last Friday, Reuters reports.
via macworld

that's gotta be a record... and where's mine huh?! can't wait till they come out in the UK.

[image from nicholasjon's flickr stream under creative commons licence]

good error pages

The technorati 500 server error page is a good example of what to do when your site blows up - a bit of fun and no confusing stack traces :) I like the bloglines plumber too, but don't have a screenshot of that right now.

(Edit: yeah I am bored at work today!)

i'm only dribbling a little..

so yet again the war on wifi health risks is flaring up, with the latest 'scientific' report (article via the beeb) saying there is no health threat.

I'm not going to wade in on this (much), but to say we use wifi at home and have done for years now, and i'm not growing any tumors or having flashbacks, so seems to be fine for me. And the mice living under the kitchen cupboards aren't mutating much more than normal for London :). As they point out in the bbc article, human-generated radio waves have been around for over a century, and anyway, any long term genetic damage wouldn't be seen until many generations down the line. The health benefits of not tripping over network cables in the middle of the night are enough for me.

planning to fail

today's Dilbert hits a little close to home...

Stock up on the red bull and mentos...

...Blizzard have announced StarCraft 2!
Can't see a release date, but they've said it will be for PC and Mac (yay!).

Aaah those long nights of caffine and gaming... I've pretty much given up the gaming, but if this comes out on Mac, and it will run OK on my MacBook, I may be back :)

Yeah I know, I missed this announcement by like three days...

New Printer

Picked up a new hp c5180 on sunday - all in one inkjet (scanner, copier, printer w borderless photos at 9600 res). The test photo I printed came out as good as a photolab - not sure how economical the ink is, but we'll see. Going to use it to print wedding invites - even with the cost of the printer, I think it will be not a lot more than getting them printed 'professionally'.

It's a 'network' printer so can either plug it in to a pc via usb, or straight into a router and viola, networked printer :) works fine with mac, and Kerry also has it running on his gentoo laptop.

Now to get rid of the old lexmark... think it's going to go onto the freecycle lists to go to a good home.

As a side note, we ended up getting it from the Apple store on Regent street (as it's such a pain waiting for deliveries in the post...), and that was pretty painless! Grabbed an 'apple dude', told him which one we wanted, he went and got it, scanned it into a handheld device, jammed the credit card in the same handheld, and grabbed a email address to send the reciept to, slapped on an apple sticker and we were out the door. Nice!

fowd

at the future of web design conference today. first speaker just started :)
I like conferences with free wifi and power points at your seat!

Seems everyone here has a camera... seen some funny stuff - one dude with a really slow lens trying to take pics with no flash and no tripod - pretty dodgy! (yep i am a camera snob)

growin the tech

Following on from our woeful tech solutions at home, I've ordered a bunch of replacement (upgraded) kit to get us up and running again.

NAS solution has gone from the 500gb Western Digital NetCenter (who's hard disk has gone clunk so lost all that data), to a DLink 323 nas with 2x Seagate 500gb sata drives - will set em up with ext2 file system (so can read em with our sata+ide usb enclosure if the unit fails), and RAID 1 (mirroring). It can handle either drive failing, so won't die if one drive goes boom. Bit of a change to the old NetCenter :)
It's debian kernel is also *hackable*, and has 64mb of ram (i think) - some hacks include telnet and ssh shells, and running lighthttpd web server.

And for extra safty, 2x UPS devices - one to drive Calculus (the server), and one to drive the DLink. The UPS will work with gentoo on Calculus to send shutdown signals, so should give us some extra saftey :) The DLink won't accept shutdown signals - shame, as it runs a debian kernel so should in essence be able to install the packages needed - however the DLink has no USB input to carry the shutdown sigs :)

Need a new power supply for the shuttle - hopefully whatever blew the psu didn't fry the motherboard also! Found a supplier - they are far and few between.

So that's pretty much blown the entire tech budget for the year, but I think it's worth it for all the photos etc we have (I filled up 4 dvd's of photos when i did the last backups! Shootin in RAW at 8MP takes a lot of space).

Progress reports will be posted. Ordered the kit this morning, and it had already been dispatched by lunchtime! Thanks Misco!

Tech troubles

Kerry has posted about our troubles with tech the last two weeks.
Always seems to come in threes, so hope we're all done with hard disk failures and power supplies being zapped (or so we hope).

Think we're gonna move to getting a UPS and a onsite RAID NAS device, and some offsite storage too. Might be overkill, but any downtime is so frustrating for me!