Spaces on the Wall

Boxee: The Ultimate Apple TV Hack

It's easy to ditch cable. Really easy if you use Boxee. I've been living with Apple Tv for nearly a year now, and sick of watching the same content over and over again.

The guys at GDGT Weekly mentioned Boxee a couple of podcasts ago, so I decided to give it a whirl. They said it was by far the easiest way to free yourself from apple tv's restrictive confines.

Boxee just came out of alpha testing and opened up it's doors the public (for the most part). I had a few hours to kill on Saturday, so here's the rundown...

1. Install is difficult since you have to prepare a file that boots from a thumbdrive. The developers have prepared an application to help create this, but it's not entirely clear since it's a step you have to find on a 3rd party website and they keep reffering to the blasted thing as a "patchstick" WTF is that?. Once you get through the install (which Wired has a step by step wiki on how to prepare on your Apple TV device), you have to immedatly update XMBC software, then restart the device, then update the Boxee software, then restart the Apple TV yet again! Finally, you have to disable the Apple TV screensaver device so it won't interfere with the Boxee viewing pleasure.
2. The Boxee software is partioned from the Apple TV experience which is a big drain. It's a bit clunky, but offers a whole new world of on-demand viewing possibilities. It's taken the best Internet content providers: (BBC, Joost, Hulu, CNN, Comedy Central, MTV and Video Podcasts ) and combined into one master control center. The content is vast, instant and of fairly good video quality. Boxee does have sharing capabilities, which i still need to explore.
3. The interface and execution still needs work, but I'm sure it will get better during the alpha. The one real bummer is the lack of Netflix Instant Viewing capabilities. They know it's a big feature that all users are clamoring for, but according to the development team, the Apple TV processor is just not strong enough for Netflix's streaming demands.

If that's not enough - Apple will eventually require an upgrade that will wipe away all the hard work I just did. Not to worry since Boxee has that on their radar, and will provide patches accordingly.

Ditch Your Cable, AppleTV Works Better

5 Good Sites vs 1,000 Bad Ones

Hoping to reach a large swatch of eyeballs really doesn't apply to web advertising anymore. It's the attention that really matters. Attention to subject matter and paying special attention to the sites you target your messages on are make or break factors.

I knew of 5 really good sites I wanted to target for a client. I thought I would avoid the risk since the volume reported wasn't that impressive, the brokering would be cumbersome and the pricing seemed too high. It sounded like a safer investment to target 1,000 vs 5. I mean, what if the 5 crash and burn? If I target 1,000 sites, I'm bound to get 100 good ones right?

So I went the easy route and put my faith in Adbrite. Bad move.

Using a service like Adbrite makes it easier for advertisers and publishers to transact. Works in theory, but the problem with Adbrite, and sites like Adbrite is that the whole experience sacrifices quality for efficiency. Advertisers don't have to put much thought into the sites in which they target since the major focus is the impression rate. Publishers could care less about what sorts of advertisers take up space on their pages, so long as they gain the highest CPMs. Its all transactional, and not very effective - for me or for my client. Damn.

The Waiting Game

The Toyota Prius has once again become a smoking hot commodity. The sales guys at the dealership tell me that when gas hit $3.25 a gallon about 9 months ago, there was a 60-90 day waiting period to get the 2008 Toyota Prius. Then when gas prices slipped back to around $3.15 a gallon, their lots were jam packed with Prius's. Now that oil has spiked to $3.77, they're back to 60-90 day back orders for the same exact product.

People's reactions change like the weather. I'm no different. Good thing I only have to wait 10 days!

Living With Apple TV

So it's been about a week since I've purchased and installed the new apple tv. Overall not bad, but if you are thinking about replacing cable for this, not so fast. I always detested the idea of having to pay for cable since the idea was that subscribers would subsidize the need for advertisements on cable programming per the astronomical subscription fees. Should I be paying for content I'm not watching or just selective content? I don't know yet, but that's what intrigued me about the apple tv.

If your thinking about getting one, here are few tips I suggest you implement before you install and sync with itunes for the mac os x.

1. Make sure you buy an external hard drive. I run a Macbook Pro laptop so my storage space is limited. Besides video files are bloated, and can eat up space very quickly
2. Set up your itunes to open and sync with a totally new library. That way you can sync the external hard drive with movies and video only, and not interfere with other types of syncing (i.e. iPhone, iPods, other macs, etc). Switching libraries is simple; hold down the option key on your Mac (or shift key on Windows) when you launch iTunes, you'll get the option to create a new library or choose the library you want to load.
3. Buy a Airport Extreme or Time Capsule to stream and sync movies and television shows wirelessly. No messy wires and you can truly separate your TV with your home networking crap
4. Watching TV is different now, so no news or sports to digest. Unless you get lucky with the occasional video podcast - but even those are updated at least one day behind. Audio podcasts are different and get updated daily - like NPR. But seeing that it's on your TV, it beats the purpose of watching actual video content.
5. You can't purchase movies on the Apple TV. Only movie rentals. Hopefully they will follow through with a subscription based model like NetFlix and charge unlimited movie rentals for $17.99 per month.
6. The remote is way too small. My 1 year old grabbed the remote when I wasn't looking and hid the tiny remote in her stroller. So there is no way to control the blasted thing without the tiny plastic remote.
7. No commercials are nice, but $2 per show can really add up, so be aware of your viewing consumption habits. I've actually been watching less tv, because the video podcasts and youtube videos are way short so I have more time to read Ben and Jackie.
8. Content is fragmented, so don't expect a full viewing session when you sit down to watch the nightly news. I have to be trained to watch programs all over again.

That's about it for now. I'll update as more develops with this.

iPhone SDK - Voice To Blog Request

Now that the new iPhone SDK is out, I'm calling on any software developer(s) to make this request.

1. I want to turn my iPhone (or iPod) into a voice recorder and save my recording into some editable audio format. Since the headphones come with a microphone, I'm sure inputs won't be a problem.
2. Synch my iPhone to import the recording to my computer (Mac OS X running Leopard or PC running Windows XP or Vista).
3. Then use Dictate to convert what I said into text.
4. Finally, publish that text to the blog.

Preferably all this can be automated into a single step, but bottom line, I think tons of folks would now have the bandwidth to blog heavily and regularly. So any angel developers out there looking to make something new and useful, do the world a favor and make this please?

CBS Radio Mystery Theater MP3 Download

A few years back, an old designer friend of mine turned me onto some really old science fiction audio stories from the 1970's: CBS Radio Mystery Theater .

These are perfect for long plane trips, traffic distractions, creative facilitations, work displacements, etc. So I have about 50 CBS Radio Mystery Theater episodes in mp3 format ready for download. I don't have much space to pop these on my server, so if you want a copy of any of these titles in MP3 format, send me an email and I'll send you a copy.

** Very important. I've received a lot of requests for some of these MP3's. I need your physical address so I can burn a disc and snail mail them to you.

Title	Length	Show
Area Thirteen	42:18:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Berenice	44:38:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Black Room	48:11:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Body Snatchers	42:47:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Brain Drain	42:13:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Bullet	40:12:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Cabinet of Unsolved	45:37:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Checkmate	1:00:13	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Coffin for Devil	42:05:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Colony	41:57:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Damned Thing	44:38:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Diary of a Madman	44:20:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Dig Me Deadly	1:01:38	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Don Quixote	43:30:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Dracula	55:05:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Edge of Death	52:04:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Final Step	50:50:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Follower	41:36:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Four-Fifteen Express	40:08:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Frontiers of Fear	51:23:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Garrison of Dead	44:31:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Ghost at the Gate	44:10:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Ghost Driver	57:35:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The God Machine	46:00:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Harry's Taxi T-Machine	44:22:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Horror of DeadLake	41:37:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
House of Usher	40:54:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Lone Survivor	44:22:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Lost Dog	51:09:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Man in Black Cap	42:57:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Meteorite	45:24:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Ninth Volume	43:51:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
No Business Like	45:13:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Oblong Box	44:24:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Ocean of Emptiness	46:39:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Old Ones Kill	41:50:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Phantom Stop	44:45:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Phantom World	40:16:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Spaces on the Wall	46:03:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Stitch in Time	51:49:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Strange Lucas Lauder	42:23:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Terror in the Air	54:12:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Therapeutic Cat	43:07:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Time and Again	53:36:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Transmutations Inc	44:27:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Transplant	44:45:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
The Unquiet Tomb	45:22:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Unseen and the Seen	43:17:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Now You See Them	46:04:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater
A Stranger Among Us	44:04:00	CBS Radio Mystery Theater

Here are 10 more CBS Radio Mystery Theater episodes not in my collection but available for download in mp3