Family's best iTunes Friend - Mojo

Like more and more people I have a household of internet connected devices and a family sharing those devices. I've long used iTunes to acquire and manage music and until a few years ago having all iTunes activity concentrated on one computer was convenient enough. These days I need the library to be available on each computer. 

iTunes has a music sharing feature which works quite well if all you want to do is listen to the library from a "secondary" computer. However Apple has intentionally crippled library sharing by preventing you from burning a CD using shared songs (in fact you can't even create a playlist of your own using a shared song). My level of frustration from the inconvenience of having to buy music and burn CDs for the rest of my family finally reached the threshold to make me do something about it.

The key use cases I wanted to address were:

1. Ability to log into any computer in the house and burn a CD with music in the library
2. Ability to shop for and buy music from any computer in the house and have it accessible to all the other computers

It took quite a bit of searching to find a solution but I finally found a tool called Mojo by Deusty. Mojo has a free version which provides some nice sharing features. However it is the Pro version which caught my eye because it solves both use cases at a cost of only $11 (3 licenses). 

On each computer I have created a iTunes smart playlist that includes all music added in the last two months. I installed Mojo on each computer and used the Pro version's "subscribe" feature to subscribe to the "recently added" playlist. This means Mojo will monitor changes in the playlist on each computer and automatically download new music. The end result is a "hands off" method of making our music available to everyone in the house. It is working flawlessly and I couldn't be happier (well, if this was a feature of iTunes I'd be happier...).

One caveat - at this point virtually none of our music has DRM. When Apple announced almost all music would move to the Plus format, and have no DRM, I chose to update songs I had previously purchased. I had done some tests and found the audio quality improvement in the "iTunes Plus" versions was significant. If your songs are DRM'd Mojo will not download them.

Now know one has to be frustrated that Dad doesn't have time to get all the music files onto a single machine to burn their CD for them and Dad doesn't have to listen to whining :-)

From a security standpoint no one outside of our network can get to our libraries since our router blocks connections to the Mojo port. 

Getting VNC and the VPN to play nicely together

I work from home regularly but have always found my work laptop's display to be difficult to use for long periods of time. When my laptop wasn't on the VPN I had been using Microsoft's RDP to make use of my incredibly beautiful iMac 24" display to proxy for the laptop display. However this doesn't work when the laptop is on the VPN since incoming RDP connections are blocked by my employer.

As I worked from home more and more I finally got irritated enough by RDP's inability to display a full resolution version of the laptop's display and the inability of any of this to work when on the VPN to do something about it all. At least for now I don't want to have a separate monitor or try to go to a KVM setup.

I had already implemented the ability to SSH from my Windows laptop to the iMac using public key authentication. This allowed me to use VNC from the work laptop to the iMac and ensured I could keep all personal info off of the work machine. This capability is required in order to do the next steps (well, the public key part isn't required, password authentication would be OK but isn't recommended for security reasons). There are a lot of sites with info on setting up SSH and VNC to use from a work machine to a home Mac. I'm not gonna duplicate that info here. Once you have that working the rest should be trivial for you so the exact details have been left as an exercise for the reader :-) But here's the overview...

• I copied my original SSH script to create two more on the laptop. One for use when the laptop is on the VPN (in which case I use the public domain name of my iMac) and the other for when the laptop is off the VPN (in which case I have to use the IP address of the iMac). The scripts are identical to the one I use to SSH from the laptop to the iMac for accessing the iMac except the "-L" is replaced by a "-R" with the "R" telling SSH to set up a reverse mapping. Also the port is changed from 5900 to 5901 (see the note below for why).
• I run RealVNC's service mode server on the laptop. Once the reverse SSH connection is established I can then use Chicken of the VNC to display the laptop's "screen" on the iMac (other VNC viewers should work too).
• Since the iMac accepts incoming VNC connections on the default port 5900 the "Display" number must be "1" (i.e. port 5901) when accessing the laptop's display. Otherwise CotVNC will try to display the iMac's screen in it's window resulting in a cool but useless and frustrating recursion. For an address have CotVNC connect to localhost.

The main point of this blog entry is to let you know this is possible. If you have a question shoot me a message but note I can't provide detailed support. Also, FWIW, the reverse SSH technique is not Mac-specific and can be used on other flavors of OS.

Space on Mac OS Leopard

I think it is true that many Mac users aren't aware of Spaces. I saw this blog entry today on TUAW which gives an introduction. Since some relatives recently saw me using Spaces while looking over my shoulder and gave immediate ooohs and aaahs I thought it worth doing a post on how I use Spaces. Please read the TUAW post first as I'm not going to duplicate the info here.

I changed the default key to reveal all the spaces to F5 (from F19). This places it right next to the Dashboard and Expose hotkeys. I chose to run with 4 Spaces and use them thusly:

1. My main Space - Mail, Twhirl, Safari
2. Reference Space - iCal, AddressBook, iTunes
3. Secondary work Space - usually just has FireFox but I sometimes park others there
4. Multimedia work Space - usually Aperture but also other photo and video apps open here

I use the Spaces controls to force the named apps into the desired Space. I have DragThing set to appear in all Spaces since it is my main app launcher.

N.B. This blog is not as active as it was. I'm doing quite a bit of posting on FaceBook right now. We'll see how that works out...

Storming Pogue aka Blackberry Cult

My previous post was on the Blackberry Storm which has been marketing as oh so much cooler and better than an iPhone. As a BB user it was pretty obviously desperation marketing and I saw today that Pogue wrote a negative review in the NY Times. (This is the link but you can't get to it unless you sign up for free access).

Turns out on his blog today Pogue writes that a lot of folks commented in firm agreement with my (er his) conclusion. Not surprising since I'm always right. The amusing part is he has discovered there is a virulent strain of fanboy much stronger than the Apple variety - the Blackberry adherents. Apparently this new strain has never even used the Storm but is quite certain his review was fundamentally (and fundamentalistly?) wrong. Poor David...

N.B. oh, and the iPhone share tripled last quarter (via TUAW).

iPhone Takes over the Earth

Great news for my iPhone peeps! Google has released it's Earth application and in fine fashion indeed. It takes advantage of the motion sensors built into the iPhone to adjust the view as you move your iPhone around.

Read all about it at TUAW.

iPhone Life (battery, that is)

I've had my iPhone 3G for several months and read a lot of complaints about its battery life. Most of the complaints seem to be - if I use it a lot the battery doesn't last a day and that makes me cry. Wah wah...

I've had Crackberry and Smartphones/(aka dumb Windows Mobile) for years and I can assure you the iPhone's battery life is in reality best in breed when used like a BB or WM device.

But I can also confirm if you use it "for all it's worth" the battery won't make it to bedtime. In my case "for all it's worth" would mean a number of phone calls, checking email on it regularly, and running applications requiring net and location signals. Also throw in some podcast/video watching to the mix. When I do all this I come up an hour or two short on battery life.

I needed to travel to San Jose for several days of (boring) meetings and knew I'd make heavy use of the iPhone on the plane and to entertain myself while there. I needed extra battery power and after searching around selected the Richard Solo DX001 for the trip. I'd heard good things about the item and the price wasn't too bad (though more than the old AA battery pack I used to use to extend my iPod's life).

Having had the DX001 for a few weeks I can say that it has worked without issue and as advertised. If not for the trip I probably would have tried to wait a few more months as I expect more aesthetic solutions will eventually make their way to market. But if, like me, you need something now I do recommend the DX001. Not only does it work but also the customer service response to my pre-sale questions was very fast. Non-expedited shipping brought it to my door in 2 days == happy camper :-)

Parenting and the Internet

As a parent of a young daughter with one more on the way I've long intended to do something about protecting them from the darker side of this wonderful thing called the Internet. I had searched around for a product to install on my network of Macs at home and every time I looked over the reviews for the candidates the number of problems reported stopped me in my tracks. So far my daughter is young enough I've been able to get by with using the draconian methods that are part of Leopard (10.5). But the sweetheart is growing up and we also have older kids visiting regularly who want to use the computer so I recently took another look at options.

I had heard of OpenDNS a number of times but the only feature association in my head was it's claim to providing faster resolution times. I've never had a problem in that area so tended to always skip over any mention of the service. However in my recent search I found several blog entries on its usefulness to parents. Moving at the Speed of Creativity had one of the most direct discussions.

In my case I changed my 2Wire router to point to OpenDNS rather than using the ISP's servers. Once done I selected the Customize option to allow me to set some site filters based on a categorization of the site content. All of this setup took less than 5 minutes and has worked flawlessly. I like the fact I can customize the filters as well as "vote" on categorizations for various sites. I haven't needed to but you can block or open individual sites as well.

This scheme doesn't provide the same level of filtering and control as some commercial products but it is also less intrusive with essentially zero overhead. For my particular situation and approach to controlling Internet access this is an excellent free solution.

Note we do not allow children access to a computer in a "private" location in our home. The only one they can use is adjacent to the kitchen in full view. If this weren't the case I would probably opt for one of the more draconian commercial products.

Now They Kick Seinfeld to the Curb?

Well after a negative - and confused! - reaction to the Bill Gates+Jerry Seinfeld ad campaign Microsoft is making a 180 degree turn and giving Jerry (and presumably Bill?) a kick to the curb. Their new - and equally screwy - ad strategy is to use a look alike for the PC guy in Apple's ads. Guess Jerry is happy to walk with his money.

Get a clue MS... I know they say even bad publicity is good but in this case I think it is just ineffective. It's not like we don't already know Microsoft exists. The ads are too late to effect the back-to-school shopping, won't do anything for enterprise sales, and aren't going to sway anyone for the holiday season either. It's not like Apple is the only source of negative comments on Vista. 

Read more at TUAW.

iPhoneApp Winners

I've gotten questions from several newer iPhone 3G owners along the lines of "I'm too lazy to browse the App Store, just tell me which apps to look at." Well, actually none of them admitted being lazy :-)

Rather than continue to answer these one at a time I think a blog entry is in order. So without further delay here is the list. Click the app name for more details:

• Klick - best Flickr companion
  
• PCalc - best utility belt for anything involving numbers
  
• Jott - best to-do and list application
  
• WeatherBug - multi-locations, radar, alerts and more
  
• Bloomberg - world wide market indexes and news
  
• Facebook - missing some key features but still convenient
  
• Where - finds events, friends, cheap gass, etc nearby based on GPS
  
• 2 Across - crossword puzzle app, a free lite version also available
  
• Wikipanion - guess what, this is a Wikipedia front end. Surprised, aren't you ?
  
• Now Playing - find movie times, theaters etc near you
  

All are "Ron Approved" and receive near daily use. Oh, did I forget to mention all but one of these is free? :-)

I got a bunch of others I use less frequently. I'll get around to posting on those soon.

PCalc - a great iPhone utility belt

I've long been a user of PCalc on the Macintosh. I love it's feature set and most of all the elegance of its implementation. James Thomson, its author, has shown great commitment to his products and so I was very interested when I heard a iPhone implementation was available.

PCalc for the iPhone exceeded my expectations and has earned a place on my iPhone's home page. I'll first cite one of the coolest innovations and that is James' undo implementation. To undo an entry you simply swipe your finger right-to-left across the display area. To redo simply reverse the motion. Multiple levels of undo are of course available. Very natural and efficient since no screen space is needed for buttons or menus. Another innovation is the use of the shake "operation" on the iPhone. Simply shake the phone twice to clear and three times to do a clear all.

Some of the other features that set it apart from Apple's version, and the iPhone app crowd in general, are its support for RPN, operations in a whole range of bases, a simulated tape so you can see the history and result of interim results, and finally a very convenient and comprehensive set of unit conversions as well as constants. 

Highly recommended! Check it out here or look it up in the Apple App Store.

Another thing to love...

When you downloaded an app update on the iPhone it used to always dump it in the first available spot on the first home screen page with available space. This meant I was constantly having to move updated apps back to the desired page.

I did some app updates this morning and lo and behold they were updated in place on the desired page (although the download still shows up in front while it is in progress). One small step for users...

Contacts are like Greased Lightning!

The new iPhone 2.1 is out and I did the update from my Windows XP laptop (I normally sync with a Mac). The update was flawless. A number of the fixes, like better battery life, 3G coverage, and fewer app crashes can only be verified over time. But...

The claim that the Contacts app is faster is awesomely true! It is like greased lightning - everything about the app is more responsive. I have a large list of contacts and previously it was painfully slow. The update has completely turned around this situation and I am one happy camper :-)

Hope the other fixes are as solid!

Front Row now Supports Aperture

Thanks to a tip posted on Flickr I found out that Front Row now supports Aperture as a photo source (previously you had no control over this as iPhoto was the only option).

To take advantage of this install the new Front Row (2.1.6) then start it up. Navigate to Settings->Photo Source and click to change from iPhoto to Aperture. At least in my case when I clicked on Photo Source it took awhile for Front Row to do anything. I think it might have been traversing my large Aperture library before changing the text indicating the source.

One small victory for users :-)

Making Seinfeld boring wasn't enough for Microsoft...

...so now they are going to copy Apple's Genius Bar (where customers can get help with hardware and software issues for free). I would be willing to bet MS will not be nearly as effective. First, Microsoft doesn't have their own stores so consistency and location will be challenges. Second, MS doesn't make the hardware so will be seriously limited in helping in some cases and essentially have to turn away users who do have hardware problems. Third, Windows is a nightmare to support in the consumer space. Corporations lock down their Windows boxes and run a bunch of anti-virus and security software to keep them relatively clean. Many consumers don't know enough, care enough, or lack the resources to follow the same approach. 

These MS gurus are going to be busy...

iPhone 3G - small things matter

Having blasted a few aspects about the iPhone and MobileMe I thought I should add a little balance and add some things I really like. I'm going to start with a few points that show why Microsoft and their Windows Mobile just don't get it. Today's two points talk about what to me were major annoyances with WM 5 and 6.

First, in WM if you hit the volume key on the phone/PDA it is ambiguous exactly what volume is being adjusted. It depends on the "mode" the phone is in as well as the handset vendor's implementation. You might be adjusting the ringtone volume, key click volume, speakerphone volume, earpiece volume etc. On WM there is absolutely no visual feedback on exactly what is happening. One of the first things I noticed about the iPhone is that when I hit the volume keys it shows a speaker icon, shows the resultant volume setting, and also has some text below the speaker icon telling me what volume is being adjusted (e.g. ringtone). Some people may not care but I really appreciate these user friendly touches.

A second "small" item is one that caused me problems on a regular basis with WM's email client. Like most people even with 3G service I don't normally download entire attachments when looking at email messages. I regularly get attachments that are >1MB and especially on the small WM screens there is no point in trying to view them. However I routinely need to forward the message on to someone else - to hand off a issue, or pass on an FYI, etc. Now, in WM if you don't manually download the entire attachment before forwarding the message it will send it without the attachment. I got numerous "there was no attachment" responses due to this silent decision by WM. The iPhone, blessedly, handles the situation properly. When you forward a message that has attachments it asks you if you want it to include them. Wow, imagine that - letting the user decide what to do.

These small touches, which are a couple out of hundreds, that Apple includes in its products are why it is kicking other technology companies' butts in consumer products.

MobileMe does NOT do Windows

MobileMe has gotten a lot of bad press since it's introduction. Initially over service unavailability and instability. I never had too much trouble in that regards. But it's claim of working with Outlook on Windows is very nearly unfounded. I'm not saying it is impossible to get it to work but it is improbable for a tinkerer to get it working and impossible for the average "Joe/Jane". This is one of the latest threads over at Apple documenting the mess.

I'm a software R&D guy myself so I am familiar with the many challenges in producing large scale commercial products. For this reason I am often a lot more tolerant of issues I see. But in this case I can only conclude serious irresponsibility or incompetence was at play.

First, MobileMe on Windows will not work through a standard company firewall. At all. Now, there is nothing in the docs to say it will work. But that is no defense. Any use case around Outlook has to assume the user is on a corporate network. Now, I'd be willing to work around this but for the even worse defect - even on a completely open internet connection MobileMe syncing from Windows just DOES NOT work. Worse yet there are no error messages or any other helpful feedback on what is going wrong and/or why. This is a feature that is claimed to be supported. Worser and worser is Apple's silence about the problem happily letting its customers thrash around wasting time and energy on what is documented as a simple "for the rest of us" feature that is an unmitigated disaster. If you poke around the support threads you will see a few people say they "finally" got it to work (without a firewall/proxy) but there is always a caveat like "except for calendar syncing" or some such. You can be sure that if any of the kludge solutions posted was fully functional Apple would long ago have published a FAQ or Knowledge Base article with the solution.

Very hard to take Apple seriously in the enterprise software space given the severity of this issue and their response - or rather complete lack of substantive response. I still love my iPhone and am using MobileMe from my Mac. But I am completely warning my Windows-using friends away from MobileMe.

N.B. I am using Google's calendar sync app for Outlook as a kludge solution for calendar access. This has a lot of failings but at least it does allow me to view my work calendar from my iPhone...

Jott out of Beta

Jott has made the big move out of beta which, as you might guess, means it is no longer entirely free. Users (now customers!) have the option to stick with a free ad-supported service with limited capabilities or to sign up for pay-as-you-go or monthly service plans. The low-end "pro" service is only $3.95/month which is quite reasonable in my estimation and so I am going with that. Don't have any feedback on how intrusive the "ad-supported" ads will be. Details can be found here.

Also of note is the introduction of a Jott Express desktop application built using Adobe AiR. This is a small desktop app (for Windows and Mac) that allows you to quickly created and view Jott items without having to visit a web site or use a clunky web UI. Jott has also introduced integration with Microsoft Outlook meaning you can now use their voice transcription service to add Outlook calendar items, reminders and to draft email messages. 

Jott Multi-tool

Like many new iPhone owners I quickly downloaded a number of free apps when the AppStore opened. Many were removed as useless or after a period of benign neglect. One of the definite keepers is an application called Jott.

Jott is actually a free service that bills itself as providing "voice to text" transcription. I had checked on it awhile back, when I was using a Windows Mobile phone, and didn't find the value proposition appealing. When I noticed a free app for the iPhone I decided to download it and give it a try. Boy has this app caused me to completely re-evaluate Jott! The change is something akin to finding out the unassuming-looking guy next to you on that coast-to-coast flight is actually a professional story teller willing to entertain you! What makes the difference?

The iPhone has a number of missing features, like all smart phones. One of which is the lack of a real to-do or list application. The Jott application provides a powerful list/to-do capability that can be accessed anywhere since it syncs to a cloud on the backend. Some use cases to illustrate its usefulness:

• Open the Jott app on the iPhone and add a few tasty tidbits to your grocery shopping list
• Call Jott while driving and use your voice to send an email to you office address reminding you to complete that action item that slipped your mind
• Access the Jott website and create a new to-do list of tasks you want to do in preparation for the birth of your son
• While driving call Jott and tell it to add a meeting to your Google calendar
  

Jott does this and much more. You can create as many distinct lists/to-dos as you wish to keep parts of your life compartmentalized. When you call Jott to send yourself a note it will ask if you'd like it to set a reminder.

Jott's list features, without voice transcription, are superior to most of the fee-based iPhone apps I looked at. When combined with the web/cloud backend and voice transcription this blows those away. Neither the list nor transcription capability would likely have sold me on Jott. But the combination is killer. And did I mention free? Visit jott.com to learn more.

Life Poster

I've seen life posters around and found them intriguing. A few years back someone posted instructions on how to create them manually in an old version of iPhoto. With the passing of my mom earlier this year I embarked on a project to scan in a bunch of old photos, mostly B&W, to share with family members to help in remembrances. It struck me as I was working on this that it was going to be a bit of a shame for all of us to look at those memories only to file them in a folder to, in spite of best intentions, be forgotten. Or to be forced to only pick a couple to frame and leave out. A Life Poster project seemed like the perfect solution.

I recently did some searching around and after looking at a number of approaches including scripting, Picasa, and shareware tools I settled on a nifty little commerical application called Posterino. I liked the convenience of its UI plus its ability to create irregular posters. Unlike Posterino a number of the tools force you to have every photo the same size and aspect ratio.

I downloaded the demo version of Posterino and in not much more than one hour I learned the program and populated an irregular poster with nearly 100 images. Posterino allows you to individually resize each image to fit its spot in the poster as well as repositioning each one so the proper portion of the photo is being shown. Another key feature is the ability to simply drag a photo from one part of the poster to another - when you drop the photo in the new location the application automatically swaps with the previous photo in that spot (this is configurable behavior). Since I already had all of the old photos in a project in Aperture the fact Posterino could directly access my photo library was a big plus in quickly finding and placing the images.

Once you're done you can transfer the resulting poster image into iPhoto for ordering via its Kodak interface, upload it to Flickr, or export it to a file for other uses or for transmission to other printing services.

I am normally quite hesitant to spend money for software to automate a task I will do only infrequently. However in this case I think the money was well spent in ensuring a high quality result in an amount of time I could afford to spend on the project. Plus the license fee is about the same as the cost of one large poster print and so a misfire in creation of the poster to print would eat up any license fee expense. The demo is fully functional but does place a large image over the top of exports until licensed. This means you can give it a complete dry run to see if it will meet your needs before forking over your hard earned cash. Wander over here for more information.

Not wanting to completely leave out the Windows users, I found a nice blog entry at HelpMerick.com describing some options for you. Click here to give it a read.

Bringing Aperture and the World Together

Most digital cameras still lack GPS and hence their photos are not geotagged/location-aware. I've long made the effort to manually tag location info on photos I upload to Flickr but it is cumbersome in their UI. My iPhone has geotagging on its photos which has whetted my appetite for a convenient way to add this info to shots with my far superior Nikon D40x.

You can imagine my delight when Maperture was released. This is a plugin for Apple's Aperture tool that works with Google's mapping feature. So far this new plugin looks great and even better it is another freebie.

Thanks ubermind!