New Soundgarden Video: Beyond The Wheel

A Real MP3 Locker

Because of my decision to go with the 16 gig iPad instead one of the larger models, space for music has been a bit of an issue. The Pandora app is great, but sometimes you want to listen to something specific. So I really wanted to find a cloud solution for my music. Meaning that I want to access my music collection over the internet.

I’ve tried the Stream-To Me app which let’s my stream music from my Windows Home Server, but it’s hit and miss as far as working consistently and the interface isn’t that great. Dropbox and iDisk work great, but they only play one song at time and they can’t play playlists.

Then I heard about MP3tunes.com. Mp3tunes works like the old mp3.com where you get an online locker to store your music. You get 2 gigs for free which I think will be upgraded to 10 gigs in the near future. Right now you can request an invite for a 10 gig locker. You can also get a 50 gig locker for $39.95 per year, or $4.95 a month, and the also offer 100 gigs and 200 gig lockers. So not only could you use Mp3tunes to stream your music from the cloud, you could use it to back up your entire music collection.

What make Mp3tunes work so much better than other solutions I have tried are the apps. Airband is the site’s iphone/ipod touch/android app (also works great on the ipad). Airband works great! Very easy navigation and plays flawlessly over both Wifi and 3g. You can play your music by artist, album, track, or playlist.

One drawback is uploading music to Mp3tunes is not as easy as it should be. They offer a Windows and Mac app called Lockersync, which works, but is awful slow. It took it 9 hours to upload 12 gigs of my music, after I signed up for a 50 gig locker. I plan on filling the locker up, so it’s going to take some time to do that.

Other than the uploading I highly recommend you check out Mp3tunes if storing your music online is something you like to do.

The Unanswered Questions To Lost

Chrome OS Almost Here

I thought the Google Chrome OS was at least a year away from release. I guess Google and Acer have other ideas:

Acer to launch Chrome OS devices in two weeks (exclusive) | VentureBeat

iPad and Google Reader

If you are having trouble scrolling on Google Reader on your iPad you are not alone. There does seem to be some kind of bug on the site. Until Google fixes this bug the easy workaround is to use two finger scrolling.

The iPad: Apple Does it Again

Is Apple’s iPad the revolutionary and magical product Steve Jobs said it would be? I have to say it’s pretty damn close. I have heard and read the critics and haters referring to it as just a big iPod Touch. My question to that, is what is wrong with that?! The iPhone/Ipod Touch is truly a remarkable product with an operating system that just works. With an enormous amount of apps, they can truly say, “there’s an app for that”.

But one glaring weakness with the iPhone/Ipod Touch is the small screen. A big guy like me has a hard time typing on it. Surfing the web can be tedious because the small screen can’t display a full webpage. Many webpages, have special mobile phone version that do work, but don’t give you the full experience of the website. And don’t get me started on watching movies. While a quick YouTube video isn’t bad, you look like an idiot holding an iPhone/iPod Touch in your hand trying to watch a full length motion picture. And while there are some really cool games for the iPhone/iPod Touch, I always found the screen size a little too cramp to every consider it a true gaming device.

So why not just make it bigger, way bigger. Put in a super fast processor and a much bigger battery, all of sudden you’ve got a product that has to be used to really appreciate it. And the iPad is a dream to use. Everything on it just looks great, from reading e-mail, surfing the web, watching movies, to reading books and of course playing games. They all seem so natural on the device. Photos? That look fantastic on it! And just like the iPhone/Ipod Touch, it’s the apps that truly make the iPad the game changer that it is.

Now straight out the box, the iPad is not going to replace your laptop or desktop computer, right now it’s a supplement to your main computer. One day it maybe the only device you need, but not yet. It still has the same weaknesses that the iPhone/iPod touch have, namely no multitasking (which apparently going to change with the next iPhone OS update) and no Flash support in the browser is still a hassle. It’s much larger on-screen keyboard is much easier to type on, but I still type way faster on a regular keyboard (the iPad does work with bluetooth keyboards however). But to me those are minor gripes, you really have to use the iPad to truly appreciate what a wonderful product it is.

Also I cannot rave enough about using it as a e-book reader. Quite simply I have no idea why you would use anything else. The iPad not only can use Apple’s iBook app to read and buy books, but you can also read Kindle books. You can’t buy Kindle books directly from the Kindle app, but if buy them from the Amazon site the books appear on your iPad almost instantaneously. The is also the Kobo app which offers a ton of free books, and Barnes and Noble will be updating their iPhone/Ipod touch app to work with the iPad. If you are into comic books, the Marvel Comics app is a must see, I was blown away by it.

Actually reading on the Ipad is very comfortable on the eyes, I haven’t experienced any eye strain whatsoever. I have heard some people complain about the weight of the iPad being a little to heavy for reading books for a long period of time, but I haven’t found that to be the case.

I could go on for hours writing about the iPad, I truly love it that much. If you are in the market for a second computer or shopping for a new netbook, I would seriously give the iPad a long hard look, before you drop your cash down on that Dell Mini, you might be surprised on the choice you make.

Miike Snow

It’s a sunny slightly cool April afternoon, and I have the perfect album playing, Miike Snow’s self-titled debut. Miike Snow is not a single person but rather a trio based in Stockholm, Sweden. Any fan of MGMT won’t find anything new here, but the songs are well crafted and extremely catchy. Standout tracks include the lead off single “Animal”, “Silvia”, and “Cult Logic”, and “A Horse is Not a Home”, but there really isn’t a bad track on the album. Highly recommended.

Check out “A Horse is Not a Home”

New Toys

It’s been awhile since my last blog post and I’ve added a couple of new items to my tech universe. Since my Macbook has become my main computer, I have been using my PC as a Home Theater Computer hooked to my flatscreen in the living room. It could run anything a threw at it, but having to use a keyboard and mouse on my coffee table was not ideal.

So I started looking for alternatives to get my own files and internet content to my tv and stereo. I needed a device that could handle high definition and fast networking. So after much researching I decided on the Mac-Mini. It’s as small elegant computer that fits right under my tv. I can control it with my iPod-Touch (Air Mouse and the Apple remote apps), or with my Macbook using screen sharing, so no keyboard or mouse are needed in the living room. I use the Plex Media Center to play all my movies and music, plus Hulu, Netflix, and bunch of other online content. It works great!

So now the question was what to do with my PC? I decided to Windows Home Server on it and what a great decision that was! My PC has a really good processor and a ton of RAM and a lot of hard drive space ( 3.9 terabytes), so it runs WHS like a dream. I moved all my music and movies to it. My Macs have no problem accessing or writing data do it thanks to Macfuse and NTFS-3G. Thanks to this post at Multimedia-Pc.com I’m able to use the server for Time Machine. My WHS is now my computer workhorse for ripping movies and cd’s (using the My Movies add-in), transcoding music (dbPoweramp), and streaming movies and music to my mobile devices (Orb). It’s quite the setup and I’m very happy with it.