A Fire TV in an Apple Household

A few months back I picked up an Amazon Fire TV. I’ve had an Apple-centric household for many years and have been a strong supporter of the Apple ecosystem, but a couple of things changed that caused me to evaluate the Fire TV. First, iTunes is where all my media lived. This used to be great. Everything … Continue reading A Fire TV in an Apple Household

Communing with the devil on an Apple ][

In the week leading up to halloween, @destroyed4com4t introduced me to the amazing movie Evilspeak. This film, made in 1981, is about an outcast boy in military school who comes across a book. This book — the diary of a Spanish satanist (Esteban) from centuries before — is written in Latin. It is also, of course, … Continue reading Communing with the devil on an Apple ][

The iPhone 5 headphone jack

Until recently, the iPhone has always had both the headphone jack and power button on the top and the syncing port on the bottom.  And until recently, things were good.  When the iPhone 5 came around, they moved the headphone jack to the bottom.  With my phone in my pocket, the only reasonable orientation when … Continue reading The iPhone 5 headphone jack

How I got screwed by Photo Stream and Aperture

When Apple introduced Photo Stream as part of its iCloud offering a year ago, I jumped on board.  By that time, my iPhone was already my primary camera.  The old Canon point-and-shoot was collecting dust in a corner.  And Photo Stream solved a real problem for me.  My phone syncs with my laptop, but I … Continue reading How I got screwed by Photo Stream and Aperture

My old AirPort Expresses might as well be bricks [Update: Windows saves the day]

So I have a few of those little power-brick sized AirPort Express WiFi units: In the past, I have found them incredibly useful.  They pack away easily and can turn any wired connection into a wireless one or can act as a self-contained basestation for multiple WiFi devices. Since I have one or two spares … Continue reading My old AirPort Expresses might as well be bricks [Update: Windows saves the day]

The one annoyance of a side-pinned OS X dock

Most people I know that run OS X keep their icon dock on one side of the screen or the other.  By default, the dock sits at the bottom, but moving it over to the side gives you a bit more screen space.  Most monitors are widescreen, giving you many more pixels left-to-right than they … Continue reading The one annoyance of a side-pinned OS X dock

“Natural” scrolling across operating systems

“Natural” Scrolling Overview I am beginning to get used to the reversed scrolling behavior in the new OS X. For those that have not heard about it, this was one of the most controversial changes in the new operating system. They reversed the direction of the action that is performed by spinning the mouse’s scroll … Continue reading “Natural” scrolling across operating systems

AppleTV and HDCP (Copy Protection)

For a few weeks, my AppleTV complained about HDCP copy protection whenever I tried to play something from Netflix: I assumed it was either a firmware update I had recently installed on the device or a policy update on Netflix’s end. Either way, it did not bother me too much. I have both the AppleTV … Continue reading AppleTV and HDCP (Copy Protection)