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I Got Myself A New Mac Netbook

I am writing this post from my mother in law house using my new Mac Netbook from Dell.  Yes, you are reading this right, I am using a Dell Mini 9 Netbook running OS X 10.5.6 coupled with my Apple iPhone running Nullriver Netshare app as my portable 3G internet access.

The whole thing run exceptionally well.  I have been following threads from mydellmini.com to come up with an effective way of installing OS X 10.5.6 on the 8GB SSD drive of my Dell Mini 9.  I decided to buy the unit at my local Best Buy store as they had it on sale for 379.99 (in white like all Apple MacBooks).  This is probable like 299 US$ for an Netbook running OS X.  Really not bad.

My biggest challenge was to find a way to make the OSX install to fit in the 8GB drive of the Dell… (I wish Best Buy had the 16GB version in stock).  Believe it or not but the OS require 37MB more than is available on the Dell so a straight install from a retail OS X DVD is not possible on the 8GB Dell Mini.

I had to use my Apple iMac to install a bare minimum OS X 10.5.0 on an external USB drive.  I then booted back on my iMac and applied the 10.5.6 combo update to the USB drive installation.  The size of the whole thing was well beyond the 8GB limit.

I removed all the applications and utilities I never used, all fonts I never used and all voices and screen background (with the exception of one).  That still was not enough to get enough headroom on the 8GB SSD.

I decided to buy a very useful application called Xslimmer.  This application remove all non intel binary and undesired languages from the applications on your Mac.  Using it I was able to reduce the installation by another 1GB or so.

As I write this post my Dell Mini 9 Mac Netbook sit at a comfortable 5 GB of disk usage with about 2 GB of free space for other applications and other goodies.  Why 5 plus 2 does not make 8?  Because there is roughly 1 GB lost in the conversion between HD vendor advertised disk space, the way the OS calculate actual GB and the overhead of the journalized HFS+ file system.

The current state of OS X hacking required to make this work on the Dell Mini 9 is pretty advanced.  The state of the art solution is known as a Type11 installation and involve a bootable DVD that act as a boot loader to the retail OS X DVD. With this method you essentially use an unmodified Apple DVD to install the OS.  The boot loader merelly provide a way to boot the retail DVD on the Dell Mini 9.

Because the Dell is so close to an actual MacBook most of the features are working flawlessly… thanks to a lot of research and development made by the OSX86 community out there.

The Dell Mini 9 is, in some aspect, a better Macbook than the real one I also own.  For example, opening a CIFS share take quite a while to do on my real Macbook… but on my Dell Mini 9 Mac netbook it almost happen instantly… I really can’t explain why but it is a fact.

Most things work flawlessly… but others are not yet perfect… for example after resuming from sleep the sound no longer work.  I am sure a solution to this will be found in the next few weeks.  It is the price to pay for a 300$ Mac Netbook… and at that price I am willing to leave with it.

Is the Dell Mini 9 a threat to Apple? Most likely not.  It is in fact more likelly to accelerate the coming out of a real Apple netbook as Apple might start to notice that people are hungry for such a thing.

Until then I will keep enjoying my self made version of it.

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My experience with Livestation on the iPhone

As you know I am currently testing an alpha copy of Livestation for the iPhone.  I can tell you that so far I am pretty happy with it and and that it will be a keeper!

Why will I keep this one application and why did I got rid of joost iPhone app?  Because it make me smarter and Joost… well!  How come may you ask… because I can now watch various news channels live as I ride the bus to and from work every day.  This is about 1.5 hours I can spend educating myself about what is going on in the world while sitting on the bus bench.

And because there are many news channel I can watch various perspectives on things… like from Russia, France, UK, etc.

I wish more channels would be available, news channels from Canada in french for example… but those will certainly come if Livestation becomes a popular iPhone application.

Did I mentioned that I am watching Livestation over 3G while moving down the street on the bus with almost perfect reception? Yep! Good thing I took the 6GB plan from Rogers because at 100MB an hour I could be in for a major hurtal!

Livestation are cautious to tell you that you are about to consume a lot of bandwidth when they sens that you are running over a 3G network connection.  This is very sensible of them.

The application still need some work before being ready fro prime time.  Livestation is also working on different way of encoding the video stream… so some will play beautifully over 3G and others will look like digested dog food!

So am I pleased with the application? You bet!  I bet it will have a huge success.  I really wish Livestation network will be up to the task awaiting because it will be a flood gate of bits flowing out from it to thos iPhones.  Their desktop application was popular but this will be at least 20 times more popular… and I am sure it will be more like 100 times more popular very soon.

Given the difficult economics one can ask how will they survive this huge bandwidth usage given very low publicity revenue…

I really hope they have the solution!

Livestation iPhone app 1st impression

I finally was able to install the iPhone/iPod Touch Livestation application.  A new version was sent out that took care of the dreaded “could not verify” issue of the previous one.

My 1st impression of the application is that it is simple, easy to use and good looking.  The current video quality is quite acceptable for “live” tv watching over WiFi.  Watching over 3G is a bit more hit and miss but appear to work quite well when enough bandwidth is available.  I will have to try it when riding the bus to work in the morning and se how it will tolerate 3G network quality changes along the way.

You can see some of he current UI screen capture below:

The video quality of some of the channels (for example NASA) appear to be slightly on the low side.  Low enough that I would chose not to watch it due to constant “pulsing” of the whole video.  I am sure this will be addressed in the future.

I have experienced a couple of crash already but this is an early beta and is expected.

I will keep you posted on the development of the application.

Cheers!

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Livestation iPhone app won’t install because it could not be verified

Last night the dev team at Livestation released the application to 50 beta testers.  Being one of them I rushed to download and install but was stumped by an error message:

I really tried everything to get it going.  I even restored my iPhone to 2.2 as a new phone, no backup restore and still the same thing.

I have verified that the Livestation test profile was loaded correctly by looking under Settings - General - Profiles and it is!  It even read as verified… not sure where to go next.

Dev support at Livestation are reporting that many users have this issue but not all of the testers… so could it be related to the version of iTunes?  I am running the latest and greatest under 10.5.6?

Any ideas?

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Former Sony PlayStation Europe CEO Chris Deering Joins Livestation Advisory Board

Livestation (http://www.livestation.com) announced that former Sony PlayStation Europe CEO, Chris Deering, has joined the Livestation advisory board. Deering brings a decade of experience as CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, innovating and creating new markets in the digital media industry.

Chris recently commented his decision to join the Livestation Advisory Board: “The future of TV is already revealing itself to be massive choice, assisted by powerful collaborative search engines, delivered mostly via internet protocol and viewed on personal and community screens from 1 inch to 100 inches. Livestation embodies the DNA of TV’s future. I have maintained for quite some time that the ‘Long Tail of Live’ may be the greatest media force unleashed on mankind. The economic potential has not yet even been fully quantified and is only beginning to be tapped”.

“It is a great privilege to have such a leading and reputable executive of the digital industry as Chris on our advisory board,” said Matteo Berlucchi, CEO of Livestation. “Chris’s knowledge of the digital consumer market and online services will be invaluable to Livestation as we develop our service.”

Chris Deering was founder and CEO of the London-based Sony PlayStation Division for EMEA and Australasia from 1995 through 2005, when he retired from Sony.

During 2004 and 2005, he was also president of Sony Europe Electronics Division, which markets Vaio Computers, Cybershot Digital Cameras, HD Camcorders, Sony Semiconductors and Digital Cinema; and on the Advisory Board of Sony Ericsson mobiles.

Most notable in 2005 was his launch of the Bravia LCD TV line, featuring the globally award winning “bouncy colored balls” TV commercial.

Livestation is the destination for interactive high quality TV and radio online offering international news channels from BBC, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, France 24, Euronews, C-Span, ITN, Deutsche Welle and Russia Today.

Livestation starting iPhone alpha testing

I just got an email from Livestation stating that I qualified for one of the 50 iPhone Livestation application test licenses!

Here are the details of the emails:

Dear Livestation iPhone guinea-pig,

Congratulations, if you’re receiving this email you made the cut.

First of all, thanks for volunteering. We hope that all the crashes and glitches you’ll encounter will be nothing compared to the joy you’ll get by outclassing any of your friends with those old-looking iPhones that can’t even receive live TV.

Here’s what’s going to happen in 5 simple Frequently Asked Questions style. These instructions are up-to-date on our site at http://www.livestation.com/iphone_instructions in case you lose this email.

1. When do I get it?
The number one question.

We are working really hard right now to bring the alpha version out. You will get an email as soon as we are ready. We’re hoping for the first release to be tomorrow Thursday 18th or Friday 19th, i.e. soon, very soon. We’re ironing out some last minute obvious bugs, tidying up some error messages - translating from “developer” to plain English - and other small changes.

2. How do I install?
Follow these easy steps.

1. You send us your Device ID (everyone bcc’d on this list has done so already, and already been added in the Ad Hoc profile of the current development build… )

2. Download the application zip file from the link we will provide in the release email. Download this file to your computer somewhere easy to find (for example, not in your temp directory!).

3. Unzip/uncompress the content of the file into a new folder.

4. Plug your device in and run iTunes.

5. In iTunes, select Device, ie your iPhone, and select the Applications tab.

6. Drag and drop the contents from the new folder to the Applications tab on iTunes.

7. Check “synchronize application” and “selected applications only”. Select “Livestation” only as the app to synchronize with your device. This step transfers the Livestation app to your iPhone or iPod Touch

8. Go to your device - you should see the Livestation logo. Click and enjoy!

3.What can go wrong?
The main area that can give you problems is going to be around connectivity. In our testing, the service works best on good, stable connections. Wi-Fi will work better than 3G but then again, if you have a strong 3G connection the service will run very smoothly too.

Note on iPhone firmware 2.2: there seems to be a problem running continuous streaming on iPhones running the latest firmware 2.2 on the 3G network. We are not sure what is causing this but you may experience sudden start/stop behaviour in the streaming due to sudden drops in connectivity. This was not observed on the previous firmware 2.1 and we hope 2.3 will resolve this problem.

4. How do I receive updated software?
There are two ways of learning about a new version. In this early phase we may release updates to the software as frequently as weekly. Some upgrades will be because of a “breaking change” - this is where we have had to break old versions to either fix a bug, or introduce a new feature. This is a consequence of trying out alpha software.

1. We will send out emails telling you of an updated version of the application. Just follow the installation steps above with the new version.

2. If you run an older version of the app, you should receive a message telling you there is a new version and asking you to upgrade every time you run it. Follow the install process as before. Check your email to see if you must upgrade.

5. I think I have a bug or request, now what?
As with updates, there are two options, depending on what you just noticed happening.

1. If Livestation crashes, then please restart Livestation, go to the “About” dialog and press “upload error log”. This can take 60 seconds or more depending on your network connection. Please email us to tell us how and when the bug happened on team@livestation.com.

2. If you cannot start Livestation, or for any other reason/bug, then email team@livestation.com with your bug report.

3. In the email to team@livestation.com please include:
- iPhone or iPod touch
- device & firmware version - 1.x or 2.x
- network - were you on wifi or 3G at the time.

For example :
“I lost the list of channels after 15 minutes usage. I’m using an iPhone, on 3G at the time, on 2.2 firmware.”

You asked for it and, yes, you are about to get it. We love Livestation on the iPhone and we hope you will too.

Thanks again for helping us.

Jari

Another Canon HV20 vs Flip MinoHD comparison

Here is another comparison video I did pitting the Canon HV20 against the Flip MinoHD in usual daylight conditions.  It show interior house scenes (don’t comment on some of the mess in my place… kids, you know…) mixed with bright whine snow scenes.  Sorry, no sunny beach since it is winter around here!

The MinoHD is actually holding quite well.  It has some trouble with exposition in some scenes when compared to the HV20.  Contrast is also not as good… but overall for the size, price and portability you can’t go wrong.

The biggest thing for me is the lack of image stabilisation.  Even when mounted on an heavy tripod the lack of camera shake on the HV20 footage is a tribute to it’s very good optical image stabilization system.

Maybe the next gen MinoHD will include a bigger sensor that will allow for electronic image stabilization?

For the record the HV20 is left and MinoHD is right.  No color correction was done.  Simply re sized the HV20 footage to frame it similarly to the Flip MinoHD for proper comparison.  Because of the extra pixels captured by the HV20 this resizind was not giving an edge to the Mino ad more than enough pixels remained to support a fill 720p picture.

Canon HV20 vs Flip MinoHD Daylight from Bernard Maltais on Vimeo.

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Al Jazeera Arabic joins Livestation

Livestation , the destination for live TV over broadband, already has a number of Arabic news channels in its line up including BBC Arabic , Rusya al-Yaum , France 24 Arabic and Euronews Arabic .

Al Jazeera Arabic is a 24-hour satellite news channel serving more than 40 million viewers in the Middle East and around the world.

Now it can be received anywhere in the world except the USA by anyone with a broadband connection.

Matteo Berlucchi, Livestation’s CEO, said Al Jazeera Arabic is an important addition to Livestation’s channel line up.

“We are delighted to welcome Al Jazeera Arabic to Livestation. Recent feedback from our users confirms a strong demand for Arabic news channels. We are also looking forward to working closely with Al Jazeera Arabic to utilise our interactive tools. ” he said.

Al Jazeera English, which was one of the first channels to stream on Livestation, has been pioneering many of the interactive features available through the Livestation service. The live, instant chat is being used by the Riz Khan show to feed comments through to the studio to be used live, on air. Riz Khan says interactivity is key.

“We are finding more and more people want to take part by getting questions or comments to the guests that they see. Livestation is a perfect platform for this, it’s simple to use and allows our viewers to have an instant impact on what is being said by the guests.” he said.

Matteo Berlucchi says the live involvement of the audience is creating a new dynamic in broadcasting. He said it’s all part of Livestation’s ‘Be There Now’ offering, which is starting to influence a change in viewer behaviour.

“It’s all about taking the audience to a place they have never been and enabling them to play a part in how programmes are produced and presented”.

Livestation is available online at www.livestation.com or through its award winning desktop player.

Another cold day with the Flip MinoHD

I took some time today to put the Flip MinoHD through it’s pace… and decided to capture some scenes of my typical work day… minus the work

So I captures a bunch of random video sequences of the view from my office (nice heh!), me waiting for the bus, me in the bus looking out the window… me on my street looking at cars slip sliding in the snow and finally my son walking in the snow with great difficulty!

I took all the footage and made a quick movie that turned out not so bad.  The final quality is much better on my system then what is rendered by Facebook (sorry Vimeo but you only allow 1 HD movie upload a week and I already burned my credit… so facebook it is now… I will need to talk about this in another post).

OK, Facebook it won’t because apparently my video is longer than 2 min and Facebook want me to share my phone # to get more time… err… no!

So youtube it will be!

So enjoy the short movie entirely captured by the MinoHD and produced with iMovie 08.

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• Just received a Flip MinoHD

Just received a Flip MinoHD

Guess what just showed up on my door step today? Snow? Hell yeah! But this is not what I want to talk about.  I received a Flip MinoHD camera!

And boy is it nice.  I have been using my Canon HV20 for the past year and a half and have been happy with it.  But you know, the last time I asked my wife to film my daughter presentation the result was less that stellar… I mean… there was nothing to watch at all!  She could not control the poor thing and ended up not filming much usable.

The first thing she said when I showed her the Flip MinoHD was “give it to me”.  And away she went filming in the house.  When she returned she stated that with this she wold have made a great movie of my daughter instead of the bad one she did before.

The nice thing about the Flip MinoHD is that you can’t go wrong.  Simply press the big red buttn at the back and voila, you are making a movie!

The camera operation is flawless and it is quickly ready to take movie… like 3 seconds from power on to making a movie!  This will be good for these moments that need to be captured in a hurry.

I did make a short test video pitting the Canon HV20 against the Flip MinoHD in a low light condition.  The result?  The mino HD is holding itself quite nicelly.  I would lie if I said that it was as good as the HV20 (known as the king of low light for under 800$) but it did pretty well!  OK, the picture is not as sharp and detailed then the HV20 but between no video (like of my daughter) and some slightly less quality video of the said daughter I will take the Flip MinoHD any day!

Any way, enough for tonight, I need to get some sleep.  I have embeded the comparison clip below:

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• Recent Posts

  • My Dell Mini Apple Netbook, Perfect
  • I Got Myself A New Mac Netbook
  • My experience with Livestation on the iPhone
  • Livestation iPhone app 1st impression
  • Livestation iPhone app won’t install because it could not be verified
  • Former Sony PlayStation Europe CEO Chris Deering Joins Livestation Advisory Board
  • Livestation starting iPhone alpha testing
  • Another Canon HV20 vs Flip MinoHD comparison
  • Al Jazeera Arabic joins Livestation
  • Another cold day with the Flip MinoHD

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