apple

Ripping Movies from Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and DVD, Getting them onto Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, etc.

DVD to iPhone Apple TV and iPad - Ripping

Note: The guide below still applies, but you can now rip and convert Blu-Ray movies directly in Handbrake if you download MakeMKV (don't even need to run it) then run the following commands in Terminal.app: cd ~ mkdir -p ~/lib ln -s /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/lib/libmmbd.dylib ~/lib/libaacs.dylib ln -s /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/lib/libmmbd.dylib ~/lib/libbdplus.dylib Also note that iDentify is no longer maintained; I usually use the free MetaZ application to edit metadata before importing into iTunes nowadays.

For many years, I've been in search of the 'digital nirvana,' where all my videos, songs, and photos were accessible on any device, anywhere, at any time, without having to do a complicated digital dance with wires and different sychronization tools.

New Apple Store at the St. Louis Galleria

After having visited New York's four very large and unique Apple Stores, coming back and visiting the St. Louis Galleria Apple Store was somewhat of a letdown. The store has been reported to be the world's smallest mall Apple Store, and it was quite apparent upon entering.

The Galleria Store was known for being incredibly cramped, and one would often see many Apple employees training Mac users in the common areas around the Mall. One was lucky to be able to grab an Apple employee to simply make a quick purchase within 5 minutes of entering the store!

No more.

Apple Store Galleria - opening day

Now, the Apple Store inside the St. Louis Galleria is likely one of the largest, if not THE largest, Apple Stores in a mall, in the world.

New Article/DIY Guide Posted: How to repair your Intel iMac

Over in the Articles section, I posted a detailed tutorial/guide on how to replace the hard drive inside a 24" Intel iMac with an aluminum enclosure (the process is similar on other aluminum iMacs). It's a rather intricate process, so in addition to a few illustrations, I posted a video of the process on YouTube (it's embedded in the article as well!).

Intel iMac Teardown and Hard Drive Replacement - DIY/Guide

Have fun repairing your iMac! (Please be sure to leave comments on the guide post, and not here).

Intel iMac Teardown and Hard Drive Replacement - DIY/How-to Guide

FSCK -y didn't help.
Yeah... that was a no-go.

My iMac's hard drive was recently borked (I was getting node errors and i/o errors when I ran fsck in single-user mode, and I couldn't format and reinstall OS X), so I had to replace it. Rather than spend a few hundred dollars to get the drive replaced, or using an external FireWire drive to boot the iMac, I decided to replace the drive with a larger/faster model myself.

iMac - Guts Exposed
The 24" iMac is large. VERY large. I can't imagine repairing the 27"!!

I used the instructions found on the Amfiteatar website to compile my more condensed instructions here. I won't go into any gory details of hard drive types, speeds, recommendations, etc. I'll simply inform you of my decision to use a 1 TB WD Caviar Black drive (7200 rpm, 32 MB cache). I don't need a ton of storage space on the internal drive, as I have multiple externals for different uses.

Posts on Video and Audio Recording with iPhone and iPod Touch

If you've glanced over on my 'Articles' page lately, you'll no doubt notice my recent love affair (just kidding!) with the iPhone 4's audio and video recording capabilities. This blog post will offer a nice summary of all my blog posts and articles about A/V production on the iPhone (and, by extension, the new iPod Touch that was just announced today):

Four Apple Stores in NY in Two Days

It is said that, during a jubilee year, one would receive a plenary indulgence by visiting all four major basilicas in Rome (nowadays, it seems you only have to visit one of them—pfft!).

During this Apple Jubilee of 2010, I have visited all four of the Major Apple Stores in New York City (my total Apple Store visit count is about 25 now) in two days... I didn't buy anything, so I might've missed one of the conditions of the plenary Apple-dulgence, but I did get my photo taken by an Apple employee!

Apple Store - Upper West Side

Entering into the Upper West Side Apple Store feels like entering a major train terminal or union station; the space is HUGE, with a ton of vertical space. It was fairly chilly inside, and I wonder how much money they spend on air conditioning and heating the place!

Apple Store Upper West Side
(Eek! Not very flattering, I know)...

Steve Jobs on "Freedom from Porn" [Updated]

[UPDATE: Looks like LifeSiteNews is corroborating this news...]

Interesting snippet from an email exchange between Steve Jobs and Ryan Tate (from Gawker Media):

Steve Jobs on pornography

While Steve and I might not agree on many things, his (well, Apple's) philosophy on porn has been pretty awesome so far: they'll have none of it... or at least almost.

The App store is happily void of the smut that covers all corners of the Internet. And Apple's OS X, iPhone, iTunes Store, etc. all have relatively robust Parental Controls as compared to most other devices/services. Apple could do better, but I think Steve might be pretty solid in his stance that pornography is not a good thing for 'freedom' and 'openness.' Rather, it's a crime against human sexuality.

New MobileMe Mail Features - Server-Side Rules!!

The day has finally come for cloud-based rules in the MobileMe world :-)

I have been an iTools -> .Mac -> MobileMe user through the whole ride (starting the day after iTools was open for new users), and the service has had me wanting to leave for some time... and I still might in a year or two. However, server-side mail sorting rules (along with other new features of the online webmail client) are a huge boon for me:

Rules to keep your email organized everywhere. Mail rules help you reduce inbox clutter by automatically filing messages into folders you select ahead of time. Set them up at me.com, and your rules organize your incoming email on the web and everywhere else — on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC.

One of the most annoying things about using my iPad as a laptop replacement is the fact that rules aren't applied to my emails. I get about 100-150 emails a day, and about 50 of them are sorted by rules (into archival folders, routed to the trash, etc.), and I don't want them marked as Junk.