AppleInsider is reporting that Apple has released an update for the Apple TV. The new update allows streaming via AirTunes and the ability to learn and use other remotes. For more information on the changes, check out the release notes.
Monthly Archives: November 2008
New Xbox 360 Experiance Released
Yesterday afternoon Microsoft released the much discussed Xbox 360 fall update which contained a major overhaul to the Xbox 360 dashboard. Dubbed Xbox Experience (or NXE), the new dashboard operates much faster, but takes some adjusting as it is drastically different.
With the new update users now have the ability to create cartoony “avatars” (very similar to Miis on the Nintendo Mii). Hopefully they’ll be some more customization options added later on (and hopefully they wont cost MS points).
Probably the biggest thing is the addition of Netflix. That’s right, you can now stream movies from Netflix to your Xbox 360, provided of course that you have a Netflix membership. This might just cause me to renew my membership. 
One last thing that I’m happy to see is that you can now “install” Xbox 360 games to the hard drive. I’ve not tried it out yet, but it’ll be nice to not have to swap out disk to play games.
On the downside, since updating to the NXE I’ve had some major problems with my system just freezing up. Granted, I did just get my system back from Microsoft after a RRoD so this may be pure concidence. However, some folks over at Neowin are also reporting freezing during games or while on the dashboard. Anyone else having problems?
Feel free to friend me on Xbox Live. As you’d probably expect, I use the gamertag “d3bruts1d“. 
I Love Delicious Library
There are a lot of things that I love about my Mac. It’s a whole new world, full of new software and applications. One of the apps that I absolutely love is Delicious Library. I don’t recall how I came to find out about this, but I’m glad that I did.
Delicious Library does two things, it keeps an inventory of everything you have and helps manage items that have been loaned out to someone. Before this I attempted to keep a list of DVD’s I owned in a spreadsheet. That didn’t exactly work to well. And last December when my home was broken into and most of my video games were stolen, I didn’t have a comprehensive list of what video games I had. That made it incredibly hard to provide a list to insurance or the police.
Another nice thing about DL is that it can even publish your library to an FTP site so you can show it off to your friends, or just have a backup copy in case something happens to your Mac. Check mine out, you know you want to. – I still need to add a number of books that Celtica and I own.
When you buy DL, you have the option to fork over $215 for (what I’m sure is a nice) bar code scanner or you can take a cheaper route and buy one off EBay. I got a USB Scanner for $30 or so, and another $20 for the USB cable. It works great. If you have an iMac or MacBook with a built in iSight, then no worries you can simply use that. Trust me, you’ll want a bar code reader if you have any kind of non-iTunes library. Yes, it’ll even track stuff you have in iTunes.
If you clicked the link earlier and saw my (well, mine and the wife’s) library then you see I’ve got movies (which is really DVD’s), video games, and books. That’s just what I selected to publish, you can also track just about anything else as well. Tools, toys, clothing, guns, gadgets, software, and more.
While the desktop portion of the app works fantastic, the export/publish leaves much to be desired. It’s very basic, and gives you two “themes” to select from when you publish. The published version has no search option, which sucks if you have a large library. It also has some problems from browser to browser, which hopefully will be fixed down the road. Sadly, there is also no method to customize the files, unless you chose to do it externally, which I’ve done a little bit to my published library.
For the desktop app, I’d have to give it a strong 10/10. For the publishing part, it wouldn’t score above a 5. I’d love to see some major work done the external part, maybe even a WordPress plugin. And I’ve already begun listing my ideas and feedback on GetSatisfaction.com.
Movies & Digital Copies
This certainly nothing new, but it was “new” to me. Today when I purchased Star Wars: The Clone Wars it had a nice little sticker on it that said it included a digital copy. I don’t know if any of the other movies in my library included this, and if they did and I didn’t get the digital copy, well I’m an idiot.
For those of you that don’t know the digital copies can be downloaded to your PC or Mac, and even transferred to your iPod. And it’s free with the DVD purchase. Not bad, you get two for the price of one.
How painful was the process? That’s the thing, it wasn’t. I simply put the “digital copy / bonus disk” into my Mac, opened up iTunes, and input the redemption code that came with the DVD. iTunes downloaded the movie, and now I have a digital copy… just like that. There is a similar process for PC+iTunes or PC+WMP.
Yes, I’m still one that buys physical media. Usually I’ll go for the Limited Edition or Special Edition copies first. After this, I’ll be looking to buy more movies with digital copies.
Vantage Point
With 88 Minutes having already wasted a few hours of my life, I didn’t think I’d be able to pick a worse movie, so I browsed through the Comcast OnDemand listing again and came to Vantage Point.
Not only did this movie suck, it’s gimmick did not work at all, in fact I think it was absolutely annoying. You basically get to re-watch the first 20-ish minutes of the movie three or four times, each from a different “vantage point”.
You get the same movie, without the annoying “rewind” if you start your movie about half way in.