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I’ve had an Apple TV for quite a while.  It has always worked pretty well, but the new features offered in the “Take 2″ release, have made it that much better.  However, I have some minor issues showing up with this update, that make me hope for  “Take 2.1″ to be released.

First, I have seen my Apple TV lock up.  This never happened to me in version 1, and it has happened twice for me in version 2. I just unplug it, plug it in, it reboots, and I am good.

Second, today for the first time, I had a problem that when I tried to play any video content on the Apple TV, it would just show a white screen.  It acted as though it was playing video (noted by the progress bar on the bottom), but it was only play a white screen with no audio.  This happened with TV shows and movies.  I rebooted it, no luck.  I tried to stream video from iTunes on another computer, no go.

I went to the apple support discussions, and found others having the same issues showing up in Take 2.  Nobody has identified an official solution, but some have contacted Apple about it.

My fix was simple.  I did a factory restore, which takes it back to v1.  I then ran the update to v2 again, and then re-paired to my iTunes library.  All the content is synced again, and working fine.  I am hoping this problem doesn’t reoccur.

It seems as though the number of people starting to see issues in this update are growing.  User beware.

It has been quite a while since I took an old PC, and loaded one of the various “Linux” firewall solutions.  I had been using a Cisco Pix 506E firewall for a very long time, but it finally pooped out on me.  As a stop-gap solution, I hooked my Airport Extreme directly to my cable modem, and worked from there.

While the basic functionality was ok, it lacked some features I wanted.  I wanted to track bandwidth usage, I wanted a decent Intrusion Detection System (IDS), and I wanted better control over port forwarding, etc.  This threw me back into the world of free, linux-based, firewall solutions that run on a PC. Read more…

“Isn’t the iPhone already big?”, you ask.  Well, sort of.  In the smart phone market it is beginning to see a decent percentage and is in second place to Blackberry.  That’s good news, and is a good sign for us early adopters, who from day one hoped that Apple’s first attempt into the cell phone business would pan out.

While the news is good around the iPhone, I dare say it is going to get a lot better (and I don’t say it because I own one).  Read more…

I have been an Aperture user since version 1.0, when things were really rough in the world of Apple’s photo editing.  Since then, each update update has been a welcome improvement over the previous.The last update to version 1.5 made for a fairly solid photo editing / management environment.  At that point, I really did not have any complaints, other than I thought tethered shooting would be a great addition.

However, am just a hobbyist, so it is not a necessity for me. When version 2 was announced, I spent plenty of time pouring over the new features and the new interface.  The new simplified interface is a welcome improvement for maximizing the UI space.  This time around, they also threw in tethered shooting!  I haven yet to use the feature, but fear not, I will be using it very soon (in the next couple weeks).

On top of those changes, I was impressed by the detail recovery in highlights, the new vibrance control, and the detail control.  In the end, the feature that most impressed me was the 2.0 version of RAW.  I have actually gone back and re-worked several photos, just because I wanted to see how the new raw conversion would handle those original images.  I was repeatedly impressed.

All those capabilities have rounded out a really nice improvement to the Aperture software.  It is definitely worth the upgrade.

On Monday, big cellular providers, such as AT&T, will begin the dismantling of their analog services.  Once the state-of-the-art technology, enabling the awesome cellular “bag phones” for us to talk on the go, the analog components of these networks be finally be shut down.While almost all cell phone users have long since replaced those old phones, there are some others services that still rely on these old networks.  Infoworld has an interesting article that gives some details on potential issues that may occur from this shutdown. Good Times.  Read their article here.

Wait, hang on, calm down.  Take your Apple fanboy hat off for a moment and just hear me out.

First, I am a big iTunes, Apple TV, and iPhone user.  I am very much interested in an integrated, digital life.  I have gone through the many hours of ripping about 115 DVD’s to an Apple TV quality resolution.  My wife thought I was crazy, but now that all of our movies are quickly accessible on our HD TV, streamed from an “iTunes Server” of sorts, she never wants to go back.  Simplicity and instant gratification.

That is the future.  That is the fast track that we are on.  DVD’s will be going by the wayside, and even the Bluray/HD-DVD war is really not worth fighting about.  Read more…

I listen to, and watch, many podcasts, TV shows, and radio shows about technology.  Regularly, hosts feel required to throw their hat in the “MP3 Player” ring.  For whatever reason, they take sides, pick a device of choice (iPod, Zune, Sansa, etc.), and try to convince the consumer why that particular one is best for them.

The problem is, they miss the whole picture.  Read more…

It is fairly impossible at this point to not know about the Gear Live videos and discussions about their supposed pre-release version of the next iPhone software update. I have watched those videos, and seen the Q&A portion on their site. It all looks very interesting, and if it is indeed the next version of software for the iPhone, there are some definite welcome additions, like sending SMS messages to multiple recipients.

The “wobbly” icons to signify desktop customization look a little weird.

The thing the makes no sense: How are they able to broadcast this stuff all over the internet without being shut down? Read more…

I have been a fan of iTunes for a long time. I really like how well it works, how well it manages my library, and how the program has steadily improved over time. However, it is not perfect, and frankly, the problems it has do not seem to make any sense. Read more…

I browsed over the many articles in the past few days about the final demise of Netscape, by AOL’s ending support of it. While it is interesting news, most netizens have long since moved on, and are in the land of Firefox or other new browsers. Heck, I wonder how many people really remember Netscape much.

After reading the news, I sat back for a few moments and pondered what the internet was like back in the early 90′s, the days when dialup access was king, Read more…