From: www.attackr.com JeremyD  In March, Apple released the much anticipated Apple TV, which allows you to stream media files from your computer and view them on your television (along with several other features). If you don’t want to stream, you can also store the media files on the unit’s hard drive. The current price of the unit (which can be seen here) is $300. If you find that price to be a little high, but still want to be able to view your videos or listen to your music, this article is for you. To demonstrate what I’ve done, I filmed me setting it up. You watch the video if you want. Basically what I did was take a composite video cable. I’m not exactly sure what kind of video cable it is (other than that its composite), so I can’t really help you out on finding one. I can, however, offer you a picture of it.

I simply plug one end of the cable into the headphones port on my iPod and the other end (which is composite) into my TV. Plugging the composite video into your TV can be a little confusing, because you can’t plug it in like you normally do.

This diagram (click that) helps explain what cables go where in your TV. Basically, the plugs on your TV will be in this order: Red, White, Yellow. Plug the cables in this order: Yellow, White, Red. If that makes no sense to you at all….definitely check out the diagram I made. Now you’ve got the cable set up. Woo hoo go you.

Now you need to set your iPod up. Don’t worry, this doesn’t involve hacking your iPod and it won’t void your warranty. From the main screen of your iPod, go to Video. From there, go to Video Settings. Scroll to “TV Out” and make it “Ask” instead of “Off”.

Now scroll down to TV Signal and make sure its “NTSC” if you live in North America/Japan or “PAL” if you live anywhere else. If you’re not sure what setting it should be, check this out.

So after you’ve got your iPod set up, back out to Video menu and go pick a video to watch. I chose an episode of Invader Zim (as you may or may not have seen in the video I linked earlier in the article).

Before the video starts, it’ll prompt you to select either “TV On” or “TV Off”. Obviously we want “TV On”. Now turn on your TV and go to wherever you go when you use your video games, VCR, etc. (usually theres an input or game button on your remote. Hit that.)

You are now enjoying your ipod videos for free on your TV.

via  http://blogs.digitalmediaonlineinc.com/howtoripdvd/entry/20080408

iMuffs headphones from Wi-Gear improve sound, work wirelessly with most iPods

In the world of iPod accessories—4,000-plus and counting—the ones worth the money are those that improve the listening experience. I have two for you today, one that will be great when the bugs are worked out and a pair of headphones that makes iPod portability even better.

Let’s start with the almost-there product. “Almost” because it worked with some iPods I tested, but not all. I often won’t write about a product proving unreliable, but I really like what this does and, more importantly, I believe that the people building it will soon get it right.

It’s called miShare, and the simple, rectangular gadget is smaller than a standard iPod but bigger than the redesigned Nano (affectionately dubbed the “fatty”). At both ends there is a 30-pin adapter to connect two iPods to transfer songs from one to another.

And it works, mostly.

Plug an iPod with the music to share into the source end. Let’s call this the “pitcher.” (Hey, baseball season is here!) At the other end, plug into the “catcher” iPod to receive the music.

Unfortunately, my 80-gigabyte iPod did not work as a catcher. But as a pitcher, it sent songs to my fatty. With the fatty, I was able to share music—as a pitcher and catcher—with a colleague’s iPod.

That’s why I love this little gadget. It’s designed to swap music between friends, so you can share iPod playlists and tips on new artists. This is very convenient and fast; songs move over in seconds.

There are a few reasons why I had trouble with some iPods.

First, it will not work with the Touch and the iPhone, yet.

Second, the catcher iPod must be in “manual” update mode. When you plug your iPod into a computer to sync it, the default setting is for automatic updates, but it is easy to switch to manual. In manual, whenever you add music, movies or photos to your computer and want it on the iPod, you instruct the iPod to pick up that content.

But changing this setting on my 80 gb iPod didn’t fix my problem.

Third, the miShare developers—two guys working from a Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment—are working out some bugs. My big iPod, for instance, has too much data on it, causing transfer problems. But the fatty, which can hold up to 8 gb worth of content, did not have that issue.

This issue and some others—you can share video and photos too, but not seamlessly—will be addressed in a software upgrade set for release in a few weeks, said co-founder Nathaniel Wice. He called my issue an “intermittent problem” related to the iTunes database.

Another update will follow to address compatibility issues with the Touch and iPhone.

Wice called the development of miShare, which runs on the open-source Linux platform, a “constant” work in progress. “Designing something that’s easy to use is a process.”

When it works, it is easy to use. The device has one function button. Just make an “on-the-go” music playlist on the iPod and press the function button. The songs move over.

But not all songs. To address the obvious legal issues of sharing music between iPods, songs protected by digital rights management software—primarily those bought at Apple’s iTunes store—won’t play on the catcher iPod.

Some people might question the ability to share music so freely, but this is a legal device designed for one-to-one sharing. It’s not a piece of file-sharing software where thousands of people can get a copy of a song.

Despite the early flaws, I recommend miShare. It will only improve, and the software on the device can be upgraded so you won’t have to buy another. It is sold for $100 at www.miShare.com, and discussions are under way with a major brick-and-mortar retailer, Wice said.

A sound enhancement

Regular readers know I often recommend iPod buyers improve the sound with new headphones.

The iMuffs do that plus provide a great wireless connection via Bluetooth. They are made by Wi-Gear and can be bought on the firm’s site, Wi-Gear.com.

The model I tested sold for $150 and paired easily and quickly with each iPod I tested, except one, the iPod Touch. Wi-Gear has introduced a new model, the $180 MB210, which works with the Touch.

I also tested the iMuffs on a TV-playing phone, the Verizon Voyager, and was quite pleased that I could watch live games from the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament while listening with the iMuffs. Beautiful.

So, yes, these work with music-playing phones, except the iPhone. That’s Apple’s fault because it didn’t include a profile in that music phone for stereo Bluetooth headphones.

You might think the price for these headphones is high, but the iMuffs ship with a Bluetooth adapter for the iPod. That’s usually a $40 item sold separately.

Via  http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-mon-tech-buzz-ipod-mishare-imar31,0,7036862.story

Today was my weekly Team in Training run — I’m training for and planning to run a marathon to raise money for blood cancer research — and 6.61 miles into the run, my iPod Nano froze on me for the first time in the month that I’ve had it (yes, it let me down after I raved about it in my last post). I was really upset that I was not only going to lose my run data, but that I wouldn’t get the mileage credit for the Articulate miles challenge. I ended up doing another 2+ miles for a total of 8.78 miles.

So on my drive home from the run, aside from being bummed, I started thinking about how to fix this. I thought that there had to be some way to hack into the iPod to recover my lost run data — or at least simulate the run based on similar run data.

Sure enough, I was right: My run data was lost during the iPod crash, but I was given the opportunity to tackle a fun technology challenge.

I got home and started doing some Google searches to research the topic before I just started digging into my iPod’s hard drive. I found a couple resources with the info I needed — “MadeUpName’s” method outlined on runpl.us and WalkBlogRun’s method here — and pieced together my own approach that did the trick beautifully.

Here’s how I did it — proceed with caution and at your own risk to your data and software:

The Setup

Hacking your iPod’s run data requires that you create and edit XML files, so before you can do that, you need to confirm two things (both were already the case for me):

1. Make sure iPod is set to be a disk (check the Enable disk use box on your iPod Summary tab in iTunes).
2. Make sure you can see hidden system files & folders in Windows (XP how-to | Vista how-to).

The Backup

As is the case whenever you’re editing pretty much anything — especially files that help drive your iPod and iTunes software — always make a backup first since you never know what might happen:

1. Connect your iPod to your computer.
2. Navigate to this path (yours may vary):
   G:\iPod_Control\Device\Trainer\Workouts\Empeds\<unique ID>
3. Copy the entire contents of that folder to your hard drive (2 folders — latest and synched, and 5 files — best, calibration, settings.plist, lastWorkout.xml, and preferences.xml).

The Hack

Now that you’ve backed up the key files, you’re ready to get down ‘n dirty. It just so happened that, in my case, the run I did today was the same run I did a couple weeks ago (February 16) in terms of location, mileage, and rough pace. So that made copying the run data fairly easy. Along with that, I also wanted to ensure my last workout and workout summary data were correct.

So there are 3 things you need to do:

1. Create or copy your new run data (the XML file named after the date & completion time of your run — e.g., 2008-03-02 08;14;25.xml — that’ll begin with the <sportsData> tag inside the file) to your latest folder.
2. Update your lastWorkout.xml file.
3. Update your preferences.xml file.

Those last two files are used to display your run summary data in both iTunes and in your iPod. Here’s what the screen with that info looks like in iTunes:

So here’s what I did for each of the above steps:

1. Copying run data.

The first thing I needed to do was to re-create today’s lost run data file by duplicating the data for the last time I did the run and update it with today’s date:

• Opened the synched folder and located the data file for the last time I did this run (2008-02-16 08;14;25.xml).
• Copied 2008-02-16 08;14;25.xml to my desktop.
• Opened 2008-02-16 08;14;25.xml with Notepad.
• Located the two references to the date & time of the run — in the <time> and <startTime> tags — and changed the values to today’s date (run start time was the same today and last time I did the run):

Note: I left all other run data the same in my run data file, but you’ll see that you can update all kinds of data to match your estimated values for your run, including these:

• <duration>
• <distance> (in both km and miles)
• <calories>
• <pace>

You’ll also notice in the middle of your run data file that your iPod records your run distance every 10 seconds. Pretty cool stuff.

2. Updating lastWorkout.xml.

Next, I needed to copy key portions of today’s run data to the lastWorkout.xml file, so here’s what I did:

• Opened up both 2008-03-02 08;14;25.xml and lastWorkout.xml in Notepad.
• In my run data file, copied from the beginning of the <time> tag to the end of the <lifetime> tag; this includes all the relevant data you need to paste into lastWorkout.xml.
• Pasted this data into lastWorkout.xml, overwriting the existing values, of course.
• Saved lastWorkout.xml.

3. Updating preferences.xml.

Finally, I needed to do some basic math to update my total run data to reflect today’s run:

• Opened both 2008-03-02 08;14;25.xml and preferences.xml in Notepad.
• Incremented my <TotalWorkouts> value by 1 (from 11 to 12).
• Updated the <TotalCalories> value by adding the <calories> value from today’s new run data file.
• Updated the <TotalSeconds> value by taking the <duration> value from my run data file, minus the last 3 digits since your run data files measure to the thousandth of a second (in my case, the <duration> value was 4236763, so I took 4236 and added it to 30529 to get 34765, which, when converted to hours, checks out to be my correct total: 9.6 hours).
• Updated the <TotalDistanceMiles> to include today’s mileage.
• Updated the <TotalWeightWorkouts> value to 12.
• Left everything else — like <FarthestMile> and <TotalMarathon> — the same since my longest distance still stands at 10.02 miles (last Sunday) and since I haven’t yet run a marathon.
• Saved the file.

So that’s it! You’re done with the hard part.

The Confirmation

The only thing left to do is to confirm that your hacks worked as expected (you did back up your original files, right?). Here’s what I did to confirm:

1. In iTunes, ejected my iPod.
2. Unplugged my iPod and went to the Nike+ screen to confirm my latest run and new totals were reflected.*
3. Plugged my iPod back into my computer & confirmed latest run & summary data were reflected.
4. Synchronized my data and uploaded the run to my Nike+ site (I had to login to my nikeplus site again).

* At first, my summary data was showing up in iTunes, but not in my iPod, so I did a force reset using the method suggested by Apple, and after that, the new summary data appeared as expected.

Success! I learned a fun hack and can now rest assured that my run data — at least the mileage totals — remains (mostly) accurate.

Have fun and remember: If you use this method to fabricate run data, you’re cheating no one but yourself.

via http://gabeanderson.com/2008/03/02/how-to-hack-your-nano-nike-run-data-when-ipod-freezes/

YamiPod v1.7 available

YamiPod is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod under Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation. Take a look at the feature list to find out what it can do and feel free to suggest anything that might be missing.

Via  http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/home/

Mac users who are into Photography may be pleased to find out that Apple is giving out a free trial of the latest version of its post-production photography software, Aperture 2. Surprisingly enough, the free trial is fully functional with all features available for the user, although it will be (sadly) limited to only 30 days.Interested Mac users need to fill out a form and agree to Apple’s terms and conditions, and Apple will email a serial number to activate the Aperture 2 trial. Also, while the trial version lets the users gain full access, it cannot be updated. Still, its not a bad deal for a good, lengthy 30-day trial period.

Take note, however, that if you currently have Aperture (the previous version) installed in your Mac, you need to rename the folder or move it to another location before you install Aperture 2 to avoid any installation problems. Got it so far? If so, then you may want to head over to the Via link and download the application!

So many videos on this popular video-sharing site, YouTube.com, displays its videos embedded in a Flash player, but no way to save them to your had drive. Know any tricks?

Luckily, I found a tool that helps you do just that - PQ FLV Downloader. Once installed, it will appear at the right corner of your desktop, and it will auto detect any flash video URL from your browser. When open a YouTube page, it will show “Video detected, click to download”, then just click the “start” button to download and save it to your hard drive.

So easy, isn’t it?

PS: While downloading you can watch it at the same time

Download this software here:

http://www.pqdvd.com/download/flvdownloader.exe