I have been using Airdrop, the new  zero configuration peer to peer transfer that was introduced in Lion. Unfortunately it was only available if both macs were using wifi to connect to the network. In my case my desktop iMac connects wired and my laptop connects via wifi. I found the fix via a terminal command to turn on Airdrop for wired connections.

Enable AirDrop Over Ethernet & AirDrop On Unsupported Macs Running OS X 10.7.

How to convert a large MKV files to Quicktime format using Handbrake

Introduction

Blu-ray movie titles and video from a hi-def video recorder are in an MKV format. Many consumers would like to view these on either and Apple TV or an iOS device. This viewing will require quicktime compatibility. Handbrake is an excellent tool for any type of video conversion. In my opinion a must for anyone converting video.

Problem

When converting full length Blu-ray titles the final Quicktime movie does not play. After some poking around I found out that Quicktime files originally had a 4GB file size limit.

Solution

Make sure you have the correct parameters selected when encoding in Handbrake:

1. Choose Regular->High Profile preset to maintain the highest quality.
2. Make Sure you are in MP4 format to maintain compatibility with iDevices.
3. Check the “Large file size” box in the output settings – this will overcome the 4GB file size limit.

You should now be able to play your hi-def video.

Crashplan keeps crashing?

I use Crashplan for backup. It is my current favorite for online could backup. More about that in my recent blog post about backups.

As much as I love crashplan it has been hanging with an error “Unable to connect to backup destination” lately. I poked around with google and it seemed to suggest an issue with Java not being able to access enough memory. Because I could not find the fix for a Mac I created a tech support ticket with Crashplan . They did get back to me and walked me though the following solution. Hopefully this can help others.

Steps

1. Launch a terminal window

2. Shutdown the crash plan daemon. You will be asked for your admin password. Go ahead and enter it here.

   sudo launchctl unload /library/launchdaemons/com.crashplan.engine.plist

3. Now edit the plist file using the Unix Nano editor

   sudo nano /library/launchdaemons/com.crashplan.engine.plist

4. Find Xmx512m and change it to Xmx1024m. This will allocate 1024mb of memory instead of the default 512mb

5. Save the file by Ctrl-O

6. Exit Nano by using Ctrl-X

7. Relaunch the Crashplan daemon (corrected Apr 19th 2012)

   sudo launchctl load /library/launchdaemons/com.crashplan.engine.plist

This should fix the problem.

Backup

Over the years I have had more than my share of hard drive failures. As more and more of our lives are in the form of digital photos and videos, a dead drive without backups creates a lot of frustration and lost memories.

Fortunately I have not had any significant data loss in over ten years. Though early on I remember spending whole weekends trying to recover files and those were the days when I just had 1–2 GB of data. Over the years I have learnt a lot about backup and recovery. Here are some of my notes:

[Read the rest of this entry...]

My lytro came today

Just got my lytro camera today. For those who don’t know what a lytro is, it is a light field camera. Light field is a concept of going beyond traditional cameras that capture images in a two dimensional plane but a light field camera will capture the light in three dimensions. See lytro for more information.

Unboxing

Here are a few pictures of the unboxing.
The obvious apple packaging influence is noticeable. Simplistic yet elegant packaging that is thought out and clear. No impossible to open blister packs here.

First impression

The camera is a very unconventional rectangular tube with a fixed aperture f/2 lens on one and and a touch screen on the other end. The interface is very applesque (I think that is a word) simple and elegant without any unnecessary menus it buttons.
The device feels solid and has the right size and weight to it.
The LCD screen could have been better it does seem a bit grainy.
The camera does not have a flash or a tripod screw. Two things most conventional cameras have.
The Lytro plugs into a computer via USB and the desktop software automatically loads on to the computer from the Lytro. No CD-ROM or download from a website. This is something I wish all devices would do.
Once installed it backs up and downloads your pictures to the hard drive.
With built in Facebook integration; sharing pictures is a click away.

Though a well executed product both in tea of hardware and software it does have some aspects that seem version 1.0 (which it is)

Quick review of MotionX GPS Drive

Motion-X Drive is an iOS based app to replace your in car GPS. This little app is a full featured replacement for any in car GPS. [Read the rest of this entry...]

So the next generation iPhone called the iPhone 4S was formally announced today. In my opinion the most important new feature is the integration of Siri voice recognition throughout the system.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

My favorite cloud based backup service Crashplan, now has an iPhone app (who doesn’t?). Now all your backed up files can be accessed on your iOS device.

More notes on backup

Access files on the go with new CrashPlan apps | Utilities | Macworld.

More control of your geotagging

I like to geotag photos for public viewing. Geotagging is the process of embedding GPS information about the location that the photo was taken into the photo file. Sounds complicated, but most camera phones can do this automatically. Why is this helpful? Well it provides others with meaningful information on the location that the photograph was shot. Plus years later it helps me remember more about the shot. Most of the photos on my Flickr page have geolocation (geotag) information in them.

But there are times where I want to not reveal the location of the photo on a public level. This new but probably long over due feature now added to Flickr gives much needed control over that. With it you can designate a private geolocation region called a geofence . Photos that are within the geofence will have their location information suppressed to the public and revealed to only those friends and family that are on the list. No more need to change location privacy settings on a photo by photo basis. I can now geotag with confidence.

Good job Flickr!

For more information see “Introducing geofences on Flickr! « Flickr Blog“.

Introduction

I have been tinkering with network audio. So far I had been just streaming The audio around the home but now I want to actually move it for higher bitrate conversion. The goal is to play high bit rate files on a laptop for local DAC. Thereby preserving the highest quality of music till the last step in the chain (more on this in a future post). To achieve this I needed to “see” my main iTunes library that is on my basement desktop on the MacBook Pro upstairs. At first this seems like a no brainer iTunes-> Advanced-> Home Sharing should solve the problem. In reality this proved to be harder than I initially though..

[Read the rest of this entry...]