#“Our House Media Sharing Setup” I was asked on Facebook the other day what our media sharing setup was in the house. So I did a diagram. The core machine is a pretty low-end self-build PC but with a kick-ass 512MB Video Card with HDMI output. It has all our movies and TV on 2.5TB of storage and then all the other machines in the house access that media over Wifi or Gigabit LAN. »
#“How to browse Windows 7 shares from Ubuntu when it suddenly stops working” We share out a lot of our home media from a Windows 7 desktop. That media is streamed to a variety Windows PCs, Kid's Ubuntu PCs/Laptops and XBMC-based XBoxes. Recently we were suddenly unable to access the shares from Ubuntu or XBMC but all was still fine from the Windows PCs. And those PCs had no problem sharing to Ubuntu/XMBC. »
#“Could UberCab work in Ireland?” UberCab contracts with black car services mostly Towncars and Escalades. Theres a lot of unused inventory in those businesses and they are happy to work with someone who eats up that inventory. As a user you download an iPhone app (I have it on my iPad) and add your credit card information (thats the last time you ever have to deal with that). When you want a car to pick you up you hit a button. »
#“Another reason to love Boxee on your TV” Today were adding the foundations of a new Movie Library to complement the TV Show Library. This new Movie Library includes thousands of films from four great launch partners: EZTakes, Indie Movies Online, MUBI* and Openfilm. Most of these movies are available for free (supported by ads). Explore each services catalogue using the filter by provider option on the Movie Library sidebar. via blog. »
#“Getting OpenVPN working on Android” There are many uses for a VPN and they are generally very easy to setup on desktop computers. The experience with phones can be variable. iPhone is a doddle but Android is a horror (see my last post). The built-in PPTN VPN is utterly broken and does not work over 3G at all or for more than a few minutes on Wifi. The steps to get an alternative working on a HTC Desire are as follows: »
#“Android not suitable for the Enterprise?” I'm been trying and failing to get two features working on Android over the weekend: VPN and Proxy. A ton of googling revealed that both are utterly broken and have been since V1.0 of Android. Whilst my use-case is trivial (getting Facebook Places working outside of the US), the much bigger use case is a much bigger deal: the Enterprise. I have read tons of posts with people pulling their hair out as they either cannot get these features working or can't get them working reliably. »
#“Facebook Places is a Total Winner” I've been saying it for months, but Social Check-in will be owned by Facebook and Google. Startups that didn't take M&A offers from them are completely deluded. This is not a "we could be the next Twitter" scenario. Now that I've seen Facebook Places in action, I believe that even more I finally managed to get Places working by saying I was in Palo Alto and connecting to http://touch. »
#“Very quick thoughts on Facebook Places” U.S. Only to start with. GrrrrrrrrrrMobile-Web-based for most which is fineiPhone before Android. Grrrrrr.Facebook Pages are not the sames as Places Pages. That's a bit odd. Surely the intersection of a Page's Fans (or Likers or whatever they are called now) and people who check-in is really powerful? Or is it that you have one Starbucks Page but you need 400,000 Starbucks Places Pages? Which makes sense I guess. »
#“The Next Big Battle: Google Places vs Facebook Fan Pages” Facebook's upgrade of the Notes feature this week set me thinking. I asked the simple question if this is another step towards Facebook being "your web-page". First they had to open everything up, now you have permanent pages with your thoughts and simple formatting is allowed. What if they were indexable? What if you had a custom domain for your entire Profile? »
#“Super-Smart Use of Android Portable Hotspot from 11 y/o Son” When I upgraded to the HTC Desire, I gave my old G1 to my eldest son. We try to keep it up-to-date and it is currently running the Cyanogen version of Android 2.2 Froyo. One problem he ran into is that he is on a PAYG O2 SIM and relies on the indulgence of his Grandparents and Aunties/Uncles for call credit. »