Tag Archives: AppleTV

Leap Motion + Fleksy is Genius Typing in the Air

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A post showed up on Engadget this morning that caught my eye.

Laser projected virtual keyboards? So 2004. These days, tech firms are dreaming up completely invisible typewriters, or at least Syntellia is. By marrying a Leap Motion sensor with its own Fleksy predictive keyboard, the company has created a system that seems to let you type on thin air

01-LeapMotion-Logo

Yet another crazy-cool thing coming out of SXSW this year. You might say I predicted this. Last week I wrote posts about each of these companies and how I was excited about the work they are doing. I ended my Leap Motion post remarking on the promising future the miniscule device has. I suggested it could read sign language and allow people with arthritis to control computers without the joint pain, to control of a television without a remote.

Fleksy_LogoThen, in my Fleksy post I suggested ways Fleksy could make the move out of touchscreen devices and incorporated into computers. I wrote specifically how it could be used to speed up typing and allow a dramatic increase in accuracy.

But what I neglected to put together was what would happen if Fleksy worked with Leap Motion. Well, turns out they were already thinking about this and have announced Fleksy integration with Leap Motion, and it’s pretty brilliant. Imagine controlling your AppleTV with the Leap Motion, swiping in the air through videos and songs. When it came time to do a search in the Netflix app, you’d have the ability to simply type in the air using Fleksy integration instead of the traditional, and painfully slow, method of input with the AppleTV onscreen keyboard.

I’m not sure if I’m a genius for thinking abstractly of these two ideas or dense for not thinking of combining the two. Either way I’m even more looking forward to the delivery of my Leap Motion. Apple being the silo that it is, we might have to work with some XMBC hackers to get the above integration working but it would be worth it.

Gossip Girl Night

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Micheal came over today for some Gossip Girl and to have dinner and wine.  The idea was Indian and Rieseling but due to the Indian place we like closing a couple of hours early, we were forced to enjoy Bangkok Gardens.  Thanks to Micheal for treating me to dinner, it was yum!

We met this awesome girl named Biaca Sammy Sam Samantha who was eating some Thai at the bar.  She works for a local company as a receptionist and was just about as cute as a button.

She seemed facinated with Micheal and I, of course she would be haha.  Of course, I was probably just as facinated with her.  I love meeting really fun and loving people like Samantha.  Yay!  She actually reminded me of the waitress Ryan and I had last Valentines in Kansas City at the amazing vegetarian restaurant, Eden’s Alley.

Shout out to Samantha!

After picking up the Thai and heading home, we started up the AppleTV and got our Gossip Girl on.  I love how we both agreed on every aspect of the show, the good and the bad.  We found ourselves making the same comments about outfits and plot point at the same time.  Awesome.

I have yoga in the morning with Max and then class and then yoga again and then lunch and then I’m meeting with my photography professor just to chit chat.  Looking forward to that, kinda.

So anyways, a really fun night, sorry I missed out on having a drink with you Karen!  Next time, I promise!  Oh and really looking forward to Saturday.

Night night!

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iTunes 7.7.1 Destoys Library

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Being the Apple fan boy that I am, when iTunes 7.7.1 came out yesterday, I hopped right on it.  Supposedly it fixed some bugs and stability issues.  I installed it through Software Update, went smoothly, usual, blah blah.

Then it started to sync my iPhone 3G.  It reinstalled every application, even those I had requested to not be installed onto the iPhone.

Then it said there were updates for all 24 applications.  I had them download and then install.

First off, let’s complain that iTunes keeps every version of every application, it never just deletes the old buggy ones.  So you end up with 1, 2, 3, 8+ versions of applications.

Oh and it loses them, or at least iTunes 7.7.1 did.  Do you see a problem here?

One hour later, still installing and then it froze.  I restarted the computer, then started the sync again.

Warning, 11 files could not be synced because they could not be found.

Warning, 100 files could not be synced because they could not be found.

Meanwhile, only 600mb+ songs synced out of the previous, um, 12gb of music.

Did a check…  Apparently some 10-90% of my music was moved to my Time Machine, as far as the library was concered.

10-90% because it would only show up if I tried to play or sync them and the vast majority of my synced songs didn’t sync…  So thinking that might extend throughout the Library… yeah…

Not only iTunes 7.7.1 “move” files from my 1tb MyBook external and into my other 1tb MyBook external which is my Time Machine, and not just to there, to inside of email account archives.  WHAT THE F*CK?!

So guess what I get to do?  I get to reload my entire iTunes Library.  Anyone that knows me probably knows that I have quite the iTunes Library of music, movies, television shows, applications, podcasts, games, audiobooks and then some; we are talking over 700gb of data.

Now I have no stats on my music, no play counts, skip counts, ratings…

Now I cannot sync to AppleTV or to my iPods or iPhones because I can’t do smart playlists.  I cannot say pick the newest 5gb, I can’t say choose the Top 1,000 Played, I can’t say pick the Top 5gb Top Rated…

I had stats on over 35,000 songs and over 1,400 television shows and 80 movies…

So now what?  Now I call Apple, first thing in the morning and bitch bitch bitch.

Never have I hated Apple, but this is really getting me close to that point.

Moreover, I have more stuff to bitch about.  iTunes refuses to Sync my Microsoft Exchange accounts from Mail to my iPhone 3G.  It also doesn’t store my iPhone Apps on the proper drive, they go to my Macintosh HD not my iTunes drive.

So much of this could be prevented by iTunes storing song ratings and play counts within the files just as MediaJukebox did.

It’s official, I’m pissed off.

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Mama’s Boy

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Last night, Micheal, Max and I watched the movie, Mama’s Boy starring Diane Keaton who looked absolutely fabulous and Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite).  Perhaps the best part was Jeff Daniels (aka Uncle Joey from Full House) and Laura Knightlinger from the most awesome show, The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman.

It’s a movie about a 29 year old kid living at home with his widowed mother, his attachment to her, his nepotism, and his inability to socialize with others.  Basically, it is about my ex boyfriend Seth.  Seriously though, we really enjoyed the movie.

We all really liked it.  You should rent it, and then let me borrow it so I can rip it.  haha.  We rented it in HD off my AppleTV.  The movie paired with some “cheap” good veggie pizza equals awesome.

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Engadget… Why I Oughta!

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My AppleTV has been acting up… I think it might have something to do with the fact it gets two trillion degrees…  There is a fan in there but damn, that thing gets hot.  I opened it up to replace the hard drive, using Engadget’s directions.

First, let’s look inside

Fan vent along the left, fan on the bottom left, audio/video, ethernet, usb, power inputs on the bottom.  Power supply along the right etc etc, nothing special (cough, this thing is fucking crazing).

Sadly, my upgrading of the measly 40gb drive to a 160gb drive didn’t go so well.  Engadget’s directions didn’t quite work.  Hard to mess up terminal commands…

dd if=/dev/disk1 of=/Users/justex07/AppleTV.img count=1335 bs=1024k

dd if=/Users/justex07/AppleTV.img count=1335 of=/dev/disk1 bs=1024k

2732016  309849759 

gpt add -b 2732016 -i 4 -t hfs /dev/disk1

diskutil eraseVolume “Journaled HFS+” Media /dev/disk1s4

gpt add -b 3141672 -i 4 -t hfs /dev/disk1

Plus a few gpt commands…  Well, no go.  Put the old drive in and it works well enough.  I’m just going to go the lame-oh way and have a kit shipped to be, pre-formatted hard drive.  Thanks Weaknees.com.

The thing is… After you get all of the tools, the Weaknees’s deal is as cheap or cheaper than doing it totally ourself.  Who knew?!

Whuzzah?

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I’m all over iTunes, since the AppleTV my iTunes spending has been out of order… But I don’t pay a cable bill so it’s actually just about right and I get to keep the shows forever and watch them nearly anywhere.

So when a new show on ABC came out, I was all about getting the pilot episode.  They typically are good about their one hour shows.  The show is called Eli Stone and I really liked it.  Of course… I also really liked The Bucket List.  A lot.

Then I got to thinking, mind you I didn’t have to think too hard about this one… These two productions sure do seem similar.

  1. They are based around a character who spends a good deal of time in front of a court.
  2. Eli Stone is bisyllabic and then monosylabic as is Edward Cole
  3. Main characters names both start with E’s
  4. Both main characters are wealthy
  5. The both have brain phenomena (not the good kind)
  6. They are both dying (spoiler)
  7. They are both on a voyage to find themselves
  8. They both climb a fucking freezing mountain
  9. The Kicker?  They both carry someone’s ashes to the top of that fucking freezing mountain in a can of Chock Full o’Nuts Coffee can

It’s really quite ridiculous how similar they are, I could go one but I’ll be late for work if I do.

Don’t let this discount the tv show, it is pretty great.  I got all teary eyed all over again, it’s like watching the movie (The Bucket List) but without the theater, expensive tickets and jerks in the back kicking your seat.

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Need Ta…

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So I need to start doing some things…

  • study french for tuesday’s mid-term
  • study india gender class and cast for thursday’s mid-term
  • reconsider working so many jobs
  • get laundry done
  • setup a budget
  • remember that rent is due on the 1st not just some random time of the month…
  • move the car so you don’t get yet another ticket you’re not going to pay
  • reconsider iTunes are you largest monthly expense
  • put that money you took out of your saves, back
  • get some free time so you can start photography again

In no particular order except those first two…

I’m not too proud to say that I preordered the new Matchbox Twenty cd. I haven’t really listened to it so much yet, but I’m sure it’s pretty good. What’s really good, awesome actually, are all the music videos bundled with the purchase. I’m pretty sure I have all of their music videos, or at least all that matter. Say what you like about Rob Thomas and Matchbox Twenty; they made some great music videos. I’m watching them all as I type this. What a great thing, music videos on demand, thank you AppleTV.