Finally....streaming MY media to my iPad from my WD TV Live!!!

One of the "Holy Grails" of the iPad for me has aways been to be able to view movies I already own to the iPad.  But  the ability to do this has always eluded me.  Like Ford Prefect looking for a S.E.P., I could almost get it to work but not entirely.  

I am using the iPad 2 and the Western Digital TV Live Plus

The issue always came down to one of two things:  either the player couldn't navigate the wireless network correctly, it could navigate to the the fomat couldn't be played on the iPad (.mkv or avi).

In early attempts I was able to browse the wireless and get on the WDTVLIVEPLUS using the File Browser App, so I knew what I was trying to do was possible.  But I was only able to view and stream those media types that iPad could natively, which limited me to .mp4, .m4v, and .mov.  This left me in a rut, since most of my 100+ movies were in .mkv format.  But as I said, at least I knew that it was at least possible to do as the File Browser app let me test the wireless streaming and I knew that part would work.

So I was left with the choices of either converting all those movies to a format that could be played by the iPad, of find another app that could both see the WDTV live box on the wireless network and p[lay the right format.

I tried several apps and finally found one that met both conditions:  GoodPlayer .  GoodPlayer plays AVI, Xvid, Divx, DAT,VOB,FLV,WMV ,MKV,MP4,RM,RMVB, and AC3 file types.

To connect it to my WD box, I simply went to the SMB/CIFS Client and added the IP address of the WDTVLIVEPLUS box.  (One important thing here is to make sure your WD Box has a static IP address on your network.  It will work with a dynamic address, but you'll have too re-add the box everytime the WD Box gets a new address from DHCP.)

Once it was added, the WDTVLIVEPLUS was easily navigatable.  It now gives the choice of, once a file is selected, downloading the file and playing it or "play this URL" which will stream the movie from the WDTVLIVEPLUS attached hard drive to the iPad.

GoodPlayer also allows various other sources such as a UPnP and DLNA Client, WebDAV, and direct streaming from a URL.  The quality of streaming via Wifi ranges between acceptable to what I would consider to be pretty good.  As and oddity, the higher the quality of encoding, the worse it seems to look on the iPad.  I think this is due to the limitations of the data rates of the wifi.

Of course, not being satisfied with getting my movies to stream to just one iPad, I wanted to see if I could stream to two iPads at the same time because you never know when I want to watch TWO movies at the same time.  For those curious, yes, it does work.  Two seperate movies can be watched from two different ipads at the same time.

I have only been using GoodPlayer for a few hours now and already it seems to be a great solution for all the streaming I want to do.  I have only begun to scratch the surface about what this awesome app can do, but at $2.99, it is already paying itself off.

So if you are a WD TV Live user and have wanted to stream to your iPad  

Microsoft. Missing the point.

ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley has uncovered internal documents detailing Microsoft’s master plan to address the success of the iPad.  But the plan reveals a very myopic view of the iPad and what consumer’s want.

In the slide show presentation, Microsoft address some legitimate concerns that enterprise end users (or at least Enterprise IT staffs) may have about deploying the iPad in a corporate environment (such as encryption, compliance, printing, etc.), but severely underestimates the value of the pure functionality of these devices.  In fact, despite the shortcomings that Microsoft has identified, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer has stated that 80% of the Fortune 500 companies are now either actively using the iPad in their environments or running a pilot program with the iPad.

But more glaringly obvious is the entire lack of a Windows slate device running a mobile OS.  Certainly there are devices running Windows 7 tablet version, but that is not the same as a tablet running a mobile OS.  From the information on the slides, it is clear that Microsoft is putting it’s eggs in the Windows 7 basket and hoping that OEMs will focus on building and marketing slate devices running Windows 7.  This is clearly not the same as an iPad which is focused primarily on media consumption.

One laughable point in the PowerPoint slides was Microsoft  saying that one of the benefits of a Windows 7 tablet was that it had full support for Microsoft Office products.  While that is true, it is also true that Microsoft surely hasn’t been tripping over themselves making Microsoft Office Apps for the iPad, either.  With this PowerPoint as the notable exception, Microsoft has barely acknowledged the iPad even exists.

I am saddened by this PowerPoint.  I think if Microsoft were to come out with a decent response to the iPad, it would be good for everyone.  And it’s not that they don’t have the brain trust to do it; they can.  The Xbox and the Kinect were huge responses into the gaming platform arena, where they had no presence before.  No, I feel it is lack of leadership and vision that is holding them back.

Perhaps Bill Gates need to pull a Steve Jobs and come to Microsoft’s rescue.

Galaxy Tab for Enterprise? I don't think so.

This past week I had the privilege of getting a Samsung Galaxy Tab to evaluate for work as an alternative to the Apple iPad.  We have only recently been using the iPad for some of the sales force and it’s been working pretty well.  The two drawbacks that the iPad has for us is that the buggy way it navigates in a Windows domain environment and that the connectivity is dependent on AT&T and their 3G network (Click here to see the latest bunch of AT&T laughable claims).

So I got a Galaxy Tab through U.S. Cellular and to anyone familiar with either an Android phone or an iPad, the basic transition takes all of about five minutes.  I quite literally had mail, contacts, and calendar synchronized with my exchange server within three minutes of opening the box.  So for ease of use, the Galaxy Tab gets high marks.

Before going any further with my short review, I want to say that as one who has drunk the Apple kool-aid, my perspective was certainly a bit jaded from the onset, but I also sincerely wanted to like the Galaxy Tab and hoped it would be a good substitute for the iPad.

The Galaxy Tab’s smaller size still lends itself well to viewing documents and video but is more compact than the iPad and lighter so it travels a bit better.  And the variety of carriers the Tab can use is a huge bonus, especially for a company that is geographically dispersed and has a number of carriers they use.  The Tab I got was normally $599 but the price dropped to $199 through U.S. Cellular with a two-year data contract (clocking in at about $50/month.)  The data contact is capped at 5 GB, which may or may not seem limiting.  In my case, it seems more than enough.  After a week, I have only used 0.2% of the 5 GB.

The Galaxy Tab also allows the use of widgets on the desktop and is far more customizable that the iPad.  The U.S. Cellular version also comes with an app/widget called “Daily Briefing” that allow you to quickly see the weather, news, stock market and schedule in one simple page.  It would be even better if they allowed this widget to be customized a bit more.

The U.S. Cellular version also allows the Galaxy Tab to be used as mobile wi-fi hotspot.  In my limited test, this seemed to work very well with good throughput speeds and easy configuration.

On the down side, the Android platform seems less stable that Apple’s IOS.  The past week I have experienced four complete crashes (with data loss) of the Galaxy Tab and several application crashes.  While app crashes do occur, and with some frequency, on the iPad I don’t think I’ve ever had the entire device crash on me.

Another black mark against the Galaxy Tab is the lack of a method to connect to a Cisco VPN without rooting the OS.  I understand this omission may not be the fault of Google and/or Android, but given the market saturation of the Cisco VPN solution, this seems like a pretty big omission.

A minor issue is the power button, which seems to be at the exact proper location to be accidentally pressed and the Galaxy Tab put to sleep at exactly the wrong moment.  It is also right above the volume switch adding to the frequency that the switch is accidentally pressed.  Quite frustrating, indeed.

The final strike against the Galaxy Tab and the Android platform is that the application that can be downloaded can contain unsafe code.  While I would agree as a consumer that responsibility of knowing what an application does before installing it falls to the user, my position as a network administrator prevents me from recommending and/or implementing the android platform company-wide.  To do so would be equivalent to handing network security over to the end user, which is unacceptable.

As much as I would like to implement both the Galaxy Tab and android phones in my enterprise environment, the risks are to great.

References:

 http://threatcenter.smobilesystems.com/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20008518-245.html

Crud. I’ve gotten lazy.

I was doing so well: getting up early, meditating 3-4 times a week, reading my daily Bible readings and devotionals, playing guitar, exercising 4-5 times a week, and daily prayers. 

And then I started sliding.  It always starts so innocuously.  For me it was easy; I hit the snooze button.  That started me getting up later and skipping meditation.  Then sleeping a little later and running late, so I started skipping the Bible readings and daily devotionals.  The pattern continued and instead of praying I checked my blackberry for work messages.  Lack of focus on my “program” allowed me to start skipping exercise.  As focus continued to slide, I stopped practicing the guitar. 

And here I sit, a huge slug.

I think I am going to slug-out until the new year.  I am taking vacation the last week of the year, so I think I’m just going to relax until then. 

I ran the update (1.5) on my Nook the other day.  I was encouraged when I read what was in the update so I had been very eager to install it.  I waited one day after it was released to see what other users experienced.  With no major complaining and screaming, I proceeded to update it.

On the upside, the page turning was quicker and the “shelves” was nice if unnessecary (in my opinion.)  But the big feature I was really looking forward to, bookmark syching, was woefully underpowered.  It works well enough on app devices (iPad and iPod) but the Nook itself was clunky (at best.)  The most cumbersome aspect was having to turn on the “Auto save page on bn.com” feature for each book.  (This is found by opening the book on the Nook and scrolling down on the touch screen to “preferences” and the last option on that page is “Auto save page on bn.com”)

I was hoping for a smoother, more automatic way of implementing this feature.  Perhaps in a future release they will work to make it that way.

Pandigital Novel - iPad Lite?

…And this just in from the “imitation is the high form of flattery department” (which is right next to the “I’m hoping for a lawsuit department”)…

Pandigital (a company best known for their digital photo frames) has announced a new color eReader.  But is more than just a simple eReader.  This does it all!  The Pandigital Novel 7" Color Multimedia eReader handles apps, music, video, web surfing, email, calendar and more.  And this all comes with a user friendly 7” touch screen.  Sound familiar?

Look familiar?

It comes with a paltry 1 GB internal memory but can be expanded to a respectable 32 GB with a SD card.  With built in Wi-Fi and rechargeable battery (for up to 6 hours of reading time), it operates on the Android platform and has a 600X800 pixel resolution screen, which may turn some people off, but should be okay for an entry-level device.  The screen on the Novel is a matte finish, which some will appreciate as the glossy screen of the iPad was a huge turn-off to some users for reading at length. 

Apps and programs are loaded via USB cable.  It comes stock with the B&N eReader and is available in Black or white.  The best part, IMHO, is the price.  I found if available for about $169.99 to $179.99 (via Google search) and oddly enough (since it doesn’t have the Kindle reader on it) on Amazon.com. 

I think this would make a great middle of the road option for people who just don’t want to plunk $500 on a iPad they aren’t sure they are going to use or just don’t like Apple.

While obviously not as fully functional as the iPad, nor having the breadth of application the iPad does, I think with the right marketing the Pandigital Novel may find a niche.