Monthly Archives: December 2010

Invelos DVD Profiler

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For a while I have been trying to track my ever growing blu-ray collection and I had been looking to find a program to be able to do that. Recently I saw a thread of whirlpool about DVD Profiler which is the iOS part of DVD Profiler for Windows.

As the iOS wasn’t out yet, I downloaded DVD Profiler on Windows. It works like a treat. You can add DVD/Blu-rays either by the UPC (Universal Product Code) or by the movie title. Click “Add DVD to Now Owned” and you are done. The program takes care of everything else.

I was able to do my entire collection of blu-rays in a couple of hours.

As the iOS DVD Profiler was released I downloaded and then synced it to the PC and I got my entire collection on my phone. I can see which blu-rays have been loaned out and which are overdue.

What I was surprised with tho was the fact that I had to put the ip address of the computer so the iOS DVD Profiler could sync with Windows DVD Profiler. That’s the first time I had to put an ip address for an iOS app to sync back to main PC.

I started looking into why, and it’s because the DVD Profiler does not use Bonjour. Bonjour is a zero configuration networking, which is used to to identify devices, computers and services on ip networks. Bonjour works on Windows and a number of applications use it to find their iOS counterpart, like AirVideo server broadcasts it’s services for the iOS app to find and connect regardless on what ip the server is running.

So if my ip changes on the PC(due to DHCP) I will have to edit the settings on the DVD Profiler iOS app to put in the new ip information :(.

Why couldn’t stuff like the above just work on windows as they do on a mac?

Less wires

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My iTunes library resides on the laptop and when I want to back it up on the desktop PC, it usually takes a  while due to being done over wireless 802.11G. I was thinking of either connecting the laptop directly to my router with a ethernet cable which would have been the cheapest solution or start looking at either replacing the router/modem with another device, either an wireless 802.11N access point or a modem/router with 802.11N.

The second solution would have been a lot easier on the long run as I wouldn’t have to connect any wires and I would have the laptop anywhere in the house and still be able to back up.

I had been looking for a while around the Internet for anything going cheap and I have subscribed to catchoftheday.com.au which offers good low price items that only are on the website for a day.

Well as luck would have it, I received a email about the wireless N router from belkin for only $39.95 http://www.belkin.com/au/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=476948#.

I thought I couldn’t go wrong with that price, and if it didn’t work for me, I could sell the router for like $50 :P. Today I received the package and the installation was a breeze.

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Apple TV final thoughts

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Apple TV or ATV for short. Apple’s Steve Jobs had called the ATV a hobby for Apple. Is it still a hobby? Does it have a place next to the TV in every Australian geeky house? That question I hope to be answered at the end of the post.

I say geeky because with any technical gadget, ATV being no exception, there a few technical hurdles that need to be overcome. To use ATV to its full potential you need either wired or wireless connection to the Internet and then being able to connect the ATV near the TV, you need a free HDMI connection. NO HDMI no go :(.
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