I have a bunch of photography tutorials in the Flash video .flv format which I want to watch on my iPad. As you may be aware, everything with the name Flash in it doesn’t play too well on Apple’s iOS devices. VLC Media Player for iOS is able to play the .flv format but Apple doesn’t allow 3rd party software devs to use the built-in H.264 hardware acceleration for video playback. As as result, .flv videos usually don’t play very well on iOS devices. Besides, I prefer to manage my video collection in iTunes instead of dragging every clip onto an app icon.

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I just finished installing the 10.6.5 update on my 2010 MacBook Air using the Software Update utility. The installation process went smoothly but my 2 week old  13″ MacBook Air didn’t come back to life after the restart. It’s dead. No picture, no Apple logo, no chime, zilch! The only thing I hear is the fan when I press the on/off button long enough. During the update process the fan came on (until then I didn’t even know there was one). Maybe some component on the main-board overheated? Just speculating here.

I’m still in the process of trying all sorts of keyboard combinations to reset PRAM and stuff but so far, none have worked.

Dank Rainer Ullrichs ruKernelTool kann man sich ab sofort eine neue, internationale Firmware auf die schweizer Version der AVM FRITZ!Box 7390 herunterladen und anschliessend auf die Box flashen lassen. Im Firmware-Filter des Download-Reiters einfach 7390 eingeben, dann sieht man die neue Version sofort. Read more »

Some smart folks over at macprime.ch found out that the Swiss iTunes store is being populated with movie titles for the first time. I fired up my Apple TV 2 to see if it sees the movies in the Swiss iTunes store as well but as of now, they don’t show up yet (see screenshot below). In iTunes, the non-HD rentals have a price tag of CHF 3.50 and HD-rentals will be streamed to you for CHF 4.50. TV shows don’t seem to be available at all. Read more »

Wie bereits in einem anderen Beitrag erwähnt, lässt sich eine in der Schweiz gekaufte AVM FRITZ!Box 7390 mit der internationalen Firmware auf die deutsche Version patchen. Dadurch lassen sich beispielsweise die neusten deutschen Firmwares aus dem AVM Labor einspielen, was bei der internationalen Version der Box nicht möglich ist. Am Ende des Beitrages stellte ich die Hypothese auf, dass neuere Firmwares sich nach wie vor über die Benutzeroberfläche einspielen lassen sollten. Ich habe dies heute mit der neusten Laborversion 84.04.86-18419 getestet. Read more »

A few days ago I received the re-vamped Apple TV 2 (or 2G) in the mail. The iOS version in the new Apple TV is listed as 4.0. I was very curious to try the new AirPlay feature that Steve Jobs announced in his keynote in early September. AirPlay enables the ability to stream any kind (well, obviously the format needs to be supported by iTunes) of audio and video from any iOS device to Apple TV 2. I have yet to find out why this feature could be useful but hey – at least it’s pretty cool, isn’t it? ;-)

To be able to stream content to Apple TV 2 you need to press that small antenna icon on the right to the volume slider and a dialog pops up to choose the target iOS device. I tried both, the iPad and iPhone 4, to stream a movie to Apple TV 2 but unfortunately, only the audio stream is being recognized by Apple TV 2. Read more »

This topic is irrelevant to my English readers. So, for a change this post will be entirely in German.

Wie bereits schon mal in einem anderen Post erwähnt, besitze ich seit ein paar Wochen eine AVM FRITZ!Box 7390 und betreibe diese erfolgreich an einem Swisscom VDSL2 Anschluss (siehe auch hier). Es handelt sich dabei um die internationale “avme” Version. Diese Version unterscheidet sich von der deutschen Version zum einen in den zusätzlichen Sprachbundles (z.B. Englisch) sowie auch der Möglichkeit, die Box an einem Annex A Anschluss zu betreiben. Letzteres ist die Voraussetzung um die 7390 an einem analogen Anschluss mit DSL zu betreiben in der Schweiz. Die internationale Version kann im Gegensatz zur deutschen Version zwischen Annex A und Annex B in der Konfigurationsoberfläche umgestellt werden. Die deutsche Version wird nur mit Annex B ausgeliefert.

Das grosse Problem bei der internationalen Version ist, dass sie der deutschen Version Monate hinterher hinkt. Aktuell verfügbar für Deutschland ist der Firmware-Stand 84.04.86 (bzw. es gibt bereits eine neuere Laborversion der .86er Firmware), während die internationale Version derzeit noch mit einem Firmware-Stand vom letzten April ausgeliefert wird (84.04.83). Die internationale 7390 lässt sich über die Benutzeroberfläche nicht mit einer deutschen Firmware updaten, weshalb allen Besitzern der internationalen Version viele tolle Features bis zum Erscheinen einer aktuelleren, internationalen Firmware verwehrt bleiben (z.B. WLAN Gastnetz, IPv6 support, Photo-bei-Anruf, HTTP-NAS-Oberfläche, DNSsec usw.). Grundsätzlich wird bei der deutschen Version nur Annex B unterstützt, was in der Schweiz und Österreich zu grösseren Problem führt, weil die Box so nicht an einem analogen Anschluss mit DSL synct. Auch auf Anfrage konnte AVM keinen Termin für das Erscheinen einer aktualisierten, internationalen Firmware-Version nennen.

Für alle wagemutigen Update-Junkies mit einer CH/A Version, die nicht auf eine aktualisierte, internationale Firmware warten wollen oder gerne mal die deutsche Laborversion aufspielen möchten, zeige ich hier eine Lösung, die trotz der deutschen Firmware Annex A fähig ist und damit mit Swisscom VDSL2 am analogen Anschluss einwandfrei funktioniert. Read more »

I just got myself an AVM FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7390 (CH-edition) router to replace a rather aged Swisscom branded Netopia 7347-84 VDSL router I received for my internet subscription. The FRITZ!Box 7390 really is the jack of all trades:

• ADSL/VDSL modem
• WLAN 802.11n/b/g/a (including the 5 GHz frequency band)
• DECT base station for up to 6 cordless phones
• Telephone system for Internet and fixed-line network phones
• Answering machine
• Fax receiver
• Network attached storage (NAS)
• UPnP-AV media server
• Gigabit ethernet
• DynDNS support
• A ton of configuration options (a must have for the true gadgeteer!)

Here’s how to setup the FRITZBox 7390 router for Swisscom’s VDSL network. Read more »

I just updated my ASUS P6T Hackintosh to the latest Mac OS X 10.6.5 developer build and it looks like there aren’t going to be any changes regarding the support for the SSD TRIM command for the official release of Mac OS X 10.6.5.

  Model:	INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GN
  Revision:	2CV102HD
  Serial Number:	CVPO942200DA080BGN
  Native Command Queuing:	Yes
  Queue Depth:	32
  Removable Media:	No
  Detachable Drive:	No
  BSD Name:	disk0
  Medium Type:	Solid State
  TRIM Support:	No <--

My 2nd generation Intel SSD supports the TRIM command in Windows 7 even though Mac OS System Profiler thinks it doesn’t. By the way, aside from the AppleHDA-kext replacement the update process from 10.6.4 to 10.6.5 went smoothly as usual on my ASUS P6T rig.

To use Apple AirPrint on an iOS device like the iPad or iPhone you either need an AirPrint enabled printer or a printer that’s connected to a Mac. Here’s how to use a printer that’s connected to a Mac. In order to be seen by any iOS device, the printer needs to be shared on your local network. Go to System Preferences -> Sharing and activate the checkbox for “Printer Sharing”. Click the “Open Print Preferences” button. In my example, I’m going to share my Lexmark C530 laser printer. Read more »

I took me quite some time to figure this out (again). Actually, the solution was already provided in one of my posts from 2008 but I had completely forgotten about it. I recently downloaded the new 64-bit USBtoUART SiLabs driver (the package contains a 32-bit driver too) to hook up my Holux M-241 GPS logger to a USB port on my Mac. Every time I tried to connect the GPS client software BT747 to the Holux data logger I received the following exception: Read more »

Lately, my Mac was having two weird problems.
First, it didn’t go to sleep after the amount of time set in Energy Manager anymore. In fact, it only went to sleep if either I pressed the sleep button on the case or selected the sleep menu entry in the top left Apple-icon menu.

The second problem was that unused hard disks didn’t go to sleep anymore. If I manually ejected an unused hard disk it only went to sleep for a short time. After about 30 seconds I could hear the disk spin up again. Well, obviously something I installed on the Mac was preventing it from going to sleep properly.

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RTMPDump is a very powerful software to download/capture Flash streams. It’s incredibly useful for sites that don’t let you download Flash videos for offline usage. And you know what, it’s free to use (GPLv2)! RTMPDump is command line only though so if you’re looking for a nice user interface, RTMPDump may not be for you.
If you want to use the latest version of RTMPDump you need to compile it on the Mac as there’s no official version provided for Mac OS X. Compiling RTMPDump is pretty easy even though you need to modify a Makefile in order to build the binary. You also need a build environment like Apple Xcode. If you decide to download my binary of RTMPDump you can skip the next section about compiling it. The RTMPDump binary runs pretty well on Snow Leopard 10.6.4 but may not do so on earlier version of Mac OS X. Read more »

Ever since upgrading to iOS 4.0 my iPhone 3G performed like a piece of crap. I’ve seen that Apple published an iOS 4.1 beta on its iPhone developer network website and I was willing to give it a try to see if there are any performance improvements. To make it short: yes, there are. While it’s not as good as with v3.x the phone is a lot more responsive than with v4.0 or v4.0.1, without having to turn off Spotlight indexing! Let’s hope these changes make it to the 4.1 GM.

To activate iOS 4.1 beta your iPhone’s UDID needs to be registered with an Apple iPhone SDK account ($99 a year). As every account comes with 100 UDID slots for iDevices you just need to find a developer who adds your iPhone’s UDID to the beta SDK list. Some do it for free, some charge a couple of bucks to do it. I may have one or two UDID slots left in my dev account so you may want to leave a comment if you want to have your iPhone registered (please provide the UDID for the iPhone- but don’t ask me where to look it up). You also have to find the beta firmware on your own (Torrent sites may be a good place to start). Sorry, I don’t have any more UDID slots to give.

Btw. initally I tried to install iOS 4.1 beta on my iPhone 3G without a registered UDID. I used redsn0w 0.9.5b5-5, iOS 4.0, iOS 4.1 beta and iPhoneExplorer to remove the beta-tag in SystemVersion.plist. While I was able to activate my iPhone 3G that way I lost 3G/WiFi network connectivity. The problem seemed to be related to DNS. Making/taking calls, SMS worked perfectly though. This way of activating a phone most likely requires a new redsn0w version in order to work properly.

Just in case you’re running your ASUS P6T mainboard with a Windows operating system and your iPad always displays “Not Charging” near the battery icon: there’s a software based solution from ASUS, the “Ai Charger”. In addition to recharging your iPad it also claims to recharge any Apple i-device up to 50% faster than conventional USB ports do.

With the exclusive ASUS Ai Charger, all of your motherboards, and desktops become universal chargers for your iPod, iPhone and now, the new iPad. Ai Charger turns any PC into a flexible power-up station for popular Apple devices through a simple USB connector, extending their usability and benefit in every lifestyle. Charging goes up to 50% faster* and smoother while you do your work or have fun – whether at home or on the go.

Head over to the ASUS website to download Ai Charger.