•
A true Apple fan from deep in the backwoods of County Meath - that’s Ireland - dropped two nuggets of info on Murphy today: Two ways to remote control a computer from your iPhone or iPod touch.
logmein.com
First, there’s logmein.com, which has become a favorite remote control option for Murphy. It’s secure, it’s free, and it makes maintaining a list of the computers you connect to simple. When Murphy signs into logmein.com he sees which computers are online - and can connect with a click from a web browser. From anywhere.
This post by the Technology Evengelist shows how you can make a simple change to your logmein.com preferences so your iPhone or iPod touch can be used as the client. First you select the computer you want to make the change for, then update the preferences to use an html client when connecting. Details in the post.
VNC Lite
If you prefer VNC there’s a client in the App Store called Mocha VNC Lite, as reported by Just Another Iphone Blog. I was connected to my Mac in about 45 seconds including the install. VNC on a tiny screen requires a little patience, but it’s great to have the access when you don’t have a computer.
More Remote Tips
Murphy has tons of posts - tons - to help you with gaining access to a remote Mac. We’ve got you covered from getting started with SSH and SCP to emailing yourself a filename - and automatically having the file sent to you in a reply. Murphy also has posts on auto-emailing a file that’s dropped in a Finder folder. So you can ssh in, copy a file to a folder, and it’s on its way.
More on VNC
|
Permalink
•
Server Glitches
The release of the iPhone / iPod touch 2.0 update snuck up on me a little bit. I was so interested in the 3G phone release (and the share price of aapl) I’d kind of forgotten there’d be an update for my iPod touch. Once I realized there was an update I tried to get it from iTunes. Repeatedly. Despite links on the Apple site the download wasn’t actually available for most of Friday.
I really wanted to try the new Remote application, especially on the Apple TV I got back in May. But Apple tried to deliver a little too much on Friday, and the links for the new software were useless. An Ars Technica link pointed to a copy of the iPod firmware that could be downloaded from an apple.com site. Rumor has it that software worked fine. It’s quite shocking that Apple would leave the file out in the open all day, even after it had been publicized.
Version 2.0
Anyway - now I have the software update. I’m really happy with the Remote application. It would be nice if I could control everything on my Apple TV with it, like Flickr and YouTube. But it’s a welcome progression from where I was.
I used to be able to control iTunes remotely using Remote Buddy, but the G5 housing my media library had to be turned on. The new Remote app links up with my Apple TV directly so I can access the content on its hard drive.
I haven’t really messed around with the Apple TV too much. But last night I got more interested in organizing my TV shows and music. There are quite a few options for selecting which content syncs and what gets left behind.
Apple TV Nuances
Here’s something I’m not sure about. You can set the Apple TV to sync with one computer and pull streaming content off other computers. I’ve customized how my content is synced instead of letting iTunes figure it out for me. But under that setup there doesn’t seem to be a way to stream from the computer you’re synced with. So once the Apple TV drive is full you can’t access any other content from the primary computer. Can anyone tell me if I have that wrong?
Here’s what I’m looking for now: If I can control my Apple TV from my iPod I can surely control it from a Mac. Is Apple going to allow this? If Apple doesn’t deliver the functionality to Macs it seems kind of mean - like they’re holding it back to drive iPhone and touch sales.
If my touch isn’t sitting in the living room Mrs. Murphy will need to control the music with her Macbook Pro. She’ll have to use Remote Buddy and we’ll have to talk about the difference between accessing the G5 and accessing the Apple TV and her eyes will drift away, glazed, and I’ll be left talking to myself, trying to explain why Apple doesn’t give her a nice remote app for her lappie. I’m not looking forward to that.
More on 2.0
There are some nice new features in the 2.0 software. Here’s what I’ve seen so far:
- Multiple delete in Mail. As much as I liked the swipe to raise a delete button in the old version I found it awkward at times. I like the idea of invisible buttons - epsecially on a small screen where space is precious. But having another option is a welcome improvement. I think it’ll help with business users who hit the email hard.
- Saving pictures from the web. Or from an email. Nice.
- Screen shots. I captured a Google map page and sent it to a friend so he’d know where to meet me for dinner tomorrow. If you hold the home button down and hit the power button a screen shot is added to your photo library. From there you can attach it to an email message.
- Apps. I hacked my iPod touch almost as soon as I got it. I wanted to use it for ferrying files and ssh and whatever else the genius developers could dream up. I ended up not using the hacks all that often. In fact, I hardly used them at all. I’m sure useful apps will show up soon, but for now the Remote app is my favorite. I resist games and I’m not a big social networker. Twitteriffic is about as far as I’ve gotten.
More on the Hacks
The work the hacking community did with the first release of the iPhone and the iPod touch was nothing short of incredible. A professional interface. Persistance when Apple tried to trip them up. A reliable uninstaller. I have a feeling we won’t see ssh or other command line tools any time soon in the App Store, so maybe my jailbreaking life isn’t over yet.
iPocalypse? No.
Most people didn’t notice the problems on Friday, Apple just racked up some more free publicity, slightly tainted. But the true fans were frustrated, and rightfully so. There’s no excuse for not having server capacity and adequate bandwidth for a launch event like Friday. Apple has had plenty of Christmas days to learn their lesson. Clearly they haven’t learned.
But we often forget that most people don’t read Engadget or Ars Technica or TUAW. Most people heard early adopters were having a hard day and never gave it a second thought. In fact, as Apple products become more and more mainstream the fanboys and fangirls become a smaller and smaller percentage of Apple’s customer base. It’ll be easier and easier for Apple to slide by with poor execution like we saw yesterday.
S0 - what’s next?
iPod touch - Apple TV - Amazon.com
|
Permalink
•
Using multiple devices with paid hotel Internet access.
This weekend I used the Internet at a hotel that charged for access. I signed up using my iPod, then later tried to access the service using a laptop. The sign-on page didn’t provide a place to sign in using my name or room number - it seemed like I might be charged again if I went any further. I had never seen the particular service before, so I couldn’t tell what would happen.
I didn’t feel like calling the front desk, and chances are I wouldn’t have had much faith in whatever they told me. Sounds cold, but it’s true. The solution I found was probably faster anyway.
I assumed the hotel tracked my iPod by its MAC address. If you’re not familiar with a MAC address, it’s a unique identifier assigned to network devices like your wired Ethernet port or a wifi card. (MAC addresses are not to be confused with Macs) Some software interfaces provide a simple way to change the MAC address your device presents to the network. I didn’t see a simple way in System Preferences.
A quick Google search landed me at OS X Daily. There you’ll find the exact command to enter in Terminal to change your MAC address. You may have to tweak the command a little if you’re using multiple network interfaces on your Mac, like wired and wireless.
So, I took the MAC address of my iPod and assigned it to the laptop. I didn’t try to use both at once, and both worked just fine. As soon as the MAC was changed on the laptop it was on the Internet, without having to access any special sign-up page for the service.
At some point hotels will probably update their services to help with a situation like this, but in the meantime OS X Daily helped me out in less than two minutes. Nice.
Read
|
Permalink
