Apple’s 12 Days of Christmas : Day 2 – Top Gear

Andrew Edney
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6
Apple’s 12 Days of Christmas : Day 2 – Top Gear

Apple’s annual 12 Days of Christmas continues, and for Day 2 it’s Top Gear.

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You and your friends can download a fantastic selection of songs, music videos, apps and books for free. Each download will only be available for 24 hours. Get our special 12 Days of Christmas app to make it even easier to access your gifts while you’re on the go. Don’t have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch? Don’t worry. Come back 26 December to download gifts from your computer.

You need to download the app and then each day for 12 days there will be something free.

Day 2 – Top Gear – The Trip

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I wonder what it will be tomorrow?

Apple Publish Guides, FAQ’s and Videos on iTunes Match

Andrew Edney
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0
Apple Publish Guides, FAQ’s and Videos on iTunes Match

We told you a couple of weeks ago that Apple had finally released iTunes Match in the UK, and now that its out in a number of other countries as well Apple have published a number of guides, FAQ’s and videos telling you all about it.

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A match made in iCloud

With iTunes in the Cloud, the music you buy from the iTunes Store automatically appears on all your devices.1 And for music you haven’t purchased from iTunes, iTunes Match is the perfect solution. iTunes Match is built right into iTunes on your computer and the Music app on your iOS devices.2 It lets you store your entire collection in iCloud, even music you’ve imported from CDs or purchased somewhere other than iTunes. When it’s in iCloud, it’s available on all your devices. So you can enjoy all your music anywhere, anytime — on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, PC, or Apple TV.

How iTunes Match works

iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to iCloud for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 20 million songs in the iTunes Store, chances are your music is already in iCloud. And for the few songs that aren’t, iTunes uploads what it can’t match (which is much faster than uploading your entire music library). Even better, all the music iTunes matches plays back from iCloud at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.

Once your music is in iCloud, you can stream it to any of your devices. Just browse the complete list of all your music stored in the cloud. To listen to a song, tap the iCloud icon next to it and your song starts playing. You can store up to 25,000 songs in iCloud (more if songs are purchased from the iTunes Store), but only what you want to play is stored on your device. So you have immediate access to a huge music library without taking up storage space.

Learn more about iTunes Match here

Tranquil PC Preview the MMC-12 Media Center PC

Andrew Edney
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2
Tranquil PC Preview the MMC-12 Media Center PC

Tranquil have just posted a small preview of their new Media Center PC – the MMC-12 and it’s thin – very thin!

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The super thin (35mm), full width, silent, superb new Media Centre for 2012 is unveiled.  The MMC-12, possibly the world’s best media centre, is coming soon.

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More information when we get it.

WHS Add-in Update : LDisk for Windows Home Server 2.0.0.5

Andrew Edney
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0
WHS Add-in Update : LDisk for Windows Home Server 2.0.0.5

B.J. from Intelisan has been in touch to tell us that their Windows Home Server add-in LDisk has been updated to version 2.0.0.5.

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LDisk Windows Home Server Add-In adds iSCSI Target Storage capability to your Windows Home Server. Using LDisk, you can create a single appliance to provide all your storage and backup needs.

– iSCSI Target Storage for Windows Home Server

– IP SAN (Storage Area Network)- Block transfer

– iSCSI SAN interface over Ethernet

– Snapshot with schedules, revert, and convert to volume

– Fully protected data using SAN Volume duplication

– Supports all Internal or external drives

– Drive Extender for WHS 2011

– Storage Expansion through iSCSI for WHS 2011

Some of the changes in this version are:

Improvements in GUI:

1- Progress bar for iSCSI Expansion tab

2- Name changes: Snapspace management, Rescan Disks

3- Added Max size to Volumes create popup

4- More clear disk name, location, and status

Fixes:

5- To correct disk Add when all disks were not initialized

6- To correct mirror volume delete

7- Better error handling after disk failures

8- To correct GUI issues with no disks in the system

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Apple’s 12 Days of Christmas Starts Off With Coldplay

Andrew Edney
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0
Apple’s 12 Days of Christmas Starts Off With Coldplay

Apple has started it’s annual 12 Days of Christmas, and for day 1 it’s Coldplay.

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You and your friends can download a fantastic selection of songs, music videos, apps and books for free. Each download will only be available for 24 hours. Get our special 12 Days of Christmas app to make it even easier to access your gifts while you’re on the go. Don’t have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch? Don’t worry. Come back 26 December to download gifts from your computer.

You need to download the app and then each day for 12 days there will be something free.

Day 1 – Coldplay iTunes Festival: London 2011

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I wonder what it will be tomorrow?

Boxee Release Version 1.5 for Mac, PC and Ubuntu – And It’s the Last Version

Andrew Edney
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0
Boxee Release Version 1.5 for Mac, PC and Ubuntu – And It’s the Last Version

Along with showing off some screenshots of the forthcoming 1.5 software update for the Boxee Box, Boxee also released version 1.5 for the Mac, PC and Ubuntu, along with saying this version will be the last version!

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This is what Boxee said:

As many of you know we have been working on new versions for PC, Mac and Ubuntu. Today we are releasing a version of 1.5 for these platforms.

You can find this new version of Boxee for Mac, Windows, and Linux below:

  • Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
  • Mac OS X 10.6+ (Intel only)
  • Ubuntu 11.10 (32 bit)

As a platform, we have been able to bring Boxee for Computers to about 85% of the Boxee Box in terms of features and functionality. Due to extensive DRM and certification requirements premium apps will not be available on the downloadable version of Boxee, most notably Netflix, VUDU, and Pandora (click here for a full list).

However, if you are using Boxee for file playback you should be pleasantly surprised with better file support, a new on screen display, better networking support, and a host of other features you can read about here.

This 1.5 release will be the last version of Boxee for PC/Mac/Ubuntu. It will be available on Boxee.tv through the end of January.

We believe the future of TV will be driven by devices such as the Boxee Box, Connected TVs / Blu-Rays and 2nd screen devices such as tablets and phones. While there are still many users who have computers connected to their TVs, we believe this use case is likely to decline as users find better alternatives. People will continue to watch a lot of video on their computer, but it is more likely to be a laptop than a home-theater PC and probably through a browser rather than downloaded software.

To be honest this move to stop producing computer based versions of their software does not surprise me. There are so many set-top boxes, streaming boxes, smart TV’s, etc. out there that people are using actual PC’s less and less to watch content on their TV’s.

Boxee Preview Version 1.5 Update for Boxee Box

Andrew Edney
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1
Boxee Preview Version 1.5 Update for Boxee Box

Today Boxee have posted some screnshots as part of a preview of their forthcoming version 1.5 beta.

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This is what Boxee posted today:

Version 1.5 of Boxee is currently being tested by Boxee Box Early Access users and will soon be available in Beta. We plan to release 1.5 together with Live TV later in January. Here’s some of the new features you can look forward to on the Boxee Box…

Home Screen
We’ve added links to the standard menu to launch the Browser and Live TV (once you’ve attached the dongle). We also gave the featured section a small facelift.

Menu
The Menu is now more accessible, popping up as an overlay that lets you quickly navigate between different sections or search. we also optimized search to minimize the number of clicks.

Movies & TV Shows
We updated the layout of Movies and TV Shows for easier navigation by Genre and Source as well as providing quick access to trailers.

There is also a new Movie details screen with extended synopsis and cast & crew information. For TV Shows it is now much easier to jump between seasons and see which episodes you already watched.

Watch Later & Friends
We expanded the thumbnails in Watch Later & Friends sections and now let you filter between clips, TV Shows and Movies.

I’m looking forward to testing out the new version – we will let you know more soon.

Parallels Desktop for Mac Build 7.0.15052 Available

Andrew Edney
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0
Parallels Desktop for Mac Build 7.0.15052 Available

There has been an update to Paralles Desktop for Mac which bring bettering compatibility with Mac OS X v10.7.2 Launchpad, and some other fixes.

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What’s in this Update?

This update for Parallels Desktop for Mac (build 7.0.15052) includes the following fixes and improvements:

  • Better compatibility with Mac OS X v10.7.2 Launchpad.
  • Improves network stability.
  • Addresses the issue of Linux virtual machine not resuming upon waking the Mac from Sleep mode.

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.1.4 Update Available

Andrew Edney
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0
Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.1.4 Update Available

Microsoft have released another update for it’s Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 product suite.

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Improvements that are included in the update

The Office for Mac 2011 14.1.4 Update includes the following improvements.

Improvements for all Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 applications

  • Update installation reliability is improved.; ;
    This update fixes issues that cause the installation of previous Office for Mac 2011 updates to fail in the following situations:
    • When the user’s home directory contains a space.
    • When you deploy updates through Secure Shell (SSH).
    • When you install multiple updates at the same time.
  • Reliability is improved when you open IRM-protected documents.
    This update fixes an issue that prevents Office applications from opening some Information Rights Management (IRM)-protected documents. ; ; ;

 Improvements for Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011

 Stability is improved.

  • This update fixes an issue that causes Excel to exit unexpectedly or stop responding when you open some workbooks or when you use data validation. ;

 Improvements for Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011

 Password expiration notice issue is fixed.

  • This update fixes an issue that causes Outlook to display an incorrect password expiration notice.
  • Sync efficiency is improved
    This update improves sync efficiency with accounts on Microsoft Exchange servers when the permission settings are changed for a shared or delegated folder.
he Office for Mac 2011 14.1.4 Update includes the following improvements.
Improvements for all Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 applications
Update installation reliability is improved.; ;
This update fixes issues that cause the installation of previous Office for Mac 2011 updates to fail in the following situations:
When the user’s home directory contains a space.
When you deploy updates through Secure Shell (SSH).
When you install multiple updates at the same time.
Reliability is improved when you open IRM-protected documents.
This update fixes an issue that prevents Office applications from opening some Information Rights Management (IRM)-protected documents. ; ; ;
Improvements for Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011
Stability is improved.
This update fixes an issue that causes Excel to exit unexpectedly or stop responding when you open some workbooks or when you use data validation. ;
Improvements for Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011
Password expiration notice issue is fixed.
This update fixes an issue that causes Outlook to display an incorrect password expiration notice.
Sync efficiency is improved
This update improves sync efficiency with accounts on Microsoft Exchange servers when the permission settings are changed for a shared or delegated folder.

BYOB Podcast Episode 71 Out Now

Andrew Edney
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0
BYOB Podcast Episode 71 Out Now

The guys over at the BYOB podcast, including our very own Tim Daleo have just released episode 71.

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Here is what is included in this weeks show:

[box style=”rounded” border=”full”]SkyDrive on mobile, the ESXi saga begins, Fractal Define R3 case, HTC Titan/Focus S/iPhone4S/Skyrocket comments, Xbox has a new console and Cord cutting has a setback. Its BYOB show 71[/box]

As usual you can listen to the show from here.

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