Starting on the left is a SimpleTech 500GB USB drive. This drive is the one that’s given me the most problems. The cable it came with didn’t fit well so connectivity would come and go. It doesn’t play well with SuperDuper, as SuperDuper usually locks up when it’s cloning to the drive. Right now it’s used a temp backup location and I haven’t had any problems doing normal file copies. It also has a blue LED oval on the top that flashes in rotation as the drive is in use. Very annoying.

Next to the SimpleTech we have my Western Digital 500GB MyBook drive with a FireWire 800 connection. By far my favorite and most reliable external drive. Most of it’s life has been spent as a backup clone of my iMac that was updated daily. But now it’s got two partitions. One for my virtual machines (for Parallels and VMware) and the other as a (currently unused) data drive.

Then I have a Maxtor 320GB FireWire drive that’s used for my Time Machine backup. I only back up selected files so the fact that’s it’s smaller than my iMac disk hasn’t been a problem and after several months only 170GB out of the 320GB is used. The drive itself has been reliable but rather slow to spin up. Works fine with Time Machine.

Then at the very right I have one of the 500GB eSATA drives that was removed from my WHS that’s in a Galaxy enclosure that’s connected to the iMac via USB. This is used to keep a backup clone of my iMac. The blue LED around the base isn’t to my taste but it doesn’t flash so it’s easy to ignore.

In all these cases I don’t use any software or drivers that were bundled with the drives.

Time Machine and the disk clone are a duplication of effort but I like that Time Machine backs up my files throughout the day and keeps a history. I like that I can boot from the clone and get right to work so each serves a purpose. Having the clone came in handy once after a OS X patch went bad. Even though there’s room on my iMac drive for them, I like having the VMs on a separate drive because it helps overall performance and I want FireWire 800 for the speed.

In addition to what’s shown here I also have 1.6TB worth of files on my Windows Home Server. Due to the disk duplication feature (to avoid losing files in the event of a drive failure) most of the WHS disk space is already used.

But my disk needs are only going to grow since I’m going for digital media rather than CDs and DVDs. Excluding backups, I need about 2TB for my data and to run my iMac, and that’s growing.  I need a plan.

I’ve decided to turn off disk duplication for my Video files on the Windows Home Server. This will free up over a terabyte. As backups for these files I’ll copy them to some extra hard drives I have (the ones removed when I upgraded the WHS). Since these files don’t change as each drive is filled up I’ll move it offsite for storage. It’s just the bare drive so it doesn’t take up much space. It will give me a second copy with the added benefit of being offsite. Since hard drives need to spin I will have to spin them up once or twice a year which will be a pain.

Then I’m getting a Drobo to replace the mess on my desk (currently backordered). This will provide an extra level of data protection with its RAID like abilities while replacing these 4 drives. The new Drobos include FireWire 800 ports so I’m expecting to be able to run my VMs off them the same way I run them off my MyBook now. I’ll probably also move most of my data to it (from my internal iMac hard drive) for the extra protection. Since OS X just see the Drobo as an external drive I should be able to use if for a bootable clone, although I may drop that from my backup scheme. The Drobo can handle four drives and subtracts an amount equal to it’s largest hard drive from the available space for data protection. So four 1TB drives would provide 3TB of useable space, which can grow over time as larger capacity drives become available.

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With memory prices relatively low I decided the main cost was my time so I went ahead and ordered a Patriot 2GB memory module. There’s only one memory slot and 2GB is the max the server can handle according to what I can find in various forums. HP’s official word is that 512MB is the only amount of memory supported and the upgrade probably voids the warranty.

Donavon West’s Home Server Hacks site has excellent procedures for upgrading the HP Media Smart Server RAM. It took me about half an hour to upgrade the RAM following the procedure. Just take heed of his warning and use a #00 Phillips head screwdriver. Despite the tight fit, disassembling and reassembling the server wasn’t a problem.

Much to my surprise I did notice a performance improvement right away. The Windows Home Server console connections occurred faster and it’s response was snappier. Large files copied faster from my iMac to a server share.

I save my iTunes library on the server and I also saw an improvement in the performance of iTunes when it’s syncing to my iPod and downloading podcasts and videos. (With iTunes on the list of software having potential data corruption errors this may not be such a great idea.)

Naturally there’s plenty of free memory now and I can stock up on add-ins without cramping the memory even more.

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The BE750BB has 10 power outlets, five that have battery backup and five that are just surge protected. Each bank of 5 has one outlet at the end that’s offset enough to handle a power brick. My goal is to provide an orderly shutdown in the event of a power failure, not to keep the server running as long as possible. I have the Windows Home Server plus it’s router in the battery backup outlets. I’ll also use the battery backup outlets for any external drives I add. The cable modem, a wireless access point and a printer are plugged into the surge protected outlets.

1. So to configure the UPS first connect it to a USB port on the Windows Home Server using the cable that came with the UPS and make sure the WHS is plugged into a UPS outlet with battery backup.
   
2. Connect to the WHS using remote desktop.
   
3. Verify that the WHS sees the UPS by going to Control Panel -> System -> Hardware tab -> Device Manager button. You should have a “Batteries” item in the tree and the UPS should be listed there (although it may have a cryptic name - if your unsure, remove the UPS cable and see if it goes away.) My APC UPS showed up as:
   
4. Back to Control Panel and select “Power Options” then the alarm tab. Since I don’t care about anything but a safe shutdown I turn off the low battery alarm. I then set the critical battery alarm to occur when the battery level reaches 50% so there’s plenty of juice to shut things down. I also turn off notifications. Notification will just pop up a message on the non-existent console. well, non-existent unless I have a remote desktop connection at the time of the power failure. I change the action to shutdown and there’s no program for me to run.

   The pictures below show my configuration (double-click for full size).
    

To test it I unplug the UPS from the wall outlet, listen to the annoying alarm for about 10 minutes and watch as the WHS shuts down.

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There’s a new menu interface that no longer looks like Front Row at the top levels. Once I started browsing content the interface looked like Front Row. Apple as a guided tour of Apple TV available.

I had rented a movie shortly after Macworld and had avoided watching it so I could try it with Apple TV. I had five days left on the rental and was running out of time. Transferring it to the Apple TV was fairly straightforward but needs to be done manually since the rented movie can only be on on device at a time. The rented movies appear on the Apple TV’s movies tab and took about 2 minutes to transfer over 802.11n.

I have a standard def TV so I didn’t bother looking for a high-def movie. The quality is better than my standard-def cable TV and looks about the same as a regular DVD when viewed from my couch.

I browsed the rentals through Apple TV and was pleasantly surprised to find that the previews started almost immediately when selected.

I was also surprised to see that the Apple TV doesn’t seem to differentiate between content on iTunes on my iMac and content on Apple TV itself. If iTunes was running I could browse content seamlessly and the video would stream when I selected it to play. Very nice.

Movies can also be rented directly through Apple TV. In typical Apple fashion the interface is easy to use and they make it easy to turn over your money.

It looks like Apple is moving Apple TV out of the hobby category.

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But I’d have to wait over  a week for the cable to arrive so I left the printer where it was and hooked it to the Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) that was right next to it. I figured that would suffice until the cable arrived. Boy was I wrong. For the record, my printer is a Epson Stylus Photo R340. From what I experienced Apple lost it’s touch with airport printing.

There are some issues I expected going in and these would probably occur with most USB printers unless their driver is designed for the AEBS. What I confirmed was:

• The utilities didn’t work. These are the utilities used for things like checking alignment, checking ink levels, cleaning the print head and so on.
• Error messages aren’t returned to the computer. For example, out of ink and out of paper messages.
• The built-in card reader can’t be accessed from the computer.

I did have additional problems which may have been printer specific. Eventually I just moved the printer a bit and ran the cable across the floor until my new cable arrived. But these are the problems I had:

• An out of paper error message caused a loss of connectivity to the printer. Powering it off/on or plugging in the USB didn’t help. I eventually had to reboot the AEBS.
• When a printout was near the end of the document it would frequently report a communication error and I had to cancel the job. The next job would start printing fine but would more likely than not experience the same problem near its end.
• The AEBS would sometimes not see the printer when the printer was turned on. Unplugging/plugging in the USB usually resolved this, but once I had to reboot the AEBS (which is when I decided to move the printer).

Apple not longer publishes a list of supported printers. If you’re looking to use the AEBS for printing a good place to start your research is at iFelix.net. Apple also has a list of troubleshooting steps but since this setup was temporary for me I didn’t take the time to go through most of them.

Anyone successfully printing using an Airport Extreme base Station?

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The 2.5″ 5400rpm drive is 4.8 x 0.7 x 3.9 inches in size and weighs less than 5 ounces. For you metric folks that’s 12.2 x 1.85 x 9.9 centimeters and 182 grams.

The drive draws power from the USB connection and does not have a external power supply. The supplied USB cable has two connections to plug into the computer. One connection is enough on my 13″ MacBook so I can get away with using one port.

The drive comes pre-formatted as NTFS for Windows so I used OS X’s disk utility to format it with the Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) file system. The Windows software is delivered on the drive, there’s no CD included, so it should be copied off before formatting the drive. The Windows software can be used to password protect the drive, run applications on multiple PCs and password protect the drive. I didn’t run the software and generally have a low expectation of bundled software but this ZDNet review seems to like the software.

I use the external drive on my MacBook for two primary purposes. The first is to hold the virtual machines I run with VMware. The second is as a Time Machine drive for backing up my documents and pictures folders (and nothing else). The drive has worked fine for these purposes. It took 20 minutes 13 seconds to read a 21.5GB file from the drive and 16 minutes 8 seconds to write the 21.GB file when connected to my 13″ MacBook.

Available from Amazon.com:

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I like gadgets as much as the next person, but if someone was to give me one of these I’m not sure I’d use it once the novelty wore off. And at $400 the only way I’d use one is if someone gave one to me.

One claimed benefit is that it’s smaller than a paperback book. Great. But even at today’s prices it’s no great loss if I leave a paperback book behind someplace. The Kindle is another electronic device to keep track of and if lost your out $400. (Amazon says you can re-download the books but you’re locked in.)

The technology does seem rather slick even though pictures of the device make it look like it was designed in the 70’s. But all that technology is proprietary and tied to Amazon. If they pull the plug what would happen to the DRM protected files?

The pricing structure is a bit strange. Ten bucks for new releases does offer a significant discount over buying the new hardcover version. But when compared to mass market paperbacks the price isn’t so great. The NYTimes bestseller list for mass market paperbacks (20 books) all had prices of $9.99 or less. In fact fifteen of them were less. Considering the paperbacks need to be printed, shipped, warehoused, and shipped again the electronic versions seem expensive. While there are exceptions, many Kindle books sell for the same or more than the paperback edition for the same title. You can also get magazines, newspapers and selected blogs. But all will cost you, even the blogs that are free on the Internet.

The ability to store 200 or so books is pretty cool. While I may have a hard time justifying carrying 200 books around all the time I can see a benefit in having multiple books. Either for longer trips or to provide variety. It could be beneficial if someone like a salesman or engineer could add their own documents to the book but that seems difficult to do. PDFs have to go through Amazon for conversion (although I suspect conversion software may begin to appear on its own).

Maybe it’s not a solution looking for a problem, maybe it’s a $400 solution to a $40 problem. Am I missing something here? Sony’s e-Book reader isn’t a hot item but its $300 and I pick that as the reason over features.

For more info you can visit the Kindle page at Amazon.com (aff)

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It’s more solidly built that the SanDisk SD card with built in USB simply because the thin plastic hinge isn’t required to meet the specs to fit in an SD slot. In addition the the SD and SDHC card that I’ve used it also supports MMC, MMCplus and with adapter (not supplied): miniSD, microSD, RS-MMC, MMCmobile and MMCmicro cards.

I used it on a recent trip since it’s a great space saver, not needing to carry around a SD reader. There’s not much else to say, it just works.

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I’d already seen the keyboards at the Apple store and knew the key travel and feel was good. Still, the keyboard seemed like it might be too low to be comfortable at my desk and for extended use. That wasn’t something I could easily tell at the Apple store. I was a bit concerned that Apple chose form over function. Yet I liked their Mighty Mouse (I think I might be one of the few who like it) so I decided to take a chance and ordered the $49 Apple Aluminum Keyboard(aff).

It arrived Friday, I hooked it up Saturday and I’ve been using it since. The bottom line is I really like typing on it. I find I type faster on it. Although, with the quality of my typing that isn’t always a good thing, yet I do seem to be making fewer typos too, at least I’m hitting the keys more squarely. (My previous keyboard was the previous model wireless keyboard.)

Installation was a bit annoying. There’s no software in the box but I knew there were updates. So after plugging it it I ran software update. Sure enough, the Keyboard Software Update 1.2 was waiting for me. All 26MB of it. So I installed it. My normal practice with most new software and hardware is to use the default settings for awhile and so far I’m still on the defaults.

Some things will take getting used to. The hardware functions (eject CD/DVD, volume, pause/play, etc…) share the function keys. In addition to the old hardware keys Apple has added screen brightness, FF, RW, Pause/Play, expose and dashboard. I find it interesting screen brightness gets two keys (one increase, one decrease). I can’t remember the last time I changed my screen brightness. This is a desktop keyboard, I doubt many people will move it around. By default the hardware functions take precedence and the <fn> key must be held to use the “F” keys. This can be swapped in system preferences.

As I mentioned there’s an <fn> key which is new. Also new are the <F17>, <F18>, and <F19> keys. The command key loses the Apple logo and gets the word “command” in it’s place. The <F7>, <F8> and <F9> keys have the new hardware functions of rewind, pause/play and fast forward.

It still annoys me that there’s no num lock key and the numeric keypad doesn’t work under Windows (Parallels or Boot Camp) but it’s not a huge issue since I’m rarely in Windows and it’s even rarer for me to be doing data entry. Still, I’m annoyed.

The only thing I ordered was the Apple keyboard yet the box it came in was huge. The keyboard was on the bottom, almost lost underneath balls of brown packing paper. Then I opened the first brown box only to find a smaller box inside. This box finally had the keyboard.

The keyboard includes a USB extender in the event the attached cable is too short.

I’m extremely happy with Apple’s new Aluminum keyboard and find it a pleasure to type on. My concerns of it being being too low were unwarranted.

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Format Recap

Mac OS Extended: The format that’s “native” to OS X. Windows Vista cannot handle this format at all.

FAT16: The original disk format. Windows and OS X can read and write to disks formatted this way but using it is not recommended.

FAT32: Enhanced FAT format. This can handle disks to about 2TB (depends on disk sector size) but the Vista GUI will only allow you to chose this format for drives of 32GB or less (Windows XP has the same limitation). OS X and Vista can read and write to this. FAT32 has a file size limitations of 4GB (minus 1 byte). Earlier versions of OS X have smaller file and partition size limitations. While OS X creates “packages” of files (such as the iPhoto library) which appear as a single file in Finder that may exceed 4GB, it’s the individual file contents of the “package” that matters for the 4GB limit.

NTFS: Microsoft’s file system for NT and later. The recommended format for modern Windows versions and required for the Vista system drive. OS X can read but cannot write to disks formatted with NTFS.

Formatting the External Drive

I booted into Vista planning to do everything from within Vista since when I was done I planned to do a backup. But then I was cruelly reminded of the 32GB limitation when formatting through the GUI. So …

Formatting FAT32 > 32GB under Vista

If you want to format a FAT32 partition with Vista you can’t, but you can do the following:

1. Boot with OS X (or with Linux - such as a Live CD)
2. Format the drive

I tried formatting using the command line, which others have recommended, but near the end of the process it told me the drive was too big for FAT32.

FAT32 Issues

Apple: Aperture does not support libraries on FAT32 volumes.

Apple: In general, make sure you are using the latest version of software. Some software may not work properly with FAT32. For example, Backup when using FAT32 as a destination.

Any other issues I should add to the list?

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New Hardware

Apple replaced their iMac line with new models. They dropped the 17″ iMac and replaced it with a 20″ low-end iMac. A 20″ iMac and a 24″ iMac are available at the mid-level with 2.4GHz processors.

A 24″ iMac at the high-end that has a 2.4Ghz processor. Most of the reports I saw left this 4th iMac out but it’s at the Apple store (click the pic on the left to see the specs).

They also upgraded the specs of their Mac Mini line.

Since I have a fairly new iMac these aren’t changes I can get excited about. My expectation is my current iMac will at least last until the next iMac refresh.

Software Updates

Apple also updated their iLife and iWork suites. Both now carry the ‘08 moniker.

iLife ‘08 will begin shipping with all new Macs in addition to being available for $79. There aren’t any new apps in iLife, although the existing apps do get upgraded. Features getting the most press are:

• iPhoto: You can now organize photos into “events”. They also added a Web Galleries feature (which may be .Mac only).
• iMovie: Sees to be completely redesigned. All videos are now in a common library and YouTube uploads are supported.
• iWeb: New web widgets which allows taking snippets of contents from other sites. Support for Google maps and AdSense is now included. You can use personal domain names for .Mac and you can change themes for installed sites.
• Garageband: Add a new feature called “Magic Garageband” which generates tracks based on the parameters you define.
• iDVD: Adds “Pro-Quality encoding”, new themes among other enhancements.

iWork ‘08 is a $79 application. The big news here was the addition of a spreadsheet called Numbers. The do claim compatibility with Excel (including Excel ‘07) but Excel macros are not supported.

Pages and Keynote also have their share of updates. The updates aren’t of the type to make people run out and buy iWork if they don’t have it already, but existing users are likely to be happy.

Personally, I’m happy to see the software updated. I’ve already ordered the iLife upgrade because I like the software. I have to admit that the decision was made before I had any idea what would be in it.

As for iWork, I’ll probably buy it because the price is right and I have low resistence. I had the previous version but struggled to find a use for it. I find TextEdit or even Google Docs more than enough for my limited needs. Numbers may prove useful for me since I often want a spreadsheet but hesitate to store some data on the web in Google Spreadsheets. I want to like and use iWork, I really do. Yea, talked myself into it, I’ll buy it.

.MAC Updated

.Mac was also updated. The big news here is now you get 10GB of storage for the same price. Attachments to email can now be up to 20GB. The personal domain feature mentioned as new in iWeb also requires .Mac.

I had dropped .Mac awhile back. Earlier this week I signed back up for a 60-day trial. I’ve been looking at some software that can use .Mac to sync data between Macs. I now have a MacBook which I want to have most of my data so syncing data has become important again. I’m not convinced it’s worth the price but the enhancements help. The “Back to My Mac” feature in Leopard may be what tips it in favor for me.

If want to get .Mac don’t buy it directly from Apple. To save money get it from Amazon.com (aff) or another retailer. You’ll save 20% or more.

All the new software is available for immediate shipment, some new hardware is listed at 3-5 days.

Anyone been waiting for a refresh to buy an iMac? Was it worth the wait? Like or dislike the software updates?

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I was looking for something small and easy to carry around. It didn’t need to have a lot of horsepower. I’d use it mainly for text, Internet access, watching video (or DVDs) when traveling and similar low intensity stuff.

I looked at Windows PCs but decided early on that they wouldn’t cut it. I’m primarily a Mac guy now so to use a Windows PC would have required buying or finding software to do everything I wanted. So while I would have spent less money for the hardware the additional software, time, effort would have added to the cost.

After that the decision was easy. I wanted to keep the cost down so I priced up the cheapest MacBook there was to see if it met my needs. It did. I considered a hard drive upgrade but decided to stay with the 80GB drive. I also looked at memory. It was cheaper to buy 2GB from Crucial than to buy the upgrade from Apple so I decided to hold off and wait to see if I needed it.

Well, shortly after ordering the MacBook I changed my mind and decided I wanted to be able to run VMs on the MacBook so I ordered the memory from Crucial. Upgrading the memory is a simple five minute process.

Complete specs can be found on my Quest Hardware page.

Initial Impressions

I got the MacBook the week before I was planning to travel on business so there wasn’t much time to get used to it. But my impressions so far are:

• I like the screen. I thought I might find the smaller size hard to deal with. But for what I use it for it’s just fine. The real estate isn’t big enough to watch a video and surf the net, other than that it’s clear and easy to read.
• I like the keyboard. I adjust to most keyboards but with a laptop it’s not like I can buy a new one. The keys are big enough and there’s enough travel when they’re struck. Now if I could just improve my typing.
• For a laptop I was surprised to see auto-login was enabled and the firewall was disabled. Since I’d be traveling with the laptop these seemed like bad ideas. So I reversed the settings.
• The Mac software I needed was either free, came with the MacBook or was covered by a license that let me install it on my laptop without needing another license.

I haven’t really stressed the MacBook yet, sticking to blogging, surfing, watching videos and text editing. White’s probably not a good color for me, we’ll have to see how long before the dirt starts showing up.

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1. the capacity gauge that shows the drive space used

2. Safe shutdown (by pushing the drive button)

Since installing the My Book drivers I’ve had one case when my iMac just pin-wheeled when waking from sleep mode and I had to force a power off. I can’t say it was the cause but when there’s a problem the last change is usually the place to start. The “features” of the button manager don’t really provide any value to me so I decided to remove it.

The problem was I couldn’t find any information about how to remove. So I did some research and this worked for me.

I found two process in Activity Monitor that seemed to be the button manager: WD Button Manager and WDBMService. (click the thumbnail to see process info). There wasn’t anything in the startup processes for my user ID or in the library files in my user profile (and since this is hardware I didn’t really expect any).

I did find some promising files in the Library files for the system. In the Library folder right off the root of the system drive there’s a StartupItems folder and in that there’s a WDBMService folder which was obviously the button manager software. I dragged the WDBMService folder to my desktop to remove it from the StartupItems but still have it in case things go really bad. Then I rebooted.

After the reboot there wasn’t any trace of the WD Button Manager drivers and all seemed well. So I deleted the WDBMService folder from my desktop.

The WD My Book drive has given me a few other minor frustrations. First, under Windows the auto-off feature worked great. I turned off my Windows laptop and the My Book powers down. With my iMac the My Book goes into sleep mode but stays on. I suppose it could be a Mac issue, maybe the iMac continues to provide power to the FW800 port when the iMac is off.

While the drive itself is very quiet the drive spins so fast that when I put it on my wooden desk I could feel the vibration through the desk and there was a slight hum from the wood. There’s no “feet” or other padding on the drive so the case sits right on the desk. I put a empty slim CD case under the drive and it eliminated the vibration and humming.

I was trying to think of some hard drive or CD burner which was bundled with software that actually worked and was worth using. I couldn’t come up with any which I guess is why I’m not really upset about the software issues. I bought it strictly for the hardware specs and not the software or bells and whistles, expecting the software to be a waste. So based on my expectations I’m happy with the My Book and would buy another. Has anyone every bought an external drive (disk or optical) and been happy with the bundled software?

For more information on the Western Digital My Book you can visit my Quest Hardware Page.

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Here’s the procedure I used to setup the drive:

1. Cable the drive to the Mac and plug it in. I used a firewire 800 connection. The drive will immediately be recognized in finder and can be accessed.

2. Since I’ll be formating the drive I want to copy the software off of it. The software is also available on the CD that was received with the drive. I copied both files from the Mac directory on the drive to my local hard drive. Also save any sata you may have on the drive.

(Click thumbnails to view full size)

3. Open Disk Utility (Applications Folder -> Utilities Folder). Select the My Book drive (called 465.8 GB WD in the screenshot below), then click Erase in the menu bar. Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the volume format. You can name it anything, I called it “My Book 1″. Uncheck “Install Mac OS 9 Disk Driver unless you plan on using the drive with OS 9. Then click the “Erase” button.

4. The erase will not take very long. The screenshot below shows how the drive will appear after formating. Click the “i” information icon to see the information screen that is shown.

6. Now locate the file “WD Button Manager Software.dmg” that you copied off the drive in step one and double-click it. This will mount the drive in Finder. Run “WD Button Manager.pkg” by double-clicking it. You can click through the installation by accepting the defaults. You will need to reboot when you are done.

The button manager driver is used to control the status lights a safe powerdown button on the drive. If you don’t want these features you can skip this install and use the drive like any other “dumb” firewire drive.

7. You can install the EMC Restrospect software at this time by double-clicking the second file that you copied in step 1 - EMC Retrospect Express. The installation also requires a reboot. There are more choices during this installation but I just took the defaults. I haven’t used the software yet since I plan to use SuperDuper! but I’ll probably look at it in the future out of curiosity. The software does not appear to be tied to the drive as there are alternate destination such as DVDs available (but like I said, I still haven’t used it).

Benchmarks

Benchmarking the drive is useless for comparison to other systems since there are too many variables. But I did benchmark the My Book drive, the Maxtor One Button III drive and the external iMac drive all running on the same system at the same time. This should provide a fairly good comparison of each drive against one another. With the caveat that my specific system or the benchmarking software may mean you’d see different results. The internal iMac disk is “as-is”, I haven’t run any optimization, maintenance, or repair utilities on it in awhile and it’s just over 50% full. The Maxtor still has the backup files on it and is also about 50% full. The Western Digital is also about 50% full but has only had files copied to it once so it’s all nice and tidy.

XBench 1.3 was used for the benchmarking.

1. Western Digitial My Book Pro using Firewire 800 scored a 65.92
2. iMac Internal Drive scored a 33.05 (this scored a 37.86 when it was new)
3. Maxtor 300 One Touch III using Firewire 400 scored 36.26
4. USB connections came in well behind with the My Book scoring 16.55 via USB and the Maxtor scoring 16.45 via USB

Issues

I’ve only one into one issues with the My Book on my Mac. The drive is supposed to power down automatically when the computer is powered off. This worked fine with my Windows XP SP2 PC (via USB) but it’s not working with my iMac. The drive goes into “system standby” mode but stays on. I can power it down with the button. Since my iMac usually stays on this isn’t a high priority for me to research or try to fix. The only other benefit of with the driver is the capacity indicator so I may uninstall the driver.

The manual mentions to “select the language of your choice from the available folders” for the Mac installation. There weren’t any languages available for me.

Summary

I already liked the My Book and moving it to the Mac was simple. With a benchmark score significantly higher than the the internal iMac drive it may be worth booting off the drive and seeing if there’s a noticeable difference to see it’s worth me running off the My Book. I could also split my usage with one drive running the OS and applications and using the other drive for data. But for now the My Book stays as a backup drive.

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The software update is only available through Apple TV’s software update feature. Apple TV checks for updates on a weekly basis so Apple TV’s should all be updated within a week. You can also trigger an immediate update by selecting Settings -> Update Software in Apple TV. The update will restart Apple TV.

YouTube is encoding the videos using the H.264 codec. Videos will be added through the summer with the full catalog expected to be available in the fall. The videos will also be available for the iPhone.

Apple TV allows you to sign onto your YouTube account (if you have one) but like the website, an account isn’t needed. Signing on is a bit tough since you have to use the on-screen keyboard in the Apple remote. Hold down the direction arrow to slide across the keyboard if your password is spread around the keyboard like mine was.

YouTube on Apple TV does include a search feature, but since it uses the on-screen keyboard I expected using search would get tiresome very quickly if I did a lot of searching. But like Apple’s Spotlight search results are displayed as you type. So when I wanted “Ask a Ninja” I had a list of Ask A Ninja videos after typing just the word “Ask”.

I find it easier to just browse the videos on Apple TV then on the website but I don’t frequently browse the YouTube website. The Apple TV YouTube menu gives you the following menu items:

• Features
• Most Viewed
• Most Recent
• Top Rated
• Favorites
• History
• Search
• Log in (or Log out)

Te videos themselves are listed in a scrolling list on the right half of the screen. For each video the name, publisher(poster), running time, number of views and number of stars are clearly listed. When a video is selected the left half of the screen has the preview picture, name, number of stars, the text description along with the publisher, date added, category, tags and number of views.

The videos stream from the Internet. I have a relatively slow DSL connection and didn’t encounter many problems streaming. In most cases the videos start playing soon after being selected. In a few cases the video seemed to stream half the video before it started playing. This seemed to be unique to the video. Replaying the video later didn’t have the same problem. The videos aren’t cached on the Apple TV so that’s not what avoided the problem the second time.

The video quality was better than I expected. I compared a couple videos over the web and on Apple TV and the Apple TV viewing experience was better. As I mentioned my original Apple TV post I may benefit from having a standard tube TV. The videos may look worse on high-def in the same way that going to full screen mode on the web is pretty bad.

Some of the videos clearly have a “YouTube” look to them on Apple TV. The video quality is lower than other videos. But even in these cases the Apple TV video looked better than the web video.

I was wondering how the low resolution YouTube videos would translate to Apple TV and didn’t expect much. The video quality doesn’t suddenly improve so much that YouTube will be transformed into a professional video platform but if the YouTube video quality doesn’t bother you on the web then you won’t mind the quality on Apple TV.

You do lose the ability to comment on videos so if your into that feature then Apple TV isn’t for you. You can rate videos and add them to your favorites. Favorites and history from Apple TV will show on the web and visa-versa (if you’re logged on). You can’t subscribe to channels through Apple TV.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the way YouTube was implemented on AppleTV. It’s certainly easier for a group of people to watch them on the TV than crowded around the small player on a PC.

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