Review: Apple TimeCapsule

This Christmas I received a Apple TimeCapsule for Christmas. The perfect device for me, as I’m terrible at backing up! It’s shocking to know that I never ever normally back up, and to sit at my desk and wait for my laptop to backup via TimeMachine, is a process that I find tedious. My Seagate 500GB external drive is also full of backups and data, so I had no-where to backup too.

After opening the TimeCapsule, I was impressed at the simplicity of the product. Just the TimeCapsule, power cable and the information pack with cd, which contains the airport software. To me, they should of included at least a patch cable to connect your TimeCapsule to your existing modem/router/switch.

I’m connecting my TC to my existing modem/router/wifi/ - as Linksys WAG160N. The WAG160N is a terrible router, don’t buy it. It’s great over LAN but horrible with WiFi. So, yes, I’m connection via Ethernet my WAG160N to my TC’s WAN port.

I then created my own Wireless Network, for which my personal devices will connect to it. These include, my 360, PS3, MacBook Pro & iPhone. - I created a Wireless N network but backwards compatible with g/b for my 360, PS3 & iPhone as they do not have N adapters inside of them.

Once I’d finished setting up, I started the first backup which was 90GB. I started it over WiFi - bad idea. I left it going over night, 25GB completed. I decided to connect my MacBook Pro via LAN (1gb) and do the first backup. MUCH quicker, I cannot tell you, it was done in about 2 hours. Now, my MacBook connects quickly, and does little updates of about 45MB every hour or two.

Is it noisy? You can certainly here the harddrive reading/writing/accessing. It’s about as noisy as a external hardrive, just a bit noiser. It sounds very similar to my Seagate 2007 external hardrive.

Is it reliable? I haven’t restarted it since Chrismtas day. Once you’ve worked out the kinks and the got settings correct (which I have) - everything is ready, and you just leave it.

What about the expandability? Of course the TimeCapsule has a USB port to connect a external drive, I can see no reason why you cannot connect an extra drive, and set timemachine to backup to that drive.

What would I like to see? I would like to see Apple creating a system where I can store my iTunes library on it, where it would be able to download my music, and podcasts automatically. Like iTunes running on your PC, although it’s running in the background on your timecapsule.

Overall 8/10.

If you have any question, don’t be afaid to ask them.

Your Voice: iPhone Apps

Since the end of the June when apple released the iPhone & iPod Touch 2.0 firmware, the market for Apps has gone insane and the amount of apps that are now available for download is ridiculous. Although there are many great free apps, I haven’t really wanted to download them.

If i have more than one page of apps on my first generation iPhone, it becomes incredibly sluggish, and the user experience isn’t a good one. Therefore I’m not a fan of them - i have only 5 or 6 apps.

These are:

• Aim (AOL Instant Messenger)
• Last.Fm
• Twitterfon
• Brightkite
• Fring

Notice how they are all social network sites and communication tools? The iPhone to me is a phone and it will be nothing more. (Apart from a music player too).

I want to know: What do you use on your iPhone? What apps do you use on a regular basis, and what are your opinions!

Review: 1Password

Recently, I watched a ScreenCast on 1Password and found it interesting. It seemed like the perfect solution for me, as I can easily forget passwords, and use sometimes the same password on multiple sites.

1Password is from AgileWebSolutions, and I was luckily enough to snap up 2 Licenses. One for me , One for a lucky reader of mine! (another post about that soon! Subscribe to my blog for updates!)

What is 1Password?

1Password allows you to store and management all your online user name and passwords. It also has a password generator which is excellent for providing strong passwords. Then the app handles all of these, and keeps them safe in your KeyChain.

What’s The Point of 1Password?

A while back, I was using the same password of multiple sites not realising the consequences of someone finding out that password and then abusing all the sites that he could access. After I purchased 1Password, I went to all of those sites, reset the password and used the inbuilt generation to make some seriously strong passwords. I don’t think anyone is going to be cracking into the passwords that I set up on those sites.

So, it’ll only work with Safari?

Ah! No! 1Password works with Safari, Firefox, Camino, Flock, OmniWeb, Fluid and even NetNewsWire! They all have the application setup inside of the browser so you can easily log into your favourite websites.

What about I’m on the move with my iPhone, and need to know a password?

1Password has the ability to sync with both your iPhone and Palm device, this is one of the best features apart from the app it self. It works like a charm! Also, if you own a MobileMe account, you can sync the key chain to multiple computers, allowing 1Password to operate on any computer that you own that is synced with MobileMe.

I hate filling out forms with my details, it takes to long. Is 1Password for me?

1Password has the ability to create identities which fills all the information on web forms for you. Including Name, Address, Email, etc.. Very simple in your in rush!

Overall

It’s one of the best apps I’ve seen in a while from the Mac Community, I give it a 4.7 out of 5.0!

iTunes: Re-Downloading your music

Yesterday, I discovered that I was missing some of the music that I had purchased a while back from the iTunes store. I looked everywhere for it - on external hard drives, iPods, you name it. Turns out that I obviously had missed it out when backing up. But iTunes doesn’t offer any re-download service which to me, seems ridiculous. I’ve lost music that I’ve paid for, you can re-rip a CD that you’ve purchased from a store, what’s the difference? Yes, there could be legal issue’s but I have some right to re-download the music that I have the paid license for, to listen to.

It just annoys me that Apple, (the biggest online store and music seller in the US) is stopping us from re-downloading music and listening to it. Yes, I can agree that it’s partly my fault for not correctly backing it up. But I should be able to get it from iTunes Store again? 

What are your thoughts on this? Here’s a youtube video I made to watch.

Pointless Application & Device Updates

Are very annoying. How boring is to wait for the iPhone’s amazing huge 250+mb firmware to download. Seriously, can they not make add on updates like 20mb? It’s a hefty bit of tube work for my internets handle, yeah sure I can download it, but then what? I have to wait 10 minutes for my iPhone to do something which could break it (Which It has done before) and yet I see no improvement what SO ever in the OS.

Yes, I know they’re bug fixes, but to me they just seem to pointless. Can you just not make a giant pack of bug fixes and then release it?

What’s your thoughts on device updates and how you apply them?