So recently we looked at how Casey uses her laptop and realized that except for streaming music through iTunes, she does everything in a web browser. This meant that while a Macbook would be very nice, it’d also be a little overkill for daily use. Instead, it turned out that a netbook was a near perfect fit for her.

A photo of a pink Dell Mini 9 netbook computer

After reading reviews and searching for deals, we ended up buying a Inspiron Mini 9 notebook from Dell. Except for upgrading the color to Promise Pink, we opted for the base configuration (1 GB RAM, 4 GB solid state hard drive, Ubuntu Linux operating system). I immediately doubled the memory to 2 GB for just $20 and then, after being backorderd for a couple of months, installed a 16 GB RunCore SSD to replace the stock Dell hard drive.

The Ubuntu operating system that came installed on the Mini is completely usable for most tasks, but my plan all along was to install Mac OS Leopard (10.5) to turn it into a very portable Mac laptop. There are a small number of netbooks that run Mac OS with few issues, and the Mini 9 currently tops the compatibility list.

Armed with a very complete set of how-to instructions and a few free pieces of software, I had Leopard running on Casey’s Mini in a single evening. I did run into a couple of problems during the installation, but they were addressed in the instructions as known issues with workarounds and fixes.

The end result? This is one fast laptop. Because there are no traditional hard disks spinning, it boots off the solid-state drive in just seconds and programs open almost instantly. There are tradeoffs, however. Because the Mini is so small, the screen and keyboard take some getting used to. Casey tells me that typing wasn’t a problem after a couple of days of practice, and I’ll take her word for it since I’ve only handled it sporadically.

So, for about $350 and a few hours of work, Casey now has a netbook that is dramatically faster than her six year old PowerBook it replaced. Most importantly, it does just what she needs it to.

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1. Making Windows Act a Little More Like Mac OS X

This post lists the automated workflow I’m using on our iMac to get new episodes of my favorite shows off the internet and onto my iPod Nano so I can watch them whenever and wherever I want.

1. Finding TV Shows with showRSS

If you want to automate the process of getting TV episodes off the internet, your computer needs a way to know when a new show is available, and where it can find it. showRSS solves this problem nicely by allowing you to create and subscribe to a customized RSS news feed that tracks practically any current TV series. When a new episode is available, the feed is updated, which then allows the next step of the process to kick-in.

showRSS also lets you fine-tune your feed to only check for HD (or non-HD) content in order to avoid duplicate content, spare yourself from large high-def downloads, etc.

2. Subscribing to Episode Feeds With Automatic

Having created an RSS feed for a TV show in step 1, you need a way to subscribe to it and monitor it for new episodes. There are tons of these available for Mac OS. For quite awhile I had been using one of the best all-purpose Mac news readers — the free NetNewsWire. It was a bit overkill for the task, but it worked well. However, last month I found a tiny program that does exactly what you want here, and nothing more. It’s also free, and called simply Automatic.

Automatic is an RSS reader designed specifically for monitoring feeds and downloading content from them. It runs as a service, so it starts up automatically with the operating system and quietly does it thing in the background when it’s time to check feeds for updates. In our case, if it finds a new episode available from the showRSS feed, it downloads a torrent) file to a folder you specify (Automatic does check for duplicates before downloading).

And that’s it — Automatic’s job is done, and the next step begins.

3. Downloading Shows With Transmission

The torrent file downloaded in step 2 won’t do you any good by itself. Instead, you need a BitTorrent client to consume that file and begin downloading the video using the connection information contained within it. On the Mac, I highly recommend the free Transmission client.

There are a few important settings you need to change in Transmission to get it configured correctly for this workflow:

1. Specify an incomplete downloads that is different than the folder than where it puts completed downloads
2. Don’t display the “adding transfer” window, or only show it when there are multiple files
3. Watch the folder you specified in step 2 for new torrent files

Using these settings, Transmission will automatically begin downloading a new TV episode as soon as Automatic finds it is available. It’ll store that video file in a temporary folder for the duration of its download and then move it to a different folder when it’s complete. This is key for the next step.

4. Encoding and Adding Metadata With Videoengine

After an episode download is completed, there are still a few things that need to be done to it before it’s ready to be consumed on your iPod. First, it needs to be transcoded into an iPod-friendly video codec — usually either H.264 or MPEG-4 — in a size and quality that is appropriate for a small device. Then, episode metadata needs to be inserted into the file so that it can be easily identified and sorted within iTunes and your iPod.

This niche is filled perfectly by a new open source software project called Videoengine. Videoengine is a combination of the command line version of the HandBrake video encoding software and some AppleScripts and shell scripts that automate a few things:

1. Monitoring your completed downloads file for new video files. If one appears, Videoengine automatically begins converting it to a preset size/quality setting of your choice.
2. Contacting TVDB.com to retrieve episode metadata after the iPod version is create. If it finds any, it embeds it in the video file.
3. Adding the episode to your iTunes video library.

Prior to the beta release of Videoengine in the middle of March, I was going to attempt to hack a quick-and-dirty solution using the HandBrake CLI, a small application called iDentify, and a few scripts to tie everything together. After looking at the Videoengine source code, I’m extremely happy I didn’t have to do this, as the process is much more complicated than I imagined. So, my thanks to the Videoengine guys for not only creating a solution to this narrow problem, but for making it free and open source as well.

5. Cleaning Up With Hazel

You could easily get by without a step 5, but in the interest of automating this process from end-to-end, I wanted a way to cleanup the files created and free-up the disk space. Hazel does a great job here.

Hazel is a simple utility that lets you create rules to automatically keep your files organized. In my case, after a TV episode has been downloaded, converted to an iPod friendly format, and added to iTunes, I no longer have a need for the original video, or the converted one (iTunes creates a copy of it when it’s added to the library). So, I have a couple of rules setup to automatically move these files to the trash after a day (this gives me a small time buffer in case I want to manually intervene). Then, Hazel will automatically empty these files from my trash after 3 days.

Conclusion and Final Notes

I’ll admit that this workflow is rather geeky and also probably overkill. But, once setup, it works rather well.

The only weak spot seems to be depending on TheTVDB.com for show metadata. The site seems to be down often, and there’s the off chance that information for a newly downloaded episode hasn’t been entered into their database prior to Videoengine querying for it. If either of these cases ever happen, Videoengine will leave the converted file in your output folder for you to manually import into iTunes.

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4. Adventures In Podcasting
5. NBC is Missing a Marketing Opportunity with The Office

So, I took this opportunity to make my Windows laptop just a little more like a Mac. First, I installed the really nice X1 Search client, sort of like a Spotlight for Windows XP. It indexes all of my files and all of my work email, letting me find exactly what I’m looking for in 1/10th of the time it normally takes to browse through my documents and emails. It’s a great time saver, and it’s free.

I also installed a trial version of ActiveWords, a piece of software that does some of what Quicksilver does in Mac OS. You can watch some of the demos for a good overview, but it basically lets you type words into a little pop-up window to perform a task. For example, I can press the control key plus the spacebar to bring up the “Actionpad”, where I type the word “gmail”. This will launch an instance of Firefox and bring me to my Gmail inbox automatically. There’s even a complete scripting language to let you create automate more complex tasks. Pretty cool and also a big time saver, especially since I can take many of my common tasks down to a couple of keystrokes.

While I haven’t exactly done much here, it sure beats using the default Windows install. The main thing is that I’ll be able to get a little more work done…

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I have to admit that I really didn’t understand what Quicksilver did when I downloaded it. I had a vague idea that it is a productivity tool and is considered a “launcher”, but that was about it. After a few minutes of using it though, the light bulb finally flickered on. I haven’t used it very much yet but can see what all the fuss is about. From looking at some of the posts on 43 folders about Quicksilver, I haven’t even scratched the surface yet.

It’s definately worth a download if you’re a Mac user! Quicksilver is free, and if you like it you can send the auther a donation to show your appreciation.

• improved support for web standards
• support for personal certificate authentication
• support for Java 1.4.2
• full keyboard access
• resumable downloads through the download manager
• improved stability
• faster page rendering

I promptly downloaded the new versions of Safari and Java for both my G4 at work and Casey’s PowerBook, and have been impressed. Stability hasn’t been much of an issue for me (I can’t remember the last time Safari crashed on me), but the faster page rendering is noticeable, and quite an improvement. A nice update overall, but nothing Earth shattering.

This leads me to my main point: as soon as the update was announced on the many Macintosh sites, people started to complain. You see, Safari 1.2 is only available for Mac OS 10.3, AKA Panther. Users of OS 10.2 (Jaguar) are stuck at version 1.0 (I believe 1.1 was only available with the Panther installation). This has created some bitterness among those who are still using Jaguar, as some are wondering what technical reason prevents Safari 1.2 from working with their OS. Several people have gone as far as forcing v1.2 to install in OS 10.2, leaving them with a dead OS after rebooting.

This sort of thing happens almost every time after Apple releases a major OS update (10.1 -> 10.2 -> 10.3). Some people feel entitled to any new feature/update Apple provides, and complain everytime things don’t go their way, saying that Apple is forcing them to buy the latest and greatest version of the Mac OS. To which I say: Does Steve Jobs come to your home and threaten to break your thumbs if you refuse to upgrade? Jaguar is a completely usable operating system, which I would take over Windows XP any day. Safari 1.0 is a good browser as well, working fine with most web sites. Apple doesn’t have to support Jaguar in any way if they don’t want to. They have been nice enough to provide security patches in the last few months, and iLife 04 will run just fine under 10.2.

There even does appear to be technical reasons why Safari 1.2 only works on Panther. Safari makes heavy use of the WebCore library, which is part of the OS and was updated with OS 10.3. Another component heavily used and modified with Panther is the Quartz drawing engine that is responsible for all of the pretty graphics in OS X.

It all really boils down to this: Apple’s yearly point updates to the Mac OS are basically the closest they can get to a software subscription model without facing a major consumer backlash. Microsoft briefly piloted a program in 2002 which allowed people in Australia, France, and New Zealand to rent Office XP for a montly/yearly subscription fee. The price point looked nice, but many people didn’t realize that the product expired at the end of the subscription. No pay, no play. Microsoft determined that the consumer market just wasn’t ready for this sort of model.

Apple’s model is a nice mix of old and new: yearly software upgrades with many cool new features for about $100. If you want the new software tools, you pay your money and you and Apple are both happy. If you decide that you are happy with what you currently have, no problem. You can forgo the latest version of OS X (and its new features) and keep using your current version without any problems. There probably won’t be any updates to it beyond security fixes, but it will still keep working as well as ever. Apple gives you many reasons and incentives to pay for the upgrade, such as Expose, better Windows compatibility, and new versions of Safari, but you don’t have to comply if you don’t want to. Missing from this, however, is that you should shut-up and stop complaining if you go this route: Apple doesn’t owe you anything.

UPDATE (02/08/04): Apple has responded to complaints of the Safari 1.2 update mini-scandal. As I stated above, Apple’s choice to only provide the update to owners of OS 10.3 was primarily do to technical reasons:

“Safari 1.2 has been designed to leverage advances in Panther not present in the Jaguar release of Mac OS X. These Panther technologies are needed to deliver Safari v1.2’s most significant improvements. For example, personal certificate support is made possible by Panther-specific security technologies that are simply not available on Jaguar.”

Will this statement quiet the complainers? I’m going with a big fat “no” on that one.

• Final Cut Express 2.0
• Xserve G5
• iLife ’04
• iPod mini

Nothing earth shattering, really. I’ve never had the chance to use Final Cut Express (I’m still working with iMovie 3), so that doesn’t excite me much. The new Xserve’s will be nice for corporate America and education institutions, making some wonder why it was announced at a consumer expo.

The new iPod mini’s are small and cute, but left me and others underwhelmed. For $250 you get a business card sized iPod with 4 GB of storage, good for about 1,000 songs according to Apple. Now, compared to the high-end flash memory players Apple claims the mini is competing against, this isn’t a bad size/storage/price ratio. Someone in that market could very well decide that the image and reputation of the Apple iPod is worth a $50 premium. When you put it up against the players in the hard drive-based jukeboxes, however, it just doesn’t make sense. As of today, the low-end regular iPod is $300 and includes a 15 GB hard drive. This means that for an extra $50 you get an additional 11 GB of storage. Maybe I’m underestimating the number of people looking for small expensive digital audio players, but I don’t see this thing staying at $250 for very long.

The iLife updates seem to be worth the money. I’ve already sent in my $30 for the education version. GarageBand makes me wish I had at least one musical bone in my body. I might have fun playing around with the music loops though. If Steve Jobs can do it, I think I can too.

I found it somewhat surprising that the Apple rumor sites practically got 100% this time around. Think Secret seems to have had the best record, basically predicting every major annoucement. Either things are getting very leaky at Apple, or they’re throwing gimmies to the rumor mongers, leaving the big guns for a later date.

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2. Obligatory Steve Jobs Keynote Comments
3. Apple WWDC 2006
4. Lots of New Stuff From Apple
5. Some People just LOVE to Complain…