This week, Apple unveiled a long-awaited update to their “hobby” machine, the iTV Apple TV.  Like many other Apple enthusiasts out there, I have been excited about this and waiting for something to happen.  Apple CEO Steve Jobs said a long while ago that the Apple TV isn’t meant to be a strong competitor in the ‘media center’ world, and is merely a “hobby” unit, so the project was obviously slid to a back burner.  But, it was nice to see it finally out this week.  I’d put a picture of the lovely new unit up, but unfortunately I didn’t really plan this out too well, and there’s nothing available under a Creative Commons ShareAlike license right now.  Trust me though, it’s pretty.  Go here if you don’t believe me.

The Apple TV unit will fit in the palm of your hand, as it no longer has a hard drive internally, but can stream content from your own Mac/PC over your local network or from the internet.  Like many internet appliances of late, the Apple TV has added Netflix streaming as well.  I love Netflix – I’ve long been on record in that regard, and have been a subscriber more or less since 2001 – but that wasn’t the service I was hoping to see.  Once the Apple TV is able to add Hulu to it’s repertoire, I will be a faithful devotee, not just an admirer.  There are rumors that Apple is looking to add HuluPlus, the subscription-based model of Hulu, to the device later in the year, but I have yet to find anything definitive from either company.

On the positive side, however, Apple lowered the price of the unit from $225 to $99.  The change in price alone might be enough to make me a convert.  My father-in-law has one of the older models, and I’ve said for some time that you could do away with cable and entertain yourself from the sheer number of podcasts and YouTube feeds that are available through the device, even if you don’t ever purchase any TV shows or movies.  But, I know myself well enough to know that I won’t be able to give up my shows like Eureka, The Closer, Burn Notice and Warehouse 13…to name a few.  Those subscriptions could get pretty pricey.  Will it add up to the price of my cable bill each month?  I don’t know…but it’s a lot to consider.  And I don’t want to own the TV shows…just watch them.  Having the ability to own them would be a nice option, but I know for a fact I don’t want to OWN Hell’s Kitchen Season 7.  I just want to watch it.  That’s why Hulu is such a great option…and one that will put Apple over the top if they can work out a way to add it.

What are your thoughts on this “new-ish” direction that Apple is taking the Apple TV?  Are you a fan of the device, or would you like to see other things incorporated?  Will you buy one?  And if not…what is holding you back?  Let me know in the comments section!

If you’re not familiar with the Golden Knights, don’t feel bad.  I was only somewhat acquainted with their background going into tonight’s performance.  After seeing their skills first hand, I have to say – it’s quite an experience!

I brought my Vado HD along for the ride, and took some video of the performance.  I hope you enjoy.  Here are the first two parts:
Part 1:

Part 2:

After the jumps, John Pozadzides (one of the big organizers behind OpenCamp Dallas) addressed the assembled crowd:

I talked with John a bit more privately after he addressed everyone as a group (sorry for the quality of video – it got dark pretty quickly, and I didn’t have a light source to help me out):

I also got a chance to speak with the beautiful and talented Cali Lewis while I was there. If you’re not familiar with Cali at all, she’s the talent and drive behind the popular GeekBrief.tv web series that ran for many years, and is now the host of GeekBeat.tv at Revision 3. She made a jump with the Golden Knights yesterday (August 26th if you’re keeping track for some reason), and shared her experience with me:

That’s all for now! Hope you enjoyed the video…I’ll keep you abreast of the fun new things I’m picking up this weekend on Twitter, at the very least. I might have another post before the end of the weekend, too. You never know.

1. This is good information to know:
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2. If you haven’t signed up already (and nearly all my friends haven’t, at least as far as I know), go to Twitter and sign up for an account. I update on Twitter pretty regularly – a few times a day, anyway, usually. And there are some great Tech and Pop Culture folks out there that you can follow and get an inside into what’s new with them. Please add me – I’m WiredMonkey there too. Here’s an easy to understand explanation of how it works.

I will try to update more regularly. The little monkeyling is doing well. Here’s a pic of him to wrap things up:

Anyway, I have been transferring and consolidating music files…getting rid of duplicates, etc., etc. When I’m finished, I should still have nearly 200 GB in music, but there will be some space on the firewire drive to build a partition for back-up purposes. Then I can make sure I keep all of my music, photos, and other such important things. Just in time for Time Machine to come around on Leopard and make all of this tie together oh so nicely. Stay with me here…

So, this evening, I was wrapping up some of my “drive cleaning”, and getting ready to outfit Fred with Leopard. I move over my pictures and document folders to back those up, and decide to give the disk a bit of a check with the Disk Utility feature on the install disk – make sure it’s working okay and ready to handle the new OS. Here, we begin the fun…

First, as I’m verifying the disk, the utility starts spewing error after error at me – problems with several HP Laserjet printer descriptions or something to that effect. Kind of odd, since I don’t use an HP Laserjet, and I’m not sure Fred has ever printed to an HP Laserjet. I’m sure it’s some of the default descriptions they have on file so that Fred can be a Plug & Play wiz, but it’s a pain that they’ve gone corrupt or whatever.

So, it goes through several thousand of those errors, and then locks up. Big Fat Beachball o’ Death. Ugh. Not much to do at this point but to give him a restart and go in to run it again. This time, I get in there, and Disk Utility won’t verify the disk. It starts and stops about 30 seconds in. Hrmmm….

Well, let’s go back to OS 10.4.10, I say to myself. Let’s REALLY make sure everything is backed up, and bring out the heavy diagnostic tools…. Ha, ha, ha. Of course not! Fred won’t have it. Right during startup, Fred just shuts off. Going back in to the Leopard startup disk, the new installer won’t even see the hard drive. It requires that I completely erase and re-format the disk before it will do any sort of verifying or installing.

Well. I could spend the lengthy (and probably costly) process of reclaiming the data through various outlets – there are options to get stuff off of dead/damaged disks. But, I really don’t want to deal with all of that. And, aside from an iTunes Library file and some bookmarks in my Safari folder, I have complete backups of everything.

Things definitely could be worse. I could have NOT backed up my pictures and document folders before going in to Disk Utility. I have gone in there without doing so before. And, I could have no backup system in place, and be in a real pickle about what to do to recover my precious stuff. Really, what I’m left with is the realization of what a great advertisement this is for the new backup feature I’m trying to install on Leopard….almost makes you wonder if there is some conspiracy in place….to truly show you just how badly you need the product you are installing. Building consumer confidence through annoyance and data destruction! W00t!

I’ve got an extension on my iTunes called iLike, and while you’re listening to songs in your library, it tells you about other “related artists” you own, and allows you to build a quick instant playlist with similar artists (which is great for a quick “on-the-go” playlist for your iPod). It also tells you about related artists you may want to get (and gives you links to learn more about them, and then a section from similar up and coming artists who can post their free mp3s for download).

But, what I like best is that it gives you 8 profiles for other iLike people who are listeners to the artist you are currently listening to. Well, during one of those songs, I was clicking on a few of the profiles, and I came across this woman who matched me pretty evenly music-wise, and on her profile, she had a link to her blog. I then found the blog I mentioned above.

A long story, I suppose, for a brief moment of epiphonic enjoyment (okay, I totally made that up, but the alliteration – or in this case illiteration – was worth it). Regardless, I now have a new blog to enjoy and a smile on my face.