This is part 2 of a 2 part series. In part 1, I looked at ways to watch the movies, music and television shows stored on our computer on a standard television screen.

More and more people are now storing music, movies and television shows in digital format and watching them directly on their television screens. However, our quest for large collections also requires another, perhaps more important, quest – more hard drive space.

Knowing full well that my temporary setup for moving countries wasn’t going to work for much longer, I started researching my requirements. I decided I needed the following to be happy.

• To have a complete backup at all times. This is fairly self-explanatory – I wanted an additional copy of everything, just in case. I’ve suffered losses in the past, leading me to be quite particular about my data.
• To limit the amount of external drives hanging off my computer. When I consolidated everything to move countries, I needed almost 1 terabyte of space. That essentially meant I was going to need at least 2 additional external drives to expand, including a backup drive.
• To not restrict the use of my main computer while someone was watching a movie. My main computer is a notebook and I like to utilise that by working from different parts of the house. I would be restricted to one place if I was streaming a movie at the same time.
• To have plenty of room for expansion. These collections can grow really quickly, and I wanted something that would last a long time without needing to be reconfigured whenever it got close to filling up.
• To use the system at any time without needing to set something up first. This would allow family members to easily use it without needing me around to start it for them.

In short, I needed Network Attached Storage (NAS) with RAID capability that could stream iTunes. Unfortunately, such a beast either doesn’t exist, or just wasn’t available within my budget. There are a lot of acceptable NAS devices on the market, but none that could effectively stream iTunes without a computer.

That wasn’t really a drama because I had an old laptop that wasn’t being used anymore, which meant it didn’t need to be network attached. The laptop could be used solely for running iTunes, so all I really needed was a giant RAID hard drive. I researched available solutions for a long time before choosing the Drobo by Data Robotics.

The Drobo is a single unit that accepts up to 4 hard drives, giving me a maximum of 16 terabytes of storage. It has enough redundancy built in to allow me to remove a hard drive and add a larger one without losing any data, meaning that I can easily replace any drive that crashes or fills. The green lights on the side tell me how healthy the drives are, while the blue lights tell me how much storage is available.

The Drobo connects to the laptop running iTunes using just 1 USB cable. They sit unobtrusively in a corner of my study just working away without required any human interaction other than the occasional laptop reboot when Windows updates itself.

The redundancy also means that backups are taken care of; at least for the short term. Ideally, I still need a method of storing a duplicate copy offsite, but I still don’t have anything in place. I like the idea of using an online backup service, but don’t like the idea of taking weeks or months to download that much data should it be required. Maybe a second Drobo is the answer?

More and more people are now storing music, movies and television shows in digital format and watching them directly on their television screens.

The main benefits of this are

• Convenience. It’s much easier to turn on the television and scan through a list of titles than standing in front of a shelf with your head turned sideways trying to find that elusive cover.
• Smaller Footprint. CD and DVD covers take up a lot of space when they’re organised on a bookshelf so people can scan through them. They take up a lot less space when they’re stacked in a big box in the spare room.
• Cool Factor. Enough said!

There are several products on the market that make this possible. The more technical among us do it with desktop computers and linux, while some others seem to purchase whatever is on the store shelf at the time.

I was never a fan of using a desktop computer, reasoning that it would look too out of place in the living room. Besides, I had to remember that I wouldn’t be the only person in the house using it, so it had to follow the KISS principal – Keep It Simple Stupid.

For many years, I used an original xbox that had been modified to run XBMC, an open source operating system written specifically for serving digital entertainment to the television. Being a games system, it looked like it belonged in the living room, and navigating the menu system was a breeze for even the most technically inept. The xbox solution worked flawlessly when it was properly set up, but upgrading to the latest version of the software was often “interesting”.

When the time came to move to a new country with different electricity standards, I decided to leave the xbox behind and loaded the movie collection onto an external hard drive. I’d worry about how to watch them after we settled in, and in the meantime I’d think about what I really wanted.

I performed a lot of research over the following weeks to try and find the best solution for our needs. I wanted something that was easy for my family to use, and didn’t require me to manipulate code when an update was released. I wanted something that looked like it was meant to be in the living room with the television.

When the decision was finally made, the winner was an Apple TV with 40 GB hard drive. It allows me to keep our entire entertainment collection in another room and stream it over the home network as we watch movies and television shows or listen to music.

The user interface is clean and simple, and the Apple TV looks just like a small white box; so small and inconspicuous that most of our visitors don’t even realise it’s there.

When linked to an iTunes store account, we can rent and buy movies straight over the internet, removing the need to store bulky cases at all. It also has a nifty screensaver function, turning our television into a massive digital photo frame when we aren’t watching a movie or television show.

This is part 1 of a 2 part series. In part 2, I’ll be looking at ways to store the growing collection of movies, music and television shows that we accumulate.

A lot of people have openly criticized Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system, but a Senator in Texas has taken it to a whole new level.

According to the San Antonio Express News, Senator Juan Hinojosa has attached a rider to the bill approving the State’s budget that will require government departments to get written approval before purchasing Vista technology related to an operating system, equipment or licenses.

Hinojosa, Senate Finance Committee vice chairman, said, “We have a lot of problems with the Vista program. It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It’s not compatible with other equipment, and it’s supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program that is being used by state agencies, and it’s not.”

Microsoft, not surprisingly, was disappointed enough to issue the following statement.

Given our daily work with government agencies and longstanding technology partnership, we’re surprised that the Texas Senate Finance Committee adopted a rider which, in effect, singles out a specific corporation and product for unequal treatment. We hope as the budget continues to go through the process this language will be removed.

The vote on the bill is expected to happen tomorrow.

A lot has happened since AT&T confirmed they would be selling contract-free iPhones, including…

• In the United Kingdom, O2 started giving them away to customers willing to sign a 24 month contract instead of the usual 18 months.
• In the United States, Apple has also started selling the iPhone in their retail stores without the regular AT&T contract. The catch is that the units are still locked to AT&T, although that can be easily fixed.

Both of the above examples further strengthen the belief that a new version of the iPhone is due very soon, making it difficult for any potential customer to make the decision – by now and upgrade the software when 3.0 is released, or wait until the next generation is released?

The people at MacHeist have just released the third edition of their famous software bundle for Mac users.

This year’s bundle features a core lineup of a dozen award winning and popular apps, games and utilities that represent the cream of the crop from the Mac development community. Whether you’re interested in cooking a meal, or playing the best puzzle game of last year, or selling off an old item on Ebay, the MacHeist bundle has you covered.

For 13 more days, not only can you get a minimum of $627 worth of award-winning applications for just $39, they’re also giving 25% of sales to charity. Plus, if they sell enough, three extra applications will be unlocked, bringing the total value to $975.

Click here for more information. I think it’s worth the $39 for World of Goo alone!

The CEO of Red Hat, Jim Whitehurst, is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the Open Source Business Conference this week.

At a pre-conference activity last night he encouraged the various open source vendors to make the most of the current economic climate and get out there and start knocking on doors, referring to his own recent experience as an example.

There are companies we’ve been trying to set up meetings with for years that are all of a sudden calling us up and saying ‘We need to talk.’ The more desperate the industry, the more interested people are.

I have to say that I agree. While writing a paper on the topic a couple of years ago, I discovered that one of the biggest struggles potential customers have with the whole concept of open source is actually one of the biggest selling points the movement has – the cost (or lack thereof). Customers believe that the lack of fees is related to a lack of quality in the product, meaning a lot more effort to maintain.

Now that the shrinking IT budget is more important than ever, it’s time for open source vendors to show just how capable their products are compared to those expensive, off-the-shelf solutions that are costing more in annual maintenance fees than the original price of the license.

If the vendors can clearly demonstrate the business value of using their products, they stand a greater chance of getting inside for the long term. This could be a real turning point for the open source movement, but we need to act now – the opportunity won’t be there forever.

Australia’s third largest Internet Service Provider, iiNet, has issued a press release confirming that they have dropped out of the Federal Government’s internet filter trial.

Managing Director Michael Malone, who has been stating throughout the entire process that they only agreed to participate in the trial to demonstrate just how flawed the idea is, had some interesting things to say…

It became increasingly clear that the trial was not simply about restricting child pornography or other such illegal material, but a much wider range of issues including what the Government simply describes as “unwanted material” without an explanation of what that includes.

Everyone is repulsed by, and opposed to, child pornography but this trial and policy is not the solution or even about that.

In reality, the vast majority of online child pornography activity does not appear on public websites but is distributed over peer-to-peer networks which are not and cannot be captured by this trial or policy.

iiNet’s withdrawal means that the trial continues without any representation from the country’s three largest Internet Service Providers.

I wonder what will happen next with the comedy of errors affectionately known as the Great Aussie Firewall.

United States cellular telephone company AT&T has finally confirmed to the Associated Press that it will start selling the popular iPhone without a contract next Thursday.

The catch?

The new phones will still be “locked” to AT&T and won’t work with any other cellular carrier unless they’re modified. AT&T will only activate them on the regular iPhone plans, which include a $30 monthly charge for data access.

Surely this exclusive agreement to only sell iPhones locked to the AT&T network must be hurting Apple in some respect? What about the punters who like the iPhone, but don’t need or want the data plans? What about the punters who simply don’t have coverage in their area?

I can personally see the benefits of using an all in one device like the iPhone, but not if it means paying $30 per month more than I am already just because of the model of phone I have.

I believe Apple would sell a lot more units if there was the option of a completely unlocked version that could be used on any cellular network. Mind you, that option may be available sooner rather than later.

If the combination of very firm rumors and Apple’s usual product cycle are to be believed, a new version of the phone is due this summer. Add to that the belief that AT&T’s comfortable and exclusive arrangement may be due to end in June, and the cynic in me says AT&T is rushing to offload existing stock before it becomes obsolete.

We’ll see.

Oracle Corporation has just announced positive results for Q3-09. So positive in fact, that they’re throwing in a 5 cent dividend for shareholders.

Oracle also announced today that its Board of Directors intends to pay a quarterly cash dividend of $0.05 per share, or $0.20 per share annually, on its common stock.

This is the first quarterly dividend Oracle has ever paid, and the first dividend of any kind for a long, long time. In the current economy, this will certainly be good news for their shareholders.

The good news still didn’t stop CEO Larry Ellison from pointing out that they could have done much better if they didn’t have to report their global income in US dollars, but that seems to be all the rage these days…

“But for the strengthening of the US dollar leading to unfavorable currency exchange rates, our non-GAAP earnings per share would have increased 29% in Q3,” said Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison. “This is a tremendous achievement in the face of the serious slowdown in the world economy.”

I don’t think the shareholders will worry too much…

A lot has been said over the last few months about the “Great Wall of Australia” – the current government’s attempt at internet censorship.

Currently being trialled by six of the country’s smaller internet service providers, the whole process has been nothing but a case of one piece of bad publicity after another.

Earlier this week, the hosting provider of the Whirlpool forum, BulletProof Networks, was threatened with an A$11,000 per day fine because just one of Whirlpool’s thousands of members posted a link to a website which is among those which would be banned should the filter be permanently implemented.

The great irony here is that the filter is being “sold” to Australia as a necessary evil to block sites that promote the sexual abuse of children. The link posted on Whirlpool was to an anti-abortion site that had been added to the blacklist because of just one complaint by just one person about just one page. See here and here for more.

It gets better. As a result of the above, Computerworld has discovered that it only takes just one person to add a site to the blacklist.

The decision is made by a single ACMA staffer, even someone part of a graduate process, who assumes the classification board would not like [a Web site].

The two types of content that ACMA can hide from the eyes of Australians are prohibited content, which has been previously classified; and potentially prohibited content which is banned on a hunch that the classification board won’t like it.

No committee review or consultation with a panel or “experts” – just one person who can decide based on his or her person feelings.

The current version of the blacklist has now been published on Wikileaks (you can find that one by using your search engine of choice), and that site has also been added to the blacklist, along with the official business website of a Dentist, and several other legitimate sites.

I’ve taken a look at the list, and based on the URLs alone, can safely say that no normal person should be looking at those sites anyway, but that’s not the point.

Censoring the internet is essentially a step backwards for Australia, a country that takes pride in its tradition of democratically electing governments. Not only that, but determining the blacklist on the decision of just one person reminds me of a certain other type of government that Australia frowns on.

19 March 2009 Update: Senator Conroy has released a statement both condemning the publication of the blacklist contents, and denying that the published list is the actual blacklist.