Day: Friday 15 February 2008
A couple of weeks back I wrote about Apple’s lack of clarity over delivery times when ordering a new computer. Well, my MacBook finally arrived yesterday (and like it very much) but tonight, I got ready to hook it up to the TV using a combination of my Apple Mini-DV to DVI and DVI to Video adapters only to find that the “spade” on the male DVI connector on one adapter is is too large to fit the female DVI connector on the other! Arghhh! I also have the same problem if I try to connect it to a DVI to VGA connector.
These are all Apple products (i.e. it’s not as it I’m trying to use a combination of cheap components to cut corners) but it seems that I need to buy a third connector – a Mini-DV to Video connector – for the rare occasions when I want to watch digital video content on my aging 32″ TV.
Thank you Apple – for yet another example of the fabled Apple design taking precedence over practicality. As a friend pointed out to me, Apple probably doesn’t want me using two connectors together as it will spoil the aesthetic effect. Shouldn’t that be my choice?
I’ve written before about my concerns with the BBC iPlayer but nevertheless, it is the only legal way to download BBC programming to my computer that I am aware of. Since I wrote that post, iPlayer has been improved to include streaming content for unsupported platforms but that doesn’t allow for offline viewing (catching up on TV episodes on the train, for example).
Well, there is a workaround and, as I figure that I am a BBC licence fee-payer and the content has been downloaded legally, converting it to watch it on another device is at least morally acceptable – even if the BBC may not agree. After all, it’s not as if I’m sharing the resulting files with other people. Based on my initial tests, it seems to work well – at least with the version of Windows Media Player that my iPlayer machine is using (v11.0.5721.5230).
All it involves is taking one copy of Windows XP, with a working BBC iPlayer installation, and running a couple of utilities to identify the keys to the Windows Media Player and remove the DRM from the .WMV files that make up the iPlayer content (by default, this is held at %allusersprofile%\Documents\My Deliveries\iplayer_live). The resulting file(s) should play in Windows Media Player without DRM restrictions – and, critically, will also play back on Windows Vista or MacOS X (using the Windows Media Components for QuickTime).
A few months ago, I was in a situation where I needed to perform a health check on a customer’s Active Directory (AD) infrastructure in preparation for guiding them through the process of migrating directory objects between forests. I’ve worked with AD for years – and am reasonably familiar with the various utilities – but didn’t really have a formalised method for reviewing its health and the political climate was such that I didn’t want to be the one who had missed an obvious diagnostic (no pressure there then!).
Then I found an eBook which turned out to be a fantastic investment – Andrew Abbate’s Digital Shortcut to Performing an Active Directory Health Check. Published by SAMS and supplied in Adobe PDF format (protected with digital rights management), this book gave me a refresher course on the tools and their use, then describes how to carry out the health check, interpret the data, and fix the problems. Sure, it won’t tell you everything you need to know – but it certainly gave me enough to apply the rest of my skills and knowledge to get to the bottom of the issues we were experiencing.
This eBook is available via the Safari online library; however googling also turned up copies available for purchase and download from a variety of online stores – I bought a copy for $9.99 at eBookMall.