Author: iandick

Backpocket

What a week. Corbyn, Refugee Crisis and Ad Blockers topped by a weekend of quality sport. Oof.

Backpocket

A pretty busy week in tech and politics. The Labour leadership result is just the start of an interesting time for the party – get your popcorn ready. Meanwhile the Apple keynote has launched a slew of new products to chew over the coming months. Good times.

Abundance of Apple

The Apple keynote this week was one of it’s bigger events in a while and was also notable for it’s lack of store updates, dad dancing and anything to do with OS X. What was covered was Apple’s bet on the future…or was it?

Apple Watch
We saw brief mention of whats coming this Wednesday with watchOS 2 and it can’t come soon enough really. My third party app usage is almost non-existent so I’ve got a fairly big expectation that app’s running natively on the watch will deliver a big benefit, not only in speed but in taking advantage of the on board sensors. Third party complications will be a welcome addition alongside the upgrade in app’s – just a shame that third party watch faces aren’t a thing. Yet. Next year methinks.

The other new additions in watchOS 2 are nice but the rest of the keynote focussed on new bands, colours and a special edition from Hermes. 16 official sport band colours alongside a couple of new colour bands elsewhere. In time for Christmas or trying to bump sales? The Watch is a companion for the iPhone so huge sales were never going to happen but I do wonder if the Apple Watch and wearables in general aren’t the big sellers that the tech companies expected. 3D TV anyone?

iPad Pro
iPad Big. iPad Surface. It’s just a big iPad. Blah blah blah. While the iPad Pro isn’t for me I really want to use one. To have that much performance from a tablet coupled with iOS 9 improvements and all the benefits from a stylus thats been built to work hand in hand with the iPad Pro not just a third party add-on? Pretty compelling and the demo’s from the keynote and afterwards have done nothing to quell my enthusiasm. But I won’t be buying one.

The interesting quote from Tim Cook was the iPad Pro is ‘The future of personal computing’. That’s a pretty bold statement considering the iPad is 5 years old and Apple still sell many many laptops. It’s down to use cases but right now I’d rather have an iPad Air with Apple Pencil support rather than an iPad Pro. Maybe next year? Sales of the Pro will be interesting to watch as will the impact of iOS 9 on iPad sales in general.

apple_tv

Apple TV
Finally. Always described as a hobby, the Apple TV has finally grown up. The future of TV is app’s according to Apple and it’s hard to argue with that. Dropping Sky/Virgin for app’s is the way to go and finally the Apple TV has an app store to support that. Siri integration looks very strong and supports searching across app’s, but only for certain key partners at the moment. I’d love a Plex app to have that level of integration but I can’t see Apple allowing that. Pity.

As for gaming on the Apple TV, it’s not a console killer but who knows what an Apple TV version in 2020 will be like…and if it will still have three home console competitors? I can see some casual gaming opportunities but not in the same scale as gaming on iOS. If Apple were serious they would have released their own gamepad, not rely on third parties.

Still, Apple TV is a definite buy from me – can’t wait to replace the current one and finally get Apple Music support as well.

iPhone 6S
While the design hasn’t changed there are many hardware changes and one in particular that makes fundamental change to how you interact on iOS. 3D Touch. Basically a fancier Force Touch that was introduced with the Apple Watch and seen on the Macbook you can use 3D Touch as a right click on icons and app’s to allow for another level of interaction throughout iOS. Apple have also introduced Peek and Pop to allow you to peek into content briefly or press harder to pop into it. All very clever and I’m sure there will be some great app’s over the coming months taking advantage of 3D Touch which Apple have also used to highlight Live Photo’s. Basically a photo with a couple of seconds of movie and audio content either side. Not entirely convinced about them but time will tell if they become popular. I do wonder though if 3D Touch will hide a lot of features for people? Will my Mum know to use 3D Touch to pull up a menu in an app? Some of the criticism around the Apple Watch was that while Force Touch worked well it’s function was hidden and non-obvious to most users.

A 12K camera supporting 4K video is the other standout feature alongside faster processor, wifi and Touch ID. Although tempting I’m giving the yearly upgrade a miss this year as there isn’t enough for me to spend money on. I would be interested in the monthly rental scheme that Apple have launched in the US though. UK next year? Hopefully the pricing still makes sense if/when it comes to these shores.

iOS 9
Out this Wednesday and unlike previous years I’ve not tried any beta’s so it will be entirely new to me. Updated Apple app’s like Notes and Maps look like good upgrades alongside the new – iCloud Drive, News and Wallet. Improved multitasking and better keyboard options alongside a smarter Siri and deep searching capabilities means that there’s no massive changes but hopefully a slew of everyday improvements. Roll on the mass update of the five iOS devices in the house.

Closing Thoughts
A really long but packed keynote which was far better than the mess that was WWDC and Apple Music. Some good products launched and I think my only real negative was that OS X was reduced to a gag during a 3D Touch demo. With iOS, watchOS and tvOS launched it’s not a big reach to think the coming years will see macOS replacing OS X. Bigger question – will iOS and OS X ever merge?

There’s still a market for OS X. How do I download files and where do I store them in iOS? iCloud? While there are iOS app’s that are powerful there are still compromises that I would need to make to replace OS X computers with something like the iPad Pro. Maybe in two years the market will have changed again but this post on Stratechery by Ben Thompson struck a chord:

Apple could best improve the iPad by making it a better platform for developers. Specifically, being a great platform for developers is about more than having a well-developed SDK, or an App Store: what is most important is ensuring that said developers have access to sustainable business models that justify building the sort of complicated apps that transform the iPad’s glass into something indispensable

A perfect example is this response to a users demand for Sketch on the iPad Pro. Until the iOS ecosystem is reset to meet developers needs there will always be gaps in the platform that are currently met easily on OS X.

While Apple make great hardware platforms and there’s no doubt their ecosystems are some of the best around, there’s many improvements they could make for developers and on current form they seem to be the hardest changes for Apple to make. Just how good a platform would Apple have if their software quality and platform matched their hardware? Hopefully we’ll find out over the coming years. In the meantime, enjoy those new toys…there’s an expensive few months ahead.

Backpocket

Bumper edition due to last weeks miss.

Backpocket

Some good reads this week. Hope you enjoy.

The Phantom Zone

Since I was a kid I always wanted a radio controlled plane or helicopter. In fact it was always a helicopter thanks to Airwolf. Over the last four or five years as drones have quite literally taken off as a consumer product I’ve came close to buying one as the technology and ease of use has matured and the price dropped to more reasonable levels. What put me off was buying the drone was always just a part of the full solution. Next was a GoPro, then a gimbal…and then connections to iPhones/iPads for your remote. The list went on and it all felt a bit of a faff when I just want a drone and I can go out and fly.

Then Paul posted a video.

The Phantom 3 he purchased seemed to offered all I wanted…so a couple of weeks later I ordered mine. Yes – I have a drone. Arrest me now!

phantom_large

I picked up the DJI Phantom 3 Professional whose main difference with the Advanced is that it will record video in 4k. Out the box the Phantom needs quite a bit of setup. Firstly you need to charge the battery and the remote control. This takes a couple of hours. Whats nice is the remote control can now use an iOS or Android device to act as a screen which will receive live video from the drone. When I priced up the Phantom 2 you needed the drone, a light bridge plus camera but the Phantom 3 has all this built in. So I fired up the drone and the remote control and launched the DJI Go app…which complained that I needed to update the drone firmware and the firmware on the remote. Damn – another hour.

So out the box the drone can take a bit to setup and there isn’t much in the way of documentation. The full manual isn’t included but can be downloaded from the DJI website. More useful was this Phantom 3 Checklist from The Phantom Guide.

With the firmware updates done and an IMU, gimbal and controller calibration completed too I was ready to fly.

First Flight
I was a bit nervous about flying the Phantom for the first time but I needn’t have worried. The Phantom has three flying modes – P, A and F. P-Mode is the default which is positioning mode. This mode will use GPS and the built in vision system (downward pointing camera and infrared sensors) to help maintain position and makes for far easier flying.

I went out very early so I could fly without disruption and also make the most of a good weather forecast. Movement was a bit more rapid and jerky but not too bad for the first time.

You start in beginner mode which restricts you to 30m but I switched that to 120m and….oh boy. The views were fantastic and I was really spoiled for a first go as the weather was perfect.

Glasgow University

Glasgow

The photo’s out of the Phantoms built in camera are excellent and only needed some slight tweaking in Lightroom. I was also impressed with the video. The Phantom + gimbal give incredibly steady video and with some practice in controlling with a steadier hand it should lead to some excellent footage.

I did throw the drone around during these first flights. It moves pretty fast but the movement is predictable so as long as I take some care I should be ok. Landing was also easier than expected probably thanks to the mode I was in. The DJI app has a button to automatically take off and land but I prefer to do that myself. There’s also a return to home button if you lose sight of the drone or the drone loses contact with you. I’ve not had need to use this yet but it’s great that the feature is there.

What did take me by surprise was how quickly it rose. It was easy to lose sight of the drone especially in the bright morning sky. The live feedback from the camera worked well and I didn’t have any issues with the drone going out of range but I wasn’t pushing it on this first go. The app is much better than I expected. You have full control over the camera settings just like a typical hand held camera. You also not only get a live view from the camera but a map showing you and your drones position. After you’ve finished there are full flight logs showing where you were, the photo’s you took and also the control inputs during the flight. Impressive.

QEC
The following day the QEC block was to be barged down the Clyde. With another good day forecast it was a great opportunity to record the event via the drone.

I really wanted to swoop by the block as it passed and spin in front of it but I crapped myself. What if I hit it? What if I lost control. Second day nerves but head ruled the heart on that one.

QEC

There was also a few more people around despite the area I picked being really quiet. Around half the passers by asked about the drone, what it cost, what happens if it falls in the water (obvious really?) and a couple stayed to watch me take off and take some pics. No one was negative about it which was pretty cool.

Accessories
As with all new gadgets you always have a need for accessories. The must have for the Phantom is a battery. It comes with one but that gives you a maximum flight time of 25 minutes, more likely 20. However a spare battery doesn’t come cheap – £124 for one extra battery. Ouch. When I picked up the Phantom 3 I went for a package which included an extra battery, extra charger, spare props and landing gear, larger SD card and a bag for carrying the drone. Overall the package saved me around £200 and the battery and extra charger are really useful – charging can take quite a while so being able to charge the two batteries at the same time is great. Over time I can see me picking up at least one other battery but the two are fine for now.

There’s a massive aftermarket for the Phantom drones and I’ve picked up a couple of extras to protect the camera and gimbal. The supplied gimbal protector is a bit of a faff to fit and doesn’t protect the lens. So I picked up a 3D printed gimbal holder and lens cover which fits a lot better. I also picked up a gimbal guard which attaches to the drone and should protect the gimbal which looks pretty fragile when landing. Probably a bit OTT but piece of mind is no bad thing.

Apart from the battery I’ve got my eye on another couple of accessories. The iPad screen is almost unreadable on a bright day so I was running for shade a few times. I’ll pick up a sun shade at some point although it’s not an immediate need. I’ll also look at getting an ND filter or two for the camera especially for those dawn and dusk shots.

For Your Consideration
I’m thrilled with the Phantom so far but there are a few things to think about if you are interested in buying one. I went for the Professional but the Advanced would have done fine as the 4k video is really a nice to have. It also makes for much longer video editing and large files. The quality is stunning though. Video editing is also something new to me. For photo’s I love Lightroom and know how to get the best out of it but for video’s I’m a bit lost. New skills ahead!

The main consideration is flying legally. When flying in the UK you need to keep the CAA rules in mind. You don’t need a licence to fly a drone if you are doing non commercial work but when you see the speed and power in the Phantom I can see there being a call for all users to be trained/licensed in some way. Two main points are keep under 400ft (120m) and keep 50m away from people and buildings…which is actually quite difficult to do.

One last point is that this is an expensive hobby. The drone itself costs a fair bit (£1200) plus the accessories but there is also the knowledge that at some point an engine, rotor or worse the camera/gimbal will be damaged or need repairing/replaced. None of the main parts are cheap so have that in mind when buying a Phantom.

Fun!
I can’t finish this write up on a negative though. The Phantom 3 is a great piece of kit and it’s so much fun to pilot. I’ve loved the outings with it so far and the images and video’s have exceeded my expectations.

I’ve got a list of places that I want to visit over the coming months but I’ll bide my time as I want to try and get the right weather conditions for some of them. However I’ll be getting the drone out again even just to fly around and practice. I’m also looking forward to upcoming software updates that will allow you to pick a point of interest and the drone will focus on it as you fly around and also the ability to set waypoints so you can pre plan flights.

I can’t wait.

Backpocket

A really busy week off so a slightly later than normal post. Some good stuff this week too!

Cloud Cover

The cloud. All our data should be in it. It makes backup easy. It makes your life simpler as it’s one less thing to manage. But are you in control? It sometimes screws up. Who should you trust your data to? This is all Apple Music’s fault. It’s not really but it did get me thinking about how I manage my data especially as it only ever grows.

Data has been a problem for me for quite a while. I bought a Drobo back in 2009 which wasn’t one of my smarter buys. Proprietary drive format and also hit a nasty update bug upgrading from Leopard (I think) which meant the drive was toast until it was reformatted. Not what you want from a storage/backup device. Since then I’ve relied on internal iMac storage and a 3TB Firewire drive and shuffle data around other older drives. I looked at Thunderbolt but was never convinced about longevity of the format and the price was always way more than USB equivalents. Also my current Mac’s are USB2 only which make for slow access compared to Firewire and USB3…and I didn’t want to buy another Firewire drive as that technology is dying.

That left NAS and Cloud. I had a 2 bay drive a few years ago but was frustrated by fan noise and slow performance. It was also relatively expensive to setup a NAS solution. However when looking at Cloud options I have 2 main misgivings. Firstly is the lack of control of my data. Ultimately I’m in someone else’s hands when accessing my data. Secondly, it doesn’t always work. Also, Cloud has been trumped up as some miracle solution…it’s just off-prem storage and services. Although I do use quite a few Cloud services I can’t rely on them and they are used as fallbacks. I want my data local and I want to be in control of it with options to back up the data to the Cloud via a variety of services. So NAS it is.

The NAS would be primarily a home for my photo’s and video’s and also my movie and music collections as well as documents, software and other media. I also wanted the option of running a variety of software packages at various times of the day (mini server) and it would also be the home for my Mac backups.

Synology 415+
I looked at a variety of vendors but kept coming back to Synology mostly down to the large community, great software options and hardware which generally gets favourable reviews. After looking at a couple of options I settled on the Synology 415+. It has a couple of USB3 ports although the easily accessible port at the front of the NAS is USB2 only. It also has dual network ports and although theoretically you can bind them in practice it does’t yield much benefit. It’s also an Intel chipset which I was keen to get and has built in encryption so if I do encrypt some of my data it won’t kill the CPU.

415

Next decision was how much storage to add. The 415+ is a 4 bay NAS and while I could have plumped for a couple of drives to get me going I wanted to get four in and give myself plenty of growth headroom. Drive prices have settled down again so I ended up going for 4 x 4TB Western Digital Red HDD’s. This would give me 16TB of storage which I would configure as Raid 5 so giving me around 12TB or so of usable disk while giving me the redundancy I was looking for – one drive could fail and I wouldn’t lose any data.

The 415+ is quite compact for a 4 bay NAS but this is down to the large external power brick that comes with it. Installation of the drives is very easy. Pop open the cover, lift a tab and slide out a drive mount. The 415+ doesn’t need screws for the drives, instead using plastic guides that click into place where the screws usually go. A nice touch is that the guides also have rubber grommets which should help to cut down on vibration. You then slide the drive mount back in. Do that another three times, plug in a network cable and power and you are good to go.

A couple of other hardware thoughts. Fan noise is always a bugbear for me but it’s not a big issue with the 415+. You know it’s on but it does a good job of keeping get drives and NAS cool without being overly distracting. The fans are also always running (at a slow speed) unless you switch of the NAS. It’s also all plastic although looks good with the logo’s either side doubling as air vents. It won’t win any design awards but it’s good enough.

Setup
When you first switch on you’ve a couple of options. You can install the Synology Assistant software on your Mac/PC or visit find.synology.com from your browser. This finds the NAS on your local network and starts the setup process. First steps are to create an admin account and download the latest version of DSM – Diskstation Manager. You then format and create a volume and are good to go. From out the box to disk available took less than 30 minutes.

dsm desktop

control panel

One of the advantages of Synology is DSM. It looks like an O/S when accessing from a browser and has a lot of capability out of the box. You can easily see status of your NAS, setup e-mail or text alerts for significant system events, create volumes, folders and shares and manage user access amongst many other features. Via DSM you can also install a number of Synology applications that have companion app’s for iOS and Android. There are obvious ones like Download Station to help manage downloads, Audio Station for music, Photo Station for images and Video Station for movies. Unexpected apps are Note Station – basically Evernote lite but you manage the data and Surveillance Station – hook in to a home alarm system and the NAS can manage

synology packages

Some of the app’s are simple but a couple are really good including Photo Station and Video Station which is basically Plex Lite. While there is much to be gained from these app’s the real power comes via the third party app’s that Synology make available via DSM. There are some app’s for syncing to and from third party cloud providers and media options including iTunes and Plex. Depending on your needs and broadband connection you could self host WordPress, Git, Wiki and also e-mail via the supplied packages. There’s a lot that the NAS can do but be careful as the more you add, the more chance the NAS will be always on and you will start to use up resources as the 415+ only has 2GB of RAM.

backup

business

media

utilities

These are just the app’s supplied by default by Synology and not always the latest version, more on that later. However you can add in packages from third parties. One of the better resources is SynoCommunity which allows you to install Python and a variety of newsgroup and torrent managers amongst other things. You can add packages in manually or by adding new package sources. So for SynoCommunity login to your NAS and go to Main Menu, Package Centre, Settings and set “Trust Level” to “Synology Inc. and trusted publishers”. Then in the Package Sources tab, click Add, type “SynoCommunity” for the Name and “http://packages.synocommunity.com/” as Location and then press OK. Now when you visit Package Centre you will see a Community tab where you can browse and install packages from SynoCommunity. A comprehensive list of package sources can be found on the Synology Forums.

Before installing any packages I assigned an IP address to the NAS so I could guarantee it’s address going forward. There’s a variety of ways to assign an address either within the NAS itself or via a DHCP reservation within your router. I chose the later using the MAC address of the NAS to guarantee it always receives the same IP address.

Copying Data
With the setup complete it was onto copying the data from the firewire drives and iMac to the NAS. I created a movies folder share on the NAS ensuring that guests do not have access and started off the copy. Accessing the NAS on the Mac is easy if you turn on “Enable Mac File Service” on the NAS. Once this is done it will appear under Shared. If not then in Finder click the Go menu and select Connect to Server.

Macintosh_HD

It was early Saturday and I was out for the day but 8 hours later and it was still copying data. It was only 1.5TB so it shouldn’t have taken that long. Next was TV shows and again performance was awful. I messed around for an hour looking for reasons why the NAS was so slow but it turns out the issue was on the Mac side. I was using Path Finder on the Mac and copying to the NAS using Path Finder induced terrible performance. Swapped to Finder and it flew so it didn’t take too long to get the rest of the data onto the NAS.

Photo’s
I’ve moved my photo’s to the NAS but left the Lightroom library on the iMac. On launching Lightroom the library complains that the photo’s are missing but you just point to the folders (right click on folder and select “Find Missing Folder”) on the NAS and the library updates without issue. Lightroom handles a NAS well. If it’s off for whatever reason it doesn’t remove photo’s from the library, just states that the photo’s are offline.

I was a bit concerned that performance would be poor but it works really well. You can also move files/folders from within Lightroom itself which makes for a quicker workflow. In fact my future workflow will be to import and work on new photo’s on the iMac and when edits are complete then move to the NAS.

One thing I do have to sort is making better use of the various cloud photo options. Google Photo’s is very nice as is the new Photo’s service from Apple but I still pay for pro account at Flickr….and hardly put any photo’s or videos on it. This is something I need to sort over the coming months so I can have one place online that holds all my photo and video content.

Plex
I love Plex and it’s my main media manager allowing me to access films, tv and music anywhere. One of the main decisions when it came to the NAS was whether to buy one that would enable me to do 1080p transcoding which needs a meaty processor and a lot of RAM. I decided it wasn’t required as for mobile usage I very rarely access Plex from afar and locally my Plex clients can all now playback original content so no need for transcoding. I still had a niggle that the NAS would struggle though.

Although Plex is available via the package manager it’s best to install manually as Synology doesn’t do a good job in making the most up to date packages available. There’s an excellent support article from Plex that takes you through the installation steps but it’s really straightforward. Add Plex as a trusted publisher, download the Plex package and then install it on the NAS by doing a manual install. It takes a couple of minutes and before you know it you’ll have a Plex installation up and running.

Everything is configured via a web interface for Plex and the Synology package supports all the usual Plex options including Plex Pass. Once up and running you point Plex to your media libraries on the NAS and it indexes it adding posters, film info etc. For my modest library the indexing was pretty speedy and before long I had my Plex library up and running again but this time on the NAS.

Playback performance has been excellent which is a relief as it was my main concern. I rely on a wired network for playback on TV’s around the house as wireless just doesn’t cut it but I still had a niggle that the NAS wouldn’t be powerful enough but it is. Remote access to the library also works well. I can be anywhere in the world and access any media of my choosing. Plex makes this process really easy but I have found one issue – hibernation. With Plex running the NAS would fire up it’s disks every 20-30 mins, basically meaning it was always on. Without Plex it would sit in standby and fire up only when asked. Mmm.

I disabled most of the settings in Plex for auto updating metadata, library refreshes etc and this make zero difference. I then stumbled on a post on the Plex forums – Plex preventing hibernation once again. I enabled SSH, logged in to the NAS, found the offending file and dusted of the vi skills to comment out the offending line of code. Bingo. Plex now runs and is available from all clients at any time but the disks go into hibernation, only starting up when required. If I know I’m not using the NAS I’ll have it switched off but over weekends when I’m dipping in and out of data I want it to hibernate properly so I’m pleased to get to the bottom of that issue…and hopefully the Plex team will deliver a proper update sometime soon.

Music
I’m lost with this at the moment. I blamed Apple Music for the move to a NAS but it was just one of a variety of reasons. I’ve got a fairly large library of music and one thing I won’t be doing is deleting it from any computer and relying on a cloud version only. However both Apple and Google have copies of my music library so I can get to it from anywhere with ease….but I don’t trust the hosts. Apple Music has dabbled with my local library changing some album art, metadata and also mismatching titles. If this was cloud only I’d be frustrated. However this is with my local content – don’t fuck around with my content Apple!

So I will undoubtedly put all the music on the NAS but not sure if I will use the Synology iTunes server package, rely on Plex or look to something different. I’ve also got a fairly large collection of lossless that I don’t put to good use. Decisions decisions.

Backups
For backing up the Mac I’ve always relied on SuperDuper! rather than Time Machine and moving to a NAS does give me some options that I didn’t have before. SuperDuper! was used to create a bootable image, something you can’t do with a NAS. However following this guide I’ve got a regular backup to the NAS via SuperDuper! and it all happens automagically. I’ve accessed the image file created and all is well but I plan to keep my eye on it as it is a different method than I’m used to and I don’t want to trust it and find it has issues when I actually need it.

For backing up the NAS I’ll be looking at CrashPlan by using this user maintained CrashPlan package. The other area still to investigate is using the NAS as a Dropbox copy so I always have local access to that data rather than it being solely in the cloud.

Conclusion
I had no idea when I started this post that I’d end up rambling for so long. One thing is clear since I started this and also got the NAS – I’m really happy with the Synology 415+ and I’m probably using only 5% of what it can do but that 5% is working really well. Sleeping the NAS can be a pain though and the more I add to the NAS the more frustrating I can see this being.

I also feel in a much better place with my data in that the primary source is local to me, has redundancy built in and will soon be on various cloud services to reduce risk even further. It’s not the cheapest solution but I don’t want to lose my data and still don’t have enough trust in going cloud only. With that I’ll finish. Thanks for getting this far and I hope it was helpful!

Backpocket

Last week was really busy ahead of a week off work which is much needed as I’m a bit rundown at the moment. So just a few reads this week but still some crackers.

Backpocket

Busy week including a trip down to see some toys from Microsoft but I’ve got a week off soon and I’m planning some gadget buys. Huzzah. Lot’s to read as always.