digital mac living

Sennheiser + Adidas = PMX 680 Sports Headphones

Fri, 4 Jun 2010 01:00:08 +0800

The Sennheiser x Adidas crossover is a perfect combination, a renowned headphone manufacturer and the master of sportswear and here it comes the PMX 680 Sports Headphones.

PMX 680 is a perfect choice for your jogging, running, exercising in the gym or even during your leisure time. This headphone is designed for everybody with the adjustable ear-clip. The washable cord can be cleaned easily. It comes with a remote to control the volume and also acts as the extension. When you want to wear your armband during exercising, you can unplug from the remote control. You can wear it for a long time without feeling the pain. Once you are finish using it, you can put in the purse it comes with the headphone. It’s black, well designed and have adidas and sennheiser logo on each side.

The sound quality can definitely not compare with the high-end headphones. It offers decent bass and solid sound fidelity. It is recommended for use outdoor, it is acoustically more open which blocks less noise from outside.

Pros: DuPont Kevlar reinforced cable, comfortable for long periods of use, tangle free cable
Cons: Treble

Sound Quality
Look and Feel
Comfort

Nike+ and iPhone

Wed, 12 May 2010 00:30:32 +0800

During the past few years, I have not been doing any sports at all (apart from some really casual golfing once in a while). I felt I was getting less energetic and tiring. So until recently, I started running regularly. For every new project I am venturing, there are always some ground works I need to do.

In the past, I have always heard the Nike and iPod integration with iPod nano, iPod touch and iPhone 3G/3GS. Without a doubt, I went out to buy a pair of Nike+ running shoes and the sensor. When I went home, I registered an account in the Nike+ website. The registration is very simple and straight forward. There are a number of coaching programs you can create and I followed one of those that are for casual runners. And in the iPhone (or iPod nano or iPod touch), enable the Nike + iPod option. There are other options you can set. Once you are done setting it up, you are all ready to go!

Since then, it was a little bit more than 2 months already. It has been properly tracking my progress all along. It can keep track of my running distance, pace, time and calorie. During my run, a female voice (you can set it to a male voice) announced the running details in every 5 minutes or each minute in the last 5 minutes. And when I came back from my run, I plugged my iPhone to synchronize with the iTunes and in turn sent the data to Nike+ website. The whole experience was very pleasant and seamless.

However, I do find a number of places that need further improvements. The iPhone app is a measuring app which does not have the features found on the Nike+ website. I have to check my coaching program from the website. If information in the website can ben synchronized to the iPhone, that would be more complete and integrated. There are always navigation problems when changing the playlists after choosing a workout type. It will always take me back to the “Workouts” tab without doing anything. And from time to time, the voice in the Nike+ was not activated if I chose the songs first and then the workout type. I think there are the problems Nike should address in the future update.

Sample steps to set up a Workout

1. Choose from a list of Workouts
• Basic (An open-ended workout)
• Time (A workout with a timed period)
• Distance (A workout with a distance goal)
• Calorie (A workout with a calorie burning goal)
1. Choose music to accompany your workout
2. With your Nike+ shoes on, walk around to activate the sensor
3. Begin workout by pressing the “Green” button.

There are a wide range of Nike+ shoes you can choose from the market while the sensor can be purchased either in the Nike store or Apple store for $19.

To be or not to be - Computer as a Source (CAS)

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 02:28:33 +0800

I have been using my Mac as the source of my music since the day when iTunes released. It has been serving perfectly. I considered it is one of the best music management software. Since then all the CD I purchased afterwards are imported to iTunes. Initially I used MP3 and only consumed around 1MB per a minute music (The hard disk was still very expensive to me). As time evolved, I understood from the web and learnt from magazines that Lossless or WAV formats are preferred. Currently, I used mostly Apple Lossless format.

And I have well over 15GB of music in my hard disk and I still have more than 200 CD waiting in line. The point is digital media is the future trend and it will only get better. Although, I admit that using Mac as a source still have its deficiency and to audiophile, they will still prefer traditional CD player or for those who are more into Hi-fi would consider SACD or BluSpec CD. However, I do learn some tricks from the Internet that you can make some improvements.

Moving parts create noise and the hard disk comes with most of the Mac, especially Mac mini, are typical hard disk we are using with the disk spinning when reading and writing data. So you should consider replaced it with a solid state drive (SSD). Using SSD is also a future trend as the price continues to drop. It boots up your machine so much faster. Definitely, it is not without its own disadvantage, e.g. limited lifetime, data security over time, capacity, etc. No matter what, it is now the right time to start building your digital library and enjoy the convenience of thousands of songs in a single click. And replacing with SDD is only the first step.

If you are not sure how to replace the SDD yourself, there are a lot of help in YouTube. And I found a really good one which comes with 2 parts:

All New Mac mini Home Theatre - Part 2

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:56:18 +0800

Next, I am going to talk about is the software. Now that I have all my required home theatre connected, it’s time to set up the Mac mini.

In the world of Apple, you can always have iTunes to purchase or rent all sorts of movies and TV shows. When you are purchasing a movie, some of them would come with the Extras similar to ....

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All New Mac mini Home Theatre - Part 1

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 01:09:02 +0800

It’s been a while since my last update to my Mac mini setup. You can refer to my previous posts “Building a Home Media Server with Mac mini”, “Building a Home Theatre System with Podspeakers - Part 1” & “Part 2”. There has been a number of changes to my setup and I think it’s now a good time to refresh it, though there are still some components missing in my ideal picture yet....

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