I am really going to miss the constant presence of Manhattan being just outside the window when we move away from here. Even if we don’t get to spend all that much time actually in the city it is just so amazing having it sitting right there. I love all of the twinkling lights and the passing cars on the bridges leading in and out of the city. I have always liked cities at night. So many people yet so quiet and still. I need to get some pictures of Manhattan at night from our view here before we leave. It is rather unlikely that I will ever have a view quite like this again. This is very much a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity, I’m sure. Nevertheless, we have had it for a year and a half and it will be over two years when we actually leave and I have worked from home a lot during that time and my work area has always had this view so very few people anywhere have had the chance to take advantage of such a view as much as I have.

We turned down our lease renewal. The apartment building offered a deal to those who would renew in March. Personally I think that it was a foolish move asking us to renew so far in advance. We didn’t have enough time to really think about or make any plans to stay or go. So, since we couldn’t guarantee that we needed to stay we effectively guaranteed that we weren’t. Had they extended the offer to a point where we were really able to make a commitment then we might easily have decided that staying in Newark for one more year was going to make sense. But, now we know that the financials just aren’t going to make sense for us next year and this apartment isn’t really an option. The handy thing for us is that now we have seven months to make plans for moving knowing exactly when we are moving. I have never had so much warning on a move before. Our last day in Newark, or at least at Eleven80, is October 31st. Now we just need to figure out exactly to where we are moving come November.

Oreo was very, very happy to be home today. He was so exhausted. Dominica tells me that he played a lot more than usual at daycare yesterday because Lana, the little puppy that he loves to play with, was in playing with another dog and Oreo just couldn’t resist and he played all day. He was all worked up and being crazy last night when he got home. Today he is making up for it. Just sleeping and sleeping. Even on his walk when he saw other dogs he could do no more than take a quick sniff to acknowledge their existence and drag himself along until he was able to do his business and then get back home to go to bed.

At one point late this morning our silly dog was sitting on the loveseat in the living room and was itching the middle of his back with his head turned all the way around. He was in the sunlight and apparently quite comfortable as he just fell asleep right in the middle of itching himself. It was the craziest thing to see. I look over and there he is all passed out in what appeared to be the most uncomfortable position imaginable. He was so sleepy that I was able to take several pictures of him and walk about without him stirring at all.

Dominica came home and we watched the final two episodes of the 2006 season of Doctor Who.  These were some seriously good but sad episodes.  We are definitely looking forward to the next season as well as to checking out Torchwood the Doctor Who spinoff series.  (For those in the know, “Torchwood” used to be a code name for “Doctor Who” used at the study.  You will notice that the letters from Doctor Who can be used to form the word Torchwood.)

After dinner and the show it was time for bed.  We “popped in” some What I Like About You that we watched while we cleaned in the bedroom.  Dominica assembled her new shoe rack and got it put into the closet which cleared up a ton of space and now the closet doors can close.  It also freed up some plastic bins that I need to organize other stuff around the house that has been sitting around waiting for a box into which to go.

I stayed up for a while after Dominica went to bed and did some web site work and Handbrake conversions.  Nothing heavy just some light stuff that needed my attention and that I wanted to get out of the way.  By a quarter after eleven, Oreo was getting quite insistent that I come to bed.  He doesn’t like it when one of us goes to bed early and one stays up.  It makes him nervous or something.

Dad is finally doing a rebuild of his Windows XP workstation today.  It has been been rebuilt in many years – even possibly never although that seems to be a stretch.  I generally recommend complete rebuilds every six to eighteen months with once a year being a pretty happy medium.  I rebuild my Linux box every six months but that is because I want to use the very latest OpenSUSE release.  My Windows machine probably sees a fresh install every nine months or so.  Being in the habit of constantly rebuilding means that you are always keeping things cleaned and you are always prepared to start fresh at any moment.

This coming weekend is going to be busy with homework.  Dominica is almost caught up in her class but still has a little bit that she needs to do plus the steady stream of new work.  This is one of my busy homework weekends just in general.  I am not behind at all but that doesn’t make it any easier.

AppleTV is a versatile device that works in several different modes. It has direct Internet access through YouTube. It can play media files that are loaded onto it. And it can play media files provided to it through an iTunes “server” application running on a host computer. It is these later modes that are of the most interest to parents looking for a “controlled” solution for their children.

The first thing to mention is that the AppleTV has very good parental controls built in. With these control parents can do a range of locks including removing all access to YouTube and Internet direct content, removing the ability to access the iTunes Store to obtain new, external material and can control the ratings of movies and television shows that will be allowed even when access to them is permitted. So right away there are a range of options that make the AppleTV safe and simple for parents to provide.

The true versatility of the AppleTV for youngsters comes from its “one level separation” from being directly connected to the Internet. Because there is a complete separation between the AppleTV and content on the Internet it is far easier and more secure for parental supervision to be enforced.

The AppleTV gets its content from an “iTunes Server” – that is a computer on your home network that is actively running iTunes and is paired with the AppleTV. Because iTunes is used to feed media to the AppleTV there is a level of direct control that does not readily exist in other systems. Here the iTunes can be set to subscribe only to trusted channels or not to have any subscriptions at all. iTunes can be set to allow nothing but audio and video files loaded onto it by the parents. This is an extremely simple and effective means of content control far beyond what is possible with a DVD player since any DVD can be put into the player but the AppleTV can allow only that content that is preapproved.

Content on iTunes can be purchased through the iTunes store, purchased elsewhere online or can be generated locally either as home movies or by using tools like Handbrake to convert purchased legacy media into AppleTV ready h.264 files. AppleTV’s native video format, h.264, makes for some extremely small video files at very good quality. Perfect for storing large collections of childrens’ shows.

If access to your entire media collection hosted on iTunes is still too wide of content access (perhaps you have some PG movies in there and want to limit accessibility to just a select few films or television shows) you can choose to lock iTunes so that only content that you explicitly load onto the AppleTV through iTunes sync mechanism will be available. This makes it simple to load a large amount of media and then to limit it on a very granular level for very exacting control.

No matter which method or group of methods that you choose to limit content access the AppleTV is truly an answered prayer for parents looking to provide content access in a safe and simple manner for their children. The ease with which it can be used and the level of security that it offers is really remarkable. And because the device requires no physical contact to operate it can be installed safely out of reach of young children who can operate all of its functionality using nothing more than its small, plastic remote. This will relieve much of the concern over putting an expensive electronic device into a young child’s room or den where accidents will often happen.

Unlike services which are purely Internet streaming in nature the AppleTV’s local caching makes their device also work even with unstable Internet connection or even in situations where there is no connection at all. This type of media device will operate surprisingly like a DVD jukebox when pre-cached with content. Children could have as much as 160GB of media sitting ready to go at any time for themselves or for watching with their friends without needing intervention from you.

The AppleTV really represents an opportunity to feel confident about having control of children’s content availability in an age of much uncertain access.