Thank you Google, they have released MacFuse. (tip from BSD News) I love FUSE with FreeBSD, but since I usually use FreeBSD for my servers and would like to use FUSE on my workstation, this is great! See Google’s blog entry about it. As I write I’ve got a couple of SSHFS mounts up. For my work, I’m really looking forward to use something like S3FS with Amazon’s S3.

The Apple TV is a device I have been looking forward to since the iTV prototype was announced. Why would I want this rather than a Mac Mini? Well…. my question is still unanswered. But these were my surprises and questions:

• Question: Ethernet and Wifi, does this device work like an Airport Extreme as well? The ethernet plug, is that gigabit ethernet or 100 mbit like the Airport Extreme? (why they didn’t go for gigabit there beats me)
• No DVD, No Blueray, No HD-DVD. Seriously, guys, I don’t want to have to run to another room to load my DVD. And if I had a computer in my livingroom, I’d be using it instead of the Apple TV
• 40 GB HDD is small. My 200GB disk with my iPhoto libraries and iTunes library is full and needs an upgrade. Add movies to this, and 40 GB is too small. On 40 GB you could squeeze in a single HDD quality movie (30GB) and a normal DVD quality movie (8 GB). Two movies and your system is full. One movie only in best quality. Why would I want this?
• How is DivX support for this device coming along?
• How do they intend to work out 5.1 surround with two analog sound outputs?
• PVR - having a built in tuner and recording TV shows and storing it in iTunes, possibly syncing it with my mobile phone (iPhone perhaps some day) or iPod Video. A decent PVR system is really what I’m in the market for these days, and that’s not the Apple TV.

My take so far is that the best Apple TV around so far is the Mac Mini. But I’m sure the concept is great, so I’m looking forward to future revisions. Having said that: the Apple TV has an USB slot. I wonder what they’ll expect us to hook up there. Looks like an USB HUB, a 500GB HDD, an audio interface and a TV receiver so far. That’ll become one expensive Apple TV with a lot of spaghetti cabling. Same with the Mini, though, but that’s after all an entire computer

Having slept on it and digested a lot of articles, these are my comments on the iPhone announced yesterday:

• It runs OS X. In my book that means a BSD platform. I’m looking forward to having this confirmed. I so miss having BSD on my mobile.
• WiFi - thank you
• Cool browsing interface due to CoreAnimation - great!
• No UMTS/3G? Yes, we all know 3G is slow, but EDGE is way slower. What’s up? I really hope the European version will sport 3G
• 2MP camera? Come on, Apple, that is SO last year!! I thought Apple was supposed to set a standard other would come running after
• Max 8GB disk? Ok, fair enough, but you already have that out on the market and have had it for a while. Look at Ritek & co, they just announced 16 and 32GB solid state discs
• Why is it not possible to buy music on the run? When I’m over at my friends’ place and we talk about music, I’d love to be able to get the tune right away. But it seems I can’t buy it from iTunes. (I’m sure they’ll fix this soon enough, though )
• I must admit I’m skeptical towards the QWERTY keyboard on-screen with no tactile feedback, but I’m looking forward to giving it a spin and see what it does for me.
• Google Maps is great! But I already have that on my Nokia 6280.

Further things I’d like to know: is there a camera connector for it? And if so, does the internal software support RAW?

Now, I’m cautious about one thing: warranty. Apple has a reputation to refuse to repair iPods that have been handled extremely nice. I don’t handle stuff nice. My Ericsson mobile phone drowned when I took a dive in the ocean, not long after my Palm 3e took a fly through the air and landing on the floor in an awkward position after being out drinking. I figured I’d smack it all into one, and got the Sony/Ericsson P800 which got a dint in the screen a year after I got it. Figuring I’d only go with cheap stuff from now on, my Nokia 6280 has survived a few rides through the air with no problem. They are even making sports versions that are extra protected. I’m always doing something, always in action, and the stuff that I take along gets a trip trough the air occasionally. So, I’m really going to be looking at how fragile these phones will be. If they’re not, I might just spend the $599 for one. Probably in its 2nd iteration, though

I’m waiting attentively. Wonder what goodies Macworld ‘07 will bring. I admit it, I’ve become some sort of a fan. But in my defence: THEY STARTED IT! They took FreeBSD and NetBSD and threw a great UI on top of it and sold computers that were set up in a way I liked it with this preinstalled. Hmm….! Waiting….

I’m so happy I took the consequences of the last failure trying to fly Norwegian/Sterling that I now flew with Cimberair. The service was swift and great! However, Norwegian is still trying to mess up their customers’ lives (Norwegian link there). Same trouble as last time. What is it with these guys? They make Ryan Air look like choir boys.