Review: Reflector. AirPlay Mirroring to your Mac or PC.

Intro

This is a review I’ve been thinking about for a long time.  A company called Squirrels has created a Mac and Windows app that emulates an Apple TV, and allows you to AirPlay Mirror your iOS device to the display on your Mac or PC.  It even allows you to add a device frame of the device you happen to be using.  They have a frame for every device that supports AirPlay Mirroring:  iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPad, iPad Mini, and iPad Air, and the remarkable thing about it is that they have them in all colors of the device.

 

My Opinion

Reflector is a very complete app.  It has every feature you could ever want.  Frames for literally every AirPlay-capible device is what really impresses me.  I Woud Give this App 5 of 5 Stars.

 

Price

Due to the nature of this app, you won’t find this in the Mac App Store, so instead, go to reflectorapp.com, where you can find Reflector for $12.99.

It’s available for Mac and PC.

 

Conclusion

This app is worth every penny.  It is being actively developed by the developers at Squirrels, and they push out regular updates.

If you want a solution to AirPlay Mirror your iOS device to your computer, this is probably the best option I have ever run across.

My Thoughts on Apple’s October 22nd Event “We still have a lot to cover.”

Apple, yesterday, released invites to selected members of the press.  For your viewing pleasure, I’ve inserted the invite graphics above.

The event will likely showcase a new iPad and possibly a new iPad Mini.  A new Macbook Pro Retina will also likely be announced.   According to sources, OS X Mavericks will probably also get some stage time.

What is unlikely, you ask?  iTV is probably out of the question for this event, and probably for this year as a whole.  On a matter of fact, I don’t know when we will ever see iTV.  Another thing unlikely for this event is iWatch.  the possibility of the seeing Apple’s revolutionary smart-watch on stage any time soon is also very unlikely.

Retina iPad mini?  Possible, though not set in stone.  We’ve all – in the tech world – been hearing conflicting reports on the subject, but I think that it is safe to assume that it will probably make it’s debut.

Mavericks Release Date?  I’m glad you asked… I personally believe that it will be available on the Mac App Store after the event is over.  Yes, that means that I think it will be released on October 22 at roughly 12:00.  Why?  It hit GM status over a week ago, it is virtually bug-free (Extensively tested first-hand), and would be a great selling point for the event.  There is some questioning on the price.  My gut says it will still be priced at $19.99, wile the hopeful part of me says it will be free.

Anyway, the only way to know if all this plays out the way I say it will is to wait until Tuesday.  Who’s excited?

Short News: We’ve got a new look!

After almost a year, it’s time for a change… I just finished updating the WordPress theme for this blog.  I hope you like it, and remember: Sound off in the comments!

Icons8 Review: A Great Source of App Icons

Recently, I stumbled upon a great website named Icons8.  I downloaded their free iOS 7 icons zip file (they also have one for Windows 8 and some other platforms), and, to my amazement found a icon for anything i could through at it.  They all were perfectly scaled for the Apple Retina Display.  It was great.

I highly recommend this service, and also suggest their paid icon packs for a range of prices if you want to support the developers.

I give Icons8 five stars.

NOOBS v1.3

Saturday, The Raspberry Pi Foundation released their new edition of NOOBS (New Out Of Box System) from beta to the world.  It’s exciting!  Now, you can install multiple OSes on a single SD without sharing anything.  I have beta tested this on one of my SD cards, and have found it to be a very handy feature.

There’s more.  There’s now two editions of NOOBS, a network installer and a complete installer.  The network installer is a 20 mb download, anad your Pi – upon installation – downloads the disk images.  Keep in mind that your Pi will have to have ethernet connection to install disk images.  The full installer is exactly what we’re used to: a complete download, and your Pi wi not need internet.

NOOBS v1.3 can be downloaded (or legally tormented – this is the most recommended rout) from the Raspberry Pi Downloads Page.

Xcode 5.0 Available for Public Download

 

 

Xcode (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I don’t care for the design of iOS 7 on the iPad, but Xcode 5.0 is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.  (Mavericks is another one.)  I’m currently downloading it myself, so I am not sure if anything has changed from the GM, but I will be updating this post with anything and everything I can find.  If you’re as excited as I am, and you want to download it, keep in mind that Apple’s servers are really bogged down right now.  It is a 1.9 GigaByte file, so you are going to want to go get some lunch (if you haven’t already) and let this thing download and install.

 

Hope you have fun with it!

Weekend Coders Podcast

My friend and I have been very interested in starting a podcast… So much that It has been a life goal for me for quite some time.

Weekend Coders is born!

Our new weekly half hour podcast will allow you to listen to two people’s conversations about all things code, new hardware products, product reviews, and so much more… We’re even going to be featuring guests from all walks of the electronics industry!

Listen to our first podcast coming very soon at weekendcoders.com, or tune in on iTunes.

Airplay Mirroring on Raspberry Pi is finally here!

I’ve been wanting to get Airplay Mirroring working on my Raspberry Pi for a long time.  First, there was RaspBMC.  This solution was limited to general airplay of photos, videos, and music.  No Mirroring. 

Portable Apps

My computer only has a few megabytes of storage available, and on my quest for a way to install Notepad++, I came across portableapps.com.  Their platform – though little known – is a top-notch way to install apps on removable media.

If you work at a place that does not allow you to modify their machines, this is probably the app for you.  It – and all of the software you can download to it – is free.

If you wish to try it out for yourself, just click here, or go to portableapps.com .

The Easiest Way to Install LAMP on Raspberry Pi

Debian OpenLogo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Raspberry Pi is, perhaps, best used for a headless web-server, but it’s very hard to set up.  Not any more.

With this bash script on GitHub, it only takes three commands to have a fully functional LAMP web server.  This includes Apache, PHP 5, and MySQL.  Look past the break for full instructions, and more info…..