How To

Hulu Plus not showing up on your Apple TV? Restart it

This morning Apple quietly rolled out Hulu Plus on the Apple TV. The missing service was one of the last pieces to a puzzle being put together by those who've decided to cut cable, and go all streaming.

If you aren't seeing Hulu Plus show up on your Apple TV yet, you simply need to restart it. Turning it off and back on wasn't enough for me, I had to actually go in and restart it from the settings menu. Here's how.

On your Apple TV, go to Settings > General.

Scroll down to the bottom … Read more

Save storage space by compressing your media files in Windows

Streaming can only take you so far. It's nice to carry at least some of our tunes and videos with us in our mobile devices, but most of us have run into space limitations. SD cards can only hold so much, but compressing your files can help you cram more onto your device. Note that higher levels of compression almost always mean lower levels of quality, but most of us won't notice much difference. 

First, clear off extraneous files. You may have old pictures, videos, and other detritus that can be better stored on your computer or … Read more

How to move your home network and media center with minimal stress

I moved recently, and though I hired pros and consider myself to be fairly well organized, it was still stressful and exhausting. I did manage to save myself some time and heartache by planning ahead regarding my home network, media centers, and other devices. Here are some tips to make your own move a little simpler: 

Deal with your ISP and other providers ahead of time. Just like utilities providers, magazine publishers, employers, and everyone else who needs your new address, your ISP needs plenty of heads-up to make your move as seamless as possible. This is doubly true … Read more

How to install iOS 6 developer preview on Apple TV

On Monday, shortly after Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, we showed you how to install the first iOS 6 developer preview on your iOS devices, but not an Apple TV.

As I previously warned, and will warn again, installing a beta operating system is for developers who are testing applications. It is not for individuals. There will be bugs and issues, sometimes rendering your device near useless.

You will need to be part of the iOS Developer Program with Apple and have access to the proper files, as well as access to registering the UDID (Unique Device Identifier ) of … Read more

How to share your iTunes music library on a home network

The built-in sharing tools on iTunes make it easy to listen to a single library of music on several machines on your home or office network.

By tweaking a few settings through iTunes preference panes, you can control who can access your network, what they'll find there, and how your own remote listening habits can update your shared playlists and stats.

Traditional network sharing This was the first -- and at one time the only -- choice if you wanted to share your iTunes library. It's a simple one-click operation, with a few options that let you control … Read more

Tag your music files correctly with MusicBrainz Picard

Once your music library expands beyond a few thousand tracks, you're likely to find that some of those tracks have incorrect or missing information, like artist, album, year, genre, and so on. Sometimes this doesn't matter much, but if you are having a hard time searching or your obsessive side is dominant, MusicBrainz Picard can help you get your music files back in shape. Here's how to use it:

Download and install the application here for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Run Musicbrainz Picard. Add a folder containing music files. The application will also search subfolders, so if … Read more

How to ban the banner ads from Panasonic Smart TVs

When I reviewed the Panasonic TC-PVT50 series, I was annoyed to see that the latest software update caused a banner ad to appear for a few seconds whenever I turned on the TV. It disappeared quickly and only popped up upon power-on, but it was still obnoxious. The first thing I wondered was whether I could turn it off.

Happily, Panasonic built in a way to disable the advertising. It's a simple, albeit buried, menu command. Here it is in a nutshell.

Hit the main Menu button on the remote (not the "Internet" or "VieraCast" … Read more

Get more from your sound bar by using your TV as a switcher

Many sound bars offer a shockingly small number of inputs, with often just a single digital and analog audio input on the back to handle your gear. That's hardly enough for a modern home theater packed with a DVR, game console, Blu-ray player, and streaming-media box.

Luckily, you can get around your sound bar's limited selection of inputs by using your TV as a switcher. You'll be able to connect as many devices as your TV supports, and it will even simplify the input selection process.

Here's how to do it:… Read more

How to scrobble to Last.fm from iTunes, Spotify, and more

Long before Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to found Facebook, Last.fm allowed music fans to keep an online record of the music they had been listening to in all sorts of music players, including iTunes, Winamp, and more. Last.fm's feature for this is called "scrobbling," based on the fact that it had acquired a company called AudioScrobbler in order to add it.

Now, Facebook does pretty much the same thing (except for with iTunes). All you have to do to send your playback history to your Facebook Timeline is use your Facebook identity to … Read more