According to the Twitter post the following browsers are supported at this time: iPhone/iPod Touch, Android 2.0+ & Blackberry Bold. The mobile URL is: m.liveatc.net

Testing with my BlackBerry Bold 9700 performed well! The interface is very thin/clean and you can search and browse the same feeds that are already available on the site. With single click you can start streaming any selected feed.

Thanks to this new mobile browser support, I can now delete my dozens of LiveATC.net bookmarks that I had created manually for my favorite ATC feeds.

If you have a supported phone, give it a try. I would love to hear your experience.

I have a BlackBerry Bold 9700 running BlackBerry OS v5.0 with T-Mobile so my instructions will be specific for T-Mobile users, however, I’m sure it will work with other carriers and newer BlackBerry OS releases as well, however, the procedure might need to be tweaked slightly. Let me know if you find something that differs on your model.

LiveATC.net has now added mobile support for some browsers. For details check here. You can use this as an alternative to creating several standalone bookmarks as outline below.

1. Check out available airport feeds over at LiveATC.net and make note of the feeds’ airport identifier (example: KOJC. Sometimes an airport has multiple feeds, ie: KBOS_TWR)
2. Open the BlackBerry Browser Application on your phone
3. Open the Bookmarks Window and Select Add Bookmark
4. Use this firewall formatted URL of the feed: http://d.liveatc.net/<airport-identifier> (example: http://d.liveatc.net/kojc)
   (BlackBerry Storm: Use http://d.liveatc.net/<airport-identifier>.m3u — Thanks Maria!)
5. Give your bookmark a name. Something like KOJC Live ATC Stream
6. (T-Mobile Specific for BB OS 4.5) You need to specify the ‘t-zones‘ or ‘Hotspot Browser‘ in the bookmark configuration. In BB OS5.0 on T-Mobile, you no longer need to specify the t-zones browser. I’ve tested with both the Internet Browser and the Web2Go browser and both work fine.
7. Browse to the bookmark and when prompted, select Open, and after some buffering, you’ll begin hearing the audio from the feed.

You can duplicate this procedure and create several ATC bookmarks in a sub-folder on your BlackBerry to have them pre-programmed and ready to go.

I have noticed that when you open your bookmark the Media Player will “buffer” for about 2 minutes. I found an overview of why this is happening here. Basically since LiveATC uses so little bandwidth, it takes almost 2 minutes before it fills to the buffer. Hopefully they work around this when they release their official BlackBerry application which is in the works.

Let me know how this works for you! I welcome your comments/suggestions/questions below.

Note: I’m not affiliated in anyway with LiveATC.net other then donating my own hardware/bandwidth/time for an airport feed; however, if you enjoy LiveATC.net, I encurrage you to leave a donation (the link is right on the front page). The guys that maintain the site do so as a hobby; however, it does cost real money to host/maintain the site.

Updated 05-31-2009: Added minor tweak for BlackBerry Storm based on user feedback.
Updated 06-18-2010: Added information for “Buffering Delay” and my current hardware information.

Read all the details after the jump…

At first I was a little disappointed in the release date estimates, but in taking one look at the features being planned, you can see why it has been a while since a major update.

“Logbook Pro vNext [the official version number is not yet known] will support the single user from student through airline pilot as well as the new multi-user enterprise features including group and user management, role based security and other enterprise features.”

The next version of Logbook Pro will also offer a new user-interface as well as several Web 2.0 enhancements allowing for updates from a multitude of systems all with a similar interface. Personally, I’m hoping for a BlackBerry application, but I’d settle for a BlackBerry bookmark application to a mobile enhanced web interface. Need a mobile beta tester guys?

Some of you may remember I did knock the Logbook Pro application about a year and a half ago in this post, where I noted my installation problems under Vista. I do understand that they are a small development shop, however, if they manage to pull off everything they are claiming in this next release, we are going to have one heck of a logbook application on our hands! I can’t wait to see the finished product — just don’t take too long.

My wife and I don’t really watch too much TV anyway but if I was going to ditch my cable, it was going to not be without a few caveats.

Read all about our new TV setup after the jump…

Since “a la carte cable” is not going to happen anytime soon, I was going to have consider other options. However, if I was going to ditch the cable TV, there were a few requirements. My wife was amazingly patient as I threw our whole A/V setup into a tizzy and came up with the new design.

First of all my requirements:
HDTV — The new solution had to support HDTV. We had the HDTV add-on package with our Comcast cable, but this was pretty much the primary (XX.1) local HD “Over the Air” (OTA) channels and a few other HD cable networks. We pretty much always watched the 10 or so HD channels with the cable box since HD televisions make standard definition TV look really bad.

DVR — I was late to jump on this bandwagon, but as my friends and co-workers warned me, once you got it, you cannot live without it. If I was going to ditch the cable box, I had to have a solution that supported recording. I also want need to record one channel while watching another. Our DVR recording lineup pretty much consists of shows that air on the broadcast networks — making OTA a viable option.

Remote Control Support — I’m not joking. Whatever solution I chose, I did not want to have to “rig” something just to change the channel. The small “junky” remote controls do not count — I wanted a “real” remote control with a skip button, and more than four keys. (Yes, Apple, your junky remote controls do not meet this requirement)

Monthly Recurring Expense — My goal of the new solution was to totally eliminate, if possible, the monthly recurring charges we were seeing with the cable; or at least reduce them. I knew I was going to have to spend a little bit of money up front, but my payback goal was 4-6 months.

My options:

Microsoft Media Center — We got a new computer back in February 2007 with Microsoft Vista Home Premium. This version of Vista includes Windows Media Center. Up until now, I had never used it, but I had launched it a few times and the interface looked pretty well done. If I went this route, I would need a tuner card of some sort and a remote control. The DVR function is built in to Media Center.

Computer with a Media Extender — Since I liked the Media Center interface I considered an Extender. It would keep the TV area clean and neat, but there was one small problem. That is until the past couple of weeks, the only Media Extender that supported Vista Media Center was the Xbox 360. I don’t want a game console and it seems like a waste to spend that money only to obtain the extender functionality. My timing for this project was impeccable as the Linksys DMA 2100 and 2200 had been announced and were due out in late November, but there were some last minute delays that made this box at least a month out. The D-Link DSM-750 had already been released, but it too was $300 and I still needed a tuner for my PC if I went that route.

TiVo — The ‘TiVo Series3 HD’ and new ‘TiVo HD DVR’ (marketing departments never cease to amaze me in the technology industry) had pretty good reviews, however, my goal was to eliminate the recurring monthly cost; TiVo charges for monthly guide data and their online services.

My New Design:

Vista Media Center — This provided the HD Support, DVR and eliminated the monthly recurring cost. I did purchase the Media Center keyboard and remote control which worked great!  The Microsoft Media Center remote control and Keyboard is pretty nice and they worked natively (no need for drivers) with Vista. The video card (Radeon X1300) already had a DVI output so this was a good fit. The skip feature is about ten times more responsive vs. my Comcast DVR.

TV Tuner — Our DVR line-up pretty much includes shows from the broadcast networks, so an OTA ATSC tuner would be perfect. A quick check of AntennaWeb reviled that all but one independent network was broadcasting a digital signal here in Kansas City. I opted for an ATSC tuner since I really don’t care to watch the analog channels; they will be turned off in 2009 anyway. The first tuner I used to test the Vista Media Center TV functionality was an ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI (about $130). It worked well, but I quickly realized that not having two tuners was an issue. We’d be watching one show when the DVR needed to take control and would flip the channel. The additional cables going into the back of the PC also was cluttering up the living room. After checking many sites, I settled on a network attached dual ATSC tuner (SiliconDust HDHomeRun). It was a little bit more expensive than a single tuner (but less than two PCI tuners), but I loved the fact that I could tuck it away in another room with an antenna hooked up and it would stream the signal down to the Vista Media Center over the home network. Dual tuner functionality without adding wire clutter — perfect!

Antenna — I originally started with an old set of rabbit ears, however, the dual tuner introduced the need for a splitter for the second tuner which took the signal level too low for an unamplified antenna. After doing some research, I settled on a Terk TV5 Amplified TV Antenna and it worked great. I set it upstairs in the office on top of a bookshelf next to the HDHomeRun box.

Closing Comments:

After running with this setup for about 6 weeks now, I’ve made a few observations. First, having the computer next to the TV is not ideal, but the functionality does work pretty well. We did run into times where we wanted to just use the computer for a quick minute, but had to turn on the TV to see the screen — not cool. We quickly moved the LCD monitor down with the computer and setup “Hotkey” activated monitor profiles (Alt-1: LCD, Alt-2: TV, Alt-3 LCD+TV) using the ATI Catalyst Control Center application. Second, a Media Center Extender would probably be the cleanest setup if you only have one home PC; however, it can be done with just the PC just fine. Having a network attached tuner simplified the cabling into the PC and is a much cleaner looking install. Third, spend some time getting your LCD resolution setup correctly on your HDTV and play with your graphics card advanced controls to fine tune the picture. I had a horrible interlacing issue on the stations broadcasting in 1080i. This issue was resolved by activating, what ATI calls, the “Automatic Deinterlacing” feature — ah, much better. Third, the Media Center DVR functionality is great. Add a Media Center remote control/keyboard and you have a great DVR alternative to the, in my opinion, crappy, Comcast DVR service. Forth, there is a lot of legal online content (eg: iTunes), however, if you are a big sports fan, you will probably be disappointed with just OTA. Sports are probably the farthest behind getting themselves positioned into new waves of distribution. Vista Media Center has some pretty nice Internet TV shows which use your Broadband connection to stream content; however, much of it is still in SD.

Cost Breakdown:

SiliconDust HDHomeRun: $160
Media Center USB Remote Control and Keyboard: $90
Amplified TV Antenna: $50
Total: $300 (Payback at $90/Month with Comcast: ~3.5 Months)

Mission Accomplished…

Read all the details after the jump.

So why was I attracted to the BlackBerry Curve? It has a faster processor, has Wi-Fi/UMA (the ability to make calls over Wi-Fi), and a full QWERTY keyboard.

What’s New? (Stuff I care about)

1. The BlackBerry Curve has the new navigation ball that was introduced in the BlackBerry Perl and it replaces the “click wheel” on the side. I was hesitant at first, but after adjusting the ball sensitivity to my liking (90% sensitivity), I’ve gotten used to it and I like it much better than the “click wheel” I had on the 7100t.
2. Wi-Fi Support — the BlackBerrry Curve has integrated Wi-Fi, but don’t expect it to drastically improve your web browsing speed. It is maybe a little bit faster, but it is hard for me to tell the different between EDGE and Wi-Fi if in a good coverage area. No issues getting the Wi-Fi setup at home using WPA security, however, we’ve had lots of problems with our Enterprise Wi-Fi at work which uses much more robust type of security (802.1X – PEAP). We have been working this issue with both RIM and Cisco the past few days and the support cases on pending on both sides. RIM did acknowledge to us on a phone call that their are “known issues” with the Wi-Fi and Over The Air (OTA) software “pushes.” I’m guessing these will be resolved with a patch or the upcoming BlackBerry OS version 4.3. You should have no issues with the 8320 on on your home Wi-Fi network or down at the local coffee shop.
   Update 12-2007: In working with RIM, we have discovered the root cause of the 802.1X PEAP authentication problem I mention above. See my post over at BlackBerryForums for more information.
3. UMA Support — the T-Mobile version of the 8320 has UMA support which is the ability to make phone calls and receive “push email” via a Wi-Fi connection. Even if you don’t subscribe to the T-Mobile “Hotspot@Home” service, the device will route your calls over Wi-Fi if a connection is available. You can override the network preference if you don’t want your device to utilize the Wi-Fi for voice/data which is a nice option. I have not whipped out my packet sniffer yet to see if this data is encrypted going to T-Mobile/RIM, but given it uses UDP ports 500 and 4500, I suspect they are doing some sort of tunneling for security; if you happen to be using an unencrypted WLAN. Using UMA does allow your BlackBerry to get email and access other data services while on the phone — pretty cool!
4. Multi-Media support — the BlackBerry Curve has music, video, and picture support. The 8320 has a camera with flash, but don’t go replace your digital camera just yet. Personally, I really don’t care for a camera on a cell phone and would rather give-up the camera if I could get integrated GPS support like the BlackBerry 8820. Currently, only AT&T has released the 8820 so I’m happy with the trade off — plus I do not like the 8800 series keyboard.

Other Impressions:

• My 7100t only had GPRS data service and even though EDGE is no 3G or EVDO Rev A (Verizon/Sprint), it does boast a noticeable improvement in download time. Web sites that are optimized for mobile browsing work great and are speedy to download, however, hit a site that is not optimized and you’ll be waiting a while for it to render — even on Wi-Fi.
• Why does it seem there are not very many pilot or aviation applications for the BlackBerry OS? With all the corporate pilots out there you would like someone would be developing some killer aviation apps for BlackBerry. If you know of any cool ones, send them my way, but my searching has not turned up much of anything worth loading on my device.
• Update 10/11/2007: Reception: I have used this phone for a couple of weeks now and have been pretty happy with the reception and sound quality. The volume seems to be much louder than my 7100t, however, like the 7100t it does have a “sweet spot” to get max audio output. I had a co-worker that noticed a “pop” or “click” sound when making a calls on his 8320 on UMA. I have not had this issue, but I pretty much keep my Wi-Fi off unless I need to use it.

Why T-Mobile?

1. I have had nothing but great customer service from T-Mobile. Sure, I’ve had my share of issues, but they always seem to get things fixed and in almost 8 years of service, I’ve only had to call a customer care a handful of times.
2. GSM — the sound quality on GSM is much better than TDMA or CDMA. I can tell when someone calls me from a Verizon or Sprint cell phone, both of which use CDMA. I could go into a million reasons why I like GSM, but I’m sold.
3. T-Mobile RIM BlackBerry support is pretty good. If Customer Care does not know the answer, they are happy to hand you off to RIM’s support team who can usually help you out.

There you have it, my brief, and somewhat random review of my new BlackBerry Curve 8320.

After discovering the price drop at Costco, I fired off an email to the BOL crew, and it turns out they picked it up on today’s episode (see show notes for episode 487). Molly, Tom and Veronica put on a great tech news podcast and I would encourage you to check it out. I listen to it everyday on my drive to work.

If you are interested in the audio of them discussing my email, my 30 seconds of “fame” starts at 24:17 into Episode 487. Or you can download the clip here. BOL Clip of Episode 487

Read all about my initial Windows Vista experience after the jump.

First I must say that it has been 9 years since my last computer purchase. I previously had a Dell XPS R400 — Pentium II 400 MHz 384 MB RAM — that was as maxed out as I could get it. At well over $4000 9 years ago I decided to go less aggressive this time around. Last Friday my Dell XPS 410 arrived — Duo Core 2.4 GHz 2 GB RAM — with Windows Vista. I had no choice on choosing Vista or not, but after hearing people talk about the betas for the last year I gave it a go.

A couple of notes about the computer from Dell: Thank you Dell for allowing me to order a computer system without much pre-installed software. This is the first computer I have owned/supported that I have not formatted and re-installed the OS right out of the box because there was so much other junk loaded. I still had to uninstall some of Dell’s “support” software but the uninstall process was painless. I think Dell is doing more and more to stay competitive in the market and a “no pre-installed software” feature helps a lot!

On to Vista:
Out of the box I was pretty impressed with the Aero interface. Aero is the high performance graphics card, RAM sucking, very “MACish” looking interface that all-in-all really looks pretty nice when you get over its resource sucking requirements. After hearing that lots of people had turned it off in the beta tests, I decided to leave it on after using it for a few hours.

One thing you will notice right away is all the alerts that frequently pop-up. This feature is called User Account Control (UAC). This feature restricts the permissions that applications run at and requires “admin” approval before they launch. Let me put it this way: have you seen the MAC commercial called Security with the security officer that is intercepting the PC/MAC communication? Vista is a lot like that out of the box. I think it is a good step for Security, but if you have not seen the video check it out at http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

I would encourage you to enable the DEP which was on for only Windows Programs/Services on my machine. If you have the hardware that supports it I would enable it for all applications as it helps protect you from buffer overflows or overruns which is a frequently used technique to get viruses and other junk on your computer. Make sure you understand the implications first, but if you can, I’d recommend you enable it. To learn more, check out the Security Now! Podcast episode number 78 titled DEP in Depth.

Software Troubles:
I did have some problems getting some older software installed from my old XP machine, but some things just took a little extra effort that any power user could overcome. Office 2003 even gave me a few fits if the CD was not in the drive when it needed to install something. I was most disappointed that iTunes was not formally supported for Vista. Did Apple not test with the very public betas that were released? I think 1 month after the public launch and 3 months after the release to manufactures (RTM) they would have had more than enough time to get their software ready to go. Moving iTunes and my music was the biggest headache and took me 2+ hours. iTunes v7.0.2.16 will work under Vista, but it will take a few trips to the Apple support site, a special file permissions tool from Apple and some searching on Google. Before you even start, make an extra copy of your iTunes folder! If I was not already so locked into my iPod/iTunes I might give the Zune a shot based on this experience alone! Apple you really disappointed me here!

The only other problem I had was issues installing my pilot logbook software called Logbook Pro. It is not formally supported under Vista but after trying the install a few different ways I did get it to load. I hope they have a formal Vista version soon, but their XP release was very stable! It seems to work pretty well in Vista with only the install process giving me fits initially.

Overall:
I like the changes that Microsoft has made. I would not upgrade an old computer, but I think it works on a new system purchase just fine. The OS has been very stable and outside of software problems that exist only because there is not formal Vista version available I have been pretty impressed. I like the enhancements and UI changes that Microsoft made and the software stuff will work itself out as Vista gets a larger install base. Overall I give it 3 out of 4 stars for the OS itself.