Taking a moment to blog some random things from the past couple of
weeks…
1. Yesterday I got this message from the new iTunes 4.7:
src="http://www.fettig.net/weblog/iTunes Message.png" height="194" width="490">
“This will prevent… AirTunes remote control”? Does anybody know what
that means? A Google search on
remote control” returns a few instances of people wishing for an
AirTunes remote control, but no mention of such a product actually
existing. Is this a hint of things to come?
2. Spammers have been spoofing my email address as the source of
their messages. Not only that, but they went the extra mile and faked a
“Received” header so it looks like the message came through my
provider’s SMTP server. I’m getting a lot of messages bounced back from
non-existent addresses that they’re trying to spam. Two hundred fifty
eight bouncebacks messages in the past three days, to be exact. I’ve
set up a filter to deal with them, but it’s still extremely annoying.
3. I got a new cell phone, a
v505. I like it. It has a camera, which is silly but fun. I’ve been
sending pictures to Hannah, pictures to Flickr, pictures to my
a lot of questions, but no answers, regarding its compatibility with
definitive information I’d love to hear it.
4.
is a slick little OS X app for making your FireFox widgets look
better. You wouldn’t think a little thing like that would make much of
a difference, but it does. Every form entry becomes a little more fun.
5. I quit my job. As of Friday, November 5th, I’m working for
myself again!
I’ve never seen this message before but I’d assume it’s referring to the protocol iTunes uses to control an AirportExpress.
Adam.
“This will prevent… AirTunes remote control”? Does anybody know what that means?
I think it means that you cannot control your AirTunes device remotely with iTunes if the port is blocked.
Not an actual remote, but controlling the AirTunes with iTunes.
Jip.
Spammers suck. I’ve had the same problem many times. What was worse, though, was when a spammer’s typo resulted in the inclusion of one of my domains in his spam: http://kalsey.com/2004/06/spam_fallout/
Adam S. and Jip –
I hear you on the AirTunes thing. It could very well be that it’s simply talking about communicating with an AirPort Express. But don’t you think “AirTunes remote control” would be a strange way to express that?
Maybe somebody with an Airport Express could verify this – if you block port 3869, can you still stream music to the AirPort Express? If you can, this message is talking about something else.
Adam K. –
Yeah, that is worse. That must have been so frustrating!
The good news in this case is that my stream of bouncebacks seems to be tapering off – I’ve only had 20 or so today. But I know it’s probably just a matter of time before it happens again.
I’m looking forward to seeing SPF, or something, catch on…
I’m wondering about “AirTunes remote control” too. I can respond to some earlier speculation here: I’ve got an AirPort Express and I can control the music I’m streaming to my stereo with iTunes just as I’ve always done without opening up my firewall to the port in question.
Thanks, Travis! Very cool to see that iTunes-to-AirPort streaming still works with that port turned off. That seems to support my initial impression, that this message is talking about AirPort-to-iTunes remote control.
So I’m going to take this to its logical conclusion: Apple is planning to release a new version of the AirPort Express, with a bundled remote control. When you press “Next Song” on the remote, the AirPort Express sends the “Next Song” message to the computer running iTunes (through port 3689). iTunes switches to the next song, it gets streamed back accross the network to the AirPort express.
Of course, it would be even cooler if it turned out that existing AirPort Express units already had this capability, and you just needed to buy a remote to turn it on…
All just speculation. But doesn’t it seem likely?