Saturday, November 30, 2013

Live USB stick and eff iTunes

since we got rid of the mini all of Taryn's iTunes encoded movies have been just sitting in the "mac back-up" folder. 2 purchased from iTunes, the rest digital downloads from physical Blu-Ray/DVD disc packs we own.

Andy finally upgraded his phone from the Samsung Galaxy Exhibit 4G to the Galaxy S4. Rylie upgraded from the LG Optimus T to the Galaxy S2. so Taryn upgraded from the iPhone 3G to Andy's old phone.. and she loves it!

yes, she's 8. yes, she's had her own cell phone (game player, music player and movie player), since she was 4 (long, complicated story involving asshattery). TMobile makes it easy to block her line, only allow certain numbers for calls and texts, and block data access.
      when she had the iPhone, you know the drill to change music or movies or apps.. and it was jailbroken and whatnot, so I had to do everything for her and make sure it didn't update on it's own, and all the other BS that goes along with having an iPhone.

when we got rid of the mini, I refused to install iTunes on my PC. eff iTunes. therefore, she was not able to update anything on her iPhone.

      now that she's on an Android, she has her own Google account, with no payment method, so she can download free games to her heart's content, I'm not blocking WiFi access, but still blocked data.. she says the Android is better than the iPhone- the best part is she can do it herself, put on new music and games by herself, remove games and switch out her music herself, and she says it works better.

the only thing she's complained about is not having her movies.

hooray for Ubuntu! I popped in my 16GB Live USB stick, upgraded to 12.04 LTS, followed all the directions to get HandBrake working, and have been ripping our owned DVDs onto the 1TB shared drive in mp4 format so she can have them on her phone.. more for the Kindle Fire HDX the family is getting for xmas.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/239748/unable-to-rip-dvd-using-handbrake-or-ogmrip

understandably, I'm having difficulty encoding the iTunes bought m4v files to mp4. she may just have to do without Guardians- The Legends of Ga'Hool and Marmaduke.