Hey all, I have been at Mac expo in London, was really good so thought i write about it, this being a blog and all :D. Ok the day started bad forgot my ticket so had to go back and grap that but all was good and didn’t miss the train. Any way transport was a bit hit and miss seeing that i had not much idea on where i was going. Anyway got to London Bridge and found out that there underground was out of use, so ran across the station to catch a train to Charing Cross. Finally made it on the underground and go to the expo about 10.15.

Spent all morning trying to make my around the many, many stalls which great fun, then in the afternoon I meet up Bobak who‚Äôs a member of the iTheater Team, that guy likes to talk his mind and the 1st place we went was the apple stall with all the new imac’s and ipods and we got a demo of front row. It was well funny bobak told the apple member of staff what he thought of front row, then told to the guy that I had a crack version of it and then opened the iTheater website then ran away crazy boy.

Anyway we spent a lot of time in the afternoon going to demos of software, learnt the basics of FileMaker which was good because really want to give filemaker a go and learn it and not only that they where giving out 3, free copys of filemaker pro 8 and only 3 of us turned up so both me and bobak now have a copy of filemaker not bad seeing that‚Äôs it worth like ¬£385. Also the Microsoft demos were quite good, I don‚Äôt have office 2004 (still on office x or what ever its called) so was good to see great Mac only features in office. But toast 7 demo I saw was by far the best, toast 7 has some great feature like making audio DVD’s and lots and lots of cool stuff to much to say really but being a poor student with no job I have like no cash so couldn’t buy it lol but at the end there was a small quiz to win some free stuff and I won a copy of roxio “The Boom Box” and bobak won some ringtone software (made roxio too) which looked good. Well it was a brill day and can’t wait for next years.

I took some pics on my phone (that’s why there bad) but still check them out HERE

This week I got a chance to take a look at Front Row (FR), Apple’s latest ‘media conduit’ application. Even though there is a lot of hype surrounding this product, I am finding it difficult to come to terms with the functionality of the app. This may be my own bias because of what we are designing iTheater to be, but it is mostly because of my exposure to many different media center applications (such as Windows MCE). Take my opinion for what its worth, but keep in mind that FR is a useful application for people who are just looking to add some eye candy to displaying their photos and music.

From a usability standpoint, FR does exactly what it is designed to do: display media on a user friendly screen. This is great for those looking for a simple media center, and in fact thats what FR really is. Let’s be honest here, Apple is the first to release a stable media center application…we just don’t have the resources to hire a team of programmers to code iTheater 5 days a week. I would have expected more from Apple on this one…the application has such great potential, but I’m just not seeing it yet. It’s a decent start, but I would expect more to be coming down the pipeline. For the time being, I give Front Row a 1.5 out of 5 stars. With some more functionality, FR can easily be a 3 or 4.

Front Row: 1.5 / 5 Stars

Currently, the project website is hosted off the server that I have in my dorm. As we gain in popularity, and add new features, it has become more difficult to manage mail and backups. Come this summer, I will be moving off campus and will therefore have to relocate the server. I think it’s best that we find a permanent home for the iTheaterProject domain, instead of relying on my institution. Instead of putting this off until summer, I want to try and move our site before we hit R1 in December. I am looking for a host that offers the following services:

If you know of any hosting company that would be willing to host us, preferably for free, please send an email to me at: admin ‘at’ itheaterproject ‘dot’ com.

UPDATE:We have an offer that we are currently pursuing. Thank you all for your suggestions.

Welcome all, and welcome to our new website. This part of the site will be news stories and a blog for iTheater developers can post info on the project. Also all your website account from the old website have been moved over to the new forum so no need to sign up again. We have new parts setting up at the moment like the new press section headed up by keir (mono).

Please feel free let us know what you think of the news site. If you find any problems during you visit, please let us know by conacting us at www.itheaterproject.com/contact

Download the iTheater Storyboard Here

View the town meeting transcript

Hope you enjoy the new site

iTheater Team