Episode 3: Useful internet apps

[tread]

orb.com

Well I told you guys about youmail.com and my.funambol.com, and I haven't checked to see if this one has been suggested but its definitely another app thats a must have, at least for me...

Its called orb, and you can get it at orb.com... its basically a server client that runs on the background of your computer to give you access to all your media, stream your television or movies (if you have a tv tuner card, kind of like slingbox), and much much more like file access and such...

It has so many features that I won't even begin to go over most of them, just check it out... currently over edge i can stream music in a low bitrate form without a problem with my t-mobile shadow, and i can access any and all information over the internet... think of how well this will run trough 3G! I've tried it on verizon and its like a dream... theres even an add on for wake-on-lan and option to view your desktop, and even activate your webcam for security purposes

go to my.orb.com, and like the other online apps that I suggested, this is free yet again...

if you have any questions, post up on here and let me know what you guys think... even if you're an iphone user (shame shame) they have a special layout for your iphone, and i'm guessing they will with the android platform as well

edit: when i have some time, i'll make a comprehensive "review" and the key features that make this a wonder app for everyone... its not really a review because i've been in love with it since it first came out, more like a write up to get peoples' interest going

[tread]

to answer some questions popping up, setting up orb is pretty dummy proof...

download the client from orb.com, and eventually it will ask you to create a username and password to log into your client away from home, and what directories that you want access to from the client...

the only thing you really have to do is set it up on your computer, after its installed you navigate to my.orb.com and use your login information, and it will show all your media that you allowed permission to... if your phone is capable of it, it will stream your media via video player/music player... its quite simple...

if more detail is needed i'll try taking a "screenshot" tutorial to help you set up

[Afront]

I wanted a way to stream mp3s from my PC to my G1, so I tried orb out last night with moderate success.

One question for now: when a track starts in the player, the artist, title, album are all "unknown" and there is no album art. In the orb browser page, all this info. is displayed and seachable. Is this a known bug or do I need to enable something somewhere?

[elenaran]

Afront - gmote will do that too

[Afront]

Thanks elenaran, I'll check out gmote.

Orb is giving me more grief: songs just cut out after a minute or so; I'm trying to persevere given tread's enthusiasm for this app but maybe it's not the one for me...

[kitsunisan]

I've used orb for about six months on my blackjack 2, tried it on the g1, I get my pictures, music, etc, but in spite of reading several threads around here on it, I could never get the video working right. I kind of gave up on it.

[tread]

Thanks elenaran, I'll check out gmote.

Orb is giving me more grief: songs just cut out after a minute or so; I'm trying to persevere given tread's enthusiasm for this app but maybe it's not the one for me...

have you tried throttling your internet speed via the settings? orb doesn't do a very good job of automatically toggling the best bit stream rate... ie if it suggest orb to stream at 600kbps for video and audio, you're better off lowering it to 400-450 to enable better bufferring and smoother video/audio

[Afront]

Had more success with Orb today: streaming over Wi-Fi worked maybe 1 time in 10, but streaming over 3G seems much more stable. Speed test reads 930 KB/s so I lowered that a bit as you suggested tread and it's now working a treat!

Title, Artist, Album, Album Art are all still blank/unknown though. I I can live with that, but am wondering whether changing from the default music player might help?

[Afront]

Orb also works well on my work PC: streams to Windows Media Player nicely, including the artist name, track title, and album art. So the lack of these on the G1 may not be due to Orb...

[DONELLE]

I just ordered an HTC TV OUT cable from T-Mobile and it has no instructions. Has anyone with a MYTOUCH used this? On YouTube there is video of people using the cable on a touch pro but I herd that you need to download some software for it to work.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS MATTER J THANK YOU