iPhone Updates
It seems that (a) Apple is pissed at Rogers data plans and is limiting its shipments of iPhones to Canada as a result, and (b) Rogers will let you buy an iPhone on your existing plan, without a data plan. Now, *I* would think that you would have to pay a higher price for the iPhone, since Rogers is subsidizing them with their onerous data plans, but Sergey says that you will still be able to pay the $200/$300 prices. We will see, I suppose. P.S. This is a “blog post” submitted via ping.fm , and I’m curious how it will look.. P.P.S. This is a second attempt. Hope I can delete the first one from LiveJournal..Apple TV Hacking: success!
Posted by rae in Reid, entertainment, hardware, homeowner, software
at 2:11 am on Tuesday, 25 March 2008
at 2:11 am on Tuesday, 25 March 2008
I managed to get ssh working at last.
And then I tried to
enable USB storage,
but that was a mistake.
I thought it meant I could plug in a USB drive and the Apple TV would play content off of it.
But no, it meant rebuilding the kernel so that any USB drive plugged in to the Apple TV would have its main disk copied to it.
The idea is that this external, much larger disk will be the new boot volume.
But that’s not what I wanted at all.
So the Apple TV got stuck, so .. I reset to factory settings (that’s a brilliant option, btw).
So, I know I can do it now.
The scripts “out there” are pretty rough and tumble.
I’m thinking I may create a Mac OS X 10.4.9 partition on my Mac Pro, just so that I can copy over all the missing frameworks and libraries so that I can get things like wget to work..
Apple TV
I just popped out to the
Apple Store in the Eaton Centre
and bought myself an
Apple TV (take two).
I got the smaller model since Apple charges over $100 for 120 GB more storage.
For $143 I can get a 210 GB more storage
from Canada Computers.
Many thanks to Iain, who pointed me at
appletvhacks.net.
It needs to be hacked, to add support for other codecs like DivX, XviD, and mkv (Merikovian? Merovincian?)
Macworld 2008: MacBook Air and iTunes rentals; that’s it!
This year’s Macworld keynote was more if a key-not. iTunes rentals were a non-story, having been expected for months. The MacBook Air, while sleek and sexy, isn’t really for the broader market. Like Jeff, I was hoping for the iPhone in Canada. But now I fear that Rogers has killed it, at least until the 3G iPhone comes out.New DVD drive: combo HD-DVD/Blu-ray?
So I’ve been burning DVDs on my Mac Pro to free up disk space. Leopard requires I wipe my hard drive (more on why later perhaps), so I need to vacate my main partition. This means I often leave discs burning late at night when I go to bed. When Toast finished burning a DVD, it opens the DVD tray with your shiny, newly-burned DVD. Luisa is up early in the morning, and now that I’ve taken over her office, she likes to use my Mac. It has Firefox, so she’s at home browsing the web, reading gmail, etc. But yesterday morning, when she got up to leave, her knee smashed into the open DVD tray. So, I’m down one DVD burner. Not too bad, since my Mac has two (it’s a Mac Pro). So, it’s time to shop for a new one. Canada Computers has the LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray HD DVD Combo Drive for sale at $294. Hmmmm! But I would only be able to watch Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies in Windows, since I don’t think Mac OS X supports it yet. It also doesn’t *burn* either Blu-ray or HD-DVD. So, .. is it worth it?Visiting Fry’s next week
So while I’m in San Francisco next week, I want to go visit a Fry’s Electronics to both pick up a new phone for home (the Panasonic KX-TG1034s with an extra handset), and to just browse. There is no store near Toronto like Fry’s. It’s like Canada Computers on steroids. On the other hand, maybe there is an electronics place in San Francisco that sells the handsets at the same price and would be much easier to get to. In order to go to Fry’s I’ll have to take the CalTrain (very similar to Toronto’s GO Trains) to Palo Alto and then either walk or take a cab for two miles. If anyone has advice about electronics stores in San Francisco, I would gladly appreciate it!Missing my mini-FireWire cable!
stack o’ videos - click for readable text!
Vartans videocamera
mini-FireWire jack
If you have such a cable I could borrow, or you have one of mine, let me know!
I’ll try asking at Friday night gaming, if I remember.
I guess I could always buy one while I’m in San Francisco next week..
Power Saving Trick for Mac Pro
Posted by rae in hardware
at 12:04 am on Wednesday, 25 July 2007
I put this in my crontab:
at 12:04 am on Wednesday, 25 July 2007
# save energy by disabling unused CPUs
0 0 * * * /usr/bin/hwprefs cpu_disable 2; /usr/bin/hwprefs cpu_disable 3; /usr/bin/hwprefs cpu_disable 4
30 8 * * * /usr/bin/hwprefs cpu_enable 2; /usr/bin/hwprefs cpu_enable 3; /usr/bin/hwprefs cpu_enable 4
This turns three of my four CPUs off between midnight and 8:30am every day.
Since each CPU burns a fair number of watts, I’m hoping this will save me some power costs.
I looked for a way to set the CPUs to “power conserve” mode or something in the energy/sleep settings, but no luck.
It’s time for the annual changing of the internet provider
Well, it’s that time of year again. Last year at this time, our then-internet-provider, istop.com, dumped all of its DSL customers into the lap of another provider, known variously as cia.com, 3web.com, igs.net and other names. I just call them 3Web. It seemed okay for a while, but then we started getting outages, and then they became more frequent. I checked my logs for last night and we had a one-minute outage about once every 45 minutes. Needless to say, when Michael and Ronnie are plying WoW, a one minute outage is a major pain. Especially when they have to spend 45 minutes waiting to do something in the game. Michael did some research à la Google and found a place called TekSavvy. They offer 5 Mbps DSL, have a no-throttling policy, and also offer static IPs. Sounds good to me! So today I ordered our DSL from them to be activated on Mon Jul 16, 2007. Which DSL provider you use is selected solely by the login id you use, so for a couple of weeks I can go back and forth between them. Hope it works out!Sick again, sick again, jigeddy-jig
What a great Fathers Day present, eh? Bleaugh To offset this, my new 17″ Hi-res MacBook Pro arrived today (Monday). Love the bright, bright screen. Much brighter than my old 17″ 1.6GHz PowerBook, which will now be taken to Europe by Michael for four weeks. The built-in iSight camera is surprisingly good! It seems to handle the low light conditions of m basement much, much better than either of my standalone iSight cameras do. Priss is in Toronto this week and I’m hoping to get together. Until recently, she was my fellow Toronto-ite at OSAF. Iain’s photos continue to amaze me. He has an excellent eye for angles and lighting that capture the imagination. Ok, time to have some chicken noodle soup. Too bad all I have is Campbell’s, and not Lipton.