foxynet's blog

So … the Apple store I ordered the Mac Mini from couriered … the wrong computer … back from their other store.

Groan.

At least I talked them into giving me a discount on a new Apple Wireless Keyboard. It doesn’t want to work with my Windows laptop, worked first time with a friend’s TiBook (10.3 even!) and first time with the iMac G5 at home.

With a bit of work it also works with Ubuntu Fiesty on my laptop:

Not 100% sure that this was required:

sudo apt-get install gnome-bluetooth

To get the MAC address of the keyboard:

sudo hidd --search

Substitute the MAC address returned from the search above for aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff in the following commands.

Edit /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf and add the following section:

device aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff {
name "Apple Wireless Keyboard";
auth enable;
encrypt enable;
}

Enable Human Interface Devices:

sudo vim /etc/default/bluetooth

Look for the following line:

HIDD_ENABLED=0

Change it to:

HIDD_ENABLED=1

Restart the bluetooth daemon:

sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart

Then connect to the keyboard!:

sudo hidd --connect aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff

It should prompt you to type in a pairing pin number on your bluetooth keyboard and on your existing keyboard.

I had all sorts of trouble actually getting the pairing to work … in the end a reboot sorted things out, I suspect because the reboot autodetected and loaded the correct modules.

References:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BluetoothSetup

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224673

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3523271

Happy days!

So … the Apple store I ordered the Mac Mini from couriered it … to their other store, instead of to me.

Setting up a mythtv box has been on the todo list for quite a while. Since the planets have aligned, I figured I might as well blog about it, so here it is.

The plan

1. Learn about DTV the easy way (COMPLETE). Call me a wimp, but I used Elgato EyeTV on my iMac G5 with a twinhan USB2 DVB tuner.
2. Build one (or two, or three) to throw away (COMPLETE). First, an Ubuntu install under vmware on my work laptop to verify that the twinhan tuner will work under Linux. Start to learn about tzap, dvb devices, channels.conf … (yes, the tuner even worked under vmware!) Then install Ubuntu natively on a separate partition and start to learn mythtv. Followed by (another) Ubuntu install on an old laptop, and start to learn the joys of lirc. Bemoan the lack of USB2, hence the inability to actually use the tuner.
3. Bite the bullet (IN PROGRESS). With full budgetary approval, buy a Mac Mini (while they are still available), wait for the release of Gutsy, and off we go.

The 2gb of ram I wanted in the Mac Mini meant that I couldn’t pick it up today, hence the title of the post.

The plan for tomorrow is the unboxing ritual, testing of the Gutsy release candidate cds, wiring up to the (old) TV … and maybe a bit of a play with EyeTV and FrontRow.